Welcome to my first #SoSS! #SoSS stands for “Share our Shit Saturday”, something I’m going to start doing twice a month (on opposite weeks to my Spotlight feature). This’ll help me stay in the habit of reading, sharing, and complimenting work regularly, and hopefully it’ll also help you get more traffic and readers! There is so much amazing content out there; what appears on this list is far from an exhaustive list of content worth reading. And now, without further ado, I present my first #SoSS; presented in alphabetical order!
25 Sex Educators/Writers of Color You Should Follow Right Now (Via Girly Juice)
Kinkly has, once again, been receiving warranted bad-press lately for publishing a list of “Top Sex Educators” that was super white, able, cis, and straight/homonormative. The backlash on twitter was huge, and Kate published a lovely piece featuring 25 educators of colour to check out. Some are folks I knew already, others were new names to me, and all of them all well-worth checking out. She also included information with each name about what they do, what she loves specifically, and the occasional personal tid bit about the educator.
Breaking Up is Hard to Do (Via Black and Poly)
Breakups are complicated and hard. Polyamorous, kinky relationships ending have their own unique sets of challenges that are often overlooked, ignored, or even viewed as less-serious-than other forms of romantic/sexual relationships ending, Jai discusses how harmful this line of thinking can be for those trying to recover from the breakup, how complicated these relationships can become, and ways of recovering.
For The Love Of Fucking Packers (Via Sex Bloggess)
Packers are great for so many reasons – the biggest one of course being for packing, though I also love them for kink purposes – Laura’s review hits upon another potential use, one that I had never really considered: penetration. Now, I’ve thought about using them for blowjobs before (one day I’ll own one appropriate for that), but never thought about if they could work for vaginal penetration. Laura discusses the hows and whys of using a packer to fuck yourself, and includes some really pretty photos of a cute blue cock!
Guest Blog: Bottom Euphoria – Fucking as Me (Via Girl on the Net)
This piece had me literally sobbing on the couch at 4 am, unable to control the unexpected degree of emotion I felt when I read it. I sent it to a certain Dominant with the note that “the emotions in this remind me of you” and I sat there and cried for a long time. This erotica features a trans male submissive engaging in sex with his Dominant in a way that finally makes him feel real, feel whole. It’s a hot piece, but it also is something that resonates so deeply with me. I know the feelings in that piece, I know what it’s like to feel that way and I know what it’s like when you don’t. Thank you to Dissembling Cub, the guest author, for this incredibly moving piece.
Low/Nobido and Sexual Identity (Via Emmeline Peaches)
As sex workers and/or sex workers, we are often reduced to our sexuality. We are sexual people. If we aren’t feeling sexual, if we aren’t having sex, what does that mean about our work? What does that mean about our worth? We feel these questions deeply, we grapple with them from time to time, and we work it out the best we can. Emmeline talks about this issue, how it affects her, her process of finding and centering self even when she is not “ultra horny Peach”, and ways to determine if this is an okay way of being or if something is wrong.
Mixed Race Folks Aren’t Here for You to Fetishize (Via Dildo or DilDon’t)
Carly’s piece starts out with a discussion around the fetishization of mixed race babies (“You want to make my brown features more Eurocentric.”/”When I hear folks talk about how they want mixed babies all I hear is that they want to erase certain features.”). From there, it talks about how complex a racially mixed identity can be, how it is the sole right of mixed race people to define their own identity for themselves, not by/for white folk. White folk should go read this, pay attention to the parts about us, and seriously consider how our actions/words are helping or (more likely) hurting here.
“My Worth Is…”: A Practice in Unlearning (Via Herb Slut)
It can be hard to believe in your worth if you aren’t “high performing”, if you don’t publish pieces constantly, get the highest traffic, work the most hours. If you feel tired, if you get worn down, if you burn out. It’s something I struggle with on a daily basis and am always trying to improve on. Luna discusses her struggles to try and break out of this way of thinking, and how she has found her sense of worth outside of capitalist ideals.
PrEP 101 (Via Kelvin Sparks)
Are you a transmasculine person (on or off testosterone) who has been curious about taking Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP)? Kelvin gathers information from The Terrance Higgins Trust, CliniQ, HIVE, Project Inform, iwantPrEPnow.co.uk, and the advice of his GP when he started PrEP, and made this information into a shockingly-straightforward document to help us transmascs understand if PrEP is right for us, how it may work differently, what dosage options we have to choose from, and ways of accessing it if you’re in the UK. This has definitely taught me a couple things that I will use to inform my own PrEP decisions (once I get insurance….). Thanks!@!
Sexuality Conferences and the Myths of Accessibility (Via Chronic Sex)
This is a guest post written by The Palimpsex on Woodhull (and conferences in general) and the lack of accessibility at them. They talk about how anger is so, so important as a tool for change, for motivation, for reminding yourself that you’re allowed to demand the access that you need – and I agree. They pose a number of questions about what might help, discuss how being marginalized does not and should not protect you from being accountable to the hurt you’ve caused. It’s brilliant, go read it.
Traveling with Toys (Via Vulva, Ink.)
If you’ve been around here/my social medias for a minute, you’ll know that my travel adventures often go haywire. Many of you have wondered about how to fly with toys, what you can bring where, if they’ll be safe, etc. Veronica shares tips for traveling with a wide-range of toys from vibrators to paddles and more, size restrictions, what to leave behind or put in checked luggage, how to pack your lube, how to talk to TSA if they pull you for extra screening, and potential legal considerations that you may need to know about.
Did you read any of the above pieces? Leave a comment on their site or share them on social media to let them know you liked what they wrote! Thanks to the above authors for their amazing work!
What did you read this week?
