Things of Note!

Things that are occurring on the sexy interwebs that you may wish to know.

BAD NEWS:

Shack of Scandals: An asshat blog scraper (a digital thief who copies someone’s original content and uses it illegally for “google notice”, usually laden with ad banners to boot) has been consistently and unrepentantly swiping stuff from a few sexblogger circuit buddies. Read all about AAG’s hilarious counterattack, Mina’s interaction and subsequent nonsensical reply from the owner, or follow those fighting the good fight over on twitter.

GOOD NEWS:

Crystal Causes: Crystal Delights Toys  has organized Crystal Causes, a thoroughly impressive charity event with $12,000 (omfg) in prizes up for grabs. Luxury sex toys galore will find themselves into the hands of a dozen lucky winners during the contest, which has recently been extended ’til August 31st and benefits a variety of sex positive organizations. Read all about it! Crystal Causes Charity Drive.

Papaya Toys: Papaya Toys is now selling to US retailers, including various Pleasure Chest locations and Dallas Novelty.

THINGS AND STUFF

Pretty stone Ben Wa balls!

 

The Things I Didn’t Know

Throughout my semi-adult life, especially after a few breakups, I approached dating as an extreme sport. With a level of complexity that would be a little over-the-top even if I was supporting the human race propagation thing solo, I filtered and sorted my potential partners, examining them with a severity normally reserved for DNA analysis. Had they ever done drugs? How long ago? How many partners before me? Why did those partners not work out? A million and one questions that scared off, I’m sure, a fair number of suitors that would have been perfectly adequate. It got to a point (and I wish I was kidding) that I literally made an online form to fill out for a date with me. It wasn’t that I was vain, that I thought I was deserving of such a lofty obstacle course, but rather I didn’t want to waste my time and that of someone else by struggling through a dinner with no conversational commonality. As a beautiful Jehova’s Witness boy told me my Sophomore year when he broke my heart – “Dating is for people who are interviewing people to marry. I’m not going to marry you because we’re not religiously compatible, so what’s the point of us dating one another?” At the time, I thought he was right.

Through the bumps, bruises, and heart-wrenching splits that ensued the next decade or so, I began to get an inkling that maybe my approach needed a little work. I was coming off as a bitch to people that genuinely interested me, people who didn’t stick around long enough for me to explain my unorthodox methods. Instead, I put out a long explanation of me as a person, but I kept a healthy handful of absolutely-nots. My ex came into my life through one of these explanations on yahoo personals, and though neither of us was really emotionally or mentally ready for a major relationship, it happened anyway. Seven years later, I found myself sitting on a bunch of boxes in a new city, new state, and new home where I knew absolutely no one. I decided to throw caution to the wind and bust up all but one of my absolutely-nots – drugs were always the one hurdle I could never clear.

I ended up having a handful of pleasant make-out sessions in the cab of a truck, a man who had a young son – it was the very first time I’d kissed someone with a child. I took up with not one Navy guy, but two, as well as a Navy woman,  entering into a threesome for the third time in my life and becoming involved with military members for the very first time. After two days of many-hours long skype conversations with a handsome gent stationed fully across the country, he offered to fly me out to him only a week later and I accepted. I warmed his bed, did his laundry, and flew home after three days of the most crazy lengths I’d ever gone to for a first date.

There was one, however, that stole my heart so completely that my former absolutely-nots vanished off the radar altogether. Here he was, four years older, divorced, a smoker, unemployed, and a handful of other bothersome things that, on paper, would have scared me away from the man that is the greatest love I’ve ever known. I discovered him, and his body, like a house of hidden passages and made a commitment to tread slowly and keep an open mind. Here, this tiny circle on his lower lip where a piercing once threaded through – later, in more intimate moments, I’d find its twin elsewhere. Astride him and sated, we’d talk softly and my surprised fingertips would discover the wound in his chest where the improbable bullet had made its passage. I’d listen as his marriage, and subsequent divorce, were infinitely more complex than any knee-jerk scenario I could have imagined in my shallow checklists. The fingers that laced so sweetly with mine – these had saved dozens of lives while ending a single one, in one sad but necessary order in international waters. I’d trace tattoos with my nails as we lay half-asleep, and hear the stories of each that were as embedded as ink. This house, this soul’s home, is my partner now, and I still breathlessly explore each new room as it is revealed in my explorations.

It’s a pity that I spent so long building up walls that I forgot to add windows. Older, wiser, and calmer, I know that I still have more to learn than I can possibly fathom, but I am eternally grateful that love was the first place I truly learned that whatever will be, will be.

Au Revoir, Vanilla.

I’ll come right out and say it: my sex life with my ex wasn’t satisfying. At the risk of sounding like a barroom braggart, he couldn’t keep up with my libido for beans and was about as adventurous in bed as the pillows were. I grant that my interests run a little left of center and I have a healthy sexual appetite, but he did very little to take care of business for the seven years we were together. He also made constant comments about my weight because he was insecure about his own figure and flaws, and never missed a chance to point out that I should be doing this exercise or eating this food while systematically ignoring my needs.

I had a healthy collection of whips, restraints, and other BDSM gear I had gathered in my prior years of singledom, entering that relationship. It sat and gathered dust for all those years – he was willing to get tied up, but lay there like a slug while I did, making it painfully obvious that he was completely uninterested. Sex was missionary, the same way every time, and passion was nonexistent. Even while I wrote about exotic sex toys, practices, and people in my ToyChick persona, I spent every night coming to bed with a man who exemplified none of it. About a year before the final breakup, he moved to making a bed beside the mattress we had on the floor, effectively sleeping away from me. Our entire relationship, he had insisted on different comforters, and “couldn’t sleep” if any part of me was touching any part of him. I couldn’t wear perfumes or burn candles because he was “allergic” to every scent ever. I stifled myself more and more as time went on, and sex dwindled to once a month or less. I was miserable.

Part of my unhappiness had come from my departure from all things BDSM. I had begun my interest and involvement in the lifestyle at the tender age of 16, in Gorean chatrooms, and I’d always had it firmly in my definition of self. Despite my willingness to take the reins when necessary, I was and am a submissive. I’m not a doormat, a piece of meat, or a vagina with a casing around it (though, I don’t disparage folks who enjoy defining themselves these ways) – I’m a submissive, plain and simple. I don’t just get sexually excited when the right person tells me what to do, I feel peaceful, whole and complete. I’m part of a very verbal and outspoken generation of women who can run their shit in the day-to-day and still be strong enough to hand over control when the door closes. Strong, dedicated, and much like a beautiful exotic animal, worthy of taming.

I had no collar, no cuffs, no hair-pulling or closed-teeth-whispers, no breathless-tosses-into-bed, no growl-in-his-throat. I was lonely and I felt like ink getting washed off a page without the anchor of service. So, when toyboy and I called it quits last August, I immediately returned to the lifestyle in search of what I was missing. I wasn’t looking for a new boyfriend, let alone a life partner, and I always made that clear to potential play partners. I had a handful of strange, lovely experiences and unfortunately I was also attacked and abused by two men – it was an eye opening two months for me, and I learned a lot about myself and how broken I’d become. I let someone wear me away, break down my judgement, over so many years that I forgot how to say no. I fell into the familiar trap of legitimizing unrequested bruises garnered in the wake of non-consensual BDSM play as literally asking for it. I confronted my more aggressive attacker a few days later and he immediately blamed me: a sad echo of my rapist at age 18. The familiarity snapped me the hell out of it and I stopped engaging in risky situations on the slim chance I’d find what I was looking for.

I got involved with a TNG group (that’s “The Next Generation” for those not in the know – most major city areas have one of these groups of 18-35-ish BDSMers) that became an excellent stabilizing force in my emotional maelstrom of a life in those few months; they were a safe haven and gave me a lot of good advice. My interest in rope bondage was sparked at one of the meet-ups, an interest that would later find me chatting up an interesting rope-oriented Dominant on Fetlife about some experimentation. He drove from NC to SC to see me and we fell for each other like a ton of bricks only a week after our first contact. A month later we were moving in together, and now, eight months later, we’re making plans to make it forever. He loves me, he pushes me, he tests me, and most of all he doesn’t try to stifle a single part of who I am. I’m happy, healthy, active, and enjoying my life more than I ever thought I could.

I missed blogging, especially as ToyChick. I realize now, with the benefit of time and distance, that I let myself get mired in a lot of drama, that I said some things more sharply or loudly than I needed to. This go around, I’m going to try to be more open and less of a caricature, and I hope you’ll stay with me, dear readers. The ride’s only just begun…

Like a Phoenix of Phalluses, I return!

Hello, dear readers.

Much has happened in the last (mumblemumble) since I updated.

1.) For those not in the know, I was partnered to a guy for the last seven years, the last three of those an engagement – with a sparkly ring and everything. Well, in a horrendous cliche (really, I’m embarrassed at how unremarkable it is) he started spending more and more time at the gym, and less and less time at home between work and working out. Turns out “the gym” was, at least toward the end, a euphemism for “vagina” – spoiler alert: not mine – and he abruptly split with me for good for the gym girl on our seven year anniversary. Classy to the bitter end, ladies and gents. Emphasis on bitter.

2.) Someone, in the interim, bought my former dot com. I can’t say I’m surprised because I’m awesome. Still, kinda sad. Your regularly scheduled dildo-based snark has been shifted to ToyChickBlog.com, so update your bookmarks if ya’d be so kind?

3.) I’m still kinda getting adjusted to being XXX-ish again, so bear with me if my posts are slightly less sexy for a time. Also, please pretend I lived under a sex-toy-repellant bubble for the last year and clue me in to anything major I missed. I’ll be researching on my own, but it’s always good to get missives from the front lines.

4.) I have a new man and it’s freakin fantastic. Seriously. My god, the sex. ❤