Spanking

One of my favorite porn stars, Jiz Lee, recently wrote a blog reviewing Rachel Kramer Bussel's new erotica book Spanked, which you can find here. But what I really found interesting about the review was the analysis of Jiz Lee's relationship with spanking. It is very insightful and educational. I love a good spanking, but after reading this post I realize that I am nowhere near the connoisseur that Lee or Bussel are.

Midwest Teen Sex Show: Fetishes

I absolutely adore The Midwest Teen Sex Show and have a link on my sidebar to it, but in case you haven't checked it out I just wanted to show one of their videos here. This is their most recent episode and one of my all time favorites. It talks about fetishes and touches on what I talked about on my post Fetish vs Kink

Looking for Lovely Ladies

Hello! Long time reader (love your blog), long time E2B shopper, and first time emailer.

I am a bisexual woman in the suburbs of Chicago. I realized this when I was 12, but have limited experience due to limited opportunities. Specifically, I have no idea where to meet women. I am in my 20s, and I am fine with bars, but there seems to be a lack of lesbian-themed in Chicago. I would prefer suburbs, since the Metra only runs till 12:40 am; however, I would travel to the city if that is the only place women interested in women hang out. Where does one go to find interesting women in the suburbs?

Signed,
My Gay-Dar is Such Shit Anyways

This is a question I've heard a lot and actually asked myself on numerous occasions. It can be really difficult to meet women especially when you aren't part of the queer community already. This seems to be the cry of the bisexual woman mostly because 1) men are soooo easy to find and 2) lesbians often have a negative knee jerk reaction to bisexual women. So what is a bi girl to do?

Well that really all depends on what you're in to, but as it turns out there are actually lots of places to meet sexy eligible women who love women. The hardest part is learning how to talk to them! And since you're already an E2B shopper you may know that they have a workshop called Flirting For Nerds which can really help in that department.

Here are some great resources that I've found:
- OutintheSuburbs.com is a resource for LGBT individuals in the Chicago burbs that lists all kinds of things from news events to gay bars and who frequents them to church groups and brunches.
- Look for meetups online. I found this Chicago Lesbian Brunch Group with just a quick search. There are even meetup groups for lesbians who ride scooters!
- There are several bars that have lesbian nights: OUTDanced Tuesday at Funky Buddha, Dirty Girl Thursdays at Lakeview Broadcasting Company, and Chix Mix often throws parties at Circuit so get on their mailing list.
- Unlike the gay boy bars, the bars lesbians tend to go to are often not really advertised as lesbian bars. It helps to have friends in the queer community so you can find out the in on these places. Andersonville is a great neighborhood for scoping out chicks. There are several bars there where women who love women hang out including T's, Stargaze, and Atmosphere. There are a couple bars in the BoysTown neighborhood that aren't just for the boys including Spin, Berlin, and The Closet.
- Andersonville is also host to a feminist bookstore called Women and Children First which can be a great place to pick up the cute geeky feminist women. You can also check this store as well as E2B and other women-centered stores for fliers for upcoming events.
- Besides just meetup.com there are other places on the internet to find sexy ladies. There are dating sites, blog sites, networking sites, etc. Get creative! I met my fiance through a public transportation community on livejournal.com
- Burlesque shows can be a great place not only to see sexy women seductively taking off their clothes but also to meet women. Queer women seem to just adore burlesque and it is pretty easy to find in Chicago. I've found this site to be very useful when looking for upcoming burlesque shows in Chicago. If you're feeling daring you could even do burlesque yourself! I can't imagine anything sexier than being hit on by a hot lady in sequin pasties.
- Join a sports team. It is true what they say about dykes, they love their softball and rugby! You may even be able to find a GLBT team.

Good luck and remember to have fun while you're out on the prowl for ladies!

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful

Since for some reason you people still aren't sending me questions (all time high subscriber rate and yet no questions!?!?) I'm going to try something new here. I'd prefer to create reader-inspired content, but without that I had to come up with my own ideas for new stuff.

Working at a sex shop and trying to become a sex educator involves a lot of reading of sex ed books, watching of porn, using of toys, and in general trying to learn as much as possible. While I do this I am bound to come across great things and I'm bound to come across ... well not so great things. So today I give you:

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful (we don't believe in ugly sex here)

The Good: I just finished watching an incredible porn that has won lots of awards and Violet Blue apparently has raved about. So maybe I'm a little behind the times and you all already know about it. But in case you don't, you should really check out The Bi Apple. Here is a porn that has it all! We're talking real attractive bodies, people of color, real bisexuality (not just women's), real pleasure, good quality sex toys, strap-ons, male-male, male-female, female-female, and male-male-female sex. It also features some negotiation, which is pretty non-existent in mainstream porn. They are telling each other how they like it. One of the best pornos that I've seen and really the only one of its kind that I have seen thus far. Keeping in mind though that I didn't have too much experience with porn videos before I started my job at Early to Bed.

And here is the trailer for The Bi Apple:



The Bad:

I read sex ed books quite often and a lot of the information is good, but sometimes I come across some misinformation. I would hate for people to see this and think that it is accurate so I want to share some misinformation I found recently.

I grew up on The Guide to Getting it On. My mom "hid" a copy of the first edition in the bookshelf for me when I was pretty young. She understood that I probably had a lot of questions about the how-to's of sex that I would never ask her and she preferred I got that information from a reliable source instead of what the kids were saying on the playground. Go Sex Positive Mom! Well The Guide has been so popular that it is now more than twice its original size and is in its 5th edition. I read the 4th edition several years ago, but now reading the 5th edition and knowing so much more than I used to know I'm finding flaws. This book is VERY heterosexual and I feel like it doesn't need to be.

I have a few other issues with it as well, but we'll get right down to the nitty gritty of it here. The wonderful lube connoisseur, Metis Black of Tantus Silicone, told me that the chapter on lube was not very good so I kept her words in mind as I read through it. She was right; it isn't very good. In fact at one point they give straight up misinformation. On page 108 the book states "Most silicone lubes are water-based, which means you can use them with latex condoms." Yes, you can use silicone-based lubes with condoms but not because they are water-based. They aren't water-based, they are silicone-based. Hence why they are called that. You can use silicone-based lubricants with condoms because they aren't oil-based. Oil-based lubricants will deteriorate latex condoms.

Sometimes you will find hybrids out there that combine water-based and silicone-based lubes but that's a different story entirely. Sliquid Silk is an example of this.

Even though The Guide has these flaws I still strongly recommend it to heterosexuals because it is very well written and has a lot of really great information in it.

The Beautiful:

Erotic Nature photos by David Steinberg are amazing. They feature real couples having real sex. I love looking into their faces and seeing the desire, the love, and the fun. He even has a section on sex and disability, which seems completely absent from a lot of other artists' work.

Really Important!

This is super important so please go sign the petition! Don't let Bush and his cronies do this to us.

Zivity.com

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I was busy celebrating mine and my fiance's birthdays which just happen to be only two days apart. This makes for a birthday extravaganza. Also, you guys haven't been sending me any questions which makes me sad. As much as I enjoy ranting I don't think that's all that you want to read about. So send me questions! I know that every single one of you has to have at least one question about sex, sexuality, and/or gender. Maybe you even think you know a lot about certain topics, but I may be able to add to that knowledge. So send me questions!

Anyhoo, on with my rant. There is this new adult website, Zivity, that is making the claim that their goal is to capture and share the beauty of women. They specifically say: "We want our photo galleries to be as diverse as possible. As such, we encourage women of all sizes, races, ages, styles to participate. We want women who are proud of how they look and recognize that beauty comes in many different forms." Definitely a very lofty goal and one that I totally agree with and support. However, upon looking at this site I find that the models are not really that diverse. Most of the women are very thin, young, and white. There is a sprinkling of women of color and a few women who I would call curvy and thick, but wouldn't even go as far as calling them chubby. There doesn't seem to be much of an age difference in any of the models I saw. They range from 19 to maybe early 30s. I would hardly call this selection diverse. Now it is a relatively new site so I am hoping that the photo sets will continue to become more diverse.

But then there's this whole other part of the site that I pretty strongly disagree with. Somewhere along the line people got the idea that only certain types of pictures of women can be empowering and can celebrate the beauty that is woman. And these pictures can never be explicit. This is not something I understand. If we are all being sex positive and enjoying the beauty that is woman, why oh why are explicit pictures deemed demeaning and exploitative? Is it somehow better if a woman keeps her legs closed and doesn't reveal her sexual desires? Is it somehow better if we claim it as art and not pornography because she is not having an orgasm, but is just posing prettily for our viewing pleasure? Now if the woman doesn't want to do these things for the camera that is totally up to her, but what about the women who feel that an expression of their beauty and their sexuality includes masturbating with a big dildo and ejaculating all over the place? Well Zivity won't allow for that. In fact their content guidelines specifically say "Because Zivity is focused on celebrating the beauty of women, photo sets on Zivity do not depict men, sex acts (including masturbation), death themes, gore, pets or other animals, child themes, or real or implied bodily fluids (blood, fake blood, etc)." If you want it to be more of a cheesecake site then say that. Burlesque is plenty empowering, extremely sexy, and completely cheesecake and I've never heard anyone say burlesque celebrates the beauty of women and that is why they don't have sex on stage. By saying that sex acts don't celebrate the beauty of women is to make the implication that sex somehow makes a woman not beautiful. And I for one think that a woman masturbating is one of the most beautiful things on this earth!

All that said, the women are beautiful and I think I have a bit of a crush on Sash (pictured above). For more pictures of the site and another take on it (that I agree with) check out Fleshbot's take on Zivity.com. Or you could just apply for a one month free membership like I did and check it out for yourself.