Feature image of Bambi Belle and Denali Winter in Crash Pad Series episode 280. All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are from the Crash Pad. The inclusion of a visual here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If you’re a photographer or model and think your work would be a good fit for NSFW Sunday, please email carolyn at autostraddle dot com.
Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
La Muxer Diosa and Zoie Blackheart in Crash Pad Series episode 281
What do you do with your hearing aids during sex? If you keep them in, avoid shower sex or watersports; if you take them out, figure out alternate ways to communicate, possibly taking a cue from kink, writes Anna Pulley. Pulley also recommends choosing positions that minimize feedback and remembering that all sex has awkward moments sometimes:
“Sex is awkward. If you haven’t nearly concussed yourself on a headboard or accidentally elbowed someone in the genitals, then you probably haven’t had very much good sex yet.
No matter your gender, the biggest boner-killer is anxiety. If you’re constantly interrogating every little move so your lover doesn’t accidentally touch your hearing aid, you’re not going to be enjoying the sex you’re actually having. You can either acknowledge that a weird thing happened, laugh, and move on—or, you can ignore it and still move on. It’s up to you how you wanna roll with it, but I prefer to laugh, like a partner and I did together the time I thought she asked, “Do you want me to spit in your ear?” when she actually said, “Do you want me to whisper it in your ear?” The moment helped us bond—meaning it improved the sex we had.”
Maxine Azula and Mistress Lita Lecherous in Crash Pad episode 284
New York has introduced legislation to decriminalize sex work.
Thought experiment: what happens to love and sex if humans start to live for a really really long time?
Under Instagram’s policies, sex workers are experiencing financial exploitation and harassment.
Kink.com released documents intended to help address consent during porn shoots.
Post-masturbation clit numbness is temporary.
Blair and Megan Reeves in Crash Pad Series episode 279
Anabel Gat discusses how to use astrology to improve your relationships at Vice:
“A person’s sun sign might speak to their general personality and ego, but healthy and happy relationships don’t stem from using someone’s horoscopes to make them like you, or from interacting with them based on what you think they will enjoy. A much more effective application of lover horoscopes is to use them to reflect on yourself in combination with the person you care about. Astrology can help us tap into the daily astrological weather and give us the tools to talk about empathy, boundaries, and generally just getting along.
So while we shouldn’t be trying to make anyone like us, lover horoscopes can help us develop our communication skills and learn about one another’s needs and boundaries, which makes all of our relationships better.”
“Believing that there’s just the one car or pair of pants or haircut or bottle of beer that is perfect for you is a great way of never wearing pants or drinking beer again.”
Not gonna lie, this is a devils bargain I’d have to think about for a long time before throwing on pants to go get more beer XD
Comment award !
There are some good pointers in the article on hearing aids and sex. I don’t wear hearing aids but I do have tinnitus which is bothersome especially in a quiet room. Blocking out one or more of the senses is genius.
“f you haven’t nearly concussed yourself on a headboard or accidentally elbowed someone in the genitals, then you probably haven’t had very much good sex yet.”
Yes the reality of sex is all elbows and sharp corners, and hard floors when I fall off the bed. I dream of floor sex in a room full of soft fluffy pillows, with a gentle white noise soundtrack playing in the background. Talk about levelling the playing field LOL
Wow. People are still looking for soulmates in 2019? I am just over here looking for someone who can respond to texts in a timely manner and have a coherent conversation.
Soulmate material!
As someone who’s ND, and in a relationship of almost 15 years, *and* as a teenager/ young adult had some weird conceptions of Love, I somewhat agree with the soulmate article, but also … don’t?
Because the only thing it mentions for choosing to not be in a relationship is to “select carefully”, which links to an article about body type-based dealbreakers before entering the RS.
But how do you know when to leave a relationship – apart from obvious stuff? Because articles like these can lead you to think you just have to “work through” everything, when in reality, you might just not be a very good fit. I cannot e.g. “growth mindset” my way out of issues that are neurotype-based (unknown at the time, so having that as a deal breaker wouldn’t have helped, either), or, frankly, just the realization that this somehow just isn’t working for me. Bc of self esteem issues and the above mentioned notion of Love, I had a really hard time even conceiving of the notion of ending a rs, which made the breakups messy and terrible when they did happen.
“Soulmate material”, as Deli Two-tone above puts it (although idk if they’d agree with my opinion, so writing this separately), IMO is the thing to actually look for. Because with my current relationship, it felt different, right from the start. It felt *right*, in a way the others just didn’t. In hindsight, I could put this down to a number of quantifiable characteristics that would confirm the view that they meant a solid foundation for a rs, but at the time, I knew nothing about all that. It just felt “right”, and I do think a notion that is intuitive like that can be extremely helpful. Doesn’t mean we didn’t work through a ton of things over the years, but it felt worth it every single minute.
My interpretation is, the intention was ok, and then the author fell upon the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Car Analogy and everything went downhill from there.
1. a car is an object, that you use
2. people have cars because they *need* them
3. a car is a huge investment
4. you can’t easily switch cars
5. a car is very, very much a “fixed mindset” type of thing, because again, it is an object, so once you have it, it’s you that will have to cope/ change/ adapt
I’m not writing the mini essay on each of these points. It’s just a bad analogy (just dropping “greedy polyams” in there) and you shouldn’t use it.
@kiturak LOL my comment to @book_junkie was, I confess, a bit facetious.
I think I pretty much agree with the Soulmate article, that it’s a dangerous myth. The car analogy rubbed me the wrong way until I saw that they were making the point that a soulmate is not a thing, in other words, not objectifiable.
I personally find the whole “soulmate” schtick to be severely damaging, it makes people rush into long-term commitments when it’s probably just New Relationship Energy (see below). They should paint that on the side of a few U-Hauls “Crossing the Country for Gay Love” or “This Van is Powered by NRE”
(in fact, I think U_Haul should do some Pride promotion, I mean !)
I like the poly point of view : no one person is expected to fulfill all your needs and desires.
I’m just coming out of a quarter-century monogamous relationship which I fully expected to be “The One” and I should have left a long time ago but I so believed in the power of commitment that I stayed, and took care, and endured. There were some good times to be sure, but there’s also a lot of deep, deep hurt that I’ll be struggling with for years to come.
Having said all that… I’m totally addicted to lesbian romance novels, which I know just perpetuate the myth. But there’s something soothing about stories of ice queens being thawed by soft butches, or enemies becoming passionate lovers.
So maybe I say No to the Soulmate, but an enthousiastic YES to the Romance.
I definitely agree that The Soul Mate Myth makes people hang in relationships a lot longer than they should. That and the fact that we teach women we are meant to suffer in them. There should be a lot more focus on what a healthy relationship looks like because I feel like most people can’t answer that.
Here’s to hoping you heal from your relationship!!