Also on the agenda is dinner with Vamp, which I’m totally happy about. I think it’s been – oh, about 5 years since we’ve had a chance to get together in person. We only live about 4 hours apart, but it’s 4 hours enough to make meetings few and far between. Before I settled so far North, we used to at least make it once a year. Anyhow, we’ll have time for a good long catchup. Going to the same place I went to with Georgette, the awesome Toulouse Petite.

Will catch up with you all later.. :)
~Janie

Today we’re going sailing. Or, more probable: motoring. There is unlikely to be much wind if it’s this warm, so we’ll see if the sails ever go up. We’ll have along about 10 teenagers, and enough wine for me to get through a day with that many teenagers. heh. And we’ll have crab pots, and I’ll bring the two novels I’m in the middle of, and of course a swimsuit. This much heat will require more than one jump off the bow.

Tomorrow I’m setting aside to get some reviews done. I heard from a long-ago back-in-the-day friend who is just re-launching his awesome website X-Muse. If you’ve been reading forever you’ll remember him. He used to shoot photos of me, once upon a time. Anyhow, I need to go review his site, but for your enjoyment today here is one of his gorgeous photos.

Have a great weekend!

~Jane

~Jane

Awhile back, despite the naysaying of several close friends, I decided to look for love outside of the BDSM community. “but you’ll never find someone compatible that way” was a common refrain. It’s true that you can take the girl out of the kink community, but not take the kink out of the girl. Still, one of the reasons for “going mainstream” as it were was that I wanted a different balance in my life. I wanted sex (and kink) to be a much smaller percentage of overall time and energy, and it was my experience that within the community, many people gave it the lion’s share of their attention. I also firmly believe that MOST of us have some kink in us, it’s just communicating and figuring out compatibilities. When I met Elliott, when conversation turned to more intimate matters, I didn’t hide my predilictions. I did probably ease into the discussions in a bit more gradual way though than I would have if he was someone I had met on Bondage.com. :)

Anyhow – long story short, I ended up meeting someone I truly feel that I’m meant to be with. It’s something I’ve not felt previously, even in seriously lust-addled brain space. And he wasn’t kinky. Or at least not in the way that I’d previously been exposed to, where that was his self-identity.

This brings me to Max’s bondage workshop. I’m not big on S/M. I’ve had some experiences with pain that were pleasurable, but it’s not something I seek out. Bondage, however, is something I’ve had a yen for my entire erotic life. Elliott was willing to experiment some to figure out what parts of it HE liked. Max’s wedding gift to us a couple of years ago was a private lesson with him. One of my wedding gifts to myself was a nice big batch of red rope from TwistedMonk. Post-lesson, we have played around quite a lot, as Elliott’s comfort (and enjoyment) with bondage has grown. Still, though, he’s someone who is pretty mainstream in what he’s been exposed to.

Why do I keep bringing this up? Because it can be intimidating to jump right in to a full weekend long class with a bunch of perverts (I use the term fondly) when you’re a mainstream kinda guy. Because one of the things I most appreciated about Max’s teaching style is how accessible and friendly it is. He manages to include everyone, from bedroom-only couples to lifestyle 24/7 kinkier-than-thou players, without ever sounding the least bit judgmental about where anyone is within the spectrum. I liked that he addressed everything in terms of a continuum, from 100% vanilla to seriously kinky. He did that with all these aspects of play and headspace, and it was a good jumping off point to further communication.

He’s also very funny – which also makes his classes feel fun, safe and respectful no matter the subject matter.

There was also huge attention to safety, which is a good thing. Bedroom (and non-bedroom) bondage might sound like a piece of cake, but honestly? You CAN get hurt or hurt someone if you’re not aware of how NOT to. Again, great presenting style and thoughts on how safety is basically risk assessment and management. You can probably never be 100% safe, but you can take steps to mitigate the risks.

In the course of the 2 days, we went from basic ties all the way to suspension. With help from a few assistants (some quite lovely, btw) a whole bunch of people got hands-on practice in the safest way possible.

Of course now that we’ve done this, I want to go to more of his classes. He teaches once a month before the SPCC Bondage is the Point parties. We missed the party the weekend we went, finding ourselves pretty tired out and just in need of chill-out time after the two full days, but Elliott is up for parties/classes in future too. Huge thanks to Monk, btw, for use of his rope for the class. I can’t recommend his products highly enough. Ditto on Max’s teaching.

~Jane

“I feel worst when I’m not learning,” writes Harker, one of my readers, “whether it be the stickier details of things I’ve almost mastered or the fresh spring wind of something entirely new to me.” If you share that perspective, as many Geminis do, I’ve got some good news for you: In the next 30 days you could learn more about love and intimacy than you have in the past two years. For those of you who are brave enough to shed your know-it-all romantic theories, the coming weeks could be like an intensive workshop in the fine art of creating exciting togetherness.

We’ve needed to set more time aside that is just us. Lately, it’s been difficult to find time for even a dinner that’s just the two of us, because there is always at least one more person (or couple) that comes along. But this whole weekend coming up in October will just be us, 2 nights in a hotel room in the middle of the city, 2 days of classes, I’m sure 2 evenings of yummy food and yummier sex. yay!

As for the next two weeks, they’re good too: Odette is coming back from the other side of the mountains for a weekend with us next weekend. We get to see the baby, who has turned a year old already. And today they’re taking my kitchen roof off, to make the floor above it. Our contractor said “ok, it might be a little breezy for a few days” – we’ll hope he’s not putting it mildly.

Links of note today: Training of O has a new scene up today with gorgeous Tawny Ryden.
MsNaughty had the funniest video posted a few days ago. Ahh, threesomes…

~Jane

During one of these wakeups that was particularly long, I was pondering the nature of adult entertainment, and some of it’s criticisms. One of the big ones that I hear is that with the internet being (as the musical Avenue Q so rightly points out) ‘for porn’, young adults are today getting their idea of what sex is like from the porn industry. After some middle-of-the-night mulling though, that just doesn’t seem all that fair a criticism to me. We’re talking about entertainment, not reality. Just like you wouldn’t get an idea of what really being a cop is like from watching Law & Order, or what being a doctor is really like from watching House. The whole medium of entertainment requires more action, more drama. So while it might be fantasy material for some to watch a gangbang, that doesn’t really translate to regular gangbangs in one’s personal life, or even the expectation or desire for such. I have to think that even if youngish people (let’s say college age) are getting their sexual education from porn, that once they start to get any real LIFE sexual education they’re going to figure out that it’s not – um – what they’ve been jacking off to.

The other thing I hear sometimes is that mainstream porn sets up unhealthy expectations of body attractiveness. Well, that’s definitely a criticism that should be leveled at all media as a whole, but I will say that in my experience once people are into someone enough to have sex, they aren’t trying to dissect any tiny body imperfections in their partner. While I may be self-conscious of my c-section scar and the dimpled backs of my thighs, that’s not what Elliott is seeing when he’s doing me. The internet has also been a pretty great equalizer in bringing regular bodies to a medium that before was dominated by airbrushed bunnies.

As I go through some of these websites, I feel a sort of awe and respect for some of the people in them. Like I should thank them for going out on the limb of providing this content for other people to be aroused by, because they’re like really great stuntpeople doing things that most of us (yes, i qualify that with most, having known well – many exceptions) will never do even in our own bedrooms, much less in front of cameras for the eyes of strangers.

~Jane

we try pretty much everything, and that extends to toys. I’ve never been with anyone before that was into much more than flavored/warming lube, or maybe ice cream. I’ve never busted out my vibrators, or dildos, or discussed buying paddles and gags and strap ons. Even in today’s day and age, I feel toys are still relatively taboo, particularly in heterosexual relationships.

It sorta made me realize that it’s a topic I’ve been meaning to blog about for some time, and never quite get around to. I think I’ve maybe said a couple of things in passing, but never really much. I think the above observation, especially in regards to het relationships, is dead-on. My dear sweet Elliott, however, is not afraid of sextoys. Rather, I think he likes using them on me as much as I enjoy them being used. There is a couple that we’re good friends with, who are well aware of what I do for a living. They, like most of the “vanilla” (oh how I hate that word, but I don’t know what else to use) people in my social circle, are totally cool with it, even as they think it’s somewhat an oddity. So awhile back we were having dinner and the subject of my job came up. I mentioned the awesome Minx that I had to review, and they honestly thought that I was only doing it because it was work! hah! (You people have no idea how many orgasms AAG and I have in the name of giving you all good information. We’d NEVER do it if it wasn’t a JOB.)

Anyhow, the rare occasions when we’re with friends close enough that the subject of sex ever does come up and either of us mentions toys, the following occurs:

1. the male half of the couple makes some joke about how Elliott must not be “enough” for me and
2. the female half of the couple coos to the male half of the couple about how she’d never need a TOY because he’s all that and a bag of chips.

I honestly think the above is how people think they are supposed to feel, and it’s sad because they have no idea what they’re missing. Even with the last decade bringing about more high-end, high quality and gorgeous sex toys that ever before, still the stigma is there that somehow if you need (or want) to use anything other than your hands/tongue/cock/cunt that somehow you’re lacking.

I just have to call bullshit on that. Like food, sex is a necessity. Nobody thinks anything of making food an elaborate ritual. We go to great lengths sometimes to set a mood, set a table with a ridiculous amount of tableware, glassware, linens and candles. Because although it’s a necessity to eat, it’s just that much MORE when embellished, savored, lingered over. Why can’t people look at sex that way? It’s good in all it’s forms, from the fast-food drive-through quickie blowjob stolen in the five minutes before rushing out the door to work, to the all-day-lazy-Sunday pull out all the stops (and toys) feast.

No shame in that.

~Jane

Once I was sufficiently recuperated (which included nap, shower and mac-n-cheese. I LOVE mac-n-cheese post-sex. Is that weird?) I sat down with my laptop to try to write a review while things were – ahem – fresh in my mind. Sherman would NOT leave me alone though, he scrambled his way up onto the bed and proceeded to purr me about to death, all the while attempting to make himself at home on my actual keyboard.

Since my laptop has a little webcam thingie built in like all newer Apple computers, I tried to take his picture. I had to keep shoving him off the keyboard to do it. He was pretty relentless.

Anyhow. Today is good, and Elliott is now lying bedside me in bed again, sighing dramatically because he wants me to be done writing so he can have my undivided attention. Which is a nice thing. :)

So anyhow – there we were, in the midst of things, when we heard the doorbell ring. Elliott was going to ignore it, until I told him that it just might be the UPS man dropping off a sextoy order. That being a possibility, he went down to check. Indeedy it WAS a quite prompt order from Open Enterprises (aka Good Vibrations) bringing a happy squeal from me, lying there tied up on the bed. I will have to write a review of one of these toys later – it has not yet been tried, but the presentation was everything. Imagine if you will, a faux-crocodile box in pink, lined in satin of the same color, with a (surprisingly large) pink insertable vibe – with a full, long, pink maribou tail on it! AND it came with a silver colored display stand. I’m debating at this point, either trying it out and doing a review, or giving it away (unused of course) in the contests once they’re up, as one of the bigger prizes. Yes, this little bit of whimsical toy lusciousness has a $200 price tag.

Why give it away instead of trying it, you might ask? Well, the biggie is with 3 teenagers, I’ve no privacy, and thus no wish to leave it out on it’s pretty silver stand beside the bed. And I’m thinking that is a good 90% of the appeal. What do you think, keep and try, or give?

The other toy was put into immediate service, being one of those wonderful Lelo Nea vibes that AAG reviewed a few days ago . Damn, that little thing has a strong battery. And it’s awfully pretty, and so non-sex-toy looking (it looks rather like an exotic computer mouse) that I did leave it plugged in next to the bed to charge when I was done.

Anyhow.. on with the day. I’m starving, after those hundreds of calories burned. heh.

~Jane