Review: Bandit

Posted on May 20, 2009 in swag | 6 Comments

banditI’m pulling from my cock-review structure to give you the low-down on the Bandit, a Vixskin silicone strap-on cock.

Shape:
Immediately, the shape is what makes this unique from many other cocks, even many other silicone Vixskin cocks: it has balls, which are made to fit behind the harness’s O-ring. I was worried this would interfere with the strap of my harness (which, since it’s a single-strap like a g-string, hits my clit perfectly and makes me able to get off while strapped on & fucking), and though the extra material behind the O-ring does mean that the harness doesn’t quite hit me the same way, I’ve already gotten off twice while fucking with this cock, so if I’m not coming it isn’t the fault of the dick.

It does have a great head and shape to it, no particular curving, not a lot of veins but a little bit of realistic texture. Definitely very realistic in shape. It comes in three standard Vixskin colors – chocolate, vanilla, and caramel.

Size:
I thought it would be a little small. It’s 7”x1 3/4”, and my favorite (aka “desert island dick,” since I’d take it with me to a desert island) is 8”x2”, so I figured eh, I’ll try it out, but I’m sure Maverick will still be my go-to cock most of the time.

Turns out, the 1/4” width makes a big difference, especially for blow jobs. The cock is smooth and not too highly textured, which, Kristen tells me, makes it go down easily. She can take it deeper and for longer than she can Rick or another larger cock, so I have been picking this one up to use quite a few times since I got it, because, well, shit, she sucks my cock so pretty, I always want her to do more of that.

It is also much more floppy than the Rick cock, perhaps because it has such less girth, so the silicone is less dense in the center? Or maybe there’s actually another hard material in the center of the Rick, which is not in the Bandit? I’m not sure, perhaps someone from Vixen will be able to answer this for me (or someone who spends a lot of time dissecting sex toys, which, I’m just sayin’, seems like a waste to me). So, because it has a lot more give in the shaft of the dick, it is so much easier to pack with! I probably wouldn’t go out in public wearing this, it would just not be discreet enough and does get a bit pokey in the pants after a while, but for hanging out in the living room, watching another episode of Mad Men and drinking a martini, waiting for permission to fuck her again? It tucks perfectly into my jeans.

And goodness knows, I like to be ready when she is.

Material:
High-quality silicone, the special “vixskin” kind that Vixen Creations makes, which means it is more like cyberskin (malleable, kind of soft) than it is like the hard kind of silicone cocks which are predominant in sex shops. But, since it’s silicone, it can be completely sterilized.

I’m impressed with the Bandit. I thought because I already have a couple different silicone Vixskin cocks from their collection that it’d be something I liked, but not something I used all that often. But that hasn’t been true – I’ve picked this one up a lot in the past few weeks since it arrived. I love having my choice of cock for precisely what I want to do – I love being able to choose just the cock to fuck her right.

6 Comments | Category: swag | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Answers to some questions

Posted on April 30, 2009 in omphaloskepsis | 2 Comments

Do you have a top five list of toys/accessories that you love and recommend?

People’s sexualities are so different, so what’s best for me might not be best for you, so this isn’t so much what I recommend as it is my personal favorites. My top 5 desert island toys – meaning the ones I would absolutely have to have if I was stuck on a desert island – are:

  • Hitachi – the lesbian grandmother of all vibrators. Because hey, if I’m going to have a vibrator, it may as well be the best. We’ll just have to pretend my desert island has power outlets.
  • Silky aka Mr Bendy – best & only cock on the market that you can pack with, then fuck with. Not sterilizable (always use a condom). A little small for hours & hours of fucking, though, so I need an upgrade.
  • Vixskin Maverick aka Rodeo Rick – The upgrade. This might be the most perfect cock ever made. (I do wish it had balls though … I think that’s the Bandit? But balls sometimes create distance between harness strap and my clit, which would make it harder for me to get off.) Silicone, realistic, excellent size.
  • Spartacus harness – my current favorite. Simple, versatile, comfortable. I removed one of the two straps to make it a one-strap instead (which makes it easier for me to get off).
  • Maximus lube – because my sex life is so cock-centric, and because I like to go for hours, lube is a necessity. Regardless of how wet she gets and stays, I use it, if only because then I won’t have to wonder or worry if she’s getting dryer. Maximus is thick, stays slick, comes in a pump bottle, is kind of gel-like and won’t slide around your hand while I’m getting it from the bottle to my cock.

Aside from the Hitachi (and the lube), those are toys for partner sex; so I’d also add one bonus, which would be a very hard, g-spot curved insertable, either glass or metal (Pure Wand, maybe – I’d put the Pure Wand on there in a second, except I don’t actually own one).

Why do you list fingernails as a ‘turn off’ for you?

Perhaps I should explain, so thanks for asking. I like painted fingernails, I like the classics (of course) of red and pink and French tips. I love them femme-length, as short as they can be and a little squared off. I like how it enhances someone’s hands, so delicate and feminine. The part I don’t like is if they’re long. I don’t like scratching, I can’t stand it when someone taps their nails on a desk or counter, that tick-tick-tick sound makes me cringe. Maybe it’s from being in New York City where everyone’s are fake and thick and long, or maybe it’s just too much of a straight association.

How, exactly, do you determine what makes a bathroom in a bar “fuckable”?

  • Privacy of stalls – are they ceiling-to-floor? Huge gaps under the door? Short doors that a tall person could see over?
  • Strength of walls in the stalls – are they all hinged to each other in one unit, or are they individual? Would they shake if you knocked into them?
  • Size of the stalls – are they wide enough for two people to stand comfortably side-by-side, or is it hard to walk past each other and open the door?
  • General ambiance – is it harsh bright florescent lights, or recessed lighting? Are the stalls plastic, or hardwood? Is there some particular accents of decor, or is it as plain as a public park bathroom?
  • Cleanliness – in general, how is it kept?
  • Whether or not it’s monitored – some (many) gay boy bar bathrooms have signs – “one at a time ONLY” – or people who will actually knock if you manage to slip a 2nd person past them.

Personally, I like the bathrooms that are clean, with some slightly unusual ambiance, good lighting, nice décor, wide stalls so I can navigate, privacy … but others might prefer it to be more seedy, hinges loose and grubby floors, perhaps the naughtiness of the dirty scene would be their preference.

While I’m at it, here’s three amazing bathrooms to fuck in New York City:

  1. Therapy, gay boy bar in midtown east. Hands down the best bar bathrooms I’ve ever fucked in. gay boy bar, fantastic décor, good drinks, great snacks. If you date me, I will probably fuck you here at some point. Tricky to get past the bathroom guards, but it’s possible.
  2. Song, thai restaurant in Brooklyn. Not always super clean (especially during dinner, they are very busy) but the restaurant is incredibly loud and the bathrooms are shadowy and kind of swanky.
  3. Whiskeytown, east village. Straight bar, not my favorite clientele, but fantastic drinks. Bathrooms are private with the sink outside, good lighting.

Got any other recommendations?

Have you ever entertained the possibility of breathplay? (I’m NOT talking autoasphyxia, but the choking/restraining your loved one kind of breathplay.)

Sure. I don’t have much experience with it, which is why I have never written about it in my fiction. I’ve never come across a lover who said she was interested in playing with it, and as a top it seems like the kind of thing that I wouldn’t necessarily impose on someone else, since it isn’t an act that is ‘for me’ the same way other toppy things are (fucking, cocksucking). I’ve noticed that Kristen often holds her breath while she’s about to come, though, so maybe eventually we’ll get to more breathplay between us – but she doesn’t seem into it when we’ve seen it in porn we’ve watched. So, it’s not something I would probably seek out without someone else being into it, but I’m GGG, if it came up and someone was interested I would give it a try.

Since 2003, have you ever heard anyone utter the words, “Do you…(fill in the blank)?” and not thought of Cher? If so, how is this possible?

Maybe not “Do you…”, but “Do you believe in … “ yes certainly, the only way to end that sentence is “life after love.” And, not that you asked, but yes, I do believe in life after love.

2 Comments | Category: omphaloskepsis | Tags: , , , , , ,

Review: the Outlaw

Posted on March 27, 2009 in Kristen, swag | 12 Comments

outlaw_lg

not actual size. oh no. it's WAY bigger than this.

Following the Johnny review breakdown precedence, here’s how the Outlaw cock by Vixen Creations from one of my very favorite sex toy stores stacks up.

(Then I’ll tell you a little embarrassing story concerning the Outlaw and a hotel room with Kristen.)

Girth: Hot damn, it’s a big one. 2″ around. Some would say, and have said, that that is the perfect girth. Enough to feel it, not enough to hurt (at least, not much).

Length: Um. Holy shit. This guy is 8 1/2″. It is huge. It does have balls, which you would think might slightly impact the insertable length, but they sit behind the O-ring of a harness and are quite flat, so they don’t actually take away from the otherwise massive length. I expected I’d have trouble driving this thing – but to the contrary, it was easy to fuck with strapped on, maybe partly because I didn’t have to be concerned about it slipping out.

Shape: Balls. A little vein-y but not too much. Realistic. Because it’s Vixskin it is a little more pliable than average, so it doesn’t have any particular permanent curve.

Materials: This is why you’d by this cock over any other 8.5″x2″ monster: made of Vixskin, a special silicone that feels more like cyberskin (realistic, pliable, feels more like flesh) but it is sterilizable. This is great. I nearly only fuck with cocks made from this material, it is hands-down the best.

And now for your bedtime story.

Kristen & I stayed at a lovely hotel overlooking downtown Boston when I was up there to do a performance a few weekends ago. We spent the evening – what else? – fucking, lounging around in the king-sized bed. I’d brought the Outlaw and also Rodeo Rick (as Babeland calls it – aka Maverick), my desert island dick (the one I’d bring with me above all others). We hadn’t used the Outlaw yet, but got it out and were discussing it at various points in the evening, playing with it and marveling at its size, mostly, and in one hilarious moment Kristen picked it up and set it on its base next to the TV, right in the open.

Later, much later, we ordered room service.

(You can already tell where this story is going, huh.)

I remembered to put boxers on, and an a-shirt, after we ordered but before the room service showed up, and Kristen was in bed, though nude, covers pulled up, on her laptop. Harness and cock we were just using were on the bedside table, next to a huge bottle of lube we’d had to buy earlier that day because I’d forgotten mine. Clothes were strewn around the desk where we’d been playing that afternoon. Bondage belt on the bedspread.

The room was a sex den, is what I’m saying.

The room service delivery guy knocked and before I knew it, he was bringing the tray into the room. “Uh – you decent?” I tried to warn Kristen. (I should’ve just taken the tray. Why didn’t I just take the tray?! Butch fail.)

He set it down on the dresser, right next to the TV.

Right next to the most giant fucking Outlaw cock.

I saw a tiny flicker of a smile on his mouth, but all in all he remained very straight-faced and professional. I was impressed. And so embarrassed! (I know, it’s not that big of a deal, but I couldn’t shake the facepalm feeling.)

“We haven’t even used it yet!” I exclaimed, getting back into bed with Kristen and the coffee profiteroles.

“Well,” she looked at me with that twinkle in her eye. “I guess we should.”

Sorry, delivery guy. But at least you’ve got a good story to tell at dinner parties! “Once, I delivered dessert at midnight to these two … lesbians …”

12 Comments | Category: Kristen, swag | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

the red tie night, six years ago

Posted on April 17, 2008 in theory | 12 Comments

I ran across some photos this week of me and jesse james and georgia from almost exactly six years ago – I remember that night vividly. Aside from georgia’s very grabable curly hair, spaghetti strap tank top, and long string of gin+tonics (that I kept drinking for her), my gang of friends – including jesse james, and Maverick – decided we’d go out “in drag” that night, which meant slacks, button-downs, binding our breasts, ties.

(Interesting how men’s business wear is drag for masculinity, and women’s lingerie is drag for femininity – clearly some cultural values coming through there eh?)

I took many photos that night as we got ready to go – even the preparations were significant, the rituals of masculinity, hair slicked back, knotting and re-knotting my tie. It was one of the first times I wore a tie and packed out in public; in the photos I’m wearing a black shirt, black slacks, and red tie. I’m not even sure where I got that tie, now that I think about it. It just seems like I’ve always owned it. A red tie, solid – my favorite.

Interesting how, then, it was drag, it was rare, it was deliberate performance – I was so self-conscious going out like that, I felt stared at, noticed, in a new way. And I was, particularly by georgia’s attention, the clear lust in her eyes and fingertips as I lit her cigarettes and held her drinks and attempted to kiss her (with little luck – she had a girlfriend back then).

Looking at these photographs from six years ago, though, I catch a glimpse of the gender I grew into – I don’t always recognize myself in photos from that time, but in those … yeah, I think, that’s me.

It took such a long time for me to come to comfortably sit in this butch identity, for me to (if we’ll continue the metaphor) navigate the gender galaxy, and find a comfortable orbit around an identity label. Some of us don’t ever settle into that – some of us are radical little spaceships that explore treasures from all sorts of different worlds and words that we orbit. I guess the trick is, in my opinion, to simply find the routes that are the best to navigate (not necessarily the easiest, but the most satisfying), the orbits where there is plenty of oxygen, the alliances that create treaties and share resources and have excellent adventures.

We basically have to make our own gender galaxy maps. And while some gender mapmaking tools – queer theory, gender theory, postmodern theory, queer literature, smut and the language of lesbian desires – while some tools help immensely, I still couldn’t quite escape the praxis, the application of the theory, because of the ways that the social constraints and social policing affected my own process deeply.

The same friends who went out with me on that infamous red tie night – jesse james & Maverick – were very influential, and I had a lot of criticism about how they performed their own flavors of female masculinity. I don’t remember a lot of discussions about the label/term/identity of ‘butch’ specifically, but we definitely knocked the term around sometimes – mostly I remember saying, “I don’t know. If I’m butch, then am I all these other things that come along with compulsory masculinity – like misogyny?”

I remember one particular time when jesse james and Maverick were joking about attending a community class for and about femmes – identity, privilege, passing, visibility. And they kept speaking of it like it was a place to go pick up chicks – I eventually snapped at them: That’s a special place for femmes! That’s not a convenient pick-up ground! You’re like the boys who heh-heh-heh and sign up for women studies.

[I know it says "women studies" and not "women's studies," and that's deliberate. The apostrophe implies that these studies belong to women, that it is women who study them. When it's women studies, singular, then the implication is that it is the study of women. This is how my undergraduate Women Studies department operated & how I still describe that particular academic discipline.]

I’m not sure if they got it; maybe they did. I quickly gained the reputation as the hard-core feminist of the gang, and jesse james especially loved to push my buttons about it, to get a rise out of me, to make me laugh, to frustrate me with a scenario. They used to tease me endlessly.

But looking back at it, it was an integral part of my gender identity development. Because feminism, and deep respect for women, and deep rejection of the “oppressive male gaze” and gendered hierarchy, came first, I was terrified of objectifying women, of disrespecting women – and, most importantly, of adopting misogyny as part of a masculine identity. And I kept wondering, over and over: If I reject misogyny as part of masculinity, part of “butch,” then what’s left? Masculinity is, in so many ways, simply defined as not-woman; what else does that identity hold? And what does it mean for me to adopt it, to become it, to be it?

My solution, at least temporarily, was that I could look butch – hence the ties and button-downs and packing – but that I would maintain my hard-core feminist values, my inner emotional landscapes, my interests and personality traits. I didn’t know how far I could take this new idea of a masculine gender. For years, my friends & peers would say, “well, yeah, but you’re not really butch.” I didn’t like that, but I didn’t know how to only pick and choose the traits that I wanted, intentionally, within masculinity. I didn’t know it would mean to have be butch in other ways - for example, emotionally.

Even still, this puzzles me. There is something inward about gender, a sort of “gender energy,” internal traits that run through displays of female masculinity – but I still struggle with articulating that. It starts to run into the grey areas of where gender overlaps with personality, and I start feeling cautionary, not wanting gender to dictate things like hobbies and interests.

I’d like to figure this out, though. It’s on my list of Things to Explore Further.

Incidentally, jesse james – formerly known as The Closet Musician here on Sugarbutch – was known as Ice (from Iceman) back then; Maverick and Ice even had flight suits for Halloween one year. Then we had Mitchell, who joined our gang on occasion, and there were the femmes, Pepper (Maverick’s girlfriend and, later, wife) and Lola (who I was madly head-over-heels about). Who knew all those nicknames were such fabulous practice for anonymous writing?

I never had a nickname that stuck, I always wanted one. Perhaps that’s part of why I created Sinclair all these years later.

Donate to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you – add “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box. (Why?)

12 Comments | Category: theory | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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