Cat Skinner Club

Ask Mommy: For the Birds

Rosie

Dear Mommy,

As a predominately (mostly? bi-and-large?) hetero, entirely feminist woman, I sometimes find it hard to find porn that appeals to me. I get turned on by watching women and men both, in pretty much any combination. My challenge is that most porn features women and men whose bodies I don’t find real enough to be attractive – by which I mean, they are overly produced, hairless, and not soft and sexy and beautifully flawed like the humans I know and love. I find that I love burlesque photos, black-and-white shots, and photos that are artistic, highly suggestive or even explicit, as long as they look believable. Photos that give you the feeling of consensual voyeurism. A few years ago, you mentioned a video porn site on your blog that I really loved that featured real women having real orgasms. I’m looking for more suggestions of great erotica, featuring gorgeous, real, fucking hot people. Pretty much a Les Coquettes show, but in pictures…with more sex.

Got any ideas?

Thanks!

B

Dear B,

If that isn’t a Freaky Friday gauntlet throw down, I don’t know what is! I was so excited to get your note, I went into overload trying to find the very best answers, because I know that this post is going to make A LOT of women happy.

My first move was to turn to one of my very sexy friends, Sonya JF Barnett, co-founder of Slutwalk and The Madame of Toronto’s Raciest Art Community, The Keyhole Sessions. Sonya has incredible taste, and she’s deeply invested in creating sex-positive, pro female erotic art. She recently won the Golden Beaver (best Canadian content) at the Feminist Porn Awards for her premiere erotic video ‘Because I Want You to Watch’. You can check out her ridiculously sexy work here.

Sonya immediately recommended Cindy Gallop’s “Make Love Not Porn” (in beta). This is a fascinating web-based profit-share where real people create and share real porn. They don’t like to call themselves amateurs, because of the implication that the only people who can create sexy porn are the pros. I particularly enjoyed Cindy’s amusing and accurate look at the ‘Porn World vs. Real World’. When your kids discover porn, and are old enough to contextualize sex in more explicit terms, this will be highly illuminating and informative for them. As Cindy says in her Ted Talk (see video below) about the influence of hardcore porn on contemporary sexuality, “Sex is the area of human experience that embraces the vastest possible range of proclivities.” The important task of being true to our own desires and needs lies with us.

B, the website featuring real female orgasm that you reference in your note is the delightful I Feel Myself. It’s a members-only site, but well worth the fee if that’s what makes you warm and tingly.

To make sure I’ve thoroughly satisfied you, I also wanted to share the information below which I first published on my sex education blog.

Photo by Andrew Blake

I like porn. The more deeply I delve into the world of adult video, the more I like the genre. It’s hard to believe that once-upon-a-time I used to be intimidated by the idea of watching x-rated movies. I think I believed that porn was only for guys, that I would feel inadequate if I watched surgically enhanced women getting it on, and that porn was degrading to women. This is true in some cases, but like all things wonderful about the Internet, with enough digging, there’s something out there for everyone. Even you, my horny sisters.

Here are some things to consider when delving into porn for the first time:

Fly Solo
Plan to be all alone the first few times you watch porn. Whether it’s free stuff you find on the Internet or a video that you’ve rented, watching solo takes any pressure off, and frees you up to explore what makes you feel good.

Bring a Toy
If you find something particularly arousing, run with it! Note which scenarios and sex acts make you the happiest. Also note the directors or performers involved in your favorite scenes.

Keep the Other Hand on the Remote
Fast forward through the boring parts. This is part of the joy of watching porn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a feature-length adult movie from start to finish.

Visit Your Favorite Pro-Women Sex Shop
These stores are staffed with awesome people who will make you totally comfortable in asking questions. They often have a rental section, and will gladly make recommendations. Save yourself from the experience of a trashy, alienating sex shop geared towards men. There are also lots of online resources for sex-positive porn from a female perspective.

Female Directors
The face of porn is changing as smart, savvy women are stepping up to the director’s chair. Feminist porn describes x-rated movies told from a woman’s perspective, and includes real female fantasies and POV (point-of-view) shots from the female angle. Some kick-ass female directors include:

Candida Royalle, Tristan Taormino, Anna Span, Madison Young and Erika Lust

Check out this great website, Porn Movies for Women, for more recommendations.

Educational
While you’re sure to be inspired by some of the scenarios you’ll see in porn, sexual education videos can also be incredibly hot. Add some of these to your DVD library, and plan a study date solo or with a buddy.

Costume Epics
If you think that dress-up might be your thing, look for costume epics and historical dramas within the porn genre.

Plot-Driven
It’s hard to believe, but there are porn films out there that actually have decent story lines. Look for films by Candida Royale, Paul Thomas, and Veronica Hart who are all known for their story-telling abilities.

Natural Bodies
If you don’t get off on the artificial fantasy body of many main-stream porn stars, there are lots of actresses out these still kicking it au-natural. Some mainstream porn recommendations include Belladonna and Tori Black. True lesbian porn almost always features natural women. Also, good old-fashioned 70’s porn features natural bodies, including lots of bush. Consider yourself warned.

Amateurs
Check out the realm of porn created with no budget and a handy-cam by earnest, hard-working average Joes and Janes. Charming, and sometimes quite sexy.

Lesbian or Bi-curious
Curious about the wonderful world of girl-on-girl? Lesbian films, produced by lesbian artists depict realistic lesbian sex. Or, treat yourself to the high-gloss, ultra stylized world of male fantasy lesbian hardcore. Some days it’s hard to decide which is better.

Hot Men
Up until recently, men in porn have more or less served as super-sized units attached to ugly people. With women in the driver’s seat, porn actors are getting yummier and yummier. Actors Manuel Ferrara, Jean Val Jean and Mr. Marcus are popular favorites. Director Anna Span is notorious for treating her viewers to hot guys. There’s also the option of kicking back to enjoy some gay porn. Those boys rarely disappoint when it comes to pretty faces.

Porn for Couples
This is an actual sub-genre of the porn industry. You can search for this on the Internet, and lots of delicious choices will appear. Couples’ porn has something for each person to enjoy, and often depicts real fantasies shared by people in monogamous relationships.

High Art
For a highly stylized treat that looks like the pages of a fashion magazine has sprung to life and started a hump-fest, check out the work of director Andrew Blake. Another noteworthy contemporary is Michael Ninn.

Kinky
Challenge your comfort zone and expand your horizons by experiencing kinky sex from the safe distance of your sofa. BDSM (an acronym that represents the idea of  bondage, discipline, domination, and sado-masochism) and fetishistic sex come alive in ways you can scarcely imagine in the world of porn.

Free Porn
It boggles the mind to think of how much porn is available for free on the Internet. Now that you have some tips on what to look for, set aside several hours (no joke, you won’t be able to stop yourself) and check out the endless selection available at the following websites WARNING: THESE SITES MOSTLY FEATURE MAINSTREAM PORN, NOT USUALLY FROM A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE

http://www.youporn.com
http://www.pornhub.com
http://www.redtube.com
http://www.xvideos.com
http://www.ultrapasswords.com

Let Someone Else do the Work
For the Girls is a subscription-based website that features naughty photos, video, and stories chosen for women by women. A trial membership could be a fun way to introduce yourself to the world of adult entertainment.

Read All About It
There are some great books devoted to the topic of women and porn. If you’d like to arm yourself with as much info as possible before diving in, check out these great titles:

Good Porn: A Woman’s Guide

The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn

Do my readers have any steadfast sources of great feminist porn? Share here so we can all enjoy!

Kisses on your nose,

Playboy Mommy


Ask Playboy Mommy

Tug of War www.paulvanginkel.com

Tug of War www.paulvanginkel.com

Dear Mommy,

I’m in a fairly new polyamorous relationship with my husband and my lesbian partner. Do you have couples nights? I feel like I am walking a tight rope trying to keep both partners happy and if one of them isn’t annoyed with me the other one is! I had an emotional meltdown the other night and really hope you can help.

Sincerely,

M

Dearest M,

I remember the early days of my relationship with my partners. We were all so excited and fond of each other that none of us wanted to impose any formal rules, and boundaries felt like a rude barrier to our organic love fest. We wanted things to flow freely, but instead we created was a shit storm of weird feelings and jealousy that haunts us all to this day.

Make no mistake; turning the conventional relationship model on its ear will challenge the nerves of even the steeliest soul. We are doing everything differently than the relationship models we grew up with. I don’t think this means we shouldn’t challenge convention to make our lives richer, but I do think it means we ought to be realistic about what we expect of each other and ourselves.

At some point in a polyamorous relationship, everyone is going to feel jealous. Anyone who tells you they haven’t felt that way is lying to you. We are conditioned to feel jealousy from our very early days in our culture that constantly encourages us to focus on what we don’t have. The media perpetually reminds us that we aren’t enough. Throw the dynamics of your family of origin into that special sauce and we are easily turned into green-eyed monsters. Jealousy will happen. Be patient and forgiving with yourself and your lovers. Let those jealous feelings come, but don’t wallow in them. When you feel them, find something you love to do and do it immediately. Force yourself to reflect on all of the abundance in your life; after all you have TWO people who adore you! You must be awesome. (Do share that idea with your partners too so they don’t have to feel bad about jealousy).

Your relationship with everyone in your life will only be as healthy as your relationship with yourself. This is why I’m a huge proponent of therapy, which is a long process, but the best gift you’ll ever give yourself. There are also some practical measures you can implement to help your poly life flow smoothly.

Make a Schedule

Divide the week like this; time for your man, time for your lady, time for yourself, time for the grown ups, time for the whole family. Before you panic at how insane that seems consider this sample schedule:

Alternate your nights between your two partners. On these nights, you can enjoy a date night out when your budget permits. One of the best things about poly life is that if one pair wants some time out, there’s always a great sitter! Spontaneity comes with what you decide to do with your alone time with your partner.

If possible, and if your space permits, spend at least one night a week on your own. If you can’t spend a night sleeping on your own, make absolutely sure you are carving out time to just have some alone space. If you can afford the space in your home, each adult should have just a little nook to call his or her own.

Spend some time in the evenings with both of your partners doing the things you enjoy, even things as simple as vegging out with your favourite TV show. Encourage your partners to spend time together without you there so they can get to know each other better. Reserve one day on the weekend for family day and chose simple, fun activities to enjoy together. If you have kids, family day should be focused around them and their needs. Keep family ties strong by insisting on family dinners all together, and bed time story and tuck in (if you have kids) with all three partners.

Tend Your Relationships

All of your relationships need tending, and if you haven’t done the math, here’s a breakdown of your relationships and the hierarchy they should be in:

1. Your relationship to yourself  – This one is the most important! You must take care of yourself first, and really understand your own needs and wants. Take care of your heart, your mind, and your body so that you will be a well-oiled love machine.

2. Your relationship to your children. If you have kids, they come next. Some would argue that the adult relationships come first, but I think that’s bullshit. Our kids rely on us wholly, so we owe it to them to be as close to the top of the ladder as possible.

3. Your partners’ relationship to your children. This needs to be strong if your poly family is all under one roof. Some poly parents keep their adult relationships at a distance from their kids, but if you are aiming to be one big happy poly family (like us) you must make sure your partners are getting their own quality time with the kids, and that you’re helping to strengthen their relationships with your support.

4 (a & b) Your relationship to each of your partners. You signed up to love more than one person, so you need to make sure you’re doing that in a fair, balanced way. Be careful not to get too caught up in the glow of a new relationship and thereby neglect your more mature relationship with your first partner. One of those relationships may feel like more work than the other, but I promise you that balance will shift back and forth, so you need to make sure you’re tending both.

5. Your partners’ relationship to each other. True, it’s not your responsibility to manage your partners’ relationship with one another, but it is important that you are clear about how important their good relationship is to you. Remind them that you want them to enjoy each other’s company, buy them tickets to a movie or a game, offer to sit back while they go out and hang on a patio. Make sure they know that you want them both to get along. Don’t get in the middle of things if they don’t get along from time-to-time. This will give you ulcers and/or make you bald. Ask Daddy about that one. All you can do is be an ear, and let them know how you feel about their actions/words/behavior.

Be Okay with Being Selfish

Remember how hard it was to learn to appreciate each other’s needs when you were in the early stages with your first partner? Maybe you haven’t even really figured that out yet. Well, now you’re adding layer upon layer of complexity!

Nobody is going to know what you need and want unless you are comfortable asking for those things. You won’t be comfortable asking for anything until you are spending quality time understanding your own needs. You must not be afraid to speak your mind and ask for what you want, even if those needs and wants are really scary.

The three of us made the mistake of not clearly defining and expressing our needs and it led to huge, devastating imbalance in our lives. We aren’t always able to meet each other’s needs, but at least if we know what they are, we can work towards compromise and harmony.

Make Time to Talk

You need one-on-one time to talk with your partners about your relationships, but you also need to create safe emotional space where the three of you can talk with each other about these needs. Beware the mistake of trying to ‘shelter’ the other person from anything you deem threatening or negative. I think most of us would really just address any elephants who may wander into the bedroom rather than dance around them. They will stomp on your head if you try to ignore them.

Good luck with the adventures ahead, and thanks for reaching out. I hope I’ve helped, and I hope you can carve out some quality time where you can focus on all of the loves of your life, including you!

Kisses on your nose,

 

Playboy Mommy


Ask Mommy

Paris-Café-19224

Dear Mommy,

I have two unrelated questions I have often wondered, so I figure I might as well ask:

1. Was Paris worth it? I get why the urge would be there considering how  uprooted you were at the time. Was it a ‘I found myself’ trip that you are really truly glad you took? worth the debt? Or, now seeing how awesome your life turned out, would you have been better off saving the money? Just curious in hind-sight how you view that trip.

2. How did you meet your family? I’m not asking to be nosy. We are poly & the poly groups we found were kind of meat-markety, same with online groups. Although there was a lot of relationship seeking, it seemed to be a more sexually charged energy than we were hoping. For us, we figure one day maybe something organic will develop through synchronicity. Its so rare to meet another poly family, so when I do, I’m always curious to hear how they met. Love stories we can relate to are always inspiring to hear.

Signed,

DA

 

Howdy DA,

Thanks for asking such interesting questions!

1.) I first began this blog just before I ran away to Paris. I had just ended a torrid four-year on-again-off-again relationship and I found myself completely uprooted, as you say. (Readers, you can catch up on that adventure starting with this post.) I had barely any savings at the time, so I put the entire trip on a credit card. This isn’t the most responsible way to indulge in travel, to be sure. I have absolutely no regrets about Paris. Visiting the City of Lights was a life-long dream. A ‘bucket list’ item if you will. Even though I’ve since found such happiness with my wonderful family, I’m still very glad I took the trip. It was a trip that was best taken solo because nobody would have drank in the city the same way, and I think it was very important for me to see how much adventure and risk I was capable of on my own steam. Paris was totally one of those experiences where I often think “If I could do that, I can do anything.” In future, I’d definitely recommend a travel savings account, but I’m a big believer in fulfilling as many of our own dreams as we can when opportunity arises or when we can create opportunity. We really don’t know how much time we have to write our stories, do we?

 

2.) For those of you who are brand new to this blog, I’m in a committed domestic partnership with two people. Essentially, I have both a husband and a wife, and we are raising our three kids together. Our two eldest daughters are from my partners’ existing relationship, and our newest addition was my biological contribution to our motley crew. If you had told me five years ago when I started this blog that my search for the love and the family I yearned for would end in polyamorous (multiple loves) life, I think I would have laughed at you. It was definitely not something I was looking for.

I met my two partners on the patio of the Cadillac Lounge on the last day of the very first annual Toronto Burlesque Festival. My theatre company was performing in the Tiki Brunch, and I was one of the festival organizers that year. My business partner had cast a new gal (Charity Dawn, for those of you who are fans) and I had never met her, but we had many mutual friends, and a big group of them came to see her (get naked) perform. Nekky and Sarah were in that group. After the show we all stayed and ate and drank for a very, very, very long time. Nekky began to show boat by ordering copious amounts of everything for the table. I thought they were interesting people, but I frankly thought that Nekky was a show off. Ha!

After that epic first encounter, Nekky and Sarah began to turn up at all of our social functions, and the more time we spent together, the more I realized how much we had in common. It was when I first went to their home and met their daughters that I really started to fall in love with their family. I had never met such bright, beautiful, engaged children. Talking and playing with the girls was more interesting than most interactions I had with adults!

We began to spend a lot of time together, and N & S witnessed so many of my failed attempts at finding love, which we used to commiserate about. They knew how badly I wanted a family of my own, and how loud my clock was ticking. The two of them even went so far as to set me up with a good friend from university, with whom I was really smitten. I think one of my great dating failures was my enthusiasm, and I think I scared him off. I was terrible about putting the cart waaay before the horse, and I’d get so excited before really getting to know the people I was dating.

Finally, as I was crying into a cocktail over the latest dating disaster (and trust me, there were a lot of cocktails at that time) Sarah said “Why don’t you just marry us?”. At this point, I will admit that the three of us had definitely begun some (largely cocktail fueled) experimenting that certainly went beyond the traditional definitions of friendship. It was great fun, but nothing I’d considered seriously because, well, because I don’t think many of us would consider a husband and wife team as a serious dating prospect!

When Sarah said those words, some chord was struck deep inside me. All of my attempts at serious relationships were brought into sharp focus, and I realized that joining this family, however unconventional, could be exactly the missing link that would turn the traditional relationship model on it’s ear and make long-term commitment more appealing and less confining for me. Who would ever get bored with both a husband AND a wife?

The deciding factor in pursuing a relationship with Nekky and Sarah wasn’t how it would affect me socially, or how it might impact our extended families. I didn’t worry about how we would affect the children because I knew we were all amazing parents, and would always put their interests first. I didn’t even stop to consider legal  implications (at the time we formed our relationship, living conjugally with more than one person in Canada was illegal. Since then, a B.C. judge ruled that cohabiting with more than one conjugal partner was not in violation of the law, but taking any steps to make that union official can still result in prosecution. This includes having an officiant perform any kind of union ceremony.) I was mostly concerned about being able to have my own biological children some day.

Sarah was unhesitatingly into the idea of another baby, particularly one she didn’t have to birth. Nekky took way, way more convincing, but he eventually came around. Once he said that he would work towards reaching a place where having another baby was an emotional possibility, I made the decision to stop seeing other people. The rest is a complex and rich bit of history, but you’ll have to wait for the book.

I didn’t know much about polyamory before this relationship, and since then, we haven’t found any other families who are poly that we really can relate to. I would agree that any  poly groups we’ve found online seem disorganized and quite sexually charged. The three of us have our hands full, and aren’t looking for any additional partners, just some other families who share our unique perspective.

I have a lot of advice for anyone considering such a relationship model, and I’m happy to answer questions here as best I can, in the hopes that I can help others. Thanks for taking the leap and sending your note, and best of luck in your search. I hope you and your partner find worthy others you can share yourselves with.

Kisses on your nose,

Playboy Mommy

Making Your Way In the World Today Takes Everything You Got

But when hasn’t it?

In Schnooville, life on the relationship front was cloudy with a chance of natural disaster up until about two weeks ago. Now it’s foggy, but it’s the kind of deep, peaceful fog that makes me feel like wrapping myself in cashmere and tramping through the heath with a wolfhound by my side.

What happened? First, a HUGE breakthrough in therapy. I had a bit of a collapse in our therapist’s office, and a series of guided tapping motions, combined with deep breathing led to me coming unhinged. Imagine a rusty farmstead fence being pried loose by a tornado and tossed like a sack of kittens into the nearest alfalfa field. That was my soul. What happened next is that the raging bull who lived in the pen raced out into the world, free at last, and now lounges beneath an apple tree sniffing blossoms.

In my life, when something I love becomes impossibly hard and deeply hurtful, I’ve shackled that gate and completely cut myself off, out, and away. I’ve left great jobs and even greater relationships in this state, and I think that I have come to really accept this in myself and embrace this as one of the big life projects that I have to tackle.

For a long time I’ve felt that other people cannot be trusted. That if you allow them to, they will mess with your head and hurt you. I now understand that these things that feel hurtful, deceitful and manipulative are often the bi-products of someone else working on their own big life projects. The negative behavior is the result of one of you being further down the road than the other.

Developing trust isn’t about putting absolute faith in other people. It is about putting absolute faith in your own ability to understand, and honor your own needs and wants in a clear, loving way, especially in the face of upset and hurt. People can’t hurt me when I clearly understand that they cannot give me what they need because of their own limitations.

It is striving to come to that place of acceptance and understanding that will save us all. (Dear readers, I don’t believe this ever applies to abusive situations. Those instances are when you hold your raging bull close and let him guide you straight to safety, where you can hold yourself tight and understand how you happened to get to that dangerous place at all.)

I know I cannot control the needs, wants, realizations, decisions, clarity, and communication style of anyone else around me, but I have complete control over these things in myself. That is where my focus lies now. I’m not running, I’m not afraid, I feel completely open. I have a greater understanding of the love I am being given, and meditating on that love is so much better than agonizing over complexities that I cannot understand.

Last night, I went to a parenting session that focuses on the work of the amazing Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. He captured my absolute need from a partner or a loved one perfectly when he said “being known and expressing what lies within is the ultimate expression of individuality and intimacy.” It’s an entirely reciprocal sentiment too, I think – a vital exchange of the contents of one’s head and heart that I require to bond with someone and really develop a loving relationship. In the session, Dr. Neufeld also presented his model of the ideal signs of total maturation. This inspired me completely, and these are the things I wish to strive towards in myself:

Interested & Curious

Eager to try new things

Thinks for oneself

Fills solitude with creative endeavors

Values originality and creativity

Self-directed in learning

Assumes responsibility for actions and impact

Sees the options and choices in life

Values uniqueness and differences

Rarely bored

Full of vitality

Seeks autonomy & independence

Seeks to be own person

Regards the separateness & boundaries of others