Mastery

I think I figured out how to use the Diva Cup successfully! Everyone!

Here are my 3 tips:

1. Horizontal, not vertical. The Cup is not a tampon, and if you try and put it in like a tampon, there will be problems. I found, once I had it folded into the U shape, that it helped to use my pointer finger to sort of guide the Cup in and make sure it stayed horizontal the entire way through.
   
2. Push it as far in as it'll go. The FAQ says the end bit should be no more than half an inch inside your vagina. I tried this, and got nothing but leaks. I found when I put the cup in so the end bit was resting closer to my pubic bone (the best way I can describe this if you put your finger inside your vagina about an inch and push up, you should feel like a bony ridge), results were a lot better. Also, since I was using my finger to guide it in, I could also tell when the open end was closer to my cervix.
3. Clean it out. Yes, the Cup. But also your vagina. When I take the Cup out, there's always a bit of goopy period blood still hanging on. (Also note: Take the Cup out slowly. And when I say slowly I mean fucking slowly. I've accidentally gooped blood either on my underwear or on the floor a few times this month, and that is very annoying. Go slow when taking it out, especially when the open end is coming out, and it's better.) So I'm still rinsing out my vagina as well as the Cup every time I change it. It's not that annoying unless you don't have a bath available.

In additional news, if you're looking for a fantastic user's guide slash manual for the female body, check this out.

Otherwise, commence the celebratory dance party!

The things you learn

I went to get my nails done today and in the course of chatting with the manicurist, she mentioned a friend of hers who has been divorced for about a month. Her friend is being called back into court, because she also has a new boyfriend and is pregnant with his baby (she may possibly have been pregnant at the time of the divorce, I'm unclear on the exact timeline). And the grand total of all of this is that you're not allowed in Illinois to get divorced if you're pregnant (find it under "Illinois Joint Simplified Dissolution Procedure.") Well, the law says you're not allowed if, "the wife is not pregnant by the husband," but apparently until they can prove who the baby daddy is, the manicurist's friend's divorce is like...rescinded or something.

Exciting vaginal updates

• I have officially started my period today. Which marks the beginning of the 2nd month of my trial with the Diva Cup. Hopefully it shall go more smoothly than the first. Less leakage would definitely be nice.

• Have been using the Lelo balls for about a half hour every day since getting them a week ago. (It honestly feels like two weeks, I am bad with calendar numbers. Thanks be to blogger for keeping track of things for me.) I started out with the two pink for about 4 days, then did one pink/one blue for 3 days. So far Now-hubby hasn't mentioned anything specific about tightness during sexytimes, although he did say something last night when I was just sort of...resting on top of him and his dick was between my labia hotdog style. I guess I was tensing and he could feel that. I haven't seen Frisbee yet this week, so I don't have his input. Today, though, I put in two blue at once and it was like instantaneous horniness. I don't know if it was my vaginal muscles working that much harder to hold in the blue ones, which was similar to them clenching when I orgasm. I just know I was in an immediate and pretty intense state of arousal. And yes, I did masturbate with them in (using my Hitachi, so external stimulation only), and it was fantastic.

This is worth checking out

I have actually nothing to add to this. You should just check this article out. It's very well written, and interesting.

Getting carded

If you ever want a very quick crash-course in a lot of ways that relationships are weird, go into the greeting card section of a store.

I was in one just today, trying to pick out a wedding card for my coworker that's getting married.

Weddings are SRS business, guys.

For some reason I thought I could find a card about how they both secretly hate each other. Or like...how one of them is probably checking out sexier people when the other one's not around. Or what a time suck being in a relationship is.

Then I remembered that's cards for anniversaries and birthdays.

You hear that, people? You get one day to be SRS and happy with each other. Then it's back to the bullshit, inevitable suffering. Oh, sure. You can pick out that sparkly hearts anniversary card. But we all know what you're really thinking.

Pride!

I am too excited for words.

It's like...perpetual brain hurts 364 days out of the year listening to straight people and then for one glorious day the straight people are still around but in much lesser numbers than usual. And there will be floats and drag queens and dykes on bikes and so many of my favorite things! In a nutshell, this is me on the 30th:

Sex Toys

I got some Lelo beads yesterday after reading this post on r/sex where some lady described being able to lift 2 pound weights with her vagina. While that's not my goal, I still wanted to see what it was all about. I wore the pink ones in the harness yesterday while out walking (maybe about an hour total). I'm not sure if this is typical, but by the end of the day I felt like I had period cramps. Which, I'm not due for another week, so it's a bit early. Unsure if maybe it was just my pelvic muscles being sore in a similar way to when you work other muscles in your body?

Long story short, they seem pretty awesome and I'll keep everyone posted with longer term findings.

Then today while browsing ye ol' Fetlife, a sidebar ad popped up for Fifty Shades of Grey exclusive sex toy collection. Which, before everyone picks up their pitchforks, yes, I've read it. Well, I read the first one. Spoiler alerts - they break up at the end of the first one. That was good enough for me, so I quit. Also, I'll spare everybody the likely hundreds of pages rant that I could go on about this Fifty Shades sex toy collection.

I'll just outline the stupidest part of it: the game.

Players take turns to read a vanilla style question out loud, before all players must secretly vote on which (of the eight predetermined friends they selected before starting the game) they believe is best matched to the question: questions like, "which of your girlfriends do you think would be most likely to have an affair with their boss? Name the girlfriend you think is the most romantic?" or "Which girlfriend is most likely to Tweet about a steamy encounter?" When all players have chosen a friend they take turns to reveal their answers for all to see. Once all the giggles, laughter, 'Oohs' and 'Ahhs' have died down, any player that picked the same friend as the reader wins an Inner Goddess token.

There's also an expansion pack if you want to get really naughty about things.

I swear if I am ever at a party and somebody busts this game out I will literally flip the table over.

Sex sells

I can't even properly begin to get into the whole, "let's put conventionally attractive people in our advertisements because it will sell things!" There's also a bent to it of the ever popular, "women just want to talk about cooking and cleaning things." As though women can find a shirtless dude sexually appealing, but only if he's also doing something stereotypically feminine while having his shirt off. I'm thinking especially right now of the book, Porn for Women. (Pro tip: beat your head against the wall to try and alleviate the pain caused by the intense brain-fucking necessary to process why people think this way.)

Which brings me to the actual topic of today's entry: Kraft's new salad dressing ad campaign.

You know what? Let's forget everything I already said. The main issue I have with this ad is the tagline. "Let's get Zesty?" Instructions unclear - I poured salad dressing on my crotch. Now I have a zesty UTI. Thanks, Kraft.

Knowing is half the battle

Summer vacation is officially in swing. This means I have lots of time to sleep in (read, wake up at 8am instead of 5am) and catch up on lots of good TV shows I didn't get into when people told me I should. I'm also doing productive things like painting the trim around the house.

Also, read. I really missed reading. Which is not to say that I didn't read during the school year, but the subject matter changes considerably when I thought about bringing books in to read during my break. Titles including words like "sex" or "penis" got left at home. Now that school's out, I'm free to page through tomes dedicated to the finer aspects of the facts of life.

I would by no means call myself a "sexpert" for reading the books I do. I have a terrible memory in general, and especially when it comes to remembering specific statistics about things, or what author wrote what study. At best I consider myself, "that weird person you hang out with who knows random things about animal penises." Or possibly, "the girl who wants to ask everybody about the way they define 'relationship,' like it fucking matters!" While I have definite memory shortcomings, I still enjoy learning about all of these things. Learning is power. Thinking about things is fun. I'll let the March Hare take it from here:

If you're looking for something to read this summer...

This book sounds fucking spectacular.

(Take the time to read the linked NYT article as well, it's just as good.)