NSFW Sunday Is Reviewing Sex Party Etiquette

Welcome to NSFW Sunday!

+ Queer Fat Femme has advice for your first sex party:

“I think it’s a great idea to have a desire so that way when you do talk to someone or they talk to you and the question comes up whether or not you want to negotiate something, you have things in mind. Examples might be, bondage, flogging, spanking, sex, making out, cuddling, watching porn together, watching scenes together, doing each other’s make-up, learning how to do something.

But going with no expectations is really important. If your getting laid is the only way you’ll feel successful at the party, you probably won’t be successful. Going with the flow and being open to genuine connections is probably better. I learned how to just let expectations go and be appreciative of the experiences I’ve had and wound up much happier (be this at conferences I thought would be total boink fests, and dates I’ve thought were sure things but then there was no chemistry).”

+ Ms. Naughty writes about why porn for women isn’t like Bic For Her:

“Even so, I think “porn for women” is very different to the “Bic Pens for Women” (which are the same ballpoint pens coloured pink or purple). We’re not just talking about the same old 3.5 positions with soft focus or a pink background. Sex is still something experienced in a gendered way; pen use isn’t. I’ve always considered porn for women to be about showing sex from a female perspective, giving priority to female pleasure and fantasy and deliberately acknowledging the female audience first and foremost. It speaks to the clit, not the cock.

It’s the long history of women’s exclusion from porn which makes the term “porn for women” still useful. Porn in and of itself has long been a man’s domain which has meant that women’s participation in, and enjoyment of porn, has always been othered. If the feminist idea of intersectionality is applied, we can’t ignore this history of othering. It has an effect on the way people view and experience porn now.”

+ Lindsay King-Miller answers questions on creepy significant others, self-doubt and height and size differences in queer sex:

“How much does size matter? Well, if your lady is into penetration, you have options from “one finger” to “your hand,” with detours into the entire available range of dildos, strap-ons, and other insertable sex toys. So, the discrepancy between your physical sizes matters basically none in that regard. It’s possible that you’ll never know the joy of fisting – at least not from the giving end – but rest assured that whatever size she needs to feel satisfied, you will be able to deliver.

There are some sex positions that are more complicated if one party is a lot taller than the other – standing up and from behind may both present challenges – but anything that you do lying down or sitting up or some combination of the two will be easy enough to manage, and those are the things you’ll probably want to start with anyway, as a sexually inexperienced lady-lover. If you have trouble fitting both of you on the bed lengthwise for oral-sex purposes, have her scooch up to the edge, with you kneeling on the floor. Since you dance together a lot, you already have some practice listening to and responding to her physical and verbal cues, and that’s really the most important part of sex. Anything else that you want to try, you’ll figure out a way (pillows? stepstools?) to make it work for the two of you.”

+ New discussion and studies are focussing on asexuality:

“Despite evidence that sexual desire and arousal are not usually absent in asexuals, current research indicates that aces do have significantly lower sexual desire and arousal than sexual individuals. Orgasmic function also tends to be lower. Several aces even said that while they can experience orgasm (a reflexive response), it is almost always — and this is a direct quote — “meh.”

Brotto’s study indicates, however, that these lower levels are not caused by an “impaired psychophysiological sexual arousal response.” As one asexual put it, “everything works, we just don’t want to get somebody else involved.”

Tellingly, most asexuals who masturbate say they rarely think about another person during the act, and even when they do, it’s in a non-sexual context. Many aces say they think of nothing when they masturbate, while a handful indicated that certain fetishes, like BDSM, come to mind.”

+ Sex educator Betty Dodson gives advice to a woman wondering whether a 36-year age difference might work:

“(1) Could a 36 year age difference work?
Absolutely! My last age difference was 42 years with me as the senior!

(2) When would be the right time to have sex?
ASAP. If it’s no good then you can move along. Right now it’s all romantic fantasies that have damn little to do with reality. Initiate sex NOW!”

+ Is polyamory a sexual orientation? In an opinion piece, Cathy Risenwitz argues it is:

“After much consideration, I believe “non-monogamous” is an orientation, based mostly on three of its similarities with gender-preference orientations. Like gender-preference orientations, non-monogamy 1. has biological bases, 2. exists on a sliding scale and 3. faces some of the same barriers to widespread acceptance. All this leads me to the conclusion that the more comfortable we can get with people living out their own variations on strict monogamy the happier, healthier and more honest we’ll all be.”

+ “Airport Bathroom,” by Ms Robin, recently won an erotica contest run by Entwined Erotica and Good Vibes. Here is part of it:

“Keeping her lips on my mouth, and my throat, she works her hands under my shirt, teasing my nipples and loosening my bra.

She starts to bite my neck again, sharp little pricks that make me jump. She hits the vein in my throat that seems to run straight to my cunt. A flood of warm wetness soaks my panties. She lifts my hands to her mouth and kisses each of my fingertips. “Now do your work, little explorers.” She guides one hand to the nape of her neck, the other goes to her thighs, and I start to move on my own. Her shorts unbutton easily. I want to know what she tastes like.”


All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email bren [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.

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Ryan Yates

Ryan Yates was the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com, with bylines in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, and elsewhere. They live in Los Angeles and also on twitter and instagram.

Ryan has written 1142 articles for us.

14 Comments

  1. As a short (under five feet) person the thing about height differences is relevant to my interests

  2. It’s actually kinda interesting the amount of lesbians who are tell, it led me to devising a word for the tall-lesbian: a unicorn! (Cause they’re so hard to find, at least, for me).

    • I’m 5’8″ ish and was just told by a girl the other day that she really likes that I’m tall. I don’t think it’s all that tall but if it works for her?

    • Ah I can never find tall lesbian women! The only one is my lesbro and… well lesbros! Luckily I found a funsized lady friend that I love very much.

  3. Bwahhh so much femme tenderness in the pictures this week, I love it! Sadly since most femme-on-femme imagery in the mainstream media is geared toward straight cis men, there is normally no chemistry between the women depicted, so it always makes me happy to see representations of femme women that are genuine, sexy and sweet at the same time.

    • Hear hear.
      As an aside, why is it that those argyle knee socks ramp up the sexiness of that second picture x4857 for me?

      • Nearly naked girls in knee socks are always hot. It’s one of the inexplicable and unchanging rules of sexiness.

  4. Ah, the height difference thing! Although, I clicked to read on sex party etiquette because at the moment mine consist of holding up the wall and being painfully shy.

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