HPV: “We don’t know.”

The human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection, and there is a lot of information and misinformation about it floating around.  Recently, I had an illuminating discussion with a gynecologist who claimed to be up on the latest research, and her basic answer to a pile of interesting questions was, “we don’t know”.  This seems a little ridiculous, given that the CDC claims that “at least 50% of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives”.

Pressure Point Orgasm?

I attended Lady Thorn’s Fetish Flea Market last weekend, where numerous vendors had products old and new up for sale. One of the vendors was there, as he often is, with a selection of necklaces, arm bands, and claws, all of which he makes by working metal in interesting patterns; I will call him Thomas. This time, however, Thomas had an assistant helping him work the booth, who I will call Julia. With her assistance, he was demoing a pressure point on the back of the neck that apparently causes orgasms in some women. His claim was that many women achieve much pleasure from the pressure point, some orgasm from it, and it has no effect whatsoever on 15% of women. Furthermore, allegedly the more often you have it done to you, the easier it is to orgasm from it.

Beadings All Around…

… the adventures of Pepper, Jen, Ari, and Debby with needles and beads.

The day before Pride, Pepper and I (Debby) went to a “Genitorture with Needles” workshop, taught by Desiree. I had been hoping to learn a little more advanced needle technique (yes, I had previously participated in a birthday “crown of thorns” piercing, but I still didn’t feel qualified to start sticking needles into those oh-so-sensitive bits (or to let others poke needles into mine)). One of her demo bottoms was sporting a very pretty necklace, consisting of probably nine pins stuck vertically through her chest, each with elaborate beadwork. At the end of the class, Desiree offered to let us practice genital piercings on each other under her supervision. Nobody was super psyched to try it then and there, but we asked if she could instead teach us how to do beaded piercing jewelry. Desiree was eager to do so, and offered to let us use her beads to create our own design.

Kink or Climb?

A while ago, I attended a class on pain processing and catharsis, given by Lark and Keri.  While listening to their presentation, it occurred to me that I get some of the same things out of climbing as I do BDSM… and if I’m doing much of one, I tend to do less of the other.

One common theme is that of overcoming the body and the mind.  For example, in the class, Lark talked about strategies a bottom could use to prevent fainting (the idea being that the bottom didn’t want the scene to stop, and most tops would stop if the bottom fainted).  These were physical techniques (such as trying to feel your feet on the floor, keeping your eyes open, focusing on a single spot to prevent tunnel vision from closing down your vision entirely).  I don’t see an exact analog to climbing here, although paying careful attention to what you’re doing with your body while climbing is totally necessary (e.g. making sure not to overgrip holds, “resting” while in strenuous positions by deliberately switching your weight from one limb to another, etc).  Of course, processing pain differently than in regular life is important to both BDSM and climbing.  The techniques they taught for scening were interesting, but not relevant to climbing.  In climbing, one more often just wants to ignore pain, and continue on, hopefully to a position one can rest in.

How to Epilady Your Testicles

Some of you are asking, what the hell is an Epilady? It’s a small device that removes body hair by grabbing it and ripping it out. An Epilady has a rotating wheel, with little pieces on it that squeeze together and then pull. Hair gets caught in between and yanked out.

While there are lots of Epilady knockoffs, the Epilady company managed to establish their brand name as the name of the tool itself: check out their website for a lot of euphemistic language and pictures of smooth legs. My particular Epilady is the Legend, so everything I say here applies primarily to that model – I don’t know if other models vary in effect, or if they are pretty standard at this point.

This is a post about epiladying (is that a word?) your testicles. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Yanking out all those testicle hairs with a mechanical device?