Featured: Lelo Luna Beads Original Review

The Lelo Luna Beads will always be a bit nostalgic for me. They were my very first adult purchase, and at the time I was so horrified of even browsing a sexy website that I used my browser's stealth mode to make my purchase. Oh how far one can come.

These are still a great set of kegel beads, primarily due to the free-rotating inner ball that knocks against the plastic walls of the outer sphere when one is engaged in enthusiastic grinding. When said grinding is enthusiastic enough you can even get subtle g-spot stimulation from them, which, during the size difference, is something the smaller Mini and Noir Luna Beads apparently don't provide.

I wrote a review of these for Cara Sutra, my first piece for that sweet lady and her site.

You’ll want to wear these beads when you have errands to run, stuff to do around the house, or even during a workout. The more you move, the more you’ll feel! Beware, though. The slight knocking sound produced can be heard in a room that’s quiet enough despite the rubber coating. Fortunately a modicum of background noise will conceal this entirely – you will “feel” more than hear the noise, so don’t be too paranoid. You’ll only be outed if you’re gyrating enthusiastically in a roomful of silent people, and hey, more power to you.

You can read the full review here.

Period Tracker Reviews: Flo (and final thoughts)

The fourth and final period tracker in my series of reviews is Flo, a pretty customisable lifestyle-monitoring app that is more than just a period tracker. If you're keen on integrating your fertility charts with other health-monitoring apps you might have, this might be the one for you.

Flo has a fairly genderless interface, if you look beyond the "Aunt Flo" reference and the pink icon. I mean, the icon has a feather logo, so pretty neutral in itself, but the backdrop to the feather is pink. The app itself has an intuitive aesthetic; with all your periodey details as a header at the top and a big circular area giving you the highlights of your cycle (period starts in six days! Low chance of getting pregnant!). I really like the way you have a bunch of backgrounds to choose from as well, from candyfloss clouds to space to a chalkboardey-looking black. The interface is functional in design as well. You indicate when your period starts with a tap on the self-explanatory footer, and the app predicts the duration of your gore-fest based on your previous data -- although you can adjust this manually as well. Another tap when the period ends and that's pretty much it.

You can record all sorts of other salient bodily experiences with the handy + button, which allows you to track mood, sexual activity, discharge and periodey symptoms. Options for tracking menstrual flow only appear when you've actually recorded menstruation, which is great because it streamlines the interface to reduce scrolling past stuff that's actually irrelevant to what you're experiencing most of the month. To emphasise this, the very first option is for monitoring your lifestyle, with options such as weight, sleep, physical activity, and water consumption -- although you can edit what options you want to be able to track. Anything you record is added to the home page, giving you an at-a-glance look at what's been happening on that day.

While I dutifully recorded my exercise, cramps, and backache, the water thing was the most exciting to me. I drink a lot of water and sort of just keep a rough mental tally of how much I consume on a daily basis. It's not unusual for me to tot it up and think, oh, only three litres by 5pm, better get on that. The maximum limit was five litres, so I set my target to that and recorded everything I drank by initially using the + button and then later just tapping the convenient water shortcut. On the first day I reached my 5l goal surprisingly quickly and still felt a bit thirsty afterwards. The water I consumed on that fateful day totalled about seven litres, causing those around me to speculate whether I had diabetes. "Do you urinate a lot?" the secretary at the admin office asked, having noted my frequent visits to the water-cooler. "Because you know that's a symptom of diabetes!"

Yeah, I pee a lot. I drank five litres of water on a regular basis; it comes with the territory. Incidentally, I have had both insulin and blood sugar levels tested and I'm fine. I guess I just like to stay well-hydrated.

All this recorded information can be viewed graphically so that you can check out trends in your cycle, exercise, weight and whatever else you're tracking. What's super cool is that you have the option to connect your Fitbit or Google Fit apps to Flo, creating a more accurate and streamlined record of your overall health via a single platform. This gives you a better perspective on how your cycle might affect how you eat and the energy you have. While I haven't used this option, I can see it being appealing to a health-oriented person looking for a comprehensive, holistic way to keep an eye on their body.

Flo also has a 'pregnancy mode' for those who are already with child, which gives a countdown to the birth and a reminder to check your cycle afterwards. Trying to avoid pregnancy mode at all costs? Set automated reminders to take your pill or eschew ovulation sexuals.

While I started out as a Clue user, I really liked Flo. Out of the three new apps I reviewed, I would definitely choose Flo as my go-to because it allows you to investigate so much more about your body than just how much you bleed every month. However, I'm going to be sticking with Clue because it's a little more minimal and a better fit for the way I use health/lifestyle apps. While all the features are exactly what I like about Flo, I stopped using it to record everything but period symptoms after the first few weeks or so. It seems that an abundance of features is just not for me -- I don't utilise them all, and prefer the low-maintenance simplicity of Clue.

You'll love Flo if:

• You want a gender-neutral app
• You want to keep track of your overall health and lifestyle
• You like to customise your apps

FYI

Website.

Featured: Donating My Eggs and What It Cost Me

A few months ago, I wrote a very personal post for Slutty Girl Problems about my egg donation last year.

I decided to register with Nurture as a donor because I am already a blood/organ/bone marrow donor, and I understand that people are willing to go through great lengths to have a child, especially one they can carry themselves. While I still feel that adoption is the most ethical route for those that wish to have children, genetics is an enormous motivational factor. Couples are willing to pay vast sums of money for IVF treatments so that they can carry and birth their own genetic offspring. Heck, in the case of egg donation, couples are willing to pay vast sums of money to have a child which may only be 50% genetically theirs.

We attach so much value to genetics, despite ideologically knowing that an adopted child will be no less our child than if we birthed it ourselves. Even as a donor with full knowledge and acceptance that the ova I gave would never grow into 'my' babies, I felt a vested interest in the process. My partner at the time was very serious about having children of his own someday, although he knew that I didn't want any. The donation brought these issues to the forefront of our relationship, and eventually we ended a very happy and healthy partnership due to the reality of our lifestyle differences -- how could we be together, if we knew we would eventually need to deal with the irresolvable question of children? Although we cared about each other, the experience forced us to confront the issues that we had been attempting to ignore. He struggled to understand how I could essentially have genetic offspring with another man (my donor couple was heterosexual), but not want children with him. Although I maintained that this was not the case, I wondered how I would feel if my partner eventually found a serious girlfriend who couldn't conceive, and through some twist of fate, they selected me as a donor? Naturally, egg donation is completely anonymous and neither of us would have known, but the idea of that possibility was enough to make me realise that the emotional attachment of genetics still has a hold on me.

I still don't regret my donation. After the procedure I received a gift and a card from my receiving couple (through the donation agency of course -- anonymity, remember?) thanking me profusely. It just made me understand the relevance of my decision to donate; the enormity of my decision to give something so insignificant to me -- something that would have been shed along with my uterine lining and discarded in the toilet -- and the impact that it would have on someone else's life. Although the experience was difficult and I still miss my previous partner, I also understand that we would have needed to break up eventually.

Below is an excerpt from the article. The published SGP version has been edited slightly, but I preferred the original text:

This is what it’s like in the weeks leading up to the retrieval: You keep the meds in the fridge between doses, and after a while you start feeling emotional. You start crying when the weather is too warm or the parcel you’d ordered is a day late. You also have about a day’s worth of crazy, inexplicable diarrhoea. You feel your ovaries getting heavy with eggs, swelling to the size of oranges (for reals – oranges!) and becoming externally palpable when you rub your lower belly. You get strange, stabby pains sometimes, and are forbidden from exercise in case your ovaries twist under their own bloated weight. At night you put your hand just above your pubic bone and rub yourself softly, trying to soothe your weirdly pregnant body. You’re told to use barrier methods due to your rabbitlike fertility, and drink lots of water.

You have blood drawn to see whether your hormonal levels are on track, and at some stage you’re flown to Johannesburg for ten days to be close to the donation centre. You have more ultrasounds and clinic visits and receive additional hormones. The new batch comes as a powder that you need to mix and inject using a real needle, not a pen, and causes a mild allergic reaction that stings and leaves a large, itchy welt around the injection site. You’re terrified that you’ll accidentally give yourself an embolism but an internet search tells you that the needle has an inbuilt mechanism to prevent air from entering your body. You wish you’d bothered to do the search before repeatedly stabbing yourself to try avoid injecting the bubbles.

The day before the retrieval, you need to inject at a very specific time, which happens to be exactly at the moment of an interval in a theatre show you’re watching with a friend. The lights come on and Sweeny Todd Live patrons start filing past you as you pull the needle out your belly. The timing is important because it signals to your body that it needs to release the waiting eggs.

You spend the night before the retrieval alternating between crying over Skype to your boyfriend and feeling anxious about the anaesthesia, because maybe it’s still a childhood fear despite whatever the doctors told you.

Read the full article here.

Period Tracker Reviews: Eve

Continuing my series of reviews of the top-rated period trackers on for Android, the third one I looked at was Eve by Glow.

 To be honest, this was the most annoying app I’d had to use. Eve’s target audience appears to be .. pubescent cis girls? I thought I would like Eve. I really did. The icon looked sleek, minimal, and classy. Upon downloading it, I wondered if it would replace Clue as my go-to recordkeeping chart of gore. Unfortunately, it was nothing like I expected. I like a more streamlined, minimalist approach that's not too girly, and Eve seems to embrace an overwhelmingly enthusiastic woo-girl aesthetic that is liberally-sprinkled with pop-culture gifs, peppy graphics and a manic cheerfulness that makes me feel like the designers were rather cheerfully smashed while making these choices.

The interface is a bit cluttered with "Daily Gems," "Eve Moments," and ads for stuff you can pay for. Exciting. Initially, I couldn't figure out how to add any information about my actual period, until I realised there was a little + button in the lower right corner of the screen, camouflaged in the clutter of the ads. Eve offers a wide variety of symptoms to record, and the images are quite humorous, if moderately offensive to trans, non-binary or otherwise gender-fluid folks. You can track your exercise, mood (if you regularly feel FOMO during your cycle, this may be the app for you), vaginal discharge, and whether you had sex. The sex icons are all of cutesy fruit, with "banana-free" and "all me" options. And this is about as progressive as it gets. Other graphics depict slender, feminine bodies and lady panties, lipsticked mouths on backgrounds made up of tiny peace signs and hearts, stuff like that. Eve also explains logged symptoms in a useful, if slightly irritating best-girlfriend way that I've never encountered from any of my actual friends. "You're feeling calm, girl!" Eve enthusiastically sings. "There isn't anything wrong with knowing your body, girl!" it tells me as I log my incidence of clear cervical fluid. Suddenly, I felt like I was in highschool, but not real highschool. The highschool you read about in Sweet Valley High books or see depicted in High School Musical.

All of this isn't necessarily bad if particularly girlish cis ladies are your target audience, but when you select something from the health log, it isn't added to your cycle record. Instead, it just sort of sits there, beneath the ads, making the aesthetic even messier. You have to scroll down to even see anything, and you can't see at which point what physical quirk happened unless you actually select the "view trend" option, which tracks that particular symptom in isolation. It does give you a cool little graph detailing the average occurrences of your missing libido (signified by a pair of granny panties), but the fact that the representation of your actual cycle doesn't show this irks me.

And your cycle? Where do you view that?

Good question, surprisingly. It took some searching, but eventually I found it, hidden among the Gems (more on those later). It's a circular layout with periods indicated in red and the fertile window in green. What's rather nice is that the interior of the circle flashes handy updates like a ticker-tape, like your chances of getting pregnant on the present day and when your next period is due. There is also an option to view it calendar-style, which is also rather useless in terms of visually tracking symptoms other than periods. If this doesn't matter to you, then that's cool. I just don't get why it's not better integrated with the aesthetic in a more intuitive and user-friendly way, instead of having all the details dumped at the bottom of the home page as if tacked on like an afterthought. It feels like the functionality of the app has been impeded by these design choices -- why offer these options if you can't integrate them more seamlessly?


But wait! Eve has additional functions to make up for the dysfunctionality of its actual functions! Introducing Eve Gems. The Gems are cute little quizzes and informative guides about sexuality, anatomy, and health that occasionally keep me occupied while I pee. Continuing the pop-culture focus and all-round enthusiasm of the app, the Gems are peppered with emojis and relevant gifs that (I presume) are meant to make you feel like you're interacting with a media-savvy friend. A media-savvy friend who is inexplicably interrogating you on sex-lingo and "Vag TLC." Oh wait, that one's not free. Yes, you can pay for additional Gems for topics such as Guy Psych, Tease Him, Period Survival. So, cisgender heteronormativity? You bet.

Like the recent Clue update, Eve has a community option which allows you to interact with other people using the app, and there's an emphasis on sharing "Moments" (like cycle updates, photos, Gem scores) with IRL friends as well. While I wrote in my Clue review that I didn't really understand this function, I checked out the Glow Community forum and actually felt ... uplifted? Perhaps due to the cis-centric nature of the design, users feel free and safe to let their lady-sides loose, generally in positive ways. "Post your most recent photo that makes you feel confident!!" one user says, and below is a flurry of women and girls posting images of new haircuts, Snapchat-filtered selfies, in-progress workout shots, and flawless eye-makeup. One soldier uploads an image of her pulling a silly face, in full uniform, after graduating in her training programme. Below are comments from others saying wow, your eyes are so blessed, OMG you're beautiful, damn, you cute AF. Wow. Gorgeous. Stunning.


Other forum topics include reaction images to use if a guy you don't have that relationship with asks for nudes, moms posting updates on the fruits of their fifteen-hour labour, feminist rants, advice on your sexual debut, reviews of menstrual cups and just ... girls being girls, helping girls, and building a community together. It was amazing, to be honest.

And, finally, one person complained at the trans-exclusionary nature of the app. The user was a transman detailing his struggles in finding a period tracker that didn't mess with his dysphoria, and many users commented expressing their sympathy. One even suggested he switch to Clue instead, and the developers even commented on the post, acknowledging the discrepancy in their design. Who knows if anything will change, but maybe that dude ended up switching to a non-triggering alternative as advised by a friendly community member. Which is great. We're all here to help each other out, guys.

Yes, this is cute and all, but lest we forget, all those gifs and quizzes require data data. If you don't mind Eve sending you near-daily notifications to check out new Gems and limit flipping through the forums, you might not be too irritated by this.

You'll love Eve if:

• You want a tracker with a community focus
• You are cis/het and enjoy a more feminine aesthetic
• You are regularly in a WiFi area that allows you to use all the features

Fab Sex Stores: The Bedroom Interview

All hail the fabulous sex stores. The clean and well-lit, the perfectly-presented, the gloriously stocked and professionally-staffed paragons of the adult industry; your cause is noble and your hearts are pure. You allow us to step inside without fear or shame, you present us with goodies from charming displays, you give us knowledgeable and friendly staff and you don’t freak us out. We salute you.

Everybody knows what a sweet jam bachelorette parties are, especially when the lass getting hitched is your oldest friend. And everybody knows that you need to end up in a sex store at some point, because wedding gifts are important. So what could be better than cute sex toys that will make the happy couple think of you every time they get intimate?

Nothing, of course. Because I am that creepy friend. Turned out I loved my visit to The Bedroom so much, I had to do an interview with co-owner Tamarin. They're just that good, and I'll tell you why.

The store aesthetic is all Moulin Rouge and backstage dressing-room, replete with deep red walls and feather boas everywhere.The bride-to-be and I got overexcited upon walking in and finding a collapsible pole in the corner, but it just got better from there. We swooned over racks of sensual accessories, from Bijoux Indiscrets body jewellery and nipple-tassels to orgasm-enhancing balms and a truly dizzying array of lubricants, perfume blends and edible body paint. We flounced from room to room, reading each other blurbs from the erotica in the book display, swiping tickly feather devices over our faces, and taking turns getting spanked with floggers and paddles. A right handful, the both of us.

Through all this, the sales assistant remained incredibly patient, making herself available without intruding on our gleeful exploration. Eventually, the future bride asked if she could have some recommendations for what toy to get, and we were taken through a guided tour of which items would good for her. There were numerous products on display or in drawers that could be switched on and tested, and she left very happy with her purchase (which was greatly approved of by the fiancé, just by the by). Each of our goodies were perfectly concealed in discreet paper bags held closed with red ribbon, a sort of minimalist-luxe nod to the overall aesthetic.

Interested? Read the backstory of the franchise below.

Period Tracker Reviews: Period Tracker Calendar

Do you need a period tracker? I got you covered. I'm reviewing the four best-rated free apps for Android, so you can chart your fertility in a way that works for you. Next up is

Period Tracker

It says what it does! Period Tracker is the most minimal of the apps I downloaded. The interface is pretty gender-neutral, with a green colour palette accented with red. The icon is a daisy on a green background with the word "Calendar" below it (sneaky!), but that's the limit of the girly aspects of the app. This is also mitigated by the discreet name and interface, which means that hardly anyone would realise you're currently haemorrhaging if they catch a quick peek at your screen. If you're non-binary or trans, this might be great for you.

As the app itself suggests, it's basically just a calendar format that allows you to really view your menstrual situation at a glance. The header gives you a handy little overview as well, reminding you when you're due for your next fertile window or period. Once the app has learnt your cycle, fertile days are marked with little pale green circles, with ovulation highlighted in dark green. Periods are indicated with big green ticks, with future periods predicted with solid blocks. You have the option of tracking your intimacy with tiny pink hearts, which is handy for those trying to get pregnant (or avoid it). The interface is incredibly user-friendly to operate; you just tap a day to add a period tick and hold a long tap to indicate intimacy or add another note. What's handy is that when you do the long tap, a little pop-up appears telling you whether you have a high or low chance of getting pregnant on that particular day -- you know, if the fertile window markers weren't enough of a hint.

There's also a graph section which really gives a you perspective on your bodily trends, providing visual representations of your period and intimacy stats. It would be pretty cool to see how your cycle affects your libido and gain a better understanding of how your body works. Of course, I say it would be cool, because this option wasn't relevant to me, but I'm sure it works just fine. I also really liked the way the creators of the app used the word "intimacy" instead of "sex," removing the implication that you're just recording penetrative hetero stuff and making it a lot more inclusive. A medal to progressive app-designers! We salute you.

Unfortunately, one thing I wished Period Tracker included was a more accurate recording system that functioned at a glance, like the rest of its intuitive design. The other apps I reviewed provided the option for marking things like the heaviness of flow, spotting, or other bodily symptoms like cramps or bloating. However, I do feel like this was a conscious decision on part of the designers. The app is intentionally minimal, simple, with a no-frills functionality that doesn't get caught up in superfluous functions that you might not end up using anyway. If you felt the need to record your intense craving for refined carbohydrates and chocolate while speculating on whether it had anything to do with your heavy flow, you could always make a note about it.

You'll love Period Tracker if:

• You just want a functional app to do the basics
• You want recording your details to be quick, efficient, and effective
• You prefer a discreet and gender-neutral aesthetic

Period Tracker Reviews: Clue

Has anyone ever tried to chart their fertility before? Those who have put stickers on a calendar and then tried to do some maths will be reassured to know there’s an app for that. Period trackers allow you to record the days of your period in order to map your fertility, allowing you to better observe trends and quirks in your cycle that might affect other areas of your life. The app will often predict when you’re due to ovulate or notify you if you’re late, and most of them have a function for recording other period-related physical idiosyncrasies as well.

Why track your fertility?

Because knowledge = power! Being aware of the fluctuations in your body is never a bad thing. Of course, people who might be particular invested in the nuances of their cycle might be those who want a backup to other methods of birth control (or perhaps trying to go the non-hormonal route) and want to avoid having sex during their fertile window. Conversely, you might be trying to figure out when the best time is to have sex in order to conceive. Or maybe you just want to keep track of a bunch of other symptoms to see if there are any weird bodily inclinations that may relate to your cycle or lifestyle in general.

Basically, anyone with a uterus can benefit from taking notes detailing the weird stuff that happens to their bodies during their period. As with everything, there’s like a million different kinds out there, and most of those are mediocre. Fear not! I downloaded a few free apps to try so that you don’t have to (but only the highest-rated ones; I’m not a monster). This will be a four-part review of the top apps for Android available at the Play store, with an overview of their features and which app might be good for your way of life.

 

Clue

Clue was the first period tracker I ever used, and therefore I’m most familiar with it. It’s got a really cool gender-neutral design that doesn’t scream “BEHOLD, I AM DOING LADY THINGS WITH MY FLOWERY PINK LADY APP NOW,” and the icon looks a bit like a drawing of an atom trying to be a mandala. Because of this it’s pretty discreet, with a minimal, primary-coloured aesthetic that makes it quite stylish.

I still find Clue about the easiest to use out of the four I have tried, although I may be biased because I’ve been using it for the longest time. Initially, the app asks you for an approximate duration of your cycle and the length and date of your last period, but if you don’t remember the app will set averages and learn your personal traits by itself. This is the age of AI, people. Your period tracker is smarter than the computer that first sent people into space.
The app’s no-fuss circular interface gives you an overview of your current cycle at a glance, with ovulation indicated by a little starburst and PMS as clouds, and you can also scroll through a calendar view to get better perspective on previous periody activity. It also allows you to track a myriad of symptoms, from basic stuff like intensity of flow to energy levels, cravings, sex drive and stool quality (fun). I quite liked the humour inherent in all the little icons – the worried diarrhoea face always gets me, and the symbol for sex is a person lying in the classic ‘Fabio’ pose. There is a truly dizzying array of symptoms available to track, but I like the way that you can customise the ones available in the menu so that you don’t spend forever scrolling in search of a way to forever immortalise your gassiness. Additionally, the symptoms selected appear in a clearly visible but uncluttered way on the cycle circle (heh), allowing you to view how you felt on a particular day without the interface getting messy.

Clue allows you to set notifications for stuff like your imminent fertile window, good times to check Basal Body Temperature for those next-level ovulation nerds, and friendly reminders to do a breast exam or take your pill. I am also super down with the way that there’s an informative little information sign on the upper corner of the screen that leads you to a sciencey page that explains the relevance of that specific function – with references!

Recently, they upgraded to include a community function, allowing you to share your all your gory details with friends who also have the app. I don’t use this at all myself, but it might be cool for partners to stay informed on their respective cycles and those of ... their ... friends? To be honest, this function isn’t relevant in my life so I don’t understand its usefulness, but points for making bleeding a social activity. I mean, you could just tell the world how you’re constipated yet simultaneously saddled with an elevated sex drive and a heavy flow via social media, but where’s the fun in that?

 

You’ll love Clue if:

• You want a minimalist aesthetic that still gives you everything you need
• You want a non-binary design that isn’t obviously periody
• You like having access to some information that explains the salient points of fertility and body stuff that isn’t gendered

FYI

Clue's website and Twitter.