It is no exaggeration when I say that the last few years have easily been the best for me romantically, emotionally, and sexually. Like not only am I in an incredible relationship with my two best friends, but we’re also having the best sex any of us have ever had, and my relationship with myself is the healthiest it has ever been too. Of course I’m still a work and progress, self-care and positive self-talk are still struggles, but shit is pretty great, y’all.
Especially on the pleasure front.
While there have been a lot of sex bloggers, sex workers, and advocates along the way who’ve really impacted my journey, one of the biggest influences on my sexual health and wellness efforts has undoubtedly been The Crash Pad Series. If you’re unfamiliar with the site, it is an ethical porn site renowned for its queer and trans affirming erotic content and pleasure focused sexual education resources. With over 283 videos, and more being filmed every month, there is definitely NO shortage of incredible fucking sexy scenes.
Amongst all of them though are a few specific ones that really struck me on a personal level. So, here are four of those standout episodes and how they had a positive affect on my developing needs, desires, boundaries, and relationships:
1. Episode 218 – Sex can be fun, and funny, and playful as fuck!
One of the longest running jokes between my partners and I comes from the first threesome we had together back in October of 2017. While orgasming, I was worried that I was going to ejaculate in Kate’s mouth (which she doesn’t like), so, as I was literally there I exclaimed “it’s happening!”
At first, nobody seemed to want to acknowledge it, but once a few moments passed and cleanup had happened I finally asked: “did… did I say ‘it’s happening?”
All three of us fucking howled with laughter and it has since proven to be a pretty defining moment for our sex life as a throuple. That is, while we get to a lot of really hot group fucking on the regular we’re all also super awkward and clumsy. Embracing that about ourselves has made sexy times a hell of a lot less stressful! But it did take me a while to get to a place in my sex life where those sort of moments don’t completely mortify me anymore.
As I explained recently in my February Photofest post Silly is Sexy: “I used to get so wrapped up in worrying about all the clumsy, sluggish, embarrassing parts of sex that it sometimes actually made the whole act of it a bit stressful. I thought that sexy was serious, and if you weren’t being serious then you weren’t being sexy.”
Oh how wrong I was! A big shift for me was watching happy, giggly, erotic scenes like Crash Pad Episode 218 with Byron Dubois and Patience Morgan. Seeing that one for the first time a few years ago genuinely went a really long way in helping me redefine sex as much more comfortable, relaxed, and beautifully imperfect. Not only was it hot as fuck, but it also had me smiling the whole way through and enjoying how not too seriously they both took such intimate acts.
Honestly, it really opened my world up to making sure that my partners and I were, first most and foremost, having fun while fucking!
2. Episode 219 – Body Positive Clothed Sex
Up until my late 20s I actually dreaded the thought of getting completely naked during sex, but it was always something that was eventually expected from my partners in the past. I’m somebody who has long struggled with body acne, my weight, and then later dysphoria, so, I used to feel very uncomfortable with taking off my shirt in particular. However, there were always expectations of my past partners around getting completely naked when we fucked. So, despite all of my personal discomfort I always caved, eventually taking off that shirt, because I thought that being fully nude just kind of came with the territory of having sex.
Of course I now know this to be entirely untrue and I’ve since come to learn that there are a myriad of ways to give and receive sexual pleasure, with or without your clothes on! Having amazing, respectful, empowering, understanding partners who don’t pressure me to undress if I don’t want to, for one, has been an enormous help.
Another thing that was seeing Crash Pad Episode 219 starring Chocolate Chip and Eros LaFemme. The fact that this was an explicit porn scene in which one participant remained fully clothed the whole time and the other engaged in only partial nudity was incredibly fucking affirming to me. It showed me that I can define my own sexy and experience pleasure too, even with most or all of my clothes on.
3. Episode 259 – There’s Nothing Quite Like Gender Affirming Genderplay
Genderplay has always been a HUGE fucking turn-on for me but, unfortunately, a lot of what’s in circulation out there tends to be pretty queerphobic, transphobic, and sexist in execution. Take how mainstream sissification play mostly focuses on depicting cis men being forced into unwilling “feminization” and subjected to various acts that, whether intentional or not, assert crossdressing, or being trans, as negative or undesirable.
Or how a lot of trap play out there generally relies on the concept that a cis man who convincingly passes as a cis woman can trick (or “trap) other cis men into having sex with him and turn them queer. Which of course sounds an awful lot like the “trans panic” defense that cis men use for murdering trans women when they feel their masculinity or heterosexuality has been threatened during or after having intercourse with them.
And yet, as problematic as these acts can be, for some they are the only way for people to explore their sexuality and gender in a way that makes sense to them. As a queer, non-binary androbabe though, while these things were once a big draw for me too I now find a lot of it really cringy and was sadly beginning to think that genderplay was simply not accessible to me anymore.
Then along came Crash Pad Epidsode 259 with Devon Whipp roleplaying as a self-described “basic transbro” as Vivi Marie punished them through a sexy queerification process involving lipstick, duct tape, spanking, facesitting, andmore. Finally I was seeing genderplay in a goofy, non-toxic, queer affirming way and I fucking loved it.
4. Episode 264 – Queer Threesomes are AMAZING!
My partners, Kate and Falon, and I LOVE trying out threesome positions we see in porn. But a lot of stuff out there is incredibly cisnormative and heteronormative, or fetishizing of queer and trans folks… And also sometimes really awkward and uncomfortable because not all bodies are built the fucking same, y’all. So it’s really hard to find anything featuring folks like us having awesome group sex through an affirming and empowering lens.
Fortunately, Crash Pad has been pretty revolutionary in this area for us all though. In particular it was this scene, featuring Alice the Wolfe, Ava D’Amore, and Margot Rose, that inspired us to try the Double Dip out, altering it in the ways we needed to for us to enjoy it most. As a result of that experience, and how much I love the scene in general, I consistently go back to it when brainstorming other threesome acts to try.
That’s because there is a actually lot going on in Episode 264 that’s really great, such as mutual masturbation, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bondage, dirty talk, and more. The whole scene is chock full of examples of queer and trans inclusive sex acts that I’ve always enjoyed doing with my partners but had not seen in such a diverse way before. Having this scene as a resource, and source of continued erotic inspiration, is incredibly exciting.
Also, a huge shoutout to all performers who have used a wand to stimulate their frenulum, because that shit fucking revolutionized how I experience self-pleasure. But how about the rest of y’all? What porn or erotica has had transformative affects on your sexuality and/or the sex that you’re having?