Crystal Delights - Spiders, Sugar Skulls, Dilators

One of the highlights of the recent Sexual Health Expo was meeting Shellie, the head honcho of Crystal Delights, so I wanted to spotlight them a bit more here. Crystal Delights makes a variety of really beautiful toys and medical devices. Gothic aficionados will especially appreciate that their work includes gorgeous dildos and butt plugs with embedded spiders or sugar skulls, some of them quite ornate. Cosplayers will appreciate their very wide range of animal tail plugs, in every color of the rainbow, both natural and faux. Their designs also feature a lot of neon raver glow under black light goodness. Some items even have bits of collectible vintage glass embedded in them. Crystal Delights won the XBiz Award for Nonpowered Pleasure Product of the Year.

Those of you in your twenties can stop reading here and just check out the aesthetics of Crystal Delights. Those of you in your forties or older should read on. For some reason, in elementary school and junior high and high school, American education feels compelled to tell us about our bodies at least yearly, even after we are old enough to have passed puberty and have first hand experience of what those changes involve. Culturally, we are a lot more silent on changes that can happen later on, after pregnancy or from simple aging. An issue many women face, as they age, is that it gets more challenging to insert things vaginally. This is particularly frustrating if you have one or more partners with big dicks.

Now that I’m sure I have horrified any younger folks still reading, I’m happy to share that one of the techniques for addressing this issue is called dilation. It is fundamentally a workout for your vag, intended to keep it doable. Crystal Delights has partnered with vagina expert Dr. Peter Pacik to create a line of glass dilators. They designed them to be shorter than standard dildos and dilators and hollow so they are lightweight, which allows them to be actually worn for extended time periods. Shellie tells me that they have found this means much faster results for women using them. Like all dilators, they come in a range of sizes from teeny to large and the idea is to start small and hopefully work your way up.

Also, super pretty work. Spiders. Cosplay RPG tails. Sugar skulls. Glowing. Shiny.

Crystal Delights - Spiders, Sugar Skulls, Dilators

BLT Punk Humor Zine Books Are Hot Off the Press!

Guess whose living room is filled with cartons of books! I have a whole lot of copies of BLT 25: Black Leather Times Punk Humor and Social Critique from the Zine Revolution in my living room right now. All the backers of the BLT Kickstarter have BLT in their living rooms (or more debauched places) now and some great unboxing pics have been coming in, which I’ll share with you all when the book officially on-sales. You can pre-order it from Amazon now for shipment in the second week of March. Alternatively, I’ve got a little BLT Indiegogo set up, which will also go to fund T-shirts and you can get the book asap. I am beyond thrilled with the BLT omnibus book. I love having such a weighty tome collecting all the issues published so far of the Black Leather Times punk humor zine. The articles and the humor really stand up to the test of time and still make a great read on BLT’s silver anniversary.

BLT Punk Humor Zine Books Are Hot Off the Press!

SHE Sexual Health Expo 2016

SHE, the Sexual Health Expo, just finished its second annual event. SHE focuses on a sex-positive educational approach to, ya know, sex and human sexuality in general. This year, The Pleasure Chest was the premier sex ed sponsor of the show and addend their extensive workshop expertise to the event. Pleasure Chest has been around for decades and, if you are sexually adventuresome and you live in Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago, you probably know that The Pleasure Chest hosts regular sexual education workshops at their store locations for people interested in exploring a wide range of topics, from tantric breathing to polyamory to pegging and strap-ons, and so much more.

A really cool thing about SHE was having such a large selection of quality workshops all in the same place for a two day period, bringing the synergy of top level experienced sex educators, bloggers, radio personalities, authors and toy makers together to talk candidly about things we too often don’t get the opportunity to discuss out in the open. A few standout examples of the talks available included Dr. Hernando Chaves suggesting exploring sensuality beyond the obvious, Stephanie Berman explaining bonus uses (beyond orgasm) of her innovative Semenette toy, Koko talking creative roleplay, and Rachel Kramer Bussel giving a seminar on Erotica Writing 101.

One of the real highlights of the weekend was Emily Morse broadcasting her popular Sex With Emily podcast live from the show floor. She got Jennie Steinberg‘s insight on the range of ways people express love from physical to verbal to helpful, got into the nitty gritty with Dirty Lola of convincing your partner to open up a relationship, had a hot discussion with Mollena Williams about discovering your own fetishes, and had a humorous chat with Reid Mihalko about dating people who share your values. Each of these speakers also expanded on these topics in their own seminars.

In addition to sex-positive education, SHE offered a diverse variety of exhibitors. Some of the bigger exhibit booths were from We-Vibe, Tantus, Sybian, and Kama Sutra. Some of my other favorites were Orchid and Serpent with their varied leather-oriented selection, Chakrubs, who make gorgeous sex toys out of granite crystals and semi-rare stones to bring good energy into the bedroom, and Crystal Delights, who make beautiful glass, ranging from cosplay plugs to one-of-a-kind vintage decorations to innovative health devices. Apparently I have really specific aesthetics about what I’d like to put in my vagina and they involve things being good-looking and hard and shiny and translucent.

I’d love to see the show expand with a little more room for discussions showing more diversity of perspectives in the SHE speaker selection, and maybe more controversial panel discussions alongside the workshop tracks, but it was pretty amazingly awesome for only the second year doing it. The Sexual Health Expo has a nice casual atmosphere and a sex-positive vibe. I’m excited to see what they have in store for the SHE weekend next year.

SHE Sexual Health Expo 2016