Backpacking & masturbation

I just tried Googling "backpacking and female masturbation," but didn't find much. I wanted information on the challenges of masturbating while backpacking and female, and to find strategies for how to sneak in what self-nookie you can. I *did* find a rather entertaining and insightful blog post about male masturbation while backpacking. There wasn't much on that topic either, though.

Then I thought, well, why not just post about travelling and female masturbation myself?

A few years ago I went on a backpacking trip for a month and a half. At that point I had backpacked across Canada, but I had never been outside of North America. Before I left for my trip, I asked a friend with a lot of travel experience: what do about masturbating? At that point I was doing it almost every day. My friend told me not to worry, that I'll be so busy doing exciting new things that I won't think about it at all.

Boy. Was. She. Ever. Wrong.

The urgency of my sex drive did NOT change, and I found myself in hostels and on trains with next-to-no privacy and a really, really itchy clit. How did I manage for those 6 weeks?

- I put a towel on the floor of single bathrooms in my hostels and just went at it (quickly, no time for leisure here)

- While travelling briefly with a friend and staying in the same hotel rooms, I took advantage of the few minutes she was in the shower

- Again travelling with that friend, a couple of days I begged off and stayed in the hotel room while she went to a museum. I took advantage of my privacy and was leisurely and loud. Glorious!

- One night I couldn't find a hostel and had to rent a hotel room. Again, I took advantage of my privacy.

- Beyond that, I just crossed my legs and waited it out. It was fucking hard.

I was sorely (hah) tempted to try masturbating in my hostel room during the day while people were out, but I was scared of someone walking in. I think *one* time I did sneak a quicky in, but I was so nervous I didn't enjoy it much.

Recently I watched a great backpacking documentary called A Map for Saturday. At one point it talked about sex in hostels, and shared the tip (which I knew about for sleeping, but not for sex!) of putting sheets around the lower bunk so you're tented in before you go at it. I might try that next time -- if the room is empty when I start (and I have lots of sheets, of course), at least if someone were to walk in at least there would be a bit of modesty.

What brings me back to this question of how to manage to masturbate while travelling is the fact that I'm considering long-term travel again (much longer this time!), and I know this will be a issue for me. My sex drive has diminished a bit and I seem to be able to control it to some extent (neglect it and it will be neglected; encourage it and it will blossom back up like nobody's bidness -- kind of convenient, actually).

My ideas to sneaking in masturbation on the road so far are:

- Find single bathrooms. They're the only privacy you really have while travelling, so bring a towel or a dirty top to put down and then go to 'er.

- Snag lower bunks in empty hostel rooms and string a sheet up for privacy. Preferably in a smaller room during the day so there's fewer chances of a walk-in. And if that does happen, causally get up a few minutes later and act nonchalant when the person comes to the realization that no-one else was in there with you OMG.

- Take advantage of any private moments you have. Forced to rent a hotel room? Sweet! Laundry in the tub *AND* rubbing one out at leisure! Friend in the shower? Well, okay, only if you're really desperate. Alone in a popular museum exhibit? Probably don't want to risk it...

- Rent a hotel room once in a while just for the hell of it. Backpacking is a lifestyle, not a vacation, and it's quite exhausting and stressful (although exhilerating!). A break once in a while is welcome. Sleep in, masturbate loudly, do your laundry in the tub, watch strange TV shows from the country you're in. Sweet!

What are your ideas for managing your sexual well-being while on the road? What experiences have you had with masturbation while travelling? Please share! Maybe the next time someone Googles "backpacking and female masturbation," they'll stumble across some good advice!

The egg vibe

Vibrators have always been my favourite toy. Ever since I won a vibrator at a sex-toy party, there's been no turning back.

That first vibe was a bullet or egg-shaped vibrator. It was a little vibrating egg with a long wire attaching it to a rectangular box for the batteries. One time I bought what I thought was the same vibrator, but it actually was more bullet and less egg (thinner with a narrow tip rather than oval and broader tip pictured here). I didn't like the bullet nearly as much - I found there was too much intensity in the small tip for me.

I've since moved on to the longer style of vibrator - the ones that can be 5-7 inches of solid plastic. I'd always had these as a less satisfying backup to the egg vibe, and I did like that they doubled as insertion tools. But at first I found their size clunky in my hand and difficult to hold. Looking back now, I'm not actually sure why I stopped using the egg vibes, but I suspect I had a hard time finding the style I preferred in stores. (I've used online shopping from time to time to order my toys, but I prefer to buy them at local sex shops.)

I did try the egg vibe once more about a year ago, and I fell in love once again. This model was bright red and I felt like a retro goddess diva using it. (Oh, marketing.) I bought it because I was in a relationship at the time, and I was hoping the egg-and-cord style would allow for some hands-off vibrating action for me while we had intercourse. Unfortunately I think this is what led to its untimely demise. After using it like this a few times, the cord become frayed and the vibration stopped working altogether. The friction from our bodies was too much for the poor thing.

But it was still very useful in its afterlife. I kept the now-detached egg in my lover's bedside drawer, and used it when I needed that final polishing-off after sex. (I'd rarely found non-vibrating surfaces effective for me, but in the presence of my lover -- and often with his eager assistance -- I found the little hollow egg was equally effective whether vibrating or not.

Now it's back to the longer vibrators. Maybe one weakness I have for the longer ones is their versatility - they act as a dildo in a pinch (and lately I've found that they can hit my g-spot if I'm really turned on!) and are a very cheap and accessible vibrator. I will always remember the egg vibrators with fondness, though -- and when I do buy another one, I will keep it for solo sex this time!

Housekeeping

After getting many spammy comments for about two months now, I've changed the comment settings for this blog. You can still comment anonymously (I feel that is important for a topic like this) but now comments are moderated (and you will have to prove you are human), so that should cut down on the spam. I've also deleted all the comment spam.

And guess what I found? Real comments! From real people, I mean. They all started coming in (both the real comments as well as the spammy comments) January of this year, so I don't know what happened to route traffic to this blog after it's been inactive for, what, two years now? But, welcome. I'm glad you're enjoying the posts archived here. I started this blog as a writing project, one that is now on the back burner while I work on another (non-sexual) one. I would like to return to this one at some point.

Meanwhile, to keep this post on topic, I'll give you a brief sexual update: After an intense but ultimately unfulfilling relationship, I've been slowly recovering my old sexual self. I haven't had partner sex for almost a year now. I miss it. I do think I (almost) made up for my ten years without partner sex in those months, and that was nice. Since the breakup I haven't been very interested in masturbation. For the most part, it has acted as a release when the tension builds up, but it doesn't have the same lustre (or fulfillment) as it held for me before. In the last month or so, I have been playing more, feeling my libido wake up more. I sense that, come spring, I will be in a spring-like mood. :) But relationships and partner sex continue to scare me -- I love sex but I have experienced much sexual assault, too. Seeking sex outside of the confines of a committed, monogamous relationship is a threatening thing to me. I do hope that I am able to find some middle ground, though, as I miss partner sex very much and at the moment have no appetite for another relationship. In the meantime, I'll start my own explorations once again.

Update of sorts

It's been a while since my last post, I know. I've been kind of...overwhelmed with all the new feelings and sensations. Let's just say I have LOTS to post about, and yes even masturbation-related.

I've never really been good at understanding relationships, let alone how to pursue one and make one work. I have always been better at the fooling around part (meaning fooling around, not sex; I actually have very little experience with actual intercourse). The physical part just seems so much ... simpler to me. Straight-forward. Maybe part of that is that, even with low self-esteem, I've always recognized the feedback I have gotten from men that they find me to be pretty and sexually attractive. So maybe that helps to explain my confidence and comfort in that area. Perhaps other women have the opposite experience, feeling more confident in their ability to hold a conversation or 'woo' someone intellectually than feeling comfortable touching or holding or bumping nasties. And I am quite capable of holding conversations and wowing people with my intellectual prowess, but when it comes to people I am interested in, insecurity rears its ugly head. And so conversation becomes more stilted; he says things that hurt me and yet I bite my tongue and can't find the words to speak up for myself; I know I really like this person and I want to get to know them better, their thoughts and fears and opinions and joys. And yet I'd rather cuddle and fool around, because the talking is scarier, more fraught with complexities and maybe-this-won't-work-out and potential for failure.

This is the hard part.

Just add sex!

So, one of the premises of this blog of mine is that I have not had many two-person sexual experiences as of late, and so I find my own enjoyment and fulfilment in self-pleasuring. I did wonder what would happen to that premise when I started to date/fool around/have sex again. Probably not much, I figured, but it would definitely change the "story" here. But that's okay. Lives change, evolve. And seeing partner sex/fooling around from the perspective of someone who's relied on her own hand to regularly get her off for over a decade - well, I think that's pretty damn interesting too.

That all said - I have had a good weekend. :) Some observations:

1) The boy was really impressed with the way I moved my body, my pelvis, and was REALLY amazed at how incredibly wet I got. He said I was incredibly soft, and he just liked touching me there, that it was an amazing feeling. I've noticed that in myself before - the fact that I can become incredibly engorged and soft (it feels like petting a bunny's head, I've observed before). This doesn't happen all the time, but when I am REALLY turned on, which I guess means I like him. ;) But I never really thought about how I compared to other women. It is true that my level of wetness/softness (when I am *really* turned on) is another level beyond normal female wetness. I wonder if that's a level any woman can achieve, but due to sexual repression (etc) most haven't, or if I'm one of the special few. Like, most women don't squirt, but I do; is that something all women should be able to do if only they were comfortable enough to explore themselves that way? I don't know.

2) I was REALLY impressed with my flexibility and ease of movement. I've been doing a yoga CD lately that I give all the credit to. It's really light yoga, but it's like it gets out all the stiffness and creakiness. I also get really sore when I masturbate (like my favourite position - missionary, haha - exercises my stomach/leg muscles really well, and stresses my legs a bit), and was impressed that after a weekend of fooling around, my legs weren't sore. I guess it wasn't like I was in the same position for a whole hour, doing all the work myself.

3) At one point when he was (what's a less junior-high way of saying "fingering me"?), I reached down and started rubbing my clit. He grinned like a Cheshire cat, seriously, and kept saying how hot it was. Finally I asked why he thought it was so hot, and he said, "I like teamwork." After a moment's consideration, I told him, "I have more teamwork at home." Hee. He hasn't met my toys yet!

4) I really loved the physical touch and emotional closeness. That's something, obviously, which is missing from masturbation. (Though just the act of physically touching and emotionally being close to yourself would be revolutionary for many women, but I'm past that stage myself.) I would never give up self-loving for partner stuff (as if there needs to be a choice), but they make for GREAT compliments. Yum.

More observations may be forthcoming. There's a lot to process here for me. The boy, in general, was saying I was amazing with my sexual energy and how I moved, and asked me why I thought that was so. I said it was from years of masturbation, and maybe some natural talent. I know my body really well, and what I like. It's nice to get that feedback. I haven't actually been with someone that I've felt both comfortable with and attracted to, and certainly not since ... certain events in my life. So this is kind of amazing, to see how another person reacts to all my self-teaching and explorations.

"No thanks! I'm going home to masturbate!"

Oh my LOL, this video is awesome: The Midwest Teen Sex Show: Masturbation (Female)

"Masturbation: The Anti-Drug!" So true! In that solo sex makes you feel good, and with a high like that at your fingertips, who needs to go out in search of excitement or empty fulfilment? And I have GOT to use the line "No thanks! I'm going home to masturbate!" sometime soon...

(Iiiiiinteresting how, in their list of podcasts in the iTunes store, masturbation is the only censored word. It reads "m***********n."

Is that word really censored in iTunes? How sad.)

And here's the male version: Beatin' it.

The best relaxation exercise

There's a cultural stereotype that it's the guy who falls asleep after sex (showing him to be selfish and unconcerned for his partner) and that it's the woman who is looking for snuggles and post-coital reassurance and bonding. Not that I don't enjoy the former, but if my solo-sex is any indication, I myself am inclined to fall fast asleep after (mind-blowing, physically exhausting) sex, as well.

So it makes me giggle each time I fall asleep after masturbating (which if often). Like just now, I had the apartment to myself for a short time, so I took the opportunity to be loud (yay loud!). I positioned myself on the floor of my bedroom, instead of my bed, as the hard floor ensures a better 'workout,' forcing me to use my stomach and other muscles when I inevitably squirm around and flex and twist. And afterward, I just deflated. Think slow-motion head-falling-down, crashing on the carpet, head lolling, eyes shuttered asleep, still for finite moments. My entire body was relaxed.

I do these relaxation tapes a few times a week to try to teach my body to unwind (as, on some very deep level, my body is wound incredibly tightly and I've been trying to work on that). So a few times a week for 45 minutes I lay in my bed and concentrate on different parts of my body in an effort to relax. It helps, but I can never get each muscle to let go, to completely resist its normal impulse.

But after my climax just now? I fell down into a yoga-corpse position and my entire body just surrendered to the bliss of what I was feeling. My facial muscles especially felt like released elastic, gravity pulling them outwards and down, my own little mini-facelift. Those forehead muscles that I can never seem to relax feel completely supple right now. My back is also always very tight, and when I can finally fully relax, the little curve in my lower back completely flattens and my whole body feels heavy and like every pore is being weighted down.

What I normally (almost) achieve with a 45-minute tape, I achieved in about 15 minutes of jilling off. Not bad.

And that's why I sleep. Why not enjoy that feeling for as long as possible?

I suppose I wasn't exactly sleeping as I lay there, but I would forgive a partner for assuming so, as still and dreamy as I was. I would have been happy to nap for a few minutes or more (and often have), letting dreamscape fantasies fold me up into their arms and take me to a place of warmth and safety.