Sex Grease

When it comes to lube I’m not a complicated gal. My skin doesn’t seem sensitive to any of the common irritants (BIG knock on wood here) and since I currently use lube mostly for solo-masturbation or anal (receiving) I don’t need to worry about vaginal Ph balance or starting yeast infections. Right now my requirements list is simply:

• Paraben Free
• Thick
• Low in taste
• Water based
• Sticks around
• Affordable price

For the past six or seven months my go-to lube has been Sex Grease, a no-frills lube in a no-frills bottle. I first picked it up to laugh at its name, took it seriously when I felt it between my fingers, and bought it because of the price.

It’s a water based lube that isn’t organic or “natural” (The latter of which seems to be a pretty loosely defined term so I don’t put much stock in it when it shows up on lube labels.) but it is paraben free which is the big one for me. Like I said, I don’t have any skin sensitivities so I can’t talk too much about its ingredients except to say that nothing on its label is on the cheat-sheet of common irritants I have tacked up on my bulletin board. There is glycerin in Sex Grease which can start a yeast infection on people who are already prone to yeast infections.

When you squirt it out of the 8oz bottle (The only size available.) the lube comes out in a drop that’s thicker than Sliquid H20 but not as gel-like as Slippery Stuff’s water based lube. This consistency works for me because I like a lube that’s thick without being gloopy. Since it’s not as firm as some super thick lubes it is going to slide around a bit but it doesn’t seem to move as fast as some of the thinner lubes. (In case you’re wondering, I did test the movement by putting drops of various lubes on the back of my hand and watching them move when I held my hand at an angle. Scientific method or whatever.)

As far as being able to hold up and maintain its slipperiness I’m impressed with how Sex Grease performs. It has a glide that reminds me of silicone lube without becoming as slick as silicone lube. Although Sex Grease doesn’t stay around like silicone I am impressed in how long it takes it to evaporate/be absorbed into my skin. When I’m masturbating with my Hitachi I like to use a few drops to give some more glide and reduce friction and I usually don’t need to add more. As for anal I find my plugs are typically still slick when I remove them but if there’s fucking going on I tend to add more lube part way through. Like other water based lubes it can be reactivated with a little bit of water or spit.

And what about the stickiness that people associate with water based lubes in general and water based lubes with glycerin in particular? Well to be honest I don’t find Sex Grease to be particularly sticky but I’ve also only found a few lubes that I find sticky or tacky. This is possibly related to the main reason why (I think) lubes are tricky to review- we all have different body chemistries so how we experience lube on our bodies is going to be fairly individualistic. (Again- I am NOT a chemist so this is based on my layman’s understanding.) Either lubes don’t get particularly sticky or tacky on me or I just don’t mind the sensation. If you’re worried about how this lube will feel I recommend trying to find a local shop that has testers out but I know this isn’t an option for everyone. (This is a place where it would be GREAT to have smaller bottles available so people don’t end up with 80z of something they can’t stand. ARE YOU LISTENING, SENSURA NATURALLY?)

Remember my list of requirements from way at the top of the post? Well unfortunately Sex Grease does fail in one category: “Low in taste.” While there are definitely put worst tasting lube into my taste there is a distinct bitter taste with a… chemical tinge? The exact flavor doesn’t remind me of anything I can use to compare it to than it’s bitter, chemically and to present to ignore. After more than one bad experience (I’m stubborn.) giving oral with Sex Grease around I’ve had to admit defeat. If I’m going to be putting anything into my mouth it can’t have Sex Grease on it.

While I realize that Sex Grease is not going to be for everyone this has become my go-to lube for clit masturbating or anal. I like thick water based lube that sticks around and stays slick and this is what Sex Grease delivers. It also delivers this at an affordable price (Looking around the web I’ve seen it priced between $9.50 and $10.) which means I can afford to get a spare bottle of glycerin free, low on taste lube to make up for its glycerine and taste. All in all this lube has a solid place in my heart. In fact I like this lube so much that I’ve developed a tagline for it: Sex Grease: Silly name, solid lube

(ATTENTION SENSURA NATURALLY: This tagline is totally for sale.)

First Post: I’m a Nervous Wreck

If my schedule holds true I’m writing this post a week before this blog is going live and I’m freaking out. Obviously there’s the usual nerves around starting a new project, particularly a project that means a lot to me and that I’ve wanted to do for years, but there’s a new flavor of anxiety that I haven’t experienced: I’m a huge, massive, fucking hypocrite.

Last night as I was changing out of work clothes and into my blintzes-macaroni-and-cheese-and-wine clothes my brain pointed out that I was doing this while trying to avoid looking at my naked body. This isn’t new, I’ve been avoiding my body for years, but last night my brain wanted me ask myself why I, a woman who often can’t touch her body, could dare presume to start a blog talking about bodies and sex (something which frequently has to do with bodies)? What a hypocrite.

Of course there are obvious holes in that. Namely there’s the fact that I don’t want this blog to be a ferociously positive, affirmation filled, love your flaws type of place. I want to write about my struggles with my body, how these struggles flow into my sex life and how I work with them. I want this blog to be honest, to talk about the things that make me feel ecstatic, and what makes me shut down (Hint: It’s a culture entrenched with transphobia and transmisogyny). Mostly I want to write this blog because when it comes to bodies and sex and trans women it’s hard to find a story I can relate to. When I read pieces written by and about trans women they’re often “I love my body and sex life now but it wasn’t always this way but it totally is now”-type pieces in which I find glimpses of similarities to my own life but often they’re so polished by the cis media that they’re not much use for me. I’m not saying that these personal narratives aren’t valid (they’re super valid) I would just like to see a wider range of personal experiences being shared.

As someone who wants to be an activist for improved quality of life for trans women I’m often frustrated by how little I’m actually doing. Part of this is that I don’t see how any of my skills could be useful but between working to make ends meet and dealing with anxiety and depression I simply don’t have time to learn more about civil disobedience, outreach, whatever else it is that I don’t feel qualified to do. What I do have are my life experiences, my writing, a deep interest in sex and belief that there’s great power in marginalized and oppressed people sharing their stories. And hey, I love sharing my stories about sex.

When I write about myself I need to fight my learned behavior of sanitizing everything to be good a Good Representation Of Trans Women. This is where my feelings of hypocrisy come in. I feel as though I should just write things like “How I Learned To Love My Body”, “100 Ways Trans Women Are Just Like Cis Women”, “I Think Porn Is Exclusively Bad”, and “I Think Porn Is Exclusively Good.” My experiences aren’t as clean or nice as that and dammit if I’m going to put myself into a box of Good Representation of Trans Women. It’s not just that I’m not a “Good” (Read: makes cis people feel inspired or good about themselves) representation of trans women I’m not a representation of trans women PERIOD. I’m a representation of Constance Augusta Aloysius Zaber and that’s all I want to be. I hope that there are trans women who read what I write and find some comfort or help or connection or something in it but I don’t want, or claim, to Represent The Trans “Community.” So no sanitizing of my experiences here, particularly because doing so would strip the truth from my stories and probably make them boring. (If I did sanitize would I still be able to share my experience using a sex toy that shook my genitals so hard I pissed? Probably not and EVERYONE wants to hear that story.)

So my blog is going to have my messy, conflicting, sometimes unpleasant experiences but that’s ok because they’re my experiences. They’re my experiences as a trans woman who found that working on taking control of my sex life back from a cis society has helped me to find the rare moments of pleasure and comfort in my body and my life.

All that being said: I’m still nervous as fuck.