When Apollo and I found the wishing well in our wanderings around the Larnach Castle grounds, I was quite taken with it – and wouldn’t you be? While the well itself was now covered (I’d read that a very tipsy party goer had pushed a signal cannon down in about a hundred years earlier, which was rather challenging to retrieve), the sheer romanticism of it grabbed in a way that usually only parasols do. And did I ever wish I had one with me to take photos with! Still, Apollo did a great job of taking a picture of me making a wish, and I determined that I would return later to get me a scavenger hunt photo. Oh yes indeed!

That, of course, provided its own challenges. Because the wishing well is a popular spot, in a popular garden, next to a popular castle. But I am a determined exhibitionist, and I got my shots:

I really am so glad to have my gorilla pod – I ended up hanging my camera upside-down off a branch, and then running back and forth to get this photo (and the two click-throughs). This strikes me as an excellent way to get some exercise!

I brought myself home a Wishing Well bookmark, too. Well, why not? (Click to read the back.)

**

I totally wanted to take photos in the castle dungeon. Which I didn’t manage, alas!

Hooray for May! While it’s rapidly heading into the chilly season, I happen to be flinging off my clothes rather than wrapping up warmly. Why? Because it’s International Masturbation Month, and I want easy access to my nether regions!

Not that I don’t wank the rest of the year, of course – but come May I ramp up the intensity considerably. The rest of my spelunking-related-activities increase too. I suspect by the end of the month everyone will be sick of me talking about jilling, writing about rubbin’ the nubbin, whinging about my aching fingers, hunting for more batteries and taking up all the outlets recharging my toys – not to mention asking if everyone else is blissing off as well.

So how did this very special month come (ahem) into existence? Back in 1995 the sex toy company Good Vibrations, in San Francisco, decided to create the National month after U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders was fired for her positive views about physical self-love, saying: “I think it is something that is part of human sexuality and a part of something that perhaps should be taught [in schools].” Her firing was pretty appalling, really, so creating the Month to raise awareness was a great idea!

May has long been connected with being merry (‘the merry merry month of May’ being a not-so-subtle allusion to sexual awakening), and it has a lovely alliterative resonance with words ‘masturbate’ and ‘month’, so choosing it for the Month was a gimme. Although February Fapping Fortnight would have been pretty awesome too.

I’ve been participating for six years now – although only seriously on a biannual basis. What do I mean by seriously? Well, in 2008 and 2010 it meant daily airing of the orchid, keeping a spreadsheet (seriously), and writing weekly blogposts detailing how I was doing. I even answered questions from curious readers.

This year the challenge stakes have been upped – a lot! Instead of once a day I’m whipping the cream three times daily, for at least 15 minutes each time. I’m learning how to not ejaculate when I orgasm – yes, you read that right (I go through sex towels like you wouldn’t believe, and my laundry load is massive this month). I’m keeping a fresh spreadsheet, open to the public – and once again updating my progress weekly for my blog readers. And it is one hell of a challenge… I am chugging electrolytes like a triathlete!

Is it worth it? Totally. I have amazing fantasies, and great orgasms. I don’t always feel like strumming the clitar, but I have no shortage of great erotica, interesting porn, and varied sex toys to keep things interesting. And lots of lubricant.

So if you’re looking for me, this month? Chances are you’ll find me with my hand in my pants, polishing my pearl.

I’ll be in my bunk.

I coveted that coat. I told her I expected to have it when she died, thank you very much. I laughed as I said it. She said I’d have to pry it from her cold dead hands – and laughed as she said it.  We both had that sort of humour.

I  got that coat a good few decades sooner than I expected to. Because my mum killed herself thirteen years ago today.

So yes. The last thirteen years have had their challenges. A lot of soul-searching. A lot of questioning – it was about the most unexpected thing ever, and it was devastating to all of us in different ways.

She left me all her clothes and jewellery, all her books. Her coat I don’t wear often any more – I’m not as slim as my mother was – but I woke up this morning with a desire to put it on, and make something positive for myself out of a day that leaves me so damned sad, every year.

I always believed my mother was beautiful. I share her curly pubic hair, her double back rolls, her droopy breasts (but not her aureole), her bottom. I have her shoulders, her large upper arms and her thighs (but not her knees). I have her chin and her crows feet and her red cheeks.  I smile much more easily than she ever did, though.

She was beautiful, but she didn’t love herself.

She was beautiful, but she wasn’t strong.

Because she is gone, I have learned to be beautiful, strong, and to love who I am.

It’s a hard lesson, but there you go.

And because I wasn’t smiling much today – this was me wearing her coat the night of the day I graduated, when I was twenty-two years old. Less than one year after she was gone.  My brother took this photograph.

**

Click-throughs on the main two pics.

Kate Bornstein’s Amazing Voyage: “… Bornstein has managed to both anger and delight most camps in the LGBTQ universe; a male-to-female transsexual lesbian, she has felt rejected by both the transsexual and lesbian communities at one time or another while she has tried to educate the rest of us that people don’t have to be either men or women. It was one of the many revelations in Bornstein’s revelatory life that she came to the stunning notion that she was really neither.” (Tony Ortega / Village Voice)

White and Nerdy: “Enough is enough when it comes to the constant reinforcing of the idea that geek men (because it almost always is the men, women occasionally get a pass under the umbrella of “thinking man’s bit of crumpet”) will never have sex and never be sexy. Not just because it pisses me off or because it’s not true, but because it’s pretty nasty for men and women, geek and non-geek when you think about it.” (Blacksilk)

On Scars: “Confidence doesn’t come overnight. It also doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it requires nurturing. As with anything else worth having it’s work. But let me tell you, it is so worth the work. A mate recently told me about a magazine ‘happiness quiz’ in which one of the questions was, “are you comfortable with your body, and do you exercise regularly?” If you can see why this should not have been a single question, you’re on the way. Corollary 5a: Confidence happens when you let it happen. No one gives it to you, which is great, because it also means they can’t take it from you. (Dr. Brooke Magnati aka Belle du Jour)

Writing about Touch (The Senses, Part 5): “In erotica, more than in any other kind of fiction, the experience of being touched and of touching — things as well as people — is critical to that transformation of reader into experiencer … I’m trying to translate an imagined sensation into words so that it can be translated back into the same imagined sensation in a reader’s mind.” (Thomas Roche / Write Sex)

11 Strange, Horrific, or Just Plain Weird Ways Societies Have Policed Sex Throughout History: “Since the beginning of recorded history, lawmakers have tried to set limits on how people take their sexual pleasures, and they have doled out a range of controls and punishments to enforce them — from the slow impalement of unfaithful wives in Mesopotamia to the sterilization of masturbators in the United States. Anyone, no matter how highly placed, who engages in sexual conduct that is out of sync with prevailing attitudes risks being demonized and steamrolled by the legal system.” (Eric Berkowitz / Alternet)

In Praise Of Vintage Porn: “It’s supposed to be a dark tangled mess down there. More than a metaphor for the natural wild things to be done, pubic hair serves a fucking purpose. Pubic hair, from mound to anus, protects the skin from abrasion; it’s a barrier against the friction of fucking. I don’t know about you, but I like as much sex as I can get, and I’ll take a pass on the friction burns, thanks.” (Gracie Passette / Sex Kitten)

Lil Miss Shalla

It’s been a busy seven days since my first Wankfest 2012 update, but it’s not, unfortunately, just been from the masturbation. If anything, those frequent breaks for self-pleasure have been welcome pauses in amongst everything else – so that’s all good by me!

If you haven’t been keeping up with my spreadsheet, it’s a good way of seeing how I’ve been getting my rocks off. What I’ve been fantasising about, erotica I’ve been reading, and toys I’ve been using. My fingers have also been getting an excellent workout – both they and my clit are really feeling the effects! Despite creating rather a lot of my own, I’ve also been using lubricant in liberal amounts (I do recommend water-based ID Glide – we keep a pump bottle by the bed, and it’s so damned handy), and that keeps things nice and slick and slippery.

I’ve also been working on learning how to orgasm without ejaculation. Ever since I started to gush with orgasms – well over a decade ago – it’s like a switch was flicked, and I’ve never been able to stop. Very occasionally I’ve been able to have one without, but not ever as a planned event. So learning to come without it being a tsunami event would be very useful, even if it’s only sometimes! For my learning sessions (one each day) I’ve been trying to not ejaculate on purpose – and it’s difficult as anything! I’ve had a lot of failures. However, for one session I finished with my towels as dry as a bone – so I know it’s possible!  (I have discovered, over the last day or two, that trying to wank and not ejaculate when using toys, though, is an added level of fail. Back to fingers for the time being.)

**

Best fantasy of the week

Sunday: I fantasised about being in a large room, tied to fucking machine that fucked all three of my orifices. I was in an upright position, tied with my ankles by my ears. My head was tilted back so there was a clear column from my mouth down my throat, and I could only see the ceiling.

Each dildo had a separate remote control that had been handed to a different person around the room by m’Lady. The remotes controlled the speed and depth of penetration, and also (for the anal and vaginal dildos) vibration.

I was thoroughly fucked…

Best location of the week

Thursday: I love my bathtub. It was such a decadent treat to run the water, pour in the bath salts, and lie back with my fingers and my trusty water-proof vibrator. But it gets better: I’d set the camera up (nice and high) so it captured me as I splashed and squirmed and pleasured myself. Yes – I videoed the entire thing…

Best toy of the week

Every day: My fingers go with me everywhere. They’re versatile – they can rub gently, press hard, pinch, pull, penetrate, plunder … they’re very skilled, my fingers. I love all my toys, and they’re awesome for variety, but it’s hard to beat something as good as those digits of mine!

Best media of the week

Thursday: I woke up to an unsolicited email from a fellow who’d written a book. And I’m so very, very glad he messaged me, because his book is erotica, and it’s so damned HOT (there’ll be a review up here before too long). Thank you, Paul Christian, for writing ‘The Secret Journey’. I’m only up to the end of The Trainer (guh), but I am really looking forward to reading more.

Best orgasm(s) of the week

Saturday: I am so damned proud of myself for those non-ejaculatory orgasms. I made the interesting discovery that unlike my usual orgasms, these ones are more like water trapped in a bathtub – the orgasmic energy doesn’t escape, but sloshes up and down my body, giving me after-shocks of increasing intensity. Which leads to more orgasms! I found myself more wrung out by the fifth orgasm than I would normally be after five ejaculations – and gulped down the electrolytes like I’d been working out. That was something!

Best overall session of the week

Tuesday: Because of various travels, m’Lady and I hadn’t been able to Skype for three weeks. So when we spent nearly the entire session with me strumming my clitar while zie watched in pleasure (and then took hir own pleasure), it was intense, and hot, and orgasmic. There was a lot of orgasms, and a good number were without ejaculation (and a good number were, too). It was marvellous to reconnect with m’Lady in such a primal and sexual fashion – and I think both of us would have happily continued for longer…

 **

Sharing the Self-Love

I’m not the only one doing something special for May Masturbation Month:

~ Jilly was going to rebel by not polishing her pearl for the entire month. Er … that didn’t quite happen, but it was a great idea!

~ Kazi is a very naughty nurse – endorsing self-love for good health, perhaps?

~ Jack and Jill are doing what I did back in 2008: wank once a day (each) for the entire month. Go team!

~ Fox in the Flowers is taking time to learn what works for her.

~ Vincent and Mia are doing Masturbation Monday posts – here are the first two.

More knowledge

How well do you know your masturbation history, knowledge, and information? I didn’t know it as well as I thought – in this great Masturbation Quiz from About.com, I only go 50%! Can you do better?

There’s also Fleshbot’s Masturbation Month Pop Quiz, which is considerably more, shall we say, irreverent?  (I got 100% for this one, though!)

Play along!

And last but not least: a great compilation of masturbation. Enjoy!

Good Intense screaming orgasms compilation brought to you by Tube8;

Just in case you were curious.

I’ve had some rampantly excellent sex with my husband (who is now napping), and I’m experimenting for the first time with my gorilla pod, which has been wrapped around a drainpipe. Yes, the photographs are on funny angles. I would say it’s an accident, but the truth is I quite like angled photos, and I have a tendency to do it on purpose.

The sun is starting to go down.

What can you see, aside from me, in these pictures? Well, there’s Port Chalmers across the water (the stuff that looks like a port).   There are the small islands between the mainland and the peninsula – Goat Island and Quarantine Island.  You can see the rest of the peninsula curving up and around. And you can see the two Points (Harrington on the peninsula; Hayward on the mainland)  right at the end of harbour, before the ocean proper begins.

And then, of course, there is me. I was quite pleased at how I managed to stay in shot, not drop the camera, and get some good photos. It was a good experiment, and it meant when I went off on my grand tour of the castle and grounds the next day (and got those great top of the castle shots), I had no worries that I wouldn’t be able to get the shots I wanted!

**

Did you click for the bonus pictures?

Hooray for duckies! I love rubber duckies so much I have a whole category of photos with them – but it looks like llellsee loves them too (and they love her!).

Can you think of a better way to celebrate Earth Day than outdoors, wanking, with a globe for company? Kazi nailed it!

Mollena found herself a totally fantastic play collar to match her nail polish – I love it!

This is a monthly feature. Please look for the next photo favourites post in the first week of June.

(Apollo and I woke up early our first morning there, opened the curtains, snuggled in bed and watched the most incredible sunrise spread across the sky – and our entire suite. I don’t have the words to describe it, but it was an experience to treasure.)

After days at the mother-in-laws, with no opportunity for fucking of any kind, the need to rut was upon us. So naturally we decided to sit on the deck and enjoy the view first! Wouldn’t you?

Well, Apollo was enjoying this view. I wasn’t complaining in the slightest

As for the view I was admiring?

You can see it reflected, along with me. It’s pretty stunning.

Soon after that, we wandered back inside. Then there was sex. A whole lotta sex!  And a while after that I came back out onto the balcony and took naked pictures before the sun went down. But you’ll have to wait for those!

**

There are click-throughs, but they’re subtle this week.

The Perks of Herpes: “Before herpes, I didn’t think about my body much. But the virus had jolted me into self-awareness. I ate better. I exercised more. I felt more fragile and powerful and worthy of careful handling than ever. Herpes, oddly, did not turn me into damaged goods. Instead, it became a filter for expendable men in my life.” (An HSV Positive Lady / The HairPin)

Always Leave Them Wanting More: ” Like most sexually active people I know, I can feel when I’m about to have an orgasm, and usually having an orgasm comes right after feeling like I’m about to have one. Still immensely fun, but predictable. However, when someone slightly evil is in charge you never quite know what is going to happen. They could dole them out slowly, bringing you right back to the edge after every one and keeping you wriggling around in their lap with their dick buried in your asscrack. They could keep you on the brink for eight minutes (which feels like *forever* in the moment) and then make you come so many times you loose count. Also, they could theoretically wander away and not get you off at all.” (Stoya)

Sexing This Trans Man: “While the full synopsis of my scene will only be revealed to those who purchase the DVD I decided that I would do something in the film that I personally felt would educate and create a specific visibility very much needed. I decided, despite being pre-op, to bare it all and appear fully nude.” (Christian Lovehall / Original Plumbing)

Catching the bug: “We are beautiful. I’m not just talking gays and lesbians, but humans in general. From the crevices spreading from the corners of our eyes to the freckled tops of our feet, our beauty has been lovingly captured by artists who appreciate the stories that each face, posture, tattoo and pair of eyes can tell. We are both a passion and a living for these gifted visionaries who bring our best, and sometimes darkest, sides to light. ” (Leif Wauters / Express)

 ’We’re Done Hiding’: A First Lingerie Line for Transgender Women: “For its founders, though, Chrysalis is about a lot more than fashion: it’s about the politics of acceptance for a misunderstood and maligned community.  “Chrysalis wants to change how transgender people are viewed,” Cy said. “We want to make people look at transgender people as human beings. We’re done hiding. We’re done keeping quiet. We are a very diverse community, we do exist, and we have explicit needs.”” (Richard Vincente / Lingerie Talk)

Chris Gilmour

It’s 2012, and this this seems to be becoming a bit of a biannual tradition …

This time it’s a little bit different. Because I am now happily owned by m’Lady Tethys, this was something I asked hir about – might I have permission to use my cunt to orgasm every day for the month? Well, permission was given – but I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, because Tethys has given me some wickedly challenging rules to follow!

Wankfest 2012 Rules

1: Dee is to engage in three masturbation sessions daily, of at least fifteen minutes each. Each session is to be at least three hours apart (starting from day 3 – although there were three orgasms on days one and two as well). Orgasm from masturbation is not guaranteed – being allowed to come is dependant on m’Lady’s whim.

2: Out of the three sessions daily, one must involve ejaculation control training (failure will not be penalised, however). Dee is to have five orgasms during that session, and attempt to not ejaculate each time.

3: A spreadsheet is to be kept detailing all sessions – date, time, location, any toys used, fantasies, etc. Like previous spreadsheets (2008, 2010), it will be available for anyone to view.

4: A blog post detailing how the month is proceeding will go up each Friday in May, and the first Friday in June.

m’Lady has also reserved the right to add more rules as zie chooses to. Meep!

I’ve already had to wash two loads of sex towels, recharge one sex toy, drink three loads of electrolytes, and get annoyed at a certain cat who thinks sitting on my tits is a good place to be when I’m wanking … and it’s only May the fourth. Yes, it’s going to be a very entertaining month indeed