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Rain DeGrey and I have been trying to make this interview happen for over 2 years, and it’s FINALLY here. I thought it would be a perfect pre-holiday episode so everyone who is traveling for the holidays could have a fun little distraction.
As you’ll hear, Rain does not hold back on all of the things she loves doing with her body when it comes to BDSM and exploring her edges. She loves intensity and pushing herself to the limit. There may be some things discussed in this episode that are a bit intense, so settle in and prepare yourself for talk of being buried alive, black eyes, injuries, wrestling, needing CPR, breath play, and much much more.
Plus, what it’s like to have zero fucks to give and why more of us should stop worrying and start living.
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
In this episode, Rain DeGrey and I talk about:
- Rain’s guiding principles in life about saying yes, being unapologetically herself, and living big. How she stopped giving a fuck what people thought and why that’s shaped her life in such a powerful way. Her permission granting around desire and following your dreams is amazing.
- Taking your body to the edges and beyond through BDSM and kink. Rain is endlessly curious about her body and her experience, and so she keeps pushing and exploring (a theme you know I adore).
- How heavy BDSM is similar to being a pro-athlete in how the body is treated. Injuries are going to happen. At this point, Rain throws up during and after heavy shoots because her body has been through so much. Does she have regrets? Not at all.
- Something Rain will never do again because she reached her limit in one day.
- Wrestling fetishes and Rain’s advice on digging into any fetish that you want to explore in your life. Plus, why so many men are into wrestling fetishes – it’s physical touch and most men don’t have physical touch in their lives because of gender socialization.
- Helping women how to be dominant and tap into their inner Domme. Rain has some fun, easy advice for finding that inner bossy. Also, blindfolds.
- What Rain still wants to do since she’s literally done ALL the things. It’s an impressive list, but she does share one thing she still hasn’t done.
- The reality of how difficult it is to organize a gangbang in real life, and how grateful Rain feels for getting to paid to experience things like that.
- Breath play: what it is, how to do it safely, why Rain teaches it, and why people are so scared of it. She talks about the history of kink, MMA fighting, and losing consciousness.
- Why things like breath play and intense D/s are transcendent for Rain.
- The entertainment industry’s global problem with piracy – music, movies, porn. Kink.com has cut back on shoots by half because people expect free porn, and the toll it’s beginning to take on the tube sites now that big porn studios are cutting back.
Resources from this episode
Rain’s tweet about Christian’s wanting to fuck her.
About Rain DeGrey
Rain DeGrey is an international educator, writer, presenter and performer that has been teaching kink and sex education classes since 2009. After getting her start as a fetish model and Pro Domme, she was motivated to branch out into education, something she is extremely passionate about. Demystifying sexuality and presenting in a clear and humorous way are trademarks of her teaching style and she believes strongly in making sex education fun.
She has taught on a wide variety of topics at Harvard, Northwestern University, Kink.com, The Citadel, Pure Pleasures, Stormy Leather, Folsom Fringe, The Looking Glass, KinkAcadamy, PassionateU, Mission Control and Boundcon in Germany.
Her work has been featured in such places as Playboy TV’s “69 sexiest things to do before you die”, Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, The SF Fetish Ball, Exotic Erotic, Rope::Burn, Kink-e-zine and Femina Potens. Additionally, she is a regular contributor to multiple online magazines.
You can find Rain at RainDeGrey.com, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and Fetlife as Rain DeGrey.
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!
Hey, listeners, Dawn Serra here with a fancy new intro featuring many of your voices. Thank you so much for participating in that fun project. This week’s episode is full of extremes and edges because it’s an interview with Rain DeGrey, the amazing fetish porn star. She talks all about extreme BDSM scenes and things like breath play and lots of edge play. She talks about injuries and privilege as a popular porn star. She also talks about a lot of the heteronormativity and the gender stereotypes that exist, especially within our mainstream society and porn. But I just want to give you a heads up that there is going to be talk about passing out, about injuries, and about some pretty intense BDSM scenes. So I thought that would actually be a really fun thing for everyone to listen to headed into the holidays. Nice little contrast to some of that extra fluffy family time and/or a little stress relief if the holidays are a source of pain or distress for you.
Dawn Serra: I also want to let you know I was reading this really interesting story the other day about celebrities getting caught having sex in public. I read that a couple of years ago at Coachella, which is a huge music festival that happens in California that the actor Gerard Butler started making out with this hot brunette and they decided it was time to get it on, and so he pulled her into the sexiest of all sexy places – a porta potty. If you’re looking for a really hot, sexy place to get it on, and you don’t want it to be a porta potty, you might want to check out HotelsByDay who have generously and wonderfully sponsored this podcast episode. You can go to hotelsbyday.com to book a sexy day stay or if you need to get away for the holidays, that’s also a fantastic place to go where you can get a hotel from morning until evening – the opposite of a normal hotel stay. Of course, listeners, you get 5% off if you use code SGR5Off for Sex Gets Real – SGR5Off at hotelsbyday.com.
I also want to remind you we’re starting a new confessions series. I’m going to be featuring your confessions and stories and episodes throughout 2017. There will be themes each and every month. The January theme is firsts, so I want confessions and stories from you on firsts. It doesn’t have to be your traditional PIV type intercourse story. I’m looking for all kinds of firsts. The first time you had your gender recognized or the first time you experienced heartbreak. You can go to dawnserra.com/ep140 for episode 140, to read all the details on how to submit and record your confession, and what the guidelines are. Future themes will be featured in the Sex Gets Real newsletter, so also make sure you’re on that newsletter.
Dawn Serra: Now, I hope you’re ready for this very juicy conversation with Rain DeGrey. Let me give you a little bit of background on Rain, and then we will dive right into the interview. So Rain DeGrey is an international educator, writer, presenter, and performer that’s been teaching kink and sex education classes since 2009. After getting her start as a fetish model and a pro dom, she was motivated to branch out into education, something that she’s super passionate about and we talk about in this interview. She’s taught a huge variety of topics at lots of different places like Harvard University, and Passionate U, and Kink Academy that Princess Cali runs. Her work has been featured on Playboy TV and in the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. Of course, if you look up Rain DeGrey, you can see some of the amazing hot, intense, BDSM scenes that she’s done with kink.com. So here we are with Rain.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Rain. I am so excited for this conversation and I really appreciate you making time for us.
Rain DeGrey: Oh, thank you, my dear. We’ve been trying to do this for about two years. I’m not going to lie. I’m busy. You’re busy. We got in touch on Twitter, I believe.
Dawn Serra: Yes.
Rain DeGrey: I was like, “Let’s do a podcast.” Here we are two years later making it happen.
Dawn Serra: When I got your message on Twitter a little while ago saying, “Let’s do this.” It’s like the stars aligned.
Rain DeGrey: I never forget anything. It was on the list, you know how life happens. What it was is that for three years, I worked for InSex and InSex, six months ago, five months ago, relocated to Portland. For three years, I was working for InSex. I loved that job. It was 10 hours a day, six days a week. I worked Monday – we had live shows on Saturdays. So Monday through Saturday, you get up at 7 in the morning, you pick up the model we were shooting 5-6 days a week all the time. I wasn’t really able to do anything other than work for InSex. I was a photographer, talent booker, wardrobe, chauffeur, production assistant, handler, top, bottom, copywriter, social media – that was all I did.
So once InSex relocated to Portland because the Bay Area – I live in the Bay Area, and it has now surpassed New York as the most expensive place in all of United States to live. InSex simply could not afford to live here. So I’m not working for InSex anymore. I have a little bit more free time. I’m doing a lot more classes and writing, and I have never forgotten you. I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “Let’s make this happen.” You’ve been doing quite well the past two years, too. It’s really taken off. It’s been nice to see you’ve been putting into this.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, it’s been a really fantastic fun journey. I’ve had a chance to talk to amazing people like yourself. It’s a dream to get to share this kind of information with the world and make it fun while we do it. I love it.
Rain DeGrey: I think that’s the meaning of life is helping people and doing things you’re passionate about. That’s why I get up in the morning – I want to help others around me. I also want to do something that’s exciting. I don’t think those are unreasonable goals. If you do it right, you can usually pull that off, and I’ve been managing to do it for nine years now.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. One of the things that really struck me as I was reading through your blog, and listening to interviews you’ve given and, and just taking a look at your Twitter is how unapologetically you you are about doing the things that you love and not feeling ashamed of it; and saying “Fuck, yes” to stuff that you really are excited about, and want to try and want to do. Even giving other people advice and permission on living for yourself and pursuing your desires, and stop worrying about what other people are going to say and go all in. I love how completely unapologetic you are about, “These are the things that I love doing and that feel good, and I’m going to chase them.”
Rain DeGrey: Oh, it’s one of the guiding principles of my life, and it’s shaped me as a person. Here’s the thing: we walk around like a white knuckle ball of tension – so worried about people judging us and we put so much effort to put up these false masks, because we don’t want anyone to know the real us. I realize you have a mask for your family, you have a mask for your friends, you have a mask for your lovers and your partners. You’re putting all this effort to maintain these false personas to please people. I’m like, “I can’t. I refuse.” I used to walk around and I was self-conscious, I thought everyone was judging me, and my outfit sucked, my hair was horrible, there was bird shit on my head. The most freeing realization I had is that no one is bothering to judge you because they’re way too busy thinking about themselves, to ever take the time to get their head out of their ass to judge you. You’re free. I looked at my white knuckled hand with all these fucks I was holding, and I just opened my hand and I dropped all the fucks, and I stopped giving a fuck. It was like being reborn and realizing we don’t have that much time on this planet.
Every day that you have is a blessing. Tomorrow you could be hit by a bus and die. And when you look back on your life, you’ll look back on a life where you made compromises and weren’t honest to yourself, and lived a lie, and put all of this mental energy and keeping up this facade. What a waste of the life you’ve been given. I realized that A.) I truly don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks about me, and B.) Every day is a gift, it’s a blessing. Why would I put my desires on hold? Because I’m worried about other people judging me? No, no, my friend. Really, all of the classes I teach, all the articles, all the interviews I’m doing – what I’m trying to say is own your power. Explore your awesome, don’t give a fuck about what other people think about you, don’t worry about judgment, and live your life to the fullest. Because when I’m old and peeing in a wheelchair, I want to close my eyes and flip back through the mental scrapbook of my life, and look at all of these amazing experiences that I had the privilege of getting to to try. If I hadn’t given myself permission, I wouldn’t have that.
Rain DeGrey: Most people are afraid to live life. You’re working a job you hate, you come home, you need some crappy TV dinner, you watch some bad reality show, fall asleep, and then wake up the next day and do it all over again. You’re not living your life. My view is that your body is the greatest toy you will ever be given, and most people are afraid to play with it. They’re ashamed. They’re scared. They don’t even know how their own body works. Why? You’re stuck in your body your entire life. You don’t get another one. You might as well get to know what this body works, how it works, and I have explored my body to its fullest and I have not regretted a single moment. It’s been a delightful journey. I’m not done yet. I want to try all of the things. My motto is more.
Dawn Serra: I think that’s very apparent. I feel like when someone says your name to me, I think, holy shit extremes. You’ve taken yourself and your limits and your body to these incredible edges and then beyond, and done that over and over again. I feel like that’s one of the themes that also comes up when you think Rain DeGrey is pushing limits and going beyond what you thought you could, and taking your body as far as it will go to see what happens. I admire that so much because I feel like it requires a lot of courage to do. But there’s also something so awe inspiring of letting go and just seeing what the fuck happens.
Rain DeGrey: That’s exactly how I do it. I’m curious – there’s a huge disconnect between your brain and your body. We tend to, most of us other than genital pleasure, but even then people get hung up about that, we tend to live from the chin up. People never really explore their body and I got really curious to see what I could do with my body. I wanted to see how far I could go. I wanted to see where I could push it and where it could take me. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I am a collection of injuries. I have not been easy on my body. I have a bad knee from a bondage injury. I have a bad rib from wrestling. I have damaged nerves from handcuffs that never quite came back. I’ve definitely collected some wounds on the way and I have been hard on my body. But I really view doing heavy BDSM very similar to being a professional athlete, where you are going to go in and despite the fact that I really take care of myself – I workout every day, I take all my vitamins, I’m an organic vegetarian, I do the best I can to maintain my body. I’ve definitely challenged it and I don’t regret that.
It’s like okay, I have a bad right knee from a bondage injury that’s never going to get better. I did competitive sexual wrestling: Ultimate Surrender and Academy wrestling for four years. I cracked a rib because I was training. I had a trainer, I took my wrestling really seriously. I’m a pretty competitive person. I had a fractured hairline crack on my right rib that I was trying to walk it off, and I trained and competed for another six months on a cracked rib, and that didn’t heal right. When I breathe too deep that catches me, you know?
Rain DeGrey: I did notice in the past two years, I think, with the more extreme shoots, it’s basically guaranteed I will throw up -that’s going to happen every single time I do a heavy shoot. I try not to puke while the shoots are happening, but occasionally they’ll have to let me bondage, I will have to go throw up and we’ll get back into bondage as that’s my body’s way of responding. Then when the shoot is over, I definitely throw up in the night, and I pass out and I’m unconscious ‘til the next day. But it’s like being a marathon runner. If you’ve seen a marathon – they’re doing the marathon– There’s that iconic photo of that dude that puked half a mile from the finish line. He’s like, “We’re just going to keep going.” I mean, he’s dead on his feet. He’s staggering to the finish line with vomit. He’s like, “This is going to happen.” I admire that level of commitment and dedication, because it’s like, “What’s a little puke between friends? There’s a goal I need to get. If I have to wade through some vomit to get to my goal, it’s fine. It’s going to happen.
There are lots of people that are more than me. I just went where my body and brain, and inclination naturally went to. Some people think that’s a high bar, I’ve seen people do shit where I’m like, “My hat’s off to you. Bless you, that’s territory not for me.” Cattle prods, for instance, the last time I did a cattle prod, I did a wired pussy shoot with Aiden Starr, it was that I had to back up into a cattle prod 45 times while she sat on a chair, laughed at me and masturbated. I did manage to make all the 45 times – I backed up into a cow pod 45 times. I’ve never done it since. Maybe there’s a finite amount of cattle prod one has in their life, and I reached it in one day. I’ve never since revisited cattle prods. My dear friend London River, who I absolutely adore, I just saw her do a shoot where she had her pussy and asshole cattle prodded. I said, “No, thank you.” That’s a no. I’m not interested. I do not want a cattle prod on my sphincter. Call me close-minded but that’s not my bag, baby. To each their own. I’ve definitely enjoyed what I’ve done with very little regrets. If anything, I hope to inspire other people to be less afraid to explore their body. Os owning your body is so important and that seems to be so hard for people.
Dawn Serra: Yes, that is definitely one of the big themes that I see in questions that I get from listeners is, is fear of asking for what you want or not being sure what their body wants, or feeling ashamed of the sensations in their body when certain things happen. So I love that part of what you’re doing is around giving permission to people to explore and enjoy their bodies
Rain DeGrey: It’s very important to me.
Dawn Serra: So important. Actually, it was interesting, because you brought up wrestling and a couple of days ago, I got an email from a 27 year old listener who was saying that he has a wrestling fetish, and he feels like he’s the only one. So I was wondering for anybody who’s into wrestling fetishes, since I know just a teeny bit, but definitely not a lot about that, what advice would you give to someone who’s interested in exploring that in a sexual way?
Rain DeGrey: You know what, I’m going to be honest, the advice I’m going to give for wrestling is the exact same advice I would give for kink in general, which is, you are not alone. Thanks to the power of the internet, you will realize that the greatest fear that all humans have – is that we’re trapped in our brains and we’re the only one that thinks like us, and we’re a weirdo and we’re a freak, and no one else in the world is like us. That’s such a primal fear to think that you’re alone with your wiring and no one could possibly understand you. Get thine ass upon the internet and you will see you are not alone. The secret is education, is the world is not going to come knocking on your front door and being like, “Here’s all the magic, you don’t even need to get off the couch. We will come and deliver all of the pleasure and magic and excitement to you.” And that’s where people have issues is that they’re not willing to put in the effort to get the reward. You have to be willing to put in the effort. You have to go online, you have to find a sex shop, you have to find classes, you have to find your local dungeon. You have to find your local kinky fetish community, you have to put in the work.
Wrestling is such a common, common fetish. It’s a really big one. If you want to break down why is it that people find wrestling appealing? Well, it’s a multitude of things. For one, a lot of men – it’s hard work being a dude. As a woman, we get permission to be physically affectionate. We can snuggle with our girlfriends. We have emotional support, we can check in. Guys have to be a man and they can’t touch. The only real permission they have to let the barriers down is when they put their dick in something. Not being the owner of the penis myself, I believe that one of the reasons that guys fuck – it’s not that they’re not just horny, but it’s the only way they know how to be close to someone. We can cuddle, we can snuggle.
Rain DeGrey: It’s hard for a dude to walk up and be like, “Can I get a hug? Can we just cuddle a little bit?” So they use penis and vagina as a way to bond with someone. That’s also why guys fight. They fight because fighting and fucking are the only two socially acceptable ways that they can get skin on skin contact, that’s what society gives them. You see two dudes and it’s like they don’t know how to express their affection. So they get drunk, and they start beating each other. “I love you, man. Fuck you!” Women, we’d give each other a hug and like, “You look beautiful today. I love your outfit. How was your day?” Guys don’t get that luxury. So they have to get physical with each other. When wrestling fetishists think about this strong dominant take charge woman that can overpower him, that’s relaxing to let go and to put the male machismo baggage aside for a second.
It’s unfortunate if you’re a wrestling fetishist, because I work out, I take care of my body, I’ve got some abs happening – I’m in as good shape as I can. Just with my shoulders and my muscular structure, most men can overpower me. No matter how hard – no matter what martial art classes I take. So for guys to want to be overpowered by a woman, they have to hold back because if the guy’s really wrestling against a woman, the odds are he’s probably going to win. It’s a tricky fetish because then you need to find women that are like, “Okay, I’m willing to wrestle with you, and take that risk of personal injury.” For wrestling, sometimes guys can get nervous about penis and vagina. There’s a lot of pressure with that. Fetishism takes the pressure of erect penis and vagina, because that’s so limiting. Some people do, “Okay, I have a balloon fetish.” The balloon is the orgasm, the blowing up of the balloon is the fucking – and when the balloon pops the look on the woman’s face as it explodes, that’s the orgasm. The tickling with a woman is immobilized and you start tickling her and she’s gasping and thrashing. It’s all sex. I don’t care. It’s your own flavor of sex.
Rain DeGrey: So, wrestling is if you get a little anxious about like, “I need a woman and get my dick in her. How do I do that?” “Oh, I got this strong, confident, muscular woman and she takes me down and she pins me, and she overpowers me. I try and get free, and our bodies are mashing together.” “Okay, that’s fucking.” It’s fucking but you’re putting it in spandex and your genitals aren’t out. Sure, okay, but that’s what it is.Wrestling is a very, very common one. A lot of men and women aren’t into it. He’s certainly not alone. But you have to be willing to put in the effort to do the education. The world isn’t going to come to you and cure all your needs and desires met.
Dawn Serra: So one of the things that you were just talking about with these powerful women who are going to overpower you. I know one of the classes that you teach is to help women learn how to tap into their inner dom. I get a lot of emails from folks who are in heterosexual relationships, and the men really want to be submissive. They want their wives to be more dominant and/or the women are writing and saying, “My partner asked me to be dominant and I don’t know what to do.” What are some ways that you recommend for folks who’ve been socialized female to step into that powerful dom role?
Rain DeGrey: That’s an excellent question, and that is one that comes up along with my female dominance class. It’s a multitude of things. The first thing that I get when women approach me and they’re like, “Oh, gosh, I don’t know what to do.” Okay, let’s take it back a step. First off, your partner, your husband, your boyfriend, your lover has already asked you to dom them. Therefore, they are in the headspace. When we’re like, “I don’t know how to.” You know that they want it. So you’re 50% there already. You’re not trying to dom someone who’s not willing, like, “Oh, I don’t feel convincing or believable as a dom.” Well, your partner obviously does, because they ask that of you. So when you’re cutting yourself off and not giving yourself permission to explore something because you don’t think that you can own it, the biggest tip that I give newbie female doms when they get nervous – blindfolds. I swear to God, there is nothing worse when you’re trying to dom someone and your bottom’s eager eyes are tracking every movement through the room and you’re on display. You’re like, “Stop staring at me. This is too much pressure, man.” I no longer have to deal with blindfolds, but I swear by blindfolds.
First off, you’re giving your bottom sensory deprivation, so it’s easier for them to get in headspace. Second off, you’re no longer in the spot with him tracking you, “Where are your hands going?” “What’s happening?” “What’s doing?” Then you’re like, “Oh, fuck it. I can’t. It’s too much pressure. Blindfolds. The other thing that I recommend for newbie dom’s is a giant ass toy bag. I can now dom people with nothing but my hands and my mind. But in the beginning, when I first started out, I wasn’t necessarily confident. A huge toy bag – if you just lay down 20 things and hit this person twice with each thing. You’ve just sucked up almost 40 minutes. So blindfold someone, come in – negotiate, communicate, don’t just expect all of a sudden you’re going to own your powers, this awesome dom and six inch stilettos, and you don’t need to breathe when you’re in a corset , and you never sweat and you’re flawless, and you suck up all the energy in the room. That’s a cartoon, that’s not realistic. You can’t dom like a cartoon, I’m not a cartoon. I’m not going to put on six inch heels and whittle down my waist to 14 inches, and never sweat and fart rose petals, because that’s not real. That’s not honest. And if you’re expecting to be dommed by a cartoon, everyone’s going to end up disappointed.
Rain DeGrey: I used to practice my lines. I would be like, “I’m going to dom someone for an hour.” I would construct that entire hour of exactly what I was going to do. Then I would come up with lines of what it was I was going to say. I’d go in the mirror and I would practice. You have to put in an effort. I mean, it’s effortless now, but I’m like, “I’m going to dom someone for an hour. These are the activities I’m going to do. This is what I’m going to ramp up to. These are the things we’re going to try. These are the lines I’m going to try.” I’m going to practice these lines in the mirror. Does it look silly? Does it feel natural? And that was literally how I broke down my early domming, was I would take a piece of paper and construct the scene. What’s the warm up? What’s the build up? What’s the final act? What’s the cool down? The more you do it, the easier it gets. But the biggest thing with domming is own your power. Know that you are fucking awesome. Know that you are worthy of submission. Drop the baggage like “Oh, it’s not good enough.” “It’s not convincing enough.” “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Here’s the thing, potential lady doms, nobody knows what they’re doing. We’re just doing the best we know. You know when you’re a kid and you think adults are these infallible gods and that adults have it all figured out, and they know what they’re doing, and you look up to them with wide eyes? You get to be an adult and you realize, the adults didn’t know what they were doing. They were fucking guessing as they went along, so was everyone. That’s basically the entire class, that’s my two hour class: own your power, acknowledge your awesome, know that your partner wants you to be a dom, or they wouldn’t have asked in the first place so they already view you as the potential to have the dom, get a bunch of toys and use a blindfold. There in the magic will happen. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I promise you that.
Dawn Serra: I stumbled on the power of the blindfold when I was in my very first dom situation, because that first time I had that submissive and he kept staring at me. I felt like, “Oh shit, that means I can’t, at any point, just relax for a minute.” So the next time, I just put the blindfold on him and I felt immediately so much more ease. He thought something amazing was about to happen and I was sitting there having a sip of water.
Rain DeGrey: But that’s the thing. It’s the anticipation. It’s the buildup. You’re making it exciting. For him, “What’s going to happen?” You’re like, “Well, I’m hydrating my throat.” For all you know, I’m shooting glitter out my ass.
Dawn Serra: Right. One of the things that you mentioned earlier, when we were talking about limits and edges, and going to the very edge – you said, “I want to experience all the things.” So I’m wondering, what are some things that you have not yet done or experienced that you would like to?
Rain DeGrey: I’m going to answer that honestly. I have done all the things. I mean, I was crucified. They took a backhoe, they dug me, they crucified me upside down, put a plastic bag over my head with a breathing tube, buried me underground, with a vibrator on my pussy, a dildo inside me, and caned my calves. So I came crucified, inverted, buried underground while being vibrated and caned. I’ve had orgies, I’ve had fivesomes, I’ve done really epic BDSM scenes where I have hallucinated. I have done forced orgasm sessions until I puked and passed out, and was revived – they did CPR and brought me back, did more forced orgasms until I lost consciousness. I have had every sexual partner and every experience I have desired. I’m really into vomit play. I had a partner for five years that allowed me to face fuck her until she puked. I have been choked unconscious, I’ve choked other people unconscious. I have done every sort of exhibitionism and sexual activity. I’ve been at this for nine years, and I’ve been doing it – putting my back into it. I haven’t fucked twins. But other than that… My ex daddy at the time who was a director for kink ended up, in the middle of our relationship, dating Skin Diamond who is so stunningly hot. She has no pores.
Dawn Serra: She’s amazing.
Rain DeGrey: I know. She’s had sex with me repeatedly off-camera. I mean, it’s one thing when someone has sex with you on-camera that doesn’t really count. But off camera when someone consensually bangs you – she might be a half Scottish, half black girl, but she does a 12 year old Japanese girl voice and she’s really tiny. So you fold her in the bed and you tuck her little knees up near her ears, and you start fucking her and she starts talking and the Harijuku like Japanese girl voice. I’m like, “I now know what it’s like to fuck a 12 year old Japanese girl.” If I had any curiosity, it might be a half black, half Scottish porn star named Skin Diamond, but it sure seems like I’m fucking a 12 year old Japanese girl. So either if there’s something that I was interested in doing, I’ve done it. I am not interested in scat play. I have not done that. But other than that… I double fisted a guy once, I was really curious if I could get– This guy’s like, “Hey, what can we do a session? I can take two fists in my ass.” “Well, let’s try that. Let me take off my ring because it’s kind of an expensive ring. It’s got diamonds in the setting and I didn’t want poop in the rings. I didn’t want to lose it in his ass either. Because I’d have to try and fish it out. If you can take two of my hands inside your anal cavity, that ring could be up there for a while.
If there’s something I wanted to do, I’ve done it with zest and relish, and great joy in my perverted little heart. I cannot think of a… Oh Okay, you know what? I’ve never gone to suck dick at gloryhole because I’m very STI averse. One of the things with porn that people don’t realize is that it is so much safer to do porn. Everyone in porn is tested every 14 days. The tests are the absolute best tests you can get. You get results in 24 hours. I would never go to a bar, get my drink on, pick up a civilian, go home and have sloppy drunken sex. The great thing about porn, I’m privileged. Actually, when you think of porn stars, you think of women that are damaged and their daddy touched them when they were young, and they have drug issues and they can’t get their life together. I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist. They don’t last long. The people that stick around in the industry are legitimate sexual perverts, who are in touch with their sexuality and want to explore.
Rain DeGrey: Here’s an example: I did a gangbang for bound gang bangs for kink. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a gangbang happen? Tom is not available on Tuesday, Harry can only do Thursdays. Sam can’t get a babysitter, no one can meet on the same day. If they do meet, there’s no guarantee their dicks will work. There’s no guarantee they’ve got clean paperwork. There’s no guarantee that even if you can get five dudes to show up at your house at the same time and not flake out, and they all happen to have working dicks – they’re probably not going to be as easy on the eyeballs as your fantasy would be. I had the privilege, and let me tell you it’s a privilege, to get paid money to safely explore my sexual fantasies in a way I never would have been able to achieve.
Kink approached me, “Do you want to do a gang bang? All you have to do is show up, everyone will be tested, everyone is pretty to put your eyeballs on, everyone’s dick works. All you have to do is sit back and allow the pleasure to happen to you.” That’s a privilege. Then, “We’re going to pay you money after that – after giving you this amazing experience that you would not have been able to construct yourself. You can then pay your mortgage for the month.” Ta-dah! Seriously? So I got into porn because I wanted to explore and I wanted to do the more extreme things. I wanted to be crucified, inverted, buried upside down on the side of a mountain. They needed a backhoe. A crew of eight people took them five hours with a tractor to dig out the hole big enough to stick me in upside down and bury me. I can’t go on Craigslist, “Who wants to bury me?” I can’t make that happen. Are you kidding me?
Rain DeGrey: Being a model allowed me to live out my sexual desires in a way that is just – I’m so grateful and I’m so lucky. Most people will probably not get the privilege of doing that, and I never take that for granted. People used to try and shame me, “Oh, you’ve done porn.” It’s like, “Fuck, man. Are you kidding?” You would chop off a foot to get the experiences that I’ve managed to accumulate over the years, and I don’t regret any of them. One of the mottos that I always have lived my life by is that I refused to do a shoot on screen that I would not be willing to do free off camera. I would turn down work if it wasn’t the right fit for me or it wasn’t something I didn’t want to do. All of my film footage that you see, that’s something that I would be doing consensually not paid off camera. Because I was just exploring stuff that was interesting to me. I really got into exploring a lot of TS. I’ve got a lot of TS work. I have the pussy privilege. You can get away with a lot – with boobs. I have less physical strength, I have less economic power. I have a shelf life.
Women’s currency tends to be the looks and their body, that currency fades. A 45 year old man is respectable. A 45 year old woman is past her prime and she better have a ring on her finger or no one even wants to touch a 45 year old female pussy. A woman’s currency which is her sexuality and her looks is very, very valuable for a short period of time. It is a rapidly deflating currency. So I get it from both the male and female side. Men are a lot more respected in our society. They earn more money to our dollar. They’re physically safer. But you know what? Women get the cuddling. We get the emotional intimacy, we get the touching. if I have a bad day, I can call up a girlfriend, tell her all about it. She will totally emotionally support me and if I’m hanging out with my girlfriends, I could snuggle with them, I get all of the physical touch I desire, and men don’t get that privilege. I mean, the battle of the sexes is challenging, without a doubt. But I am grateful that my vagina has allowed me to share all of these experiences that would have been harder for me to acquire if I had a dick. Let’s be honest.
Dawn Serra: I would love to circle back to talk about breath play in just a minute. But first, one of the things that I want to talk about while we’re on this topic of all the amazing things you’ve done, and how proud and grateful you are for them is, I see you taking on folks on Twitter who are trying to save porn stars or sex workers. You had this amazing tweet on December 8, about, “I know you are conflicted by how much you want to fuck me. So you are shoving a Bible at me to try and quiet the lustful thoughts in your head.” I think one of the things that’s so amazing about this is it’s so clear that you are not ashamed of these amazing things you’ve been through, and so there is no shame or guilt coming through when you can take on these conversations because you’re coming from a place of power.
Rain DeGrey: I have the privilege that I don’t think a lot of other performers in the industry have, which is I give no fucks and a lot of girls do this heavy PR jazz hands, and you mustn’t upset a fan. But they’re doing it because the revenue and they’re, “Oh, I desire cock all the time, and whatever anyone says to me I’ll never call them on it.” And, “Oh, yes. I’m just a vacant three-hole cock whore.” That’s their pitch, that’s what their marketing says. I refuse. I would rather have less money and put up with people’s bullshit. I will not meekly acquiesce and roll over, and show belly. Do I lose fans? I certainly do. Am I told that I’m rude and not friendly, and not appreciative of my fans? Here’s the thing: anyone, any gender that approaches me as an asshole, I’m going to call you on it and I have no problem doing that. I’m certain that it’s cost me shoots and revenue, and money and fans over the years. But my guiding principle is to be true to myself, no matter what. I’m going to be true to myself.
I get Christians that want to save me, people that want to disparage me – I will call you out. I’ve been told that I’m snarky online, and I don’t have a really good PR presence, and that many other performers are much nicer to their fans. I’m like, “I’m nice to people that don’t approach me like a fool.” But if you approach me like a fool, I have zero reservations of calling you out on it. And if that shortens my career, or make people less interested in me as a person, I’m okay with that. Because in the end, I’m being true to myself. That’s my most important guiding principle.
Dawn Serra: I love that so much. It’s very refreshing and rare. So I hope everybody listening will go check out your amazing Twitter, the conversations that you have there.
Rain DeGrey: My brain really works. My brain is constantly– before Twitter even happened. I get sentences and fragments and thoughts and concepts, and I get hundreds of them a day. They just pop up like soap bubbles. I’m always thinking like, I don’t ever get bored or lonely because I’m really entertained in my brain. My brain is a fun place to hang out. Twitter is a really great medium for me because I use it as a scratchpad to put down my thoughts and my concepts. My thoughts pop out in Twitter-sized pieces. So yeah, Twitter’s always really worked well for me. I don’t ever go back. I use Twitter as a diary and a scratch. It’s just a notepad, and then I go on with my day. But people do tell me I’m a little snarky on my Twitter and then I laugh.
Dawn Serra: You’re like, “HAHAHAHA”.
Rain DeGrey: The snark tastes delicious.
Dawn Serra: That’s right. It’s got a finish on the pallet.
Rain DeGrey: Like a really good dry extra sharp cheddar.
Dawn Serra: That’s right. So you’re talking about being choked out and doing breath play, and suffocation – I know one of the classes you teach is also around breath play, and that’s definitely a space that even inside kink communities can be very edgy and something that people put a lot of warning labels on.
Rain DeGrey: That’s bullshit. You know what that is? That’s Jay Wiseman. Bless Jay’s heart. Jay is a bit of a busybody, he has a lot of time on his hands. He’s almost OCD in the things he focuses on. As an example, he decided to test the safeness of safety shears for bondage incidents, and he literally went out and bought 250 of the safety shears and cut, cut, cut each one with a slice to see if they had a failure rate.When he gets focused on something, he gets very meticulous about it. Years ago, he decided breath play is bad, and Jay Wiseman wrote SM 101, which is supposed to be the Kinky Bible. I think it’s somewhat dated information by now, and it was also written from a man’s perspective. I mean, it’s been out for 30 years. His thoughts and concepts – this stuff was not written about 30 years ago, 25 years ago when the book came out.
This one man’s specific concepts and thoughts really did influence kink as a whole for a long time, and he is against breath play. And what he is not realizing the counter argument to that is that I did wrestling, I’ve done jujitsu, I do choke outs, I do tap outs. If you watch any MMA fighting and wrestling, choking out it to the point that someone either taps or loses consciousness, happens all the time in Judo academies all over the United States. Now as we’re speaking, someone’s being choked unconscious, and people get very twitchy around breath play. I don’t get to teach the class that much because people get really riled about it. But here’s the thing, if you’re doing kink, it’s like getting on a roller coaster. Everyone gets on the roller coaster and they want the adrenaline and the fear, and the terror and the excitement but no one actually wants to die. When you do activities, they can be–
Rain DeGrey: I mean, I am a mess of injuries that I’ve accumulated over nine years of pushing my body as far as it could go. I have no problem with breath play. I feel that it can be done very safely. I’ve been knocked unconscious countless times, so much, I can’t even keep track. I’ve done it to others. It’s a huge trust thing. You’re literally – literally putting your life in someone else’s hands, and therein lies the rush. And done well, when you’re knocked unconscious with breath play even though it’s about 15 seconds before you come to – it feels like it’s half an hour a day, like time unfolds, things get weird. I was choked out and you come to, and your whole body has these convulsions. You feel like you’re in an earthquake, the whole room shaking and it’s you settling back in your body, and you can get visions. I’m sure that people, okay, you’re cutting off blood to your brain. Your brain is starved– I mean, it’s not for everyone. Maybe I have a bunch of brain cells to spare. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve been choked out so many times, I lose track and I’m not drooling on myself, and I can still tie my shoelaces and function. So I would theorize it’s not as risky as people think it to be. For me, the exhilaration despite the body rush that you get is the trust.
In all of the choke outs I’ve had, I’ve never had anything go wrong. I’ve never broken anything, damaged anything, bruised anything, bitten a tongue, lost a tooth, had any brain impairment. I’m sure that I might feel otherwise if something did happen, but I tend to explore something until my body tells me it’s not safe, which is how I took black eyes off the table. I went through a black eye period, and I was rocking, deliberate, purposeful, black eyes for six weeks. I thought they were beautiful and really cute, I looked like a little panda. I mean, they weren’t bad black eyes – it was like my eyes were swell shut. You can land the fist right in the socket, and it can cause some bruising underneath the eyes. It’s freaking adorable as far as I’m concerned.
Rain DeGrey: After a month and a half of being kept in black eyes, the same partner doing the same blow landed the impact slightly different and I got Bell’s Palsy – my entire face dropped off – my left side of my face. It took about three months for the nerves to come back. When I blow my nose, I couldn’t fill it on the left side and the nurse came back, it burned. So it felt like they were firing on the left side of my face for weeks. When I went to the doctor, the doctor said, “Yeah, you have Bell’s Palsy, which is temporary, but you have to stop getting punched in the head.” I took black eye play off the table.
So I will explore something until I realize it’s no longer safe or it’s not working. I’ve had no issues for breath play, and I can no longer do black eyes which saddens me because I really liked my black eyes. But, Bell’s Palsy is a pain in the butt and nerve damage when you’re blowing your nose and you can only feel about one side is a very jarring feeling.
Dawn Serra: I can’t imagine.
Rain DeGrey: So no with the black eyes, yes with the breath play.
Dawn Serra: Awesome. Well, I hope that gives permission to people who have had some curiosity around it to take a class or to do some reading around it or meet other people.
Rain DeGrey: There’s so much research with breath play and to say, we unconsciously do breath play to ourselves. When you’re cumming and you’re starting to reach that point of orgasm, next time – because we know you masturbate – next time you’re masturbating, check out your breathing pattern as you get closer to the orgasm [gasps]. Right there, you’re performing breath play on yourself, even if you’re not aware of it. By holding back your air temporarily, it does increase the feelings of lightheadedness. It makes your orgasm more powerful. We all do breath plays – those really hot scenes where a guy is fucking a girl and, wow, he’s just impaling her on his dick and he has her spread. He puts his hand down or he clamps it over her face. Shutting off either her mouth or her nose, or both – that’s a form of breath play right there. It doesn’t have to be full unconsciousness, but taking someone’s air…
Breath play done by dick worship – when you have your dick all the way down someone’s mouth hole they cannot breathe. The only molecule of oxygen allowed in their lungs is what you permit to pass your dick. You’re owning their facehole, you’re owning their lungs, you’re owning their air. There’s nothing more powerful than being in control of whether or not someone can breathe. And anytime someone does a deep throat scene, that’s breath play right there. Until the dick is removed, you’re not breathing. You can convulse, you can beg, you can weep. I really like strap-on fucking someone’s face and I like to make my ladies wear really heavy eyeliner, so that the more I face fuck them, the more they look like a sad panda. I love it.
Dawn Serra: I want those black streaks.
Rain DeGrey: Yes! You will not be wearing waterproof mascara around me, fuck no. The runnier the better. I want you to look like a bedraggled raccoon by the time I’m done with you.
Dawn Serra: I love that. Yeah, yeah, just those elements of being able to have that power. Also, the power that comes with someone giving you that is pretty impressive.
Rain DeGrey: It’s exhilarating and it’s beautiful. For me, it’s a real time continuum shift where you’re leaving the mundane realities of like, “Did I take out the trash?” “I need to buy more cat food.” You’re taking a time out for that. For me, when I really get in the zone as either a top or the bottom, time shifts. Things move differently – I can taste adrenaline on my tongue, my heartbeat changes, and I’m stepping into another realm. The trust and the respect, and the freedom to either give yourself over or take charge is exhilarating and captivating and it’s why I keep coming back.
Dawn Serra: I love that. That’s amazing. So we have just a couple of minutes left. I’d love to actually circle back to before we started recording, you said something that I think is super important for us to talk about, and listeners have heard this many different ways. But I really loved the way that you phrased it. So you’ve been doing a lot more writing and education lately, you’re writing for Tantus now. One of the reasons that you’re doing a lot more writing and education is because of piracy. And because of the free element of people expecting free porn, there’s been fewer and fewer porn shoots, so there’s fewer and fewer opportunities for paid work in porn for you. I would love for you to share a little bit more about that for our listeners so that we can drive that point home like, “Pay for your entertainment.”
Rain DeGrey: Well, I mean, it’s a huge problem and it’s not just in porn, it’s in entertainment worldwide. To this day, I have never pirated anything – every song I have I’ve paid for, every book I’ve ever had I’ve paid for, every movie I’ve ever seen, I paid for it. I won’t watch pirated stuff. It’s the principle of it. It’s the ethics of it. But more than that, we have a generation of people that have grown up on the computer, and the computer is a magic box. And out of that magic box flows free entertainment. It doesn’t occur to them – why would you ever pay for porn or a movie or music, songs like albums? You’re a fool, if you would pay for that. What it is, is that short term gain for long term loss, and no one’s going to think about it until there is no more porn, but that’s where we’re approaching. The pirate sites are huge. There is less and less opportunities, there’s less and less shoots. The budgets are smaller, it’s going to become more and more amateur.
People get hung up about porn, and even people that would be like, “Oh, it feels unethical to pirate a song,” or “I’m not a freak, I’m not a weirdo.” To actually open up your wallet and take out a credit card, and purchase porn is depressing for a lot of people. They’re like, “Oh, I’m a loser that I have to do that. So I’ll just steal it and watch it for free, and that makes me not a loser.” The thing is that renting a location costs money, hiring a videographer costs money, electricity costs money, computers, video cameras, wardrobe makeup, props – that doesn’t all just appear, magic. No one wants to pay and I have been in the industry for nine years and I have seen it shrunk – rates have shrunk, shoots shrunk.
Rain DeGrey: Back in August, kink cut back from 90 shoots to 45 shoots -they have to do their shoots. They can’t because it’s shrinking. Every year, it’s shrinking. Consumers are not realizing that because there’s still a trickle. But the trickle is slowing, in another ten years, it’s just going to be cam shows and girls doing their own site and you can buy clips off of them. But the era of the big companies of Wicked and Vivid are doing these massive productions where it’s like an experience you’re getting. We’re not getting that anymore, because the market has shifted. I don’t think that consumers are going to even give a fuck until they run out of porn. But the ironic thing is, that’s what’s happening. The tube sites which are the pirate sites that are hosting the porn are running out of places to steal porn from because they’ve devastated the market so much that they now have a customer base that is expecting to come to the tube sites and get free porn.
The tube sites have scraped the bottom of the barrel so thoroughly, they are now being forced in order to keep their customer base, to shoot, pay for, produce and create their own porn they didn’t have to give away for free on their sites. But for years, they made revenue, they made revenue and now they’re like, “Oh, oops.” So they’re actually having to pay performers. But it’s not going to be enough. I had a glorious ride. I really got in at the tail end, and I have a lot of respect for and I used to work with Mark Davis. He told me back in the day when he was doing porn, because Mark Davis was in the industry for 30 years. That’s what he’s done. He used to make $20,000 a month – he could do two shoots in one day. He’s like, “It’s not like that anymore. You can’t.” Porn performers are scraping by. I mean, you’re lucky to get one or two shoots a month. You cannot make living off of it anymore. I’m sad to watch consumers’ greed destroy creativity. Hollywood is having the exact same issue. They don’t know how to stop piracy, and it’s affecting everything everywhere, and I’m curious to see what the end result will be. I do know that for porn what we’re going to be is individual custom clips for sale and cam shows. Because those are the things that are harder to pirate, but your big budget porn that’s a whole fantasy that’s multi shoot scripts and actors – that’s going to be much harder to find. Pay for your porn or you don’t have porn.
Dawn Serra: Exactly. Yeah. Do you have any interest in moving into that more self-produced space? Are you enjoying this shift that you’ve been doing into– I mean, first of all your blog is amazing. So for anybody who hasn’t checked out your blog, they should definitely go. You had one about loving your body that was amazing, then your classes. So is that a space where you really want to be putting more of your time and energy over the next couple of years?
Rain DeGrey: I am. Because it’s harder to pirate. I would love to produce but then you’re getting a location, you’re getting lights, you’re getting camera, you’re doing editing, you’re doing this, and then the second you release it into the wilds of the internet, it then immediately gets pirated. When InSex would do shoots, they’d be released live at noon. By 12:15, it was already being pirated, and the whole shoot was downloaded and it was available in other countries. There are people that have a pay-per subscription site, just so they can then pirate it and strip all of the logo off of it. I do not see the wisdom in producing, because you have to work harder and harder for a smaller slice of the pie. You can’t. It’s much harder to pirate a class. It’s much harder to pirate writing. Also, true to be totally honest, I have been doing this for nine years. I had talked earlier about the rapidly devaluing currency of women. And when you are young and fresh and vital, and you’re sitting on young pussy, that pussy is powerful. It’s powerful, it can rule the world, but it has a ticking timeline on that pussy. I can write and teach classes long after no one wants to see me naked. And that’s the truth is that as a woman, when you start to enter your 30s and your 40s, you’re just not considered as desirable.
I know that I’m a sexy bitch. But I’m going to invest in classes and writing because that’s something I can still do when I’m 55. We’re not all Nina Hartley. I love Nina Hartley. She’s amazing. But most of us are not. I mean, I see people being so scathing to Nina – “She’s the cryptkeeper, she should keep her clothes on.” “I can’t see that walking corpse suck one more dick.” That’s incredibly hurtful and that’s the prerogative that men are giving, like , “Oh, get that old pussy out of here.” So classes and writing is where I’m now investing my energy. I’m currently writing a book – an intro to kink book, actually. It’s something I’m really passionate about. I’m trying to – I want to convert all the people. “Here’s a journey, take this journey. It might not work for you, but it might work for you and it’ll be amazing.” You’re never going to know until you give it a try.
Dawn Serra: I cannot wait for that book to come out so that I can read it and share it with all the listeners. But we are at the end of our hour and I want to respect your time, so I would love it if you could share with everyone how they can stay in touch with you and find you online, follow your writing and see when you’ve got classes.
Rain DeGrey: Sure thing. I am raindegrey.com That’s my website. It’s up now. I’m doing a pretty major relaunch of it. So I’ll have classes separate. I’m going to start doing an advice column. I’ll have my blog separate. I’m Rain DeGrey on Facebook. I’m Rain DeGrey on Fetlife and I’m Rain DeGrey on Twitter. On Facebook, Fetlife, and Twitter, as well as my blog, I will have all the places that I’m doing classes or events. I’m not hard to track down. I am pretty easy. I am pretty easy and I’m not hard to find online.
Dawn Serra: That’s perfect. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all of your incredible stories and experience and perspective. This was an hour that just absolutely zoomed by.
Rain DeGrey: Oh, shucks, thanks, lady. I have lots of experience with radio and podcasts. I’ve been doing this stuff for years. Words are my thing. I really, I love the power of language. Yes, I lose time when I start messing around with words. So yeah, this was a delight. Thank you.
Dawn Serra: Good. I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in. I will have all of Rain’s links on the dawnserra.com/ep140 for this episode. So please check it out. Be sure to follow her on social media. Please, Rain, when your book comes out, let me know because I want to let all the listeners know to check it out.
Rain DeGrey: Deal. I will. I mean we should do this again sometime.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I would love that. Okay, well thank you everybody. I hope you have a great week. This is Dawn Serra and I will talk to you next time.
LISTENER CONFESSION DETAILS
Are you ready to be part of the show with your juicy, awkward, fun, sad confessions? Now you can be!
January’s theme is FIRSTS, so if you have a story to share about a first in your sexual or romantic history that was meaningful, transformative, disappointing, surprising, or something that you hope to experience soon, I want to hear from you.
Here are the guidelines:
- Subscribe to the Sex Gets Real newsletter (there’s a box in the upper right) because that’s where I’ll be announcing future themes.
- Record your story using your phone, your computer, a recorder, or whatever you have at your disposal. It should be no longer than 7 minutes.
- Don’t want your voice heard? Type up your story, email it in, and I’ll read it for you.
- Email your MP3 file/story (make it as high quality as you can – both in sound and content) to info(at)sexgetsreal.com.
- Submission does not guarantee your story will make it on the show, but every submission will be reviewed and considered.
- Deadline for January’s confessions is January 20, 2017.
What should your story be about?
- I want stories that are real – I want to hear the awkward, the disappointing, the surprising, the reality versus the expectation, how the experience changed you or how it didn’t even though you wanted it to. This isn’t about being as explicit as possible, and it’s not about writing erotica. I want your real, true, humanity-filled story including your feelings, thoughts, and the impact it had on you.
- Include a beginning, middle, and end so we have a complete picture of this event you’re sharing.
- It MUST include the theme of the month, though it doesn’t have to be terribly literal. For instance, a “first” may be the first time you felt pleasure or the first time you realized your sexuality was changing or the first time you gave yourself permission to talk to a partner about your past.
Need examples of great personal storytelling?
Listen to The Moth, This American Life, The Heart, or check out the confessions at Erika Lust’s XConfessions.
I can’t wait to hear from you!