Dear Sasha,

I recently invested in a toy (the Fun Factory Share) that I’m extremely pleased with except for one thing — the head is really pronounced and quite a bit larger than the shaft.

Now, I personally quite like this for myself, but I bought it mainly for fucking a particular guy who, while well acquainted with his ass, is finding the head quite a challenge.

So what I’m wondering is this: is it possible to modify the head, pare it down maybe (yikes!), without ruining the toy? I’m loving the experience of having a cock that’s actually connected to me, and we’ve had a lot of very hot play with it, but I really, really wanna fuck his ass.

AJ

AJ, put down the sandpaper, scissors, nail clippers or whatever it is you’re holding in your hot little hands and step away from the $120 toy you are about to neuter. We do not compromise the medical-grade silicone of expensive sex toys by doing home surgeries on them; we buy new ones, ones that are more simpa-tico with the holes we are sticking them in.

You have several negotiable options.

“There are maybe eight or nine toys on the market designed for this purpose,” says Cory Silverberg of Come as You Are, meaning ones that can be worn internally while you fuck someone with the other end, harness-free. “Happy Valley makes one, Vixen makes two or three different sizes, as does Tantus.”

And there are actually three different sizes of the Share, so maybe you want to look at yours and see if it is, in fact, one of the larger ones.

Silverberg also recommends a nifty and economical piece of technology called The Coupler (go to comeasyouare.com and type it into your search). This allows you to handpick your dicks and join them together as a harness-free unit. If you have dildos you both like already, then 14 bucks is all you’ll need to satisfy both your needs.

Dyke to watch out for

Dear Sasha,

I am a lesbian in my mid-20s. I am a graduate student and a feminist, but I still don’t know where else to go for help with this question. I am in a two-year committed and monogamous relationship. My partner and I have recently moved in together, though we have pretty much both lived in my apartment together for over a year now.

The problem is that my partner can get very visibly and aggressively angry over what I consider small things. I tend not to show anger and instead hold it in, which I realize may be worse. My partner frequently does things like punch walls or swear, and last year she broke a bowl of mine and threw a chair across the room. I was not in the room at the time, so I was fine.

I have tried to see it from her perspective, since both her parents also have short tempers and swearing was common in their household. However, I always end up feeling very uncomfortable and sometimes scared by this behaviour.

I have said this to my partner numerous times, and she has tried to take deep breaths or go for walks to calm down when angry. She feels that by continuously asking her to deal with her anger I am nagging her and making her feel like a bad person. She feels that she has made efforts to improve. While she hasn’t thrown, broken or punched anything in a while, she still gets verbally aggressive easily.

The other night at a concert, I told her that I found a girl near us attractive. She called me “disgusting,” and later, while trying to walk past me, grabbed my shoulder and arm so hard that they bruised and then pushed me very aggressively out of the way. I was furious and walked away from her. She apologized over and over again the next day. At first I tried not to think too much of it, but then the next day she was mad at me again over something small. I brought up what had happened the night before and she apologized again. I told her that if she did it again I would leave her.

I am still worried. I have never been in this situation. If it had happened with a man I would have left immediately, but it is so hard to see her as a violent person. She loves me, and I know she wouldn’t mean to hurt me.

I feel like I am trapped in a bad dream. How could this happen to me? I am a feminist! My intellectual self is telling me these are red flags for abuse, but my heart is telling me that I love this woman. I don’t know what to do.

Lesbian Feminist

There is only so much screaming followed by scraping a person can do before they have to begin looking deeply into themselves and breaking that pattern.

Your girlfriend seems very easily triggered; not by behaviour of yours that is deliberately or carelessly upsetting and disrespectful, but behaviour she perceives as deliberately or carelessly upsetting and disrespectful.

I generally interpret anger as fear. We all carry this very primal emotion with us, but how we manifest it to ourselves and to others is what makes it easier to understand and deal with. I’m a big fan of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy these days. I would recommend she see a therapist (psychiatry is covered by OHIP) who practices this and maybe pick up the book Mind Over Mood to get herself started.

Rage is frightening, I know. I suffer from it myself, and those around me are affected by it, too. If she is committed to working things out with you, then she must seek help. You cannot be responsible for always holding her anger and remorse whenever it explodes. A shitburger followed by ice cream is still a shitburger.

Even those of us who are in challenging situations need to learn to control our anger. By changing our reaction, our mood, we can actually get a better foothold. This is the thing that is so gratifying about truly dealing with rage — you are no longer trapped in this cycle of anger and remorse, anger and remorse.

Without these two crippling emotions blocking you, you can make strong, clear-headed decisions about what you really want and need.

And for you, Lesbian Feminist, see here for a list of resources, including hotlines on domestic violence. And safe4all.org has resources specifically for lesbians. Your partner’s behaviour is not fucking cool.

Ask Sasha: [email protected]

Sasha Van Bon Bon

Sasha is a nationally syndicated sex columnist whose work has appeared in a variety of Canadian weeklies and online magazines for over 15 years. Her column appears weekly in NOW magazine. She is also...