F*ck Around and Find Out with Anna Lee: How to be an analog pervert

Hello, my sweet angel pies! What has everyone been up to this summer? I live in a part of San Francisco that's notorious for staying cold and gloomy all summer long, and it's been bumming me out more than I'd like to admit. BUT! This past weekend, we suddenly got a massive surge of sunshine and it lit a lightbulb in my brain for all the sex science content I want to make this month. (I must be solar powered.) So, I've been buzzing around researching sex facts and building contraptions to conduct sex experiments...all while watching videos of BigBang's 20th anniversary tour. Needless to say, I'm riding a high, so it's the perfect time to kick off this month's column!

Anna, why the f*ck are there even pattern options on vibrators? Do other women actually use these?! All we need is low, medium, high steady vibration! -JP

You know, this question cracks me up because I've heard SO many passionate rants from women over the years asking this exact thing. Why do sex toys cycle through a million patterns, and is this actually something other women use? Honestly, it might be worth some deep-dive investigative journalism one day to find out which vibrator company first launched patterns. But if I can just go off a hunch from what I know about this industry, I'm pretty sure it happened because patterns are a very easy thing to program into a toy, AND they help it stand out on a shelf when the packaging gets to brag "over 100 patterns!"

Now, do women actually use them? I was a firm steady-vibration girlie for many years and found patterns kind of stupid, mostly a nuisance for when you accidentally press the button mid-session and suddenly you're clicking through 60 different settings trying to get off of “Jingle Bells.” (Or resigning yourself to try and get off to “Jingle Bells.”) HOWEVER, because there's SO much discourse about the disdain for patterns on TikTok, I made it my duty two years ago to actually experiment with them. And what I found is that there's this one specific pattern that crescendos in intensity over and over again that I ended up loving because it helped me edge! I don't reach for it often, but I do find myself grabbing that specific toy from time to time. Do we need the other 59 patterns though? Probably not. Although...maybe, I wouldn't be against a BigBang song turned into a vibration pattern. 

Someone get on that!

In a move my therapist called growth, I deleted every dating and hookup app to try meeting people in real life again. I’m back in 2005, baby. Turns out flirting in person is HARD when you're queer and kinky, because a bar doesn't come with a filter for "into the same weird stuff as me." On FetLife and Feeld, I could just glance at someone's profile and get a good idea. Now I'm just standing there guessing. Am I just going to have to swing 1,000 times? -AnalogPervert

First of all, I am obsessed with your sign-off name. Second, I have some good news that'll save you a few hundred swings. Because while dating is unfortunately kind of always about swinging 1,000 times, you can absolutely narrow your odds by going to specific bars, events, and munches to find people who match your vibe. For example, I'd have a much better chance of meeting someone into BDSM at a Folsom Street Fair event than, say, a Christian, God-fearing farmer (FarmersOnly, anyone?).

Also, it’s worth noting that people may be giving out a signal to the world about who they are without you realizing! For decades, folks have worn everything from carabiners, to lock collars, to specific colors to broadcast their stories. In the 1970s, the queer community developed the hanky code, where the color and placement of the handkerchief in your back pocket told people what you were into. Left side meant you were a top, red meant fisting, yellow meant watersports, and so on. And it gets even better: did you know different fetish communities have their own flags?!

For example, here’s one for the armpit fetish community. So diverse, so poetic! I love.

And here’s one for the rubber fetish community. So super-heroic and electric!

So maybe it's less about swinging 1,000 times and more about learning to spot the bat signal...and start throwing out your own.

Now that you’re in your 30s, what sex advice would you give yourself in your 20s?  -MM

Aw, I love this question, especially after a 23-year-old at my gym recently asked how old I was and, upon hearing the answer, responded with "Oh, that's crazyyy." Deeply humbled, I was.

With that said, I truly loved my 20s and don't regret most of what I got into. But if I could go back and hand myself a little sex advice, it'd be this: be curious enough to explore every inch of your body and brain, and find real confidence in the things you love. I vividly remember being with someone at 22 when I was dying to explore more anal play, but I was too ashamed to bring it up. I was so scared of being judged, even though I knew deep down it was something I wanted. These days? I'm confident enough in my own curiosities, and in myself, to actually speak up about the things I want to try...and guess what? Hasn't steered me wrong yet. 😉

I promise you that there is truly NO question too unhinged for F*ck Around and Find Out with Anna Lee. Have a question you’d like me to answer for the next article? Submit them anonymously here!