Hello there doe-eyed friend, this post isn’t safe for work, unless you work from home at your dining room table listening to NPR and eating veggie quesadillas that you call Riese-adillas because they’re just the ones Riese made for you last summer, like some of us. Moving on, do you have sex? What kind of sex do you have? What kind of sex are you talking about today? Today we’re talking about this kind of sex. This is our story.

We spoke about toeing for the first A+ podcast, but that audio file got fucked up — too fucked for your earholes, but just audible enough to be transcribed. What follows is the transcript from that night in Big Bear, California last July, right after we’d taken Fireball shots and promised Grace we’d speak directly into the microphones cross our hearts amen.

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Rachel: Grace, do you want to define “toeing” for our listeners?

Grace: Why don’t you define it?

Riese: Grace doesn’t drive, you guys, so she can’t talk about it.

Alex: I was gonna make a joke about my car being towed and you took it.

Grace: Let’s not pretend that that’s the kind we’re going to talk about. Does anybody want to give us like a nice, Webster’s Dictionary definition of “toeing”?

Alex: I think Riese does.

Riese: I was joking when I said toeing could be the topic for the podcast roundtable!

Rachel: You were clearly not joking. You were definitely not joking.

Grace: You were serious. You said to me, “This is what we’re gonna do. I think it’s gonna go really well. I’m really excited. I’m really excited for everyone to hear about it.”

Riese: Don’t you think that we should come up with another topic too?

Rachel: It seems like if we were going to do that we should have done it before right now, maybe?

Riese: Well, we could talk about scissoring…

Grace: No, I think we should definitely talk about toeing. I think people want to hear about toeing.

Riese: Nobody ever wants to hear about toeing.

Grace: I want to hear about toeing.

Laneia: I always, all the time, want to hear about toeing.

Alex: The funny thing is that during our relationship Riese would threaten me with toeing every day.

Rachel: Wait. Every day?

Alex: Every day.

Grace: Wait. Somebody should explain what toeing is!

Rachel: Okay. I will define “toeing” and Riese can correct me if I’m astray. So, we understand that if you are digitally or manually stimulating someone’s genitals, we might refer to that as “fingering.” And so, kind of in the same vein, if someone is stimulating another person’s genitals but using their toes rather than their fingers — I think primarily your big toe —

Laneia: Wait… don’t limit people to the big toe.

Rachel: Right, right. It could be any toe. I know. You know, you have a lot of them! You have probably ten of them? In the range of ten. I don’t want to put up boundaries. So your big toe would be stimulating someone’s clitoris? And other toes would be in other areas? With the big toe, or maybe there could be — I don’t know. I don’t know what you guys are doing with your toes. But I think that’s basically what’s on the table here.

Laneia: I just had this thought about… um. Okay, you know the thing Big Boo said on Orange is the New Black? This thing that she… and other people… also say? I can’t actually say it.

Grace: I believe in you. You can do this.

Laneia: I really can’t do it.

Alex: You can do it. It’s okay.

Riese: Do you want to whisper it to Alex and then she can tell it to us?

Laneia: Can I do that?

Grace: Yeah, yeah you can do that.

[Laneia whispers to Alex]

Alex: [disgusted groan]

Laneia: If you were toeing, then it’d be possibly a thing that you’d say!

Alex: “Two in the pink, one in the stink.”

Yvonne: No.

Rachel: Yes. That is a thing that people say. People say that!

Alex: That’s just what Laneia told me in my ear.

Rachel: But I actually don’t…

Laneia: Maybe your big toe would be in one place, and then your other toes…

Rachel: But if I think about the width of my toes, I actually don’t know that I could do that.

Laneia: I think it would depend.

Rachel: Wait. What if… you could use both feet?  That’s why people do yoga, right? Isn’t that what yoga’s for?

Riese: No, people do yoga cause at the end you get to lie down with your eyes closed and be spiritually connected to your body.

Rachel: Yvonne does a lot of yoga.

Yvonne: Because… okay, because of what Riese just said. No! Breathing. I learned how to breathe.

Rachel: Well, that’s good. So yoga is NOT for toeing.

Yvonne: Definitely not for toeing. I didn’t even know what toeing was until I met you fine folks.

Alex: That’s because I bet your girlfriend didn’t threaten you with it all the time!

Laneia: I feel like “I learned how to breathe” would be a nice title for anything. Anything that you could ever write!

Grace: Okay. Well, if putting all fingers inside of someone is “fisting,” if you put all of your toes inside someone… is it “footing?”

Riese: Yes.

Grace: Or is that just like kicking them?

Riese: Is this the part where I can talk about that time a guy paid me $200 to kick him in the balls?

Rachel: No.

Grace: Because when you fist someone, it’s your whole hand. But I don’t think your whole foot…

Alex: I’m resenting all of you for giving me these visuals.

Riese: The thing is that when you put your whole hand in, you can compact your hand. But if you put your whole foot in, it’s just your whole foot. You know what I mean?

Grace: Right.

Laneia: You could probably compact your foot.

Riese: Not that much.

Rachel: You could roll the ball of your foot and it’s a little bit smaller…

Laneia: I just did it right now, and I lost at least an inch!

Alex: Does no one have a problem with feet, period?

Rachel: Oh no, I really do. Personally I have a huge problem with feet.

Grace: I’m never doing this. Ever.

Laneia: Yeah. No.

Alex: Me neither. Just making sure it wasn’t just me who had a problem with feet. Okay, great.

Laneia: No, that’s fine. But if you were going to try this…

Rachel: But we’ve all read this on xoJane where somebody’s partner touched her vagina with her toes and then she got a kidney infection and was in the hospital, which I think is basically Go Ask Alice shit about toeing.

Laneia: It is. It is.

Rachel: That is the “scared straight” of toeing.

Riese: xoJane is the “scared straight” of everything, let’s be real.

Rachel: I’m sorry, Jane Pratt, it’s true.

Riese: Yeah. I love you Jane Pratt and you changed my life and none of us would be here without you, but xojane is… um… wild! Anyway! So, are we done talking about toeing?

Grace: Does anyone else have any other feelings about toeing? Do you think that there is a safe way to do toeing?

Riese: Okay, I need to talk about why we’re talking about toeing to begin with! See, once upon a time my best friend Ryan told me that he…

Alex: I’m gonna go get a drink!

(Alex gets up)

Riese: But —

Grace: She’s fine. Just let her go.

Riese: Is this embarrassing you?

Alex: Just do it.

Riese: That’s what she said!

(Laughter and mayhem)

Riese: Okay, so Ryan was my best friend, and he was gay and like, two years older than me. Because he was gay he just loved to talk about how he hooked up with all of these girls before like, being gay full-time, and he was always telling me about this Russian exchange student that he’d toed! Like how he was on one side of the couch and she was on the other and he toed her and got her off! From “toeing”!

Grace: No, that’s not right.

Riese: And I didn’t know what it meant. I was 16. He was 18. What did I know? And so he told me about it once and then just kept bringing it up all the time as this joke ’cause he knew I like hated the Exchange Student Toeing Story. I was like just fucking stop talking about it! And I never really asked him for detail, but he brought it up so much! And somehow this led to me becoming obsessed with the idea of toeing as a thing to bring up all the time to people I love and am having sex with, because it’s hilarious! This is what happens. It’s the cycle of toeing jokes.

Rachel: You’re right. It’s just like that.

Riese: People do things to you, and then you do them to your children. But the thing he did to me was talk about toeing all the time.

Rachel: I think an important question that we maybe haven’t really covered yet — is toeing an activity we’d ever engage in?

Laneia: Actually, I would not take it off the table.

Rachel: I think that it should be on the table. I want that on the table.

Riese: Everybody loves it when people put feet on their table.

Laneia: I’m just saying that I will never say never.

Rachel: But that’s the point of the question: If you have a hypothetical partner who really wants to toe or be toed or both, what would it take for you to be like “okay, we’ll do this?” How committed would you have to be?

Laneia: They’d need to undertake a good, solid scrub and a pedicure.

Rachel: They’d have to have literally just come from getting a pedicure.

Laneia: Or we went to the pedicure together so I could see what was happening.

Alex: What about the nails?

Laneia: Yeah, I need all of that to be taken care of. I don’t want to be a part of that. A scrub means a lot. But I still don’t literally want to do it. I want to make this clear…

Riese: It’s just a joke! It’s a thing that someone joked about to me a lot. And so then for the rest of my life, which has been another 16 years on top of those 16 years, I have been talking about toeing.

Alex: But it happens.

Grace: Certainly somebody is into it.

Alex: Somebody’s done it!

Laneia: Someone must have done it. Right? Wouldn’t a person have done it?

Yvonne: I honestly think that your friend Ryan was on one side of the couch and the girl was on the other side of the couch and his foot just touched her vagina. And then he just caressed it with his toe.

Alex: She was as far away as possible from his body because your leg is the longest limb.

Yvonne: And maybe he was trying to hide it. Maybe there was parental supervision around. I don’t know. I’m not sure.

Riese: I guess he would have been 15 or 16 at the time.

Rachel: And also if she came, “came” in finger quotes, it was clearly faked. I feel like 16 year-old boys can’t get you off even with their hands, which are very dexterous. You certainly can’t get a 16 year-old girl off with your toe.

Laneia: That. Thank you.

Riese: So the bottom line of this story as Yvonne has just revealed to me is that Ryan lied to me. He didn’t put his toe in anyone’s vagina.

Rachel: How does that make you feel?

Riese: It makes me feel weird because… I finally got to experience toeing for myself!

(Applause)

Rachel: This is what we’ve been leading up to, dear readers.

Riese: About two weeks ago. But also it wasn’t a sexual thing, we were just joking around. I mean, I’ve been making the same jokes about toeing with everyone I’ve ever dated or slept with for 16 years.

Laneia: Everyone you’ve ever known, actually.

Riese: Or known.

Rachel: Honestly, even strangers. I feel like sometimes strangers…

Riese: I have been talking about toeing for so long!!

Laneia: Toeing is right below talking about your dead father for you. That’s where it is for you.

Riese: Dead father, toeing, cocaine phase.

Laneia: That’s it. Now you know Riese. That’s it. That’s all that you need to know.

Riese: That and Love Actually.

Laneia: I would put Love Actually above the cocaine phase. Right? No?

Rachel: I feel like a lot of people had a cocaine phase, but I feel like not that many people hate Love Actually.

Riese: I hate Love Actually SO MUCH I hate it enough for everybody. Anyhow, so I’ve been joking about this for 16 years, and then finally someone — someone very special — was like, “okay, let’s do it.”

Rachel: What was it like?

Riese: Well, if you’ve ever stuck your toe in a log of fresh mozzarella…

Rachel: No, I actually haven’t…

Alex: Is this microwaved?

Yvonne: Is it weird that I haven’t done that?

Laneia: Would you microwave it or just leave it cold?

Yvonne: It would be better a little bit warmer.

Rachel: Are there any other food items that you’d like to compare the sensation to?

Riese: I did originally say that it was like putting a toe in an pie.

Rachel: Like in American Pie?

Riese: Like in American Pie. Yeah, but I actually didn’t think it was like any of the things I said. I just keep making up metaphors to make you guys laugh because toeing is always funny. It felt like putting your toe in a vagina, obviously!

Alex: Oh.

Laneia: Okay. Good.

Grace: That’s a really abstract metaphor.

Riese: And being toed felt like someone was putting a toe in you. It’s not an actual sexual thing to do with a person, it’s like a jokey thing to do, like trying scissoring with our pants on, except obviously you can’t keep your pants on. But it’s not like you can do anything besides get the tip in. Your whole entire foot is hanging out right there! But trying to do it is hilarious!

Alex: Do not consent.

Riese: Then you think, “It’s so funny. We’re toeing.” It’s funny and then you laugh and feel happy. I just want to say that I think there are things people do to be turned on, and then there are things that people do just because we only live once.

Rachel: Isn’t that sort of the message of Love Actually, when you think about it?

Riese: If Hugh Grant had toed Emma Thompson in Love Actually then, yeah, I would have thought that movie wasn’t a pile of fucking bullshit because you know what’s real? Toeing. I’m just saying that this would be a funny thing to try with your partner if you don’t know where your Scattergories game is.

Yvonne: Do you think you would be happier if it had happened organically?

Riese: You mean if I hadn’t made a joke about toeing and then decided to do it as a joke? Well, no, because it never could’ve happened organically! If anyone organically wanted to put their toe in me I’d be like, “This is really fuckin’ weird.” It can only happen with someone you trust very much and really want to explore new things with, like going to stores, trying new brunch places…

Laneia: I see.

Riese: Then you’re like, “this is the weirdest thing ever, let’s laugh about it forever.” Then we laughed so much that the bitch below us started banging on the ceiling with her broom!

Laneia: Making a lot of noise while you’re toeing!

Riese: And she was texting me like, “we’re trying to go to sleep.” Well, bitch, we’re trying to put our toes inside each other just to see what it feels like!

Laneia: Everyone has an agenda, asshole. There’s no need to put yours above mine.

Riese: Exactly. And I felt like what I was doing was really important for me personally, as self-care.

Laneia: Where does it end with you? Do you know what I mean? Chin? Nose? Wait, I feel like we do these things anyway.

Alex: 69?

Yvonne: Least favorite position?

Riese: I don’t like 69.

Alex: So toeing, thumbs up; 69, thumbs down?

Riese: Yeah, but pretending to 69 wouldn’t be as funny as pretending to toe. Right? But 69-ing would probably be more fun that actually toeing if you’re into that kind of thing.

Laneia: I feel like 69-ing is right up there with scissoring when it comes to what works for me. Not that. So, thanks! It’s a lot. What about elbows?

Riese: What about elbows?

Laneia: Have you considered the elbow?

Alex: What if I elbowed you right now? Not literally.

Yvonne: Elbow in your vagina.

Riese: Elbow? You mean elbow…

Grace: Put their elbow in your vagina.

Riese: No! That’s disgusting!

Grace: You did toeing, but you won’t do elbows?

Rachel: Is this elbow shaming?

Riese: I didn’t really DO toeing. I mean it was just a five-second experiment. I’ve just been hyping it up because I’ve been talking about toeing for so long and also I thought we were all friends.

Laneia: We are. No. I am with you 100%. Completely.

Grace: This is a safe space.

Riese: I thought that we loved each other and that you would want to know that I had finally accomplished this thing that I’d been talking about for 16 years.

Grace: I’m really proud of you.

Laneia: I love it. I’m so excited.

Riese: And my whole life has changed. I’m just really happy and I just wanted to share that with all of you.

Alex: Well, I wish there was a trigger warning because you’ve been threatening me with toeing for years.

Riese: I know, I’m sorry.

Grace: Okay. In summation, toeing is really impractical. Nobody really wants to do it except for Riese.

Laneia: There are other humans possibly…

Alex: Several other…

Rachel: We really respect their experiences.

Laneia: We respect Ryan even though Ryan is a liar.

Grace: Toeing works for some people. It doesn’t work for most people at this table.

Riese: It doesn’t work for me either!

Yvonne: Sooooo nobody at this table?

Rachel: Of all the things that have touched everybody’s genitals, what were the top ten things that have touched your genitals?

Laneia: Like how many different…

Riese: You know that metal clamp they give you at the…

Rachel: The speculum. Yeah.

Riese: Love it!! Just kidding. I hate it. Everybody hates it, right?

Rachel: Yeah. I was sitting next to Jack Nisely in Health class in 8th grade when they showed us what a speculum was and even Jack Nisely hated it. He was an asshole. And he was like “I’m so sorry.” Because he saw a speculum.

Laneia: Even warm, it’s not gonna work.

Rachel: They never warm it, also.

Laneia: Really? No. I’ve been to a place where they warm it.

Rachel: Where is it? Can I have their number?

Laneia: Yeah. It’s in Phoenix. I’ll show it to you. They warm it.

Riese: Okay. Here’s a question. You’re about to get a pap smear. They come in and they say “Either we can stick a human foot in your vagina or a speculum,” what would you pick?

Rachel: Speculum. Sorry. It’s a speculum still.

Riese: Either way you get a pap smear. Do you want to change your answer?

Rachel: I don’t.

Grace: I’m with Rachel on this one.

Riese: We all know Alex has only been to the gynecologist once.

Yvonne: I’ve never been to the gyno before.

(everybody gasps)

Rachel: Wait. We have to change the topic. Change the topic of the podcast.

Riese: Does everyone want to do another shot?

All: Yes.

Grace: So we’re gonna do shots and when we’re back, we’re gonna give some advice to some people who asked for it.

Rachel: It’s going to be about going to the gynecologist.