I know that this isn’t my usual thing to write about. And as far as I know, no one here has ever talked about The Bad Dragon line of sex toys. But given what just happened, I feel someone who is part of the Eden community should say something.

On Tuesday, October 11th, one of the artists/designers and minds behind Bad Dragon Toys, Athus Nadorian, died in a car accident in Phoenix AZ. He was only 29 years old.

Most people don’t know about this little and innovative company. They cater to the pet play crowd, and the furry community. They make anthro dildos and masturbators. They even have their own kind of lube.

I came across their work via a playmate who is a puppy boy. He would use his K9 dildo a lot when we would play.

I actually met them earlier this year. I was able to talk with the owner and designers of the company. These guys were amazing. They weren’t just trying to sell their work. They were more interested in the people that were there. They were the kind of guys that I would want to have a drink with. I even had the chance to talk with Athus for a little while that afternoon.

My husband got me one of the smaller dildos, a mini one, and the lube.

They were about to boost their production rate. A few friends of mine were trying to make this company just as big as the mainstream sex toy companies.

When I heard about the designer’s death, all that I could think is, ‘what a waist of that amazing talent.’ He could have easily been a huge name. His work looked so real and so artistic. His colors were either real or fantasy.

Truly a loss to the sex toy world.

The most amazing sex toy artist that you have never heard of is gone.

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I think by now a lot of you know that I am a breast cancer survivor. Yes, I was really young when I got my diagnosis. And yes, I was very lucky not have to have a mastectomy or any kind of radiation. The doctors got it all out of me with the surgery. But I have to watch myself very carefully.

A few months after I had my surgery, one of the professors that I had did The Susan G. Komen 3 Day in my name. At the time, I was the youngest person she knew that had it, and she felt it was a way to help me. I threw a huge event to help her raise money for the walk, and the event brought in about half of what she needed to raise.

And here I am, years later, and remembering that professor who did the walk in my name.

At the start of the year, I decided that it was time for me to do the walk myself. My husband also wanted to join me. But there was no way in hell that we would be in shape enough to walk 60 miles over three days. And we knew that we wouldn’t be able to do the walk this year. So we are planning on doing the 2012 walk.

We were both out of shape and overweight when we started really training this passed July. I knew I needed to build up endurance and drop some weight so that I would save knees and ankles.

A two mile walk was hard on me before I started really working on this training.

I started to watch what I am eating. I’m not giving up my favorite foods, but I am eating them in moderation. Portion control has also helped a lot.

Yes it was hell at first. I was always feeling hungry. But that only lasted a few weeks. Now, I can’t even imagine eating as much as I used to. Even the smell of heavy and greasy food is a major turn off now.

I have also been walking a lot. I am walking everywhere that I physically can. My husband is joining me on this too. We have been slowly working up our distance.

Last week, I did an eight mile long walk. The longest I have done since I was in Junior High. I was tired, but I felt amazing.

I figure that if I can do a trail that is close to my place that is about 12 miles round trip easily, I will be ready for the walk.

I am also shooting to be jogging and running by New Years.

The walk is now ten months away. I have dropped three dress sizes, and I am very close to my walking goal.

My body is changing. I am far more active than I have been in years. My clothes are all getting too big for me. Even sex is better.

You could say that making the choice to do The 3 Day is changing my life in all kinds of better ways.

I have told the story of my diagnosis and surgery for my breast cancer already. It’s up and live here on Eden Cafe already.

Yes, I was very young at the age of 23. I was a young and very sexually active woman. A week after my surgery, I was really wanting to have sex with my boyfriend.

But there was a few problems with that:

First, I had a little trouble with my surgery. It started to abscess on me a few days after the surgery.  The whole area that the tissue was taken out of started to fill with fluid and started to stretch the skin and stitches. I had to be reopened up and drained out right in the doctor’s office.

The second problem is that after I was reopened, the wound had to stay open so that it wouldn’t abscess again. I had to keep it packed with gauze in it, but it was open, and I could actually look into my breast.

Third, my boyfriend is a major boob fetishist. He loves them. He paws, grabs and squeezes mine all the time. That isn’t a good thing with a hole in my breast.

The last problem with sex for me, is that I tend to be on top and like very rough and vigorous sex. That would mean a lot of bouncing and movement. Just the thought of it is painful, and not the fun kind of pain.

But a vibrator could only do so much, and I was wanting actual sex. It took my boyfriend and me about a week to find a way to have sex that wasn’t painful. He was not permitted to touch either breast. That would keep the temptation to grab the painful one down. I also had the godsend of a sports bra to keep them from moving during sex. We also learned that I had to be on top to keep the bounce down and pressure off of them.

I healed fine and was having sex normally. But I had a scar that was very bright because of having to be reopened and having to heal open. As soon as I was healed I became very self conscious of the scar. Don’t ask me why, I really don’t know. I just was. And I was for years. I would actually try to hide it from my lovers.

I would even keep bras on during sex, or find crazy ways to hide it. I wouldn’t ever dream of posing nude, or even wearing a low cut top because of it. I was even wearing my corsets high on my chest to hide it.

I hated the way it looked even though my lovers felt it was a symbol that I was still alive.

I even wanted to have it tattooed over. But scar skin doesn’t tattoo well. So my artist did a little bat tattoo where the wings went around the scar. The tattoo drew attention to the scar in a new way. The combination made the cancer scar look more like scarification.

The whole thing made me start to wear lower cut outfits. It also made me talk to people about the cancer and tell my story when people saw it.

The more I would talk about it, the more I got used to it.

I don’t hide it anymore, and even wear it as a badge of honor and survival.

I’m about five years away from having to do yearly mammograms. But I do my self breast check every three weeks or so. Don’t tell me that in my mid thirties that I am too young to be doing that. You really never are too young to be checking your breasts.

Men, this goes for you too. You do have breast tissue too, and you can get breast cancer as well. Check your chest as much as you check your balls for testicular cancer.

When I was in my early twenties, I would forget to do self checks all the time. It didn’t seem like it was something that I really needed to worry about. It was an older woman’s disease, right? I was young, and I didn’t have to worry about it for another twenty years or so.

Or so I thought.

I had actually remembered to check my breasts one afternoon when I was 22 years old, and I found a tiny lump in the top part of my left breast. I freaked out and called my then doctor.

My doctor checked it and told me not to worry and that it was just an inflamed mammary gland. And I believed that for a few months.

Every time I would check, the lump would be bigger. It was growing fast.

Every time I would call my doctor, I would be told that it was just the mammary glad or breast fiber, and not to worry about it because I was way too young for it to be anything else.

But the lump was getting bigger and bigger. And I wasn’t getting answers at all.

Then I could feel the lump pushing on a nerve. It was getting big enough that someone looking at me topless could see the lump through my skin.

I don’t know why that one doctor didn’t want to do more tests on what was happening with this fast growing lump. Something was wrong, but it was the whole I was so young thing.

After a year of this, I wanted a new doctor. I was in pain and not getting any answers.

In the first meeting with the new doctor, when he saw my skin puckering, he sent me off to have a mammogram and to have a breast ultrasound to see what this was.

The mammogram didn’t show anything at all. The technicians felt my breast tissue was too dense to see anything at all. So off to the ultrasound I went.

As soon as they ran the probe over me, guess what was there?  A tumor. I started crying right there in the office. I was only 23, how could I have breast cancer?

They couldn’t tell if it was benign or malignant from the ultrasound. The only way that we could find out was to have a biopsy, or have the lump taken out.

It hurt, I wanted it out. I had even made the choice that if I needed to have a mastectomy I would go for it.

My boyfriend and father fell apart when I told them.  My mother was my rock through all of this, along with one of my grandmothers. They both had been there before. My poor boyfriend had a nervous breakdown because of this, but it gave me something to focus on other than the pain and fear. I only told a few friends and coworkers that I had the diagnosis.

My coworkers where told the day I had surgery. That was what I had asked my boss to do. I knew they all needed to know why I wasn’t able to do my radio shifts for a while.

I had my surgery and it went wonderfully. I was told when I woke up that the lump they took out was between the size of a baseball and a softball. No wonder I was hurting.

Tests where run on the lump and it was benign. Thank the gods. But I need to watch my breast health for the rest of my life, because it grew so fast.

I came back to work to cards, flowers, and a lot of hugs and tears. All of the heavy metal DJs where crying the hardest.

A few days after I got back to work from the surgery, Gwar was playing. The station was presenting them, and I was supposed to go. But I was in no shape to go so soon after the surgery. I wasn’t even close to being fully recovered, so I stayed home and slept. But all the heavy metal boys were on stage wearing pink ribbons on their shirts and jackets, and they told the whole crowd why they had the ribbons on.

They got a photo of that and gave it to me. It was their way of showing support.

I think the point that I am talking about here is that no matter how young you are, you can get breast cancer, and you need to be checking yourself. Guys too. When I was diagnosed, there was a man my age getting the same diagnosis.

Also let your doctors know that you aren’t too young. And if they say you are, it’s time to get a new doctor.

And your friends and family will be there for you in their own ways. Let them be there for you.

That was 12 years ago, and I have been clear since. But I still religiously check my breasts.

I have never been a thin woman. I could never see myself in a size 2 dress, ever. Even a size 7 would make me feel that I was way too thin. Right now, I’m a size 13 and I stand 4’11″. I have dropped a dress size from starting my training for the 2012- 3 Day; walking 60 miles in three days to raise money for breast cancer research. I need to start training my tail off. But I don’t want to drop below a size 10. I don’t like the way I look when I’m that thin. But this wasn’t always the case.

I used to hate my size. I would diet and try all kinds of gimmicks to lose the weight. But to no avail. I did this for years and hated the way I looked. Part of this comes from the fact that I live in California, the plastic surgery capital of the world. And being a woman that is 100% natural, means that I have a harder time getting DJ gigs because because i don’t loom like a super model. It is crushing to be told you didn’t get the job because you’re not skinny and not hot enough.

Almost two years ago I was asked to DJ a nude kink show, and I was supposed to DJ in the nude. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with this idea, but it was an amazing gig, and I really wanted to do it.

I also had just had surgery on my lower back, and still had a huge bandage covering the open wound back there. I knew that was far from sexy looking, but I still did the gig.

I really was unsure about walking on stage nude. I had been having a lot of body image issues, at the time. I didn’t like my size and weight. But I still stripped down and walked out on stage.

It took me a few seconds to settle down on stage, and to be comfortable enough to perform, but I got there very fast.

After an hour of this, I was totally fine standing on stage, and performing in just my skin in front of a few hundred people. And by the end of my set, it all felt natural. I didn’t actually put my clothes back on until I was leaving the venue.

Since that night, I have performed without clothes many times. I’m doing this a number of times a year now.

But that first night let me know that even though my body isn’t perfect, it’s just fine, and it is as sexy as the next person’s body.

I know that I am now holding my head just that much higher after that first night of performing in the nude.

I have always had an open view of porn. Even when I was in high school I did. I went to an all girl’s Catholic high school, and almost all the girls there thought that porn was demeaning to women. They really felt that most of the porn actresses were forced into doing it. Even back then, I knew better than that. I knew just how much they would make, and that there were other women doing different things in the porn world than just having sex on camera.

As time went by, I started to meet people from the porn world. Mostly actors and actresses, but there were a few directors, film makers, and people that would run porn sites that have since been taken down.

I’m not talking about mainstream vanilla porn actors. (Not that there is anything wrong with that at all.) These are the women that do the explicit art nudes or play off of some kind of fetish, from pony play to goth girl to balloon fetish, and anything else you can think of. The actors that I was meeting are the guys that are in the hardcore fetish porn where there are actual bones breaking. So these were people that were all over the board in the kink world. A lot of these people became my good friends.

I had wanted to get into porn, but I knew that I didn’t really have much of a chance. I’m too heavy to do most porn, and too skinny to do the whole BBW thing. I’m too old to do most of it and not old enough to be a cougar. I’m right in the middle, so I just didn’t fit into any nitch. So I put it out of my head for years.

A few months ago, I was sitting in a hot tub with my girlfriend, who I don’t get to see near as much as I would like, talking. She was telling me that in a week she was going to be doing a kinky porn shoot with a photographer friend of hers. As we talked she started to tell me that she needed someone to do the shoot with her and asked if I would join in. I jumped at the idea before she even went into details.

The short of it is that the photographer is actually a sports photographer. When he would shoot porn, he was treating it more like a sporting event than trying to make things titillating for the viewer. It was more about documenting the event than making hardcore porn. It was more about the art in the moment than anything.

And it really was more about making art. We spent an hour doing photos as art nudes with a lot of humor thrown in for kicks. Nothing says silly like men in bunny suits serving tea to two nude women. The photographer just let the two of us do what we normally do, and he just documented it. There was no directing at all. He would only stop us when he needed to change the card in his camera. I know that this is not what most porn is like. But I loved the freeness that was happening with this artist. Besides, the thousands of photos were amazing. My girlfriend and I are planning on working with that photographer again soon.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am very far from straight. I do perform at a lot of gay and LGBT events as a DJ. But I am married to a straight man that I love with all my heart. I bring him along when I’m doing shows, except the ones that are for people who gender identify as female.

Usually my husband is the only heterosexual person at these events. He loves going to these shows because a lot of his good friends are a part the gay community. He usually just hangs out, talks, and maybe has a drink with his buddies.

A number of years ago, I was DJing at a queer kink event and my husband came with me. Before I started performing, I was sitting down with the couple that was running the event. For the most part, the three of us were talking about how to describe my very straight husband at this event.And yes, there was gay porn on the video screens, and gay and lesbian kink happening all over the place. And my husband was totally fine with everything.

The two of them came up with the term heteroqueer. They came up with its meaning as well.

My two friends decided that it meant any heterosexual who is totally comfortable with their sexuality; that gay sex can happen right in front of them and it doesn’t phase them at all. Heteroqueers are also the straight people that are part of the gay-rights movement.

My folks would also be seen as heteroqueer. They are both very active in the gay-rights movement, and I know my dad wants to march in one of the pride parades with the friends and families of people who identify as queer. Someday he will do it with my mom.

The word heteroqueer did start in the kink world out here, but it’s being picked up and used in other communities as well. It is even keeping the original definition and is used as a compliment to someone’s open-mindedness.

My husband happily wears the title as a badge of honor.