Spreading Smutty Love Volume 5
I feel like such a slacker that it’s been so long since I participated in Share Our Shit Saturday (aka #SOSS), but also, I’m trying this radical new thing called Not Doing All the Things All at Once. So…yeah. Balance.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been collecting pieces I’ve seen around the web from sex bloggers and other creators I admire. So the publication date might not be current but the information definitely is.
Be a Dictator
Okay, so we shouldn’t all be actual, literal dictators, but Girl on the Net’s explanation about her comment moderation policy was the kick in the butt I needed. Our blogs are our sandbox which means we get say over who gets to play in it (comment) or not. I tend to let almost anyone in, but it was thanks to her post from November that I felt comfortable making sure a troll’s comment didn’t get through.
Side note: GOTN’s use of sharing old blog posts on Twitter is amazingly effective. Technically this piece was written in November but I saw it later and held onto it for this.
Age Verification Problems
Because I’m a US writer, I know that many readers here are in the US too, but not everyone is. And I also know that ridiculous policies have a way of traveling across the Atlantic – in both directions. Which is why I attempt to pay attention to the new restrictions on porn and the coming age verification requirements in the UK.
The absolute best person to follow for this is Pandora/Blake. Their most recent piece is what they learned after a discussion with a regulatory body overseeing the implementation. And a lot like US politics, it’ll be a shit show.
Drama Nonsense
Cara Thereon and I have known each other since my early days as a sex blogger. She’s been supportive of all the wild and wacky things I decide to do with this career of mine. And I always wish she’d write more smutty goodness because she’s so damn good at it.
But what made me say, “Yes!” and want to give her a standing ovation is her latest piece where she finally says what’s on her mind about drama in the sex blogging community. Frankly, she says what many of us (myself included) are thinking but don’t feel we can say. We shouldn’t have a community where my first thought is, “She’s so brave for this!”
Brave is sharing your personal sex stories – traumatic or not – in a world that doesn’t want to hear it (hence the Share Our Shit Saturday). It’s standing up against bigger powers than you to say, “This is wrong” like Pandora/Blake does. Brave is overcoming your fears and hitting “Publish” even when your knees knock together.
Saying what we think and what likely needs to be said as a community so we all feel like we have a voice? That shouldn’t have to be brave but in today’s toxic social media environment, it is. So yeah, I support Cara and want to lift up her voice on this. And hope that one day I get as fed up as she clearly is. Maybe more of us need to be.
I can’t promise to participate in SOSS every week because finding good pieces that pertain to our lives as smutlancers, written by those of us on the edges or completely outside the mainstream, is difficult. But as I find good shit, I will definitely share it with you. And if you write something about the state of blogging, reviewing, making money, problematic companies, etc, feel free to send it my way. If it speaks to me, I’ll do my best to share it.
