So yesterday, after I wrote the Sex Positive Hypocrite post, someone commented on twitter something about how the bickering is getting old and this community should be providing people with intelligent and positive sex and sex toy information, how the community is supposed to be about empowering people via their sexuality.  (It was Backseat Boohoo, actually.  I try not to name names on my blog for a lot of reasons; not wanting to give people I dislike traffic, not wanting to make someone feel picked since usually it’s not them personally I’m blathering about but something they said or an overall trend that irks me that they happened to be the last person to say something about, not wanting to make it personal, whatever.  But I genuinely like BB and I don’t want this post to be misconstrued as me picking on her. It’s simply something she said that inspired some thoughts in my own brain.)

And so…

Those words got me to thinking.

In my job, I am definitely part of the sexuality community.  When I post things on Eden Cafe, my own words or the words of others, I am bound by being part of this community and do, indeed, try to empower people via their sexuality.  It’s all about sharing thoughts, opinions and experiences that others can learn from, relate to, disagree with, think about.  Not everything is politically correct and we at times go out on a line to get differing opinions and viewpoints out there, but my work does fall into the sex blogging/sex positivity/sexuality community.

This blog, however…

It does not.  It never has.

I’m not a sex blogger.

Look over the archives of this blog.  Really look.  I started writing back in 2005 and I had no network of other blogs I followed or that followed me. I had 10 readers and 9 of them saw me most weekends for a party or a bike ride.  I didn’t even know there WAS a sex blogger community.

I just like to write shit.  I like the way my fingers feel clicking away at the keys. I like to have a place to empty my mind and sort thru my emotions and talk about my day, my week, my year.  I like having a place I can rant and rave and get rid of my stress.  I used to write a lot about BDSM and my relationship but I do that less now – partly because I sort of feel like I’ve said it all and partly because now that I have more than 10 readers, I often feel judged and like my privacy is being invaded.  Some of that stuff is simply too raw and too personal to share with strangers who will make nasty comments.

I have no background in sexuality work.  I didn’t go to school for gender studies or sexuality studies or even sociology or psycho therapy.  I have a lot of sex toys and a bunch of safety and material knowledge accumulated over the years. So do a million other people.

I started reviewing because whomever was working at Eden Fantasys at the time asked me to.  Not because I was a sex toy expert but because I had a blog that got decent traffic.  Sex toy companies ask you to review because they get traffic and SEO benefits from you doing so — not because you’re the goddess of sex toy knowledge.

The reviewing was fun.  It was a free toy now and again in exchange for some words.  But my blog focus was still the same.  I blogged about me.  My life. My relationship.  My stress. My happiness.  Coffee.  My backyard.  My friends.  My family.  I didn’t become a sex blogger because I started reviewing toys.

I got more active at EF, more active on the forums there.  I started reviewing for more companies.  I stopped being active on FetLife and other BDSM forums.  The focus of my blog did change a bit.  The focus of my life has changed a bit. More people from the sex blogging and toy reviewing community started reading me.  I got friendly with some of them, fought with some of them, became more of a member of that community.

And yet, this is still not a sex blog.  I am a sex toy reviewer, yes.  I sometimes talk about sex, yes.  I sometimes talk about kink and BDSM, yes.  But I am not a sex blogger.

Now, it’s even more confusing because I work for Eden Fantasys, have worked for them for over a year.  My blog reflects my immersion in that community.

And yet I am not a sex blogger.

I am just a girl, in love with her man, addicted to coffee, blogging and all things pink, wrapped up in her own little world, her own little family.  I like to type. I like to write.  I am not a writer.  I’m a talker.  I talk to myself here.  I get up on my soap box and  rant.  I babble.  I bore anyone who might be reading with inane shit I did on the weekend.   I don’t care if my punctuation is done exactly right. I don’t craft my sentences for the most literary power.  I fucking ramble and blather.

This is my blog.  It is not a sex blog.  I am not trying to teach anyone anything, not trying to empower anyone.  I am not qualified to do so, for one thing.  I didn’t make this blog, don’t maintain this blog, to be an educator, for another.  I made it to write.  To dream. To bitch. To vent. To be me, to get the tangles out of my head.

This is a blog. A personal blog.  I am not a sex blogger. This is not a sex blog.

Stop expecting it to be, stop expecting me to be.

I don’t write to educate.  I don’t review to make money.  I enjoy the affiliate money I make, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not writing to make it.  Hell, I just buy more toys with it.  I have very few sponsored ads.  I’m not out to make money with my blog.  I’m quite happy to make enough to pay for my hosting for the year but I also don’t really care if I don’t.  My hosting is cheap, I can afford it without ads.  I don’t fill my posts with links to other posts in an effort to raise my various stats and rankings.  I’m proud of the fact that my stats are fairly good considering I have no real market, no real audience I aim for, but stats don’t determine what I write on my blog.  I just…  write.  The stats are pretty much irrelevant on any level other than as trivia.  I mean, think about it.  My blog has been around for five years.  My stats have been the same for like 3 of those years.  I’m not trying be a marketable product, be a brand.  I’m just trying to write a damned blog.

Sometimes stuff in the sex blogging community gets me thinking, gets me ranting, gets me irked and I write about it and its members.  Same goes for the BDSM community, though because of work I’m more involved with one than the other these days.

It’s not about you.  It’s not about trying to be part of some community, not about teaching, not about guiding, not about empowering.  It’s just me, writing about what I think about.

That may be coffee, my dogs, my toenails, my lawnmower, my guy, some idiot who wrote something I found idiotic, some mean girl who is being mean again or the bruises I got playing last weekend.  No matter what it’s about, it’s just me, talking.

I’m not a sex blogger.  This is not a sex blog.  Never has been, never will be.

I’m not going to say “don’t read me if you don’t like it” cuz, hell, I like readers as much as anyone.  But before you try to hold me to the standards of your community, remember that when I’m not working, I’m not trying to be a part of that community.

I’m just wandering around thru life being me, saying what I want to say in a space I’ve made so that I can.