Posted by Lilly | 8 Comments

The Fake Orgasm: You think you know, but you have no idea

Women fake orgasms. Not all women or not all the time. It is slowly becoming less prevalent but it still happens. Just a few generations ago women were not taught much (if at all) about their sexuality, their sex organs, or about sex and pleasure. Our grandmother’s mothers probably told them that “sex is for men and making babies”. Virgin brides were worried about it hurting and were told that it would hurt. Word of mouth was all that they knew; if you came from a Catholic family …. forget it.

So a few months ago a post was highlighted either on Facebook or Twitter and I skimmed it and bookmarked it for later; the title, “He Doesn’t Deserve Your Validation: Putting The Fake Orgasm Out of Business”, didn’t leave me feeling negative about the article. I was prepared to write a post agreeing with the author.

I’m not agreeing with the author on many things. I do agree to the basic message though – a faked orgasm doesn’t do us (either person in the equation) any favors. And as soon as I typed that out my brain went “Well…..sometimes it does….”

A woman faking an orgasm is now sort of, just part of the deal, isn’t it? You just do it; it’s almost like something that’s passed down from generation to generation, like makeup tips or a recipe. It’s a gift women give to men, because it’ll just keep him satisfied and calm. Many of the women I’ve talked with see faking an orgasm as a little gift, a favor for the man they’re with. That makes no sense to me. Faking an orgasm is not like making him a snack after he comes home from work or remembering what kind of beer he likes to drink.

Really? A gift to men? I used to fake….a lot. I did not ever view it as a gift to my partner. Did I do it sometimes to keep him from feeling inadequate? Yes. But then again in many aspects of life I’m the one asking “Well what do YOU want to do?” Because I’d much rather go along with their plan and see them happy than me choose the restaurant/movie/place we’re going and feel guilty the whole time because they’re miserable. Is that my responsibility, is that fair? No.I really want to know though what many women this guy is talking to, what their age range is. I am 34 and I have faked orgasms. There ya have it. But I have never and will never qualify doing so as “I did it for him”. For US though? To keep both of our happy glows? Yeah. Mostly. Sort of.  Because deep way down at the heart of the matter it wasn’t JUST about avoiding that let-down look of “I’m terrible at sex and now I feel guilty” that would end up ruining what had actually been fun and pleasurable experience and even bonding for me or emotional (It felt good. Great, even, but I couldn’t quite orgasm).

I faked orgasms because I didn’t know how to have one.

In fact, I don’t think I would have recognized an orgasm if it bit me in the face. And when I compare sensations and those little after-shock contractions now vs then….um yeah I actually did have orgasms. The contractions, and especially the twitchy minutes-long aftershock contractions, are never present for me if I didn’t orgasm. Ever. I know this now. I didn’t know it then because I didn’t know how to orgasm. I didn’t know what I needed. I didn’t know how to give it to myself much less ask for it (pre-vibrators). The first boyfriend I had sex with (I was 18) I also watched some soft porn with occasionally. We were horny little bastards. I liked the sex. I liked most of what he did to me. What I didn’t like I didn’t know why I didn’t like it so I couldn’t give him any feedback. Did I see fantasy-world porn and fantasy-world “orgasms”? Yep. Did we both watch that porn and use it as our manual and expect our results to be the same? Yep. I don’t think though that I faked it modeling after what I saw on porn. I think I was mimicking him. His pleasure built and built and built and it was obvious and then….crescendo! angels! choirs! He was exhausted and delirious and right there was the proof positive of his orgasm, filling up the reservoir tip of our condom.

I’ve almost never been with a guy who wasn’t like me in some regard – my pleasure was his pleasure and vice versa, our arousal and enjoyment fed off of the other’s arousal and enjoyment. So yeah he was going to make sure that I came, too.

I was too embarrassed to tell him I didn’t. That I didn’t know how to have an orgasm, that I’d never (to my knowledge) had an orgasm and that frankly I wasn’t positive that I knew where the clitoris was (I didn’t, I found out in my mid-twenties).

I faked an orgasm (or 300) because I was self-conscious and woefully un-sex-educated.

Because even when I would finally learn where things were and what I (or my partner) was supposed to be doing with them I still couldn’t orgasm. I’d get close….and maybe I did actually have a mild orgasm but I didn’t know it. I thought it was supposed to be bigger, better and more obvious. “You’ll know” I was told by the few female friends who had experienced an orgasm. Fireworks. Earth moving¹.

I faked orgasms because I didn’t want to explain all of the above.

Many of my “fakes” were faking in the way of saying “Yes I came”. Actually verbalizing the words because I was asked if I had. Did I? No clue. Did it feel realllly fuckin good though? YES. I’ve had a lot of really good sex where he’s hitting my g-spot over and over and it just feels fucking fantastic and I’m vocal about that. My “holy shit”s and “oh fuck yes”es are not theatrics and they’re not lies. It feels awesome. And then he came and it was done and I knew I wasn’t going to come because I just don’t/can’t get there and I didn’t  want to ruin the awesome sex and the whole vibe by saying that I didn’t come.

Many women fake their orgasms as a means to end an un-pleasurable sexual process.

Ok….yeah. If it’s a one-night-stand or new boyfriend or whatever…yeah. I will totally fake for that reason. I’d tried the honest route and was met with puppy-dog “Let’s try it again!”. No no, I’m dried up and rubbed raw and no longer aroused.

 

In the end I appreciate the effort this guy and others are trying to put forth. It’s the thought that counts. Kinda. But seriously, would the people talking about this shit stop fucking assuming that there aren’t a multitude of reasons why we fake and that many aren’t “a means to an end” or “a gift”??? You’re. Not. Helping.

I try to avoid being and sounding prescriptive in my writing, but in this case I am begging women to put the fake orgasm out of business. Men don’t need or deserve more validation—we get it every day, in many different ways.

I do not fake to GIVE YOU VALIDATION.

Most women have yet to discover their true sexual power—not power over others—but the power they can feel within themselves. So when men maintain women by doing a little here and there in the bedroom, and women fake it, it just leads to a diminishing of female power.

No, honey, I just had yet to discover where the fuck my clitoris was, what was required to stimulate it enough to orgasm and that the magic answer for me was “vibrator”². And once I discovered “vibrator” I had to discover what kind and what style and how best to use it. Some women do that with fingers and tongues. I spent 10 years on fingers and tongues. I should have a fucking PhD in the failure of the application of fingers and tongues to my clitoris.

There are so many women who are going to disagree with me. Am I giving others permission to fake? Well, no. A lot of the women agreeing with the original article all proclaim that they have high sex drives (Hi, me too!). Do they perhaps have higher self-esteem or better sense of self than me? Were they taught or just inately knew all their years where everything was and what you were supposed to do with it? Quite possibly yes to all of those. I have distinct memories of high arousal as a girl and then teenager. But I had no fucking clue what to DO with that arousal. You’re hungry? You eat food, you don’t feel hungry anymore, you feel happy and sated. You have to pee? So go, pee freely, “aaahhh” as it comes out and your stretched bladder feels more normal. But as a woman/girl who just knows that there’s all these feelings and sensations and they generate from perhaps the vulva-region but were not taught that masturbating relieves the built-up sexual tension from arousal and you feel sated like you just ate a chicken after not eating for 2 days.

For men it’s pretty easy. You get aroused and there’s no question about the origin of those sensations because it’s sticking straight out suddenly and so as a kid you touch it and….hey…..please may I have some more? And then oh! There ya go! Isn’t that better? That was pretty easy.

WE AREN’T LIKE THAT.

 

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Ask Lilly: Tips for Traveling with Sex Toys

Traveling with sex toys is anywhere from “no big deal” to “they’re pulling out my giant sparkling rabbit vibrator in front of 50 other people and it is flashing and whirring” (or finding a note with your vibrator in your checked luggage from the TSA with words of encouragement on your next jerk off session). If you’re not flying then there’s much less of a chance that someone will be rifling through your bag – but if you have kids or are going to stay with family during holiday travels then a little thought should be put into things. Too many times I’ve traveled without a vibrator and ended up regretting that decision. Mostly it was because I was visiting family and there are two issues with that: First, you don’t want paranoia about the noise to be interfering with your orgasm. Second, there’s always that chance that a close family member will need to get something from your bag before you remember that oops, there’s a big dildo in there.

First up is lube: It’s important for nearly everyone. If you’re flying then you will definitely want to buy one of those little plastic travel bottles and decant about 1 fluid ounce of your favorite lube at home. Even if you’re not flying, transferring the lube into a plain, smaller bottle will save both space and questions. No matter how incognito your sex toys are, if you’ve got a bottle of Astroglide in there you won’t be fooling anyone.

Travel Friendly Vibrators

Discretion and trickery! I would want something that doesn’t look like a sex toy. Unfortunately when you look up “discreet vibrators” you get a mix of small shitty clitoral vibes that barely tickle the surface, novelty items like the yellow Duckie or “vibrating sea sponge” (also in the weak and disappointing category) or hairbrushes and lipsticks that will probably break down in half a dozen uses. This leaves high-priced luxury sex toys like MiMi or big, plug-in electric vibrators like the Hitachi, the Miracle Massager, or my beloved Wahl 2-speed. Of the plug-in electric styles I’d pick the Wahl – on Low, it’s pretty damn quiet. It’s also smaller than the others and the cord is pretty long too. Of course none of the plug-in styles are going to be all that lightweight – the Eroscillator is less heavy and if you’re clever you will store the attachments far away from the base and you might be able to pull it off as a plug-in electric toothbrush. Until they examine it closely and see the word “Eroscillator” in raised letters on the body, that is.

Rechargeable vibrators are frequently touted as “travel friendly” since many of them have a feature where you can press a few buttons and lock the control pad for travel. Which is great and this means you don’t have to include a pack of batteries in your bag – but also consider recharging it: Will there be a discreet place to do so? Remember that many of these take hours to recharge and if you damn near drained the battery it could take the night (or the day, if you’re using the We-Vibe). And if it should die on you before you’re finished you’re shit out of luck.

Battery-powered massager-style Mystic Wand is a possibility. You get vibration intensity, the believability that it is a back massager, and a motor that is moderately quiet (especially when compared to the Hitachi Magic Wand or the Miracle Massager). It will not take up as much room as the plug-in massagers and isn’t quite as heavy (unless of course you add in the weight of 1 or 2 changes of battery) but it isn’t nearly as small as say a bullet vibrator. If you’re flying, though, no amount of covert packing will hide something from those pesky airline baggage checkers. If you’re not at the mercy of the tactless TSA then you certainly could get away with packing a small vibrator of any type if you do it right.

When all else fails and you’re too paranoid to attempt any of these? A cheap, battery-op electric toothbrush. And a condom. Put the condom over the toothbrush head to minimize brush bristle abrasion to tender parts.

My travel-friendly sex toys

One of the sex toys that I plan on always taking with me is the Sweet Embrace. I’ve been using it more lately in a somewhat unorthodox fashion (meaning, not how they market it) and have been pleasantly surprised at the clitoral orgasms. My travel dildo of choice is now the Nobessence Fling because of the size, weight and discreet design that for me could also be coupled with a massager vibrator and written off as a merely a sore-muscles kit¹. I’ve also purchased a spare spare (because I have a spare in case the current one dies) bullet vibrator that will be reserved just for travels – however as with all wired bullets, in my experience, if it is held at the wrong angle it can suddenly get really rattly and loud. I’ve had that happen in a public bathroom stall. So the bullet vibe will only be pulled out if I can feel secure that I won’t be heard. 

How to Hide Your Sex Toys

Sure, you know how to hide your sex toys when you’re at home but what about for travel? If it’s a vibrator with attachments or is battery powered, separate the pieces. Batteries in one little pouch, half the vibe here, half the vibe there. If you need to really conceal it then you’ve likely chosen to travel with a sex toy that looks like a sex toy – creative concealment is a must if you prefer to be undiscovered.

• Inside a sock which is inside a shoe – Just make sure that it’s all firmly in there and won’t come tumbling out
• Small, wireless bullet vibes could be tucked inside a tampon wrapper and then put inside a travel-size box of tampons
• Spend the money on something called the Sneaky Sack – it’s meant to go on a hanger underneath a shirt (sweatshirt or bulky sweater is best, to hide the lumps). Only problem is….what if the Sack is seen? They have a bright white logo screened on the outside. But you could put this inside a sweater, pack it, and hang everything up when you arrive.
• A small camera case could work
• A small vibrator could be tucked into a small cosmetic bag which is then tossed into a larger toiletries case or makeup case, blending in with all the other items in there. Any number of options could be found if you have a case in a case like that where there are plenty of other objects to take the focus. I like this collection of cases from Sephora, it has a couple of great options. For a cheap and really small option, they have a few of these left at Sephora although it looks like they’ll be sold out soon.

 The Basics: Tips for Traveling with Sex Toys

If you take away nothing else, remember these points:

• Always remove the batteries. ALWAYS. If the control pad locks for rechargeables, LOCK IT.
• Be sure that your toy is clean prior to travel.
• Pack at least one set of new, never-used batteries (if applicable)
• Planning to have sex or jerk off while you’re not at home? Invest in a Marsona white noise machine. Small, portable and when placed strategically it will conceal quiet sex noises.
• Your cell phone is never an acceptable vibrator replacement, despite the cute apps for smart phones
• Pack a few toy cleaning wipes and keep the toy in a plastic bag if you plan on flying – because even checked luggage isn’t safe from inspections, and those inspections are done out of sight so you will have no idea what has happened to your sex toy in the hands of the TSA.

Post sponsored by: EdenFantasys (What this means), a sex toy store

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Nobessence Fling – A Unique Wooden G-spot Dildo

The Nobessence Fling is an ergonomic, wooden dildo that goes beyond a simple handle – it actually has a hole where two fingers rest perfectly and comfortably. Fling is actually pretty discreet, too, since it doesn’t look like a dildo thanks to that handle. I would feel pretty good about passing this off as a trigger point massager – I have fibromyalgia and other things and trigger point massage therapy works pretty well for me; My bad spots are all on my back, shoulders and neck so I can’t do it myself with just fingers and the Fling actually does a decent job of that. If I were to travel with this sex toy I would feel confident that most people aren’t going to assume that it is a dildo. Especially since it is wood and the sex toy uninitiated usually don’t think of dildos being made from wood. The box that it arrives in is like all Nobessence boxes – padded on the inside and made from sturdy pressboard in two pretty colors – and can be used for storage (the sticker on the bottom is the only thing that gives away the sexy toy status and the sticker removes easily) but isn’t good for travel.

Fling is pretty small and is definitely a g-spot (or prostate) dildo. It is not going to provide much sense of fullness but it will do the job it was made for – target the g-spot. The fat bulbous head maxes out at just over 1.5 inches (but is not the 1.75 inches listed on the site) and the insertable portion is at most 3.5 inches. This shouldn’t be an issue for most as usually the g-spot/prostate isn’t going to be any farther inside than 3 inches (anatomy varies, so “1-3 inches” is considered the generic gauge). The way that the handle is made forces your hand and fingers to cup and curve a bit and if you hold it as intended this translates into a small range of motion that concentrates on pushing the bulb up and into the g-spot. Pressure combined with a little massage is usually a sure-fire way to get your g-spot to respond. The finger-hold can work if your partner is using it on you as well; they’ll probably want to slide it palm-side down (like a bad-ass set of brass, er, wooden knuckles!).

Like any Nobessence “sculpture”, Fling is beautiful. Glossy, shiny and slick it is made non-porous and body-safe by the coating. Check out the care & cleaning for Wood section on my sex toy care guide, and feel free to use any type of lube that you love best (but you won’t need much!) Directly from the manufacturer’s site:

NobEssence’s trade secret Lubrosity™ coatings and processes stem from years of meticulous research and development and meet USP Class IV and VI Medical Standards. Sculptures attentively encapsulated in Lubrosity™ coatings are odorless, may be soaked in water, and remain in body-contact for hours at a time – no waxes to melt away, no salad bowl oils to leach out or maintain, and no toxic petroleum distillates.

I won’t mislead you – Fling isn’t cheap – but there really is no other sex toy out there quite like the Fling and the quality of any Nobessence item makes the cost easier to tolerate. Provided you don’t drop a wooden dildo on a hard surface (it probably won’t break but if it lands right it might dent or crack it a little – in which case seek a replacement) it will last a long time. There is nothing in a Nobessence wooden dildo that will react with any lube or other toy material.

The Fling is something I’ve wanted for a long while and now that I have it I have something that will have a permanent home in my overnight bag – Fling is a perfect travel dildo. Small, discreet, easy to clean and it weighs practically nothing (5 ounces, I think?).

Just in time for holiday travels, you can shop at EdenFantasys and save – 25% off if you spend more than $100 or 30% off if you spend more than $150. Currently the Fling is priced at $138.99. If that’s the only thing you purchase it will be $104. But if you add on a drawstring toy pouch for $14.99, your order total will only be $107 (and shipping is free!).

 

This toy was provided by EdenFantasys
See also: Blogger Disclosure
Sex Toy Care & Cleaning Guide

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Posted by Lilly | 11 Comments

Blogging, PR, and Social Media: A Few What Not to Do Tips

Blogging

Many bloggers will start out on the free Blogger/Blogspot services (it seems to be the AOL of blogging platforms, more people start out there than WordPress) and somewhere down the line decide that it’s time they have their own domain. And then they make a huge mistake.

They delete all their posts.

I presume they do this because they’ve read that Google penalizes for duplicate content. Perhaps they do it because they don’t want people coming to the old blog anymore. But if you have ever submitted to Sugasm, Pleasurists, e[lust], or simply had any post from your old blog linked from anywhere….deleting the posts will cause you to lose traffic. As I run the broken link checker plugin on both of my sites, I’m seeing this happen more and more. Did you know that you can tell the search engines not to crawl/index your site, that you can set this in the dashboard at Blogger and say that you don’t want to appear in search engines? That’s all it takes, and then your content won’t be seen as duplicate. When I left my old Blogspot blog a few years ago I looked high and low for things to do to help transfer people over to the new site. I had found some code that would automatically redirect (unfortunately since the New Blogger change over happened, that code doesn’t work – if I could find something again that worked I’d set it up); I changed my header, my sidebars and my front page post all to say that I’ve moved and here’s the link. So at least if someone would come to a post linked from Sugasm or Fleshbot, they won’t find a dead page and they might click on through to this site. If I really felt like doing a whole lot of work I’d go back to every post that has been linked to from Sugasm and Fleshbot, on the old blog, leave up only an excerpt of the post and put in a big link to the post on the current site. Since I was only at Blogger for like 3 months that wouldn’t be so bad for me.

 

PR Companies

It’s a dirty business, I know. But didn’t anybody ever teach these guys that sending me a press release or a non-personalized email isn’t going to catch my attention and make me give a shit? And when you send things to the e[lust] account and expect me to publish ANYTHING there, I know goddamn well you didn’t even look at the site. I put up a Contact page and removed the direct links to my email/Twitter/Facebook etc so that hopefully one out of ten assholes trying to reach the “site administrator for a link exchange”¹ might read why I don’t want what they’ve got and maybe they won’t email me. Yeah…right. The latest in the circus (and no, I didn’t change a thing, just bolded the wtf bits):

Hi - 
I know you’ve written about (relationships, sex, blah blah) so I thought you might be interested in Bedsider. I’m helping Bedsider, http://www.bedsider.org, a new public service campaign from The Ad Council, connect with bloggers and social media influencers like you. I’m hoping you’ll be able to blog/post/tweet about this women’s health initiative.   
Bedsider is all about preventing unplanned pregnancies and helping women find a method of birth control that’s right for them and stick with it. The U.S. has one of the highest rates of unplanned pregnancy in the entire developed world. Nearly one in ten unmarried young women (ages 20-29) has an unplanned pregnancy each year. This means fewer opportunities to complete their education or achieve other life goals, and increased health and social risks for mother and child.
At Bedsider.org women can explore, compare and contrast all available methods of contraception, set up birth control reminders and view videos debunking myths about birth control..Here’s the press release: http://prn.to/uqx9zuAn embeddable widget shows where to get free birth control: http://bedsider.org/widgets/costAnd funny, new videos http://www.youtube.com/bedsider
Please let me know if you need any more information, hi-res images, video or if you’d like to conduct an interview.  And let me know if you do post about it so the Ad Council can thank you from their social media channels².

1. Wow. “blah blah”?
2. She fucked up the links and half don’t even work
3. I left off the singlelineoftextthatcontainshernamenumberandPRsiteaddress because it all ran together like that and I don’t want them to get traffic, but the company (if you can call them a company) is helpsgood. Yeah, even the name is bad grammar.

I actually forwarded this monstrosity to Bedsider, saying that if this is the best that their hired PR can do they might want to rethink using them³. I’ve left in the one working link to Bedsider because despite the atrocity that was the PR⁴, the campaign is actually decent – I would have liked this site about 4 months ago when I was reconsidering my birth control (all because I was terrified of a repeat performance with Mirena IUD, the first insertion was awful and the next 3 weeks were awful. The second was painful during, but fine afterwards). They tell you how to get free birth control, they give you the highlights (or lowpoints) on each method of birth control, where to get emergency contraception, and other good stuff. Of course, some of their “articles” could use some heavy work, like this one on side effects. Brushing off a woman’s consideration of the possible side effects of birth control – hell any person considering any medication is going to have some concern over possible side effects – is just plain bad.

Know Your Audience – Also, try not to offend or piss off your audience

I think a lot of bloggers can agree that lately the level of ridiculous bullshit arriving in our inboxes is at an all-time high.

I don’t accept every advertising request (just like they don’t all accept my pricing) because sometimes the site or item is just so….bad. Like the guy who wanted us to talk about his blowjob book. But first he wanted me to be an affiliate and get a percentage of sales. It was so many levels of vomit-inducing horribleness. I’m not sure he ever truly wanted to pay for advertising, he was just one of those who wanted people to “review” his shit. I’m also not going to accept a banner ad for a penis enlargement site that says this: “Most women want an endowed partner with a big and thick penis, capable of satisfying their most secret desires”. Wow. Way to go. MOST women?

Do I look stupid? Naive? Do I sound like I’m gonna take bullshit? News flash, I’m none of those. I’m also too smart to agree to crap like this:

Howdy there,

Hope keeping well. I’m just getting in touch to ask if you’re open to reviewing content from freelance writers at This Could Be Dangerous – if so, I’d love to put together a high-quality article written specifically for the site. I’m 29 and have been working as a professional writer and researcher for five years now, and in that time there isn’t a lot I haven’t already covered (I’ve attached a few samples below for you to check out).

As long as you’re happy with the resulting material, you’d be welcome to publish it as you see fit and the content will be owned by you entirely (in that I won’t send it to anyone else, either before or after publication).

There is absolutely no charge for this and no strings attached; the only thing I would ask in return is that I’m able to include a link to a site of my choosing within the article – nothing shady or unethical, just one of the professional businesses I freelance for.

Do let me know if you’re interested, and if so I can get something written for you over the course of the next few days. Needless to say, the offer is open to any other sites you might own as well as dangerouslilly.com. I appreciate you may not be interested in this kind of mutual back-scratching however, so if I don’t hear from you, no offence taken and I won’t trouble you again.

Oh, it’s goldmine. “Free Professional Writing” and oh goodie, it’ll be owned by me!! “Mutual back-scratching” …..really? Really?? To make matters even more ridiculous, I get emails like this on the e[lust] account, too. Yes because that site is just brimming with “articles”. I’m actually not sure what I find more aggravating about emails like this….that they’re trying to go for the whole “FREE” angle as if I’d actually pay someone to write a post here or that they’re conning me into a free advertising/SEO link and not even willing to pay for it. I get requests/offers for paid articles, too, as in they want to pay me to publish it on my site.

Here’s the thing: Any post by these people will have a link. Or two. More if you accept payment. This is free, permanent advertising. Those links there in my sidebar, under Site Sponsors? Those people pay for those links, and I don’t take contracts longer than a year. You all know how I feel about douchebags like Dave who try to spin the permanent link for a price that would offend anybody. A post is up, presumably, forever. Now would the people who paid you to put up the post check in a year to see if it’s still up? No clue. Will your readers lose respect for you? Most likely. Those sidebar links rarely get clicked on. I know this. They know this. We both also know that a link in a post is pretty damn likely to be clicked by half of the people. So to offer me the equivalent of one month of text link advertising in the side bar for a post containing links is offensive to me.

Another thing I won’t do anymore is review a website. If I talk about a site and if I link to it then I genuinely like it – and I’m going to do so all of my own volition. But to ask me to review your (pay) site in exchange for a few weeks of free membership is…..no. No. I also won’t do a site review post for money, either. As I said above…it’s permanent advertising. This review post that they will offer you a small one-time payment for will likely contain a couple links of their choosing using anchor text of their choosing. And since it is a post and not in the sidebar more readers will be clicking the links. So it’s SEO AND TRAFFIC. And they act like the blogger is being properly compensated. There’s no way that any company will ever pay me a fair rate for a site review post – I mean, just do the math: Let’s assume there’s 2 links in the post. If someone wanted 2 text links in the sidebar for a year the price (very discounted, due to the year and the second link) would be in the neighborhood of $400 and some change. There is no way that any site owner would agree to pay that much for a review. I mean I could be wrong, I’ve never actually quoted anybody who’s asked (maybe I will in the future, just to see). My point is that even if I charged them this discounted advertising rate they’re still making out because presumably the post would remain on my site until my site is gone which will not be happening anytime in the next year. Are their links going to remain on the front page? No. But for rank and SEO purposes, that doesn’t matter. I would also assume that a condition of them paying me to do a site review post is that I not hate their site and write bad things about it – in which case the review would be false. And I don’t do that.

The latest site owner guy to irk sent me three emails, all the same. Twice to the blog email, once to elust. The first two times I responded with my advertising rates and information. No response⁵. So the third time I responded with “500″. That’s it. Just “500″. It was a test. And to THAT he responded. !! All confused and “I’m not sure what you meant there” and shit. So I replied days later and explained. He then apologizes, says that “they” were sending emails out to “several lists online” of sex related blogs so a few people were receiving multiple emails. A: You’re lazy and B: what lists??? He also said he’d follow up with me at the other email address when he returned from traveling and big surprise, never did.

I know that a lot of bloggers have been getting thoroughly annoyed by the repeated emails from purePassionate (hint: pitching free design services to bloggers who designed their own site, pitching free blog hosting and free setup of a WordPress blog on their servers to bloggers who already own their own domain….is fucking dumb) but I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I did an email search on the term “link exchange” (I was thinking about setting up a Gmail auto-responder to just people who have that in the Subject line, redirecting them to actually read the Contact page) and found that overall I’ve received emails from 5 different people at this company since summer. Exactly what makes companies think that sending an unresponsive person email after email is ever going to result in anything good?

Think before you get a blogger to do a contest for you

Really think about it – especially if you’re not a sex-related company and the blog in question IS a sex blog. A few months ago I won a giftcard to Shari’s Berries from KinkyWorld. They’d met at Blogher (which isn’t about sex blogging, just all kinds of blogging) and a contest and a product review was granted. So Shari’s was more than happy to take on the traffic from a sex site; they were happy to have their product talked about, linked to and etc from a sex site; they were happy to have sex-blogger-profiles on Facebook follow them. But they would NOT allow my sex blogger profile on Facebook to complain on their wall – they removed it because my photo was not “family friendly”. My profile is not public, my photo shows cleavage and an item that most wouldn’t know is a sex toy. Because I complained vocally about my very bad experience (Hint: do not ever order their Tiramisu cake, and trust me that those fancy dipped strawberries are simply not as good as they look – nor do they look anything like the promo photos) that was very bad TWICE, the company has refused to publish my onsite reviews of their products. I think people deserve to know when something is crap. It’s why I don’t hesitate to write a bad sex toy review. But berries.com apparently just hides the really negative reviews! Way to be trustworthy and transparent!

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Posted by Lilly | 1 Comment

A Year of Sex – Virtual Book Tour

Before Mia even got around to mentioning about her virtual book tour, I’d already bought and read her book. The “free sample” portion you can get on Amazon’s Kindle site was devoured quickly and soon I was happily clicking on the “Buy This Book” link. The book is well-written and contains many elements that I love: New York City, sex, getting a peek inside the sex/swinger party scene, love, and a happy ending all wrapped up in a true story. It’s a memoir that’s sexy (and sometimes erotic) with a dash of chick lit, a helping of date-dishing-at-Sunday-brunch, mixed with genuinely helpful advice and tips on things from open relationships to attending a sex party.

About the book, from her site:

A Year of Sex is the debut memoir from writer Mia Martina. After years of recording her sexcapades for her popular podcast “I Want Your Sex,” Mia is excited to release her first book chronicling a year of her erotic adventures.

Mia Martina wasn’t going to sit around waiting for love to find her when her relationship ended. Instead, she went after it – in New York City’s erotic underground. Mia dove headfirst into the sex-party scene, swinging, spanking, and screwing her way out of heartbreak. Follow her on an arousing and amusing journey as she tours the sex dens, women-only parties, and S & M dungeons that make up the city’s sexual landscape. By spending a year as a self-identified slut, she learns more about herself – and love – than she could have imagined. Her wild tale is utterly relatable to even the sexually uninitiated.

While at times sultry and steamy, her adventures will have you thinking twice about what role love, sex, commitment, monogamy, kink, and sexual fulfillment play in our modern lives.

So I’m definitely not someone who has experienced anything she talks about – I’ve never been to a sex party/club or a dungeon, much less one in NYC. I’ve never had a lesbian relationship, I didn’t date much in my 20′s – yet the description is absolutely right. I could still relate and I loved reading about it all. I’ve also come to the conclusion after reading her book as well as recounts from a few other bloggers about swinger/sex clubs/parties that as much my voyeuristic self might love it in theory and as much as I’d want my exhibitionist self to love it….I likely wouldn’t. Maybe the women-only parties, actually.

Mia has fun and learns a lot, and teaches us a lot as well. I keep wanting to share examples but then think “No, I don’t want to spoil the fun” because reading this book is a LOT of FUN. It’s not all fun and games though because this is reality, after all. You just have to read it. And then, if you’re anything like me, try not to spend the next few weeks wishing you could go back to being 27, move to New York City and cram as much dating and sex into a year as you can.

Just some of the things tidbits chronicled in this book:

• An orgy. Or five.
• Sex parties with themes and mandatory costumes
• Sex parties where everybody is clothed and awkward and then at midnight it’s “Undies Time”, a mandatory strip-down
• Flogging a stranger at a BDSM party
• Mia giving a woman a lap-dance at a party
• Mia giving a man a lap-dance in a darkened corner of a NYC rooftop
• Sex parties that make you cringe
• Sex parties that make you envious
• Mia playing the sexy submissive to a very hot couple at a few parties

I could go on, but I won’t. You, however, definitely should.

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