A few weeks ago I dialled NHS 111 and ended up in an ambulance to the closest A&E. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, of course; I hadn’t, however, fallen down somewhere or had another heart attack, so there’s that. This time I merely had something swell inside my lung, but additionally this time, I wasn’t given a bed. Four days in hospital and I was in little more than a chair.
Being in hospital does weird things to my sex drive. Sometimes I go in and I’m suddenly really desperate for sex. Dodging into the patients’ toilet to masturbate, pulling my curtains to get a bit of privacy, or scrolling through porn on my ‘phone. Once I had a sponge bath from a friendly HCA just to feel something.
It works the other way, too. Last time I was admitted I spent a couple of weeks not really considering anything to do with sex. One does have to wonder what may have been written in my notes if I wasn’t expressing any sexuality. One of the lowest tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and I wasn’t showing it. For shame.
This time I went in was different for that secret third reason.
Since mid-January I have been feeling decidedly unsexy. I’m not having sex with anyone besides myself anyway, so that’s not really an option, but even if the opportunity were to present itself, would I even take it up? My usual repository of softcore has been found wanting. I have a lot to say about Pandora Peaks which remains unsaid. I’ve tracked down a copy of Emmanuelle 7 and haven’t yet finished watching it…
…eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t even think about having sex without beginning to feel nauseous. Sex, my body had decided, was something that other people did. I was well and truly over it.
And I began to disconnect from ILB.
Being ILB is almost definitely the part of my identity that I’m the most comfortable with. I sit here, I drink cups of tea, I write my blog, I watch porn and I flirt with people. I’m good at that – it’s been my life since 2007 and I’m content with that. Not being able to feel the sexy any more puts a stopper on practically everything; how does one consider sex when one no longer desires it?
Isn’t that the point of sex, that it is by nature desirable?
But I wasn’t feeling it. And I was feeling it even less when lying back on my reclining chair in the emergency ambulant care unit, eyes closed, in the same clothes because I hadn’t been given any new ones, and the same shoes because they didn’t ask me to take them off, feeling dirtier than ever because there was no shower.
And I may have drifted off a few times. Dreams came and went – dreams where my friend-who-is-a-teacher is still alive and I’m getting my quota of sliced baguettes with hunks of cheese and citron pressé. In these dreams I’m stroking cats and getting rich and being cheated on. But they’re not fun dreams. They’re not enjoyable. They’re not sex dreams.
I used to have a lot of those.
I’m bringing sexy back
On the day after being discharged from hospital, I’d usually feel too horny to move and demand of myself an orgasm to help me loosen up. I’d have more regular orgasms towards an arbitrary ‘back to work’ date. Maybe this would help me to centre myself – maybe not. It all depends. But I’d have my dick in my hand at some point.
This time, however, I did not do any of that. For a few days I barely left my bed, being willingly lethargic under the hazy funk of wilt and malaise that threatened to take me. No longer would I stagger to my laptop, drop trou and go to the moon and back. Hours turned into days. Days into weeks. Fortnights. Three weeks. A month…
Last Thursday I decided that I had had enough, and I forced myself to wank. This wasn’t acquiescence – it was force… I wasn’t even watching my usual stuff, deliberately watching something harder, almost brutal. If I was going to come, I was going to have to BEAT it out of myself. But come I did, and the following day too… twice, as it turns out.
None of there were pretty. Or stunning, or even particularly fantastic.
But they happened.
They happened, and in doing so they opened the sluice-gates for something more. Once again I could feel like a sexual being, and so what if I had to try I could bully myself into it and holy fuck i was going to do so i was just going to come so much and so hard and bloody hellfire i’ve missed this i’ve missed it so much and and and
…
…and yesterday, I calmly sat down, watched some of my favourite glossy smut, read a few words, and experienced blessed relief once more.
Go back a few years and this is the date where various “top sex blogs/bloggers” would tend to appear – individual bloggers had their own (some probably still do!), there was one on the since-maligned sexual content aggregator Kinkly, and there was a list of 100 – sometimes regarded as THE list – initially by Rori Sweet, who handed it over to Molly Moore.
Rori’s badges were usually colourful and decorative.
Havingbeenonthelistmyself – yet never quite making the top ten – last year I floated with Molly the idea of running the list myself. Our mutual agreement ended with the consensus that, whoever runs it, a list of one hundred sex bloggers simply isn’t viable.
Blogging, as a medium, has started to fade. Nobody can really, hand on heart, say otherwise. During GOTN’s Patreon hangout last night, the topic came up, and while she struggled to come up with names, I tried to write some down myself. It took me about an hour of searching both the web, and my memory, to compile a list – and, even so, it was a mission to come up with ten, never mind a hundred!
Yes, I know it’s not great, but this is the sixth draft and it’s all you’re getting.
But still, I present here a list. This is inspired, of course, by THE list formerly curated by Rori and Molly, but it is not a continuation of the same. It’s just some active blogs I like, and hopefully, that you’d like too. For the purposes of inclusion, I set myself a rule: the blogger has to have posted at least once in the past year. Yes, once. That’s the bare minimum, I think. With that in mind:
ILB’s List – Active Blogs
1. Emma from Love, Emma The reason I’m so fond of Emma is that she has a frankly enviable workrate. Her content is frequent, and varied – from love to sex to toys porn, she writes about it all. I read through my blogroll pretty much every day, and there’s usually new content from Emma. Her voice comes through in these posts… and it’s a very knowing one, too!
2. Sundial from Going Down with Sundial Still something of a newbie, although not so much any more, I’m fairly sure we’ve all read some of Sundial’s stuff over the past year. Her blog is a good example of how quality writing can outshine personal preference – I’m not into open relationships, ENM, BDSM or threesomes myself, but her writing is presented with so much flair that it’s impossible not to love.
3. Christine from Light in Grey Places I first met Chrissie at Eroticon, and was so taken with her I was delighted to see her again the following time. Her blog is a completely unique one, openly sex-positive with a focus on discourse through her Christian faith. Her posts aren’t frequent, but they’re so in-depth and carefully researched that you lose hours reading them! (And, no, I’m not just saying this because I’m a Christian too!)
4. Amy Norton from Coffee & Kink Amy comes and goes, but she still manages to get posts out there, which is always admirable. At first glance you may be forgiven to assuming C&K is primarily a sex toy review blog, but a few clicks through and Amy’s world becomes a diverse, rich and fascinating one. My favourite post, which I sadly didn’t bookmark, was one about the threesomes she’s had, which genuinely made me laugh!
5. Ash from Sexilicious Ash I’ve been following Ash for a while and I’m always fascinated by her adventures (and her photos are good too!). Back in the heyday of regular blogging memes, her TMI Tuesday entries were full of interesting titbits – and for someone with my naïveté, learning about a life I’d never lead was a useful thing for me! Ash hasn’t posted recently; I hope she will soon.
6. Robyn from Robyn Eats Everything Almost quit blogging within the past year but didn’t quite get around to doing so. I am very pleased, because I adore this person and everything they do. Robyn may not be as active on their blog (although they are on social media), but there’s a wealth of flirty, funny and filthy past content on there, and reading through it is a good way to spend an afternoon. Or any time, really.
7. David from The Big Gay Review Big though I may be, I’m not gay, nor am I into review blogs since I’m not a huge sex toy fan, so why do I like this? Simply because David is an incredibly talented writer. His reviews are fun, but my favourite posts are the little series of ‘sexy thoughts’, random musings on sex and sexuality from his own unique perspective. (Sex blogs used to be full of that stuff, and it’s always nice to find some more…)
8. Bacchus from ErosBlog Bacchus has been blogging for so long that there’s always something new to find on “the sex blog of record”. Whether it’s a joke, a story, an image, a thought, or just a porn star with a pretty smile, it’ll be there somewhere on ErosBlog!
9. Cara Sutra from Cara Sutra Can I really call what Cara does a blog any more? Even years ago, what she did was more like an online magazine, but she remains a blogger, with a well-maintained repository of content there. I will admit to feeling slightly overwhelmed by Cara’s site – there’s so much there I get lost sometimes! – but I admire her and her work ethic, and having met her a few times, I’ve always enjoyed her company.
10. Violet Fawkes from Violet Fawkes Like Cara’s site above, I find myself sometimes adrift in Violet’s content, but it’s most certainly good content. Her writing usually focuses on sex-positivity with a self-acceptance focus; while it may initially seem like there’s a lot of this online, there genuinely isn’t that much! Violet’s honest, wholesome and self-affirming writing really helps you believe what you are reading.
Honourable Mention: Girl on the Net You’re here so I’m assuming you’ve already read this. GOTN is my (and realistically probably a lot of people’s) favourite sex blogger, for reasons so numerous I’m not going to have space to go into here. I couldn’t write a list without mentioning her, and the reason I’m not giving her a number is simply because she already made #1 on The List back in 2014… well, that, and she defies convention, really.
ILB’s List – Legacy Blogs
Ask me to name sex bloggers and I’ll probably end up going back into the past. I have a few legacy blogs on my radar – ones that were written, and have been either abandoned or deliberately ended, but one can still find in situ. If you haven’t read these, they are all worth a look; if you’re the author of one, HELLO!
11. Leah from Leah Lays London This was my first “favourite sex blog” back in the day. Leah, a sweet and sexy young lady, had carte blanche to seek out and sleep with as many people as she wanted, and set about laying London. Her escapades are steamy, hot and presented with the kind of indivisible glee that I find very difficult to resist.
12. Bitchy Jones from Bitchy Jones’ Diary Bitchy was mentioned by name in GOTN’s hangout last night and I could have sworn her blog was still where she had left it… which, of course, it is. Another example of a BDSM-focused blog which I like even though I probably shouldn’t, I enjoyed reading through this once again, even though it’s been years!
13. Scarlet from Scarlet the Harlot Scarlet was a good friend for quite a time and, though I completely understand why she has kind of moved on from this era of her life, in the earlier days she was quite well-known. Her posts are sensitive and heartfelt and she has a genuinely pure soul, despite any indications to the contrary…
14. Rose Monrou from Sex with Rose Rose is, and probably always will be, my best friend in the sex blogging community. More than six feet of beauty, Rose wrote 44 pages of content in her time, so she definitely deserves a place here. If you ever get a chance to meet her too, you should… she’s not someone you’ll ever forget!
15. Robin from The Life of a Little Sex Addict This is a curious one and no mistake. Is any of it even true? I wondered back then and still do, even though I hope it is. Robin was never particularly open with her identity, or even her location… but that didn’t matter, as her posts are direct and filthy! Some of them are brief and, fair enough, her grammar isn’t fantastic, but this blog is a guilty pleasure that I am freely admitting to here.
Honourable Mention: Cheeky Minx from Love Hate Sex Cake I’ve always liked Minx and the stuff she does, and we’ve had a mutual appreciation thing going on for a while now. She hasn’t, sadly, posted since 2021, but her blog contains her wistful musings and photographic self-portraits in abundance. Her writing manages to be yearning, yet somehow sorrowful, and her inner beauty shines through in a way to match her outer one.
And that’s the end…
It took me a good few hours to write this and read through all the blogs I’ve mentioned here – extant or not. Tempting though it may be to go on an angry rant about the decline and fall of the blogging medium, and blame it all on monetary gain or grinding commercialism or the Online Safety Act, it just seems pointless right now.
I fully intend to keep blogging for a long as I can. In my older years I have slowed down a little, and this year (in particular) I have been quite lax in posting. I’m most certainly not going to make escape velocity this year… but then, I don’t need to do that to validate myself. Blogging has always been something I enjoy – I’m not out here doing it for clout or self-congratulation or monetary gain – and that’s why I read other blogs. I enjoy reading them and getting a little insight into the minds behind the words.
That’s the reason that I made a list. I wanted to share what I’ve found with you. Gentle Readers. I hope that, by following the links here, you’ll discover something new, and hope that sex blogging, despite all the pitfalls we have suffered recently, can never truly die.
There’s a grainy, indistinct picture of me barely visible on Google Street View. You can see me through the window of the maisonette I used to live in; I’m hunched over my computer screen. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what I’m doing.
I wonder how many people have seen this, I think to myself, and if any of them think it’s hot? Has anyone masturbated to the suggestion of me masturbating? Would Google even approve?
Then I remember there’s another picture of me taken in the flat I currently live in. You can’t really see well through the slatted blinds, but it’s slightly clearer; the resolution’s a bit better, and if you look very carefully, it is suggestive of the bare-faced truth: that I am naked. You can’t see everything, obviously, but this one is definitely ILB, to the eagle-eyed viewer.
The first shot is similar to that famous one of Luigi Mangione, I think. You can’t see my face…maybe I should post it on my blog!
I haven’t posted anything on my blog for a while. I keep meaning to do that. Let’s post a picture and see how many people react.
I open my laptop and hit Print Screen, but before I can paste what I capture into Paint, everything goes dark, my mousepad stops working, my laptop morphs into amorphous goo and it’s a dream, isn’t it, it’s a bloody dream, I finally get something to blog about and it isn’t even fucking real, I mean, seriously…
Maybe I’ll think of something else.
I get up to use the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I have an UNUSUALLY LARGE PENIS.
I can’t post a picture of that, I rationalise, but maybe I can write about my penis. I haven’t done that for a while.
Then I suddenly check myself. My penis is only UNUSUALLY LARGE when it’s erect. It definitely isn’t just as big when flaccid. Unless something odd happened in the past 24 hours, this must be another dream. Yet again something that doesn’t belong in my blog.
I give a salute to the mounted soldiers who ride past the open-topped bus I’m suddenly on, use a Tesco carrier bag to hide my junk because I’m otherwise wearing absolutely nothing, get home to the crumbling manor house/hotel thingy in which I now live, hide myself from my housemates and think about putting some clothes on, except I don’t do that.
When I finally do wake up I’m both amused at how odd my brain is and annoyed that I can’t put any of this on my blog.
And I’m really annoyed about this… so I put it on my blog.
I should probably be 40 already. I was born a week late (my mother claims I was still in there reading The Beano) and, for a while, it looked as if I wasn’t going to make it. Eventually, however, I was born on St Patrick’s Day, a date that becomes even more humorous when I tell people I don’t drink.
For a very long time (in fact, since I started this thing back in 2007) I’ve been wondering what to do when I turn 40. I did assume (as it turns out, correctly) that I’d still be blogging by this point, but as whom? At forty years old, am I still really a boy? I’ve always considered myself one. So do I change my name? Accept that I am finally into the adulthood I have been so strenuously resisting for twenty-four years and shed the moniker of “Innocent Loverboy” to which I have always painfully clung?
I could always go with “Innocent LB”, I thought. That’s my blog URL and social media handle. I could just do that and then refuse to explain what the LB stands for.
But then I look back at the ILB from 2007 and compare it to now. 18 years later (this blog could be a full adult) and it does seem like very little has changed. I still play Nintendo games. I’m still a fan of Knightmare, Star Wars and Pokémon. Additionally, I read DC Comics; I write songs; I listen to James. I remain a member of Woodcraft and the Green Party, I have a similar taste in movies (classical, contemporary and – of course – smutty). And I still have stories to tell. I even work in the same industry…
At least my logo has changed.
The more I think about it, the more ILB at 40 sounds to all intents and purposes like ILB at 22. People around me evolve all the time; just this morning I was talking over breakfast with Einstein about how many friends have ventured into the “having children” malarkey. 40 sounds incredibly old – I mean, that’s practically 60, and that’s practically dead. Bang, and I’m in my declining years!
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
But no matter how I age (dis)gracefully, something still ties me to my “boy” identity, and by extension, my “Innocent Loverboy” moniker. If I’m the same person I was then, that’s the name I should be using. If GOTN can be a girl on the net, there’s really no reason I can’t be a loverboy. I mean, I still love… and I’m still kind of innocent…
…right? RIGHT?!
But here’s the rub. At the age of 40, does my content need to be any different? Do I need to move along from soft porn reviews, funny/awkward/sexy bits from my past, conversations with my friends, excessive parenthetical comments and awful self-deprecation?
There’s an answer to this: no. It’s all part of my brand. For years now I’ve been entertaining dozens, if not hundreds, of readers with pretty much the same claptrap. People still read, they still see, and they still interact (even if they don’t do as much any more…); blogging may not be as huge a medium as it used to be, but I persist.
Societal pressures, of course, tell me I should really do something for my 40th. And so I’ll announce it here:
Okay, maybe that’s not the clearest of questions. You’re reading my blog so you probably can’t actually physically see me. Yes, there’s an avatar of me at the top of the page, but even that’s not me. In the more figurative sense, can anyone see me?
I ask because, for the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling fairly transparent. I don’t get mentioned, or talked to (or, I am assuming, talked about) by anyone (outside of my immediate circle, but even then, it’s a safe assumption that I don’t). Yes, I have gone through moments in my life when I have felt unimportant, or hopeless, or unlovable. This isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a new feeling.
And I don’t make any pretence towards being particularly important. I am entirely unremarkable in my civilian life and, despite the occasional titter of laughter, not particularly successful as a comedian either.
But what about ILB?
The other week I had a performance review with my boss at work. Fairly positive though it was (although less glowing than mine was last year, when I had a much younger and smilier boss), one thing came out that I wasn’t even aware I knew until I said it.
“The thing is,” I heard myself say, “because I have very low self-esteem, if you don’t tell me that what I’m doing is any good, I’m going to assume it isn’t.” “But what you’re doing is good!” “But you’re not telling me that! If you don’t say it, I’m going to think I’m not doing well!” “But you’ve been doing this for ten years!” “And I still need validation! At the very least you could make a note that I’ve told you this!”
Ralph gets it. Yvan eth nioj!
I don’t ask for much. In my younger years I would have… well, not exactly delusions of grandeur, but I did like to paint myself as something of a savant, or more central to a concept (or a group) than I actually was. I still needed validation, of course, but I could kid myself into thinking that I was being seen. The fact that I could write “wheeeeeeeee! I’m a pop sensation!” in my diary after a gig almost made up for the years of abuse I’d endured in the brass band I’d been in prior to taking up rock.
More than a decade later and I’m less sure. With less and less people telling me I’m awesome I am becoming more and more convinced that I am not, in fact, awesome. As ILB I feel more invisible than ever before, what with the gradual decline of the sex blog as a viable medium (and I don’t do audio porn or have a Patreon or an OnlyFans, so I’m lacking that USP as well!) and the fact that I genuinely feel extraneous anyway, sometimes this makes me wonder if I am anything of a presence at all.
Last time I went to Eroticon I had, on my way there, the curious feeling that people would have forgotten I existed until I actually turned up. I was even preparing for my translucent nature by attempting to reconcile the fact that nobody knew who I was with a joke. That Nick managed to find my lanyard without me having to remind him of my online handle was nothing short of a miracle, so sure was I that people were looking through me like glass.
Is this temporary?
Who cares knows? I go through moments like this; I know I do, even if nobody else is reading me enough to get that impression. I don’t even know what, in particular, brought this on, when the rest of the sex blogging community (or what remains of it…) is having a relatively self-congratulatory, mutually appreciative moment, I am feeling completely auxiliary.
What would happen, I wonder, if I disappeared? Would anyone care, or worse, would anyone actually notice?
Just something I think about, I suppose. You don’t need to do anything, gentle reader. But, if you could find it in your heart to notice me every once in a while, I’d very much appreciate that.
[An old friend once wrote a blog post with “Burning Bridges” as the title, so maybe the credit for the above goes to him.]
I’m not really brave enough for this.
Something I’ve noticed – mostly at Eroticon, but in conversation with others too – is that there is a bit of a difference in how European and American bloggers handle controversy.
What?
Evidently I’m not talking about everyone here, but I’m not the only one who sees this: American bloggers are zealous. They see something that needs to be called out and they’ll do so. Immediately. To the outsider it may look like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, but it’s just the blogger getting something done before it becomes more of a problem. This can be good, evidently; the now-infamous Screaming O talk at Woodhull is a great example.
But to me it seems a little dangerous. If you’e going through life constantly looking for something to call out it seems a touch paranoid. And, of course, if you find something and leap on it without any prior research, then there’s always the problem that you’ll do more harm than good.
European bloggers are a touch more reserved. If one of us seems something troubling then we are more likely to try and fix it quietly than start a massive social media pile-on. I’m a European blogger and I’ve never knowingly tried to start anything, although if there’s already something going on a few of us will probably join in (the Inigo More post is a good example of that).
But what do I, a nervous British blogger, do when I notice something that I find abhorrent? Do I fall silent in favour of silence meaning security? Do I call the cavalry and initiate a brawl I don’t wish to happen or participate in? Or do I take on the issue myself, possibly solving it but just as possibly making matters worse?
Specifically, do I want to risk burning a bridge, even if it’s one I wish were no longer there?
It’s difficult.
So what?
A couple of months ago I noticed a fellow sex blogger – one I’ve met, befriended and previously had a lot of respect for – posting something questionable on Twitter (or 𝕏 or whatever it’s called now). I scrolled through her tweets – maybe this was satire and in response to something else – but saw a few more. And then I opened her replies tab.
Oh boy.
Most direct quotes are too sickening to post here, but they are all things that make me tremble. Constant references to trans people trying to brainwash children. References to refugees as “gimmegrants” and migrants as “illegals”, saying we need to get rid of them all to “protect our country”. At one point she verbatim said that
this wokey nonsense has got to stop
in response to a story about a trans person wanting to be called by their preferred pronoun.
And then I knew I needed to do something. Other than remove them from my blogroll, of course, which I’d already done.
Now what?
It’s difficult enough to deal with this stuff from Tory bigots and you already expect it from known transphobes like Graham Linehan and JKR. It’s much more difficult, however, when it’s from someone you used to like, and even moreso when it’s a sex blogger… whatever has happened to our community, the fact remains that we were all nominally banging the same drum.
This is not what I would usually expect.
Earlier on today I finally posted on Mastodon and Bluesky saying the following:
I don’t want to stay silent any more. But I don’t want to cause a fuss.
A sex blogger most of us know has been airing and sharing abhorrent views on X and this has gone unchallenged.
Most of you are following her.
Message me if you want to know who.
@innocentlb
Some of me wonders whether or not this was the right thing to do. Part of me wanted to do the “American” thing of putting her name and details verbatim on all my platforms, but I didn’t want to do that. Another part wanted to do the “European” thing of quiet outrage and soft indignation, but ethically I felt like I couldn’t do that.
So I took the middle road: I offered the information, and to those who asked I posted her blogging pseudonym and Twitter @, offering screenshots to those who had no access.
And so far this has seemed like the best course of action. I didn’t know how much uptake this would have, but it has been more than I expected. I was envisioning one, maybe two, curious people, but as I type this, more than eleven people have asked. All of them have gone on to respond, once they’ve seen the content, in the same horrified, disbelieving way that I did.
And what?
As far as burning bridges is concerned, it’s very rare that I’ll meet and get on with someone that I’ll end up never wanting to see again. I’m a social person and I’m genuinely quite protective of the friendships I’ve made. Fair enough, it may be different with 47 or Robinson or H or Mini – they are friends in real life, there’s much more physical contact there. Nevertheless, I’ve met this blogger; I’ve talked to her; I’ve hugged her, even.
But even I have my limit, and in this case – rare though it may be for a European blogger, even more so for a British one, and perhaps much more so for me – it has been hit by this person.
I am not going to post her identity here.
But my offer still stands. If you want to know, ask. I hope you do. I hope it makes its way around. And I hope everyone ends up knowing.
Above all, I hope she realises she was wrong. If she does, and she apologises, and makes more of an effort, then maybe it won’t have been worth burning that bridge after all.
Just before Christmas, with a very limited amount of disposable income, I splashed out a bit and joined a couple of Patreon. I had specifically made a point of not doing so until I was sure I could continue to pay for one ad infinitum, and in the end I made the additional rule of limiting myself to two. I joined Robyn‘s on account of the fact that (i) they are a dear friend and (ii) the stuff they do is smoking hot; I also joined GOTN‘s, which – as it turns out – is a very good investment, even when you consider the fact that I’m not really a fan of audio porn.
If you are looking for a Patreon to join, you could do a lot worse than considering the above.
Someone I know asked me the other day if I have a Patreon. I don’t. There’s a reason I don’t.
What would getting a Patreon entail?
Just in case you weren’t at Eroticonlast year, it’s worth mentioning that GOTN herself did an excellent session about running a Patreon and that I actually took a lot of genuine notes about it (my ‘con notes usually amount to things like “a man got his hair cut at this point”, “sandwich tweet means absolutely nothing” and “Zac just stuck her tit to the table”; this was more involved). I even made a list of things I could offer if I did start one:
(i) Abandoned drafts. This is a tricky one since I tend to post pretty much any old shit, but the idea is there. There are a couple of old things I went back to years later and refined, and this practice might also be something I could offer.
(ii) Audio recordings of my blog posts. This is something pretty much everyone does, and since most of my posts are written to entertain, they may transfer well enough to the spoken word. I regularly read them aloud to an invisible and non-existent audience, and I’d do so if I ever got to read at Eroticon again.*
(*I never will.)
(iii) Group conversations. This worked really well the first time I experienced one, at GOTN’s virtual birthday party (exactly one week after my birthday, although I didn’t mention that!). Since I am a chatty ILB, I’m fairly sure I could do that. I’m still not sure the game of “I Have Never” I want to play with sex bloggers is achievable over Zoom, but…
(iv) Flash fiction. I genuinely don’t write a lot of fiction, but I do have a Word document full of the stuff that I’ve never done anything with. I even have my almost-complete novelette set on Rockall. Could serialise that.
(v) Songs. Just to make sure people leave my Patreon in droves.
So why don’t I have one, then?
That’s a more complicated thing to answer. But I do have a reason. A few, even.
The first is that my blog isn’t a commercial venture and never has been. I don’t really count Patreon as being anything more than supporting artists independently, so it’s not the same as – say – a paid-for ad or a sponsored post. However, were I to be effectively putting some of my content behind a paywall I’d be taking a machete to what I produce. I don’t really think that’s fair.
The second is that I’m not even sure anyone would be interested. I’m not as high-profile as some of my blogging mates who already have one, and I’m not even as high-profile as I used to be in the earlier days before the saturation of the sex blogging community. There’s nothing particularly tempting about me or my writing… specifically when all of it’s available for free on my blog to begin with.
And that’s the real reason behind it. I post all my content on my blog and I always have. It’s never occurred to me not to, and when it comes to reading bits of it out, then who am I kidding? I’d do that for free.
I’m genuinely not important enough
I’ve never, ever even really considered joining Patreon, even if my wife told me to when it was first a thing. I have an account and, for what it’s worth, I have been enjoying what I’ve heard so far.
It’s just not appropriate for ILB. I’d rather post all my content on my blog like I have since 2007. If there’s fiction I like, maybe I should self-publish. If there are unfinished drafts, then I should finish them and hit the post button. And I can always read my blog posts aloud to myself (the laughter can be in my head). But, in all these things, the truth is that, even with the best of intentions, I ultimately lack the drive.
Hi, I’m your lazy blogger who doesn’t write a damn thing. 👋
I’ve been all over the place. I want to write, but I’ve got a terrible weight in the pit of the stomach and the thought of sex is making me feel sightly sick.
(Realistically, everyone else appears to be having quite a lot of sex, and since I’m not having any, I’m feeling a little left out too…!)
Please excuse my sightly reduced presence while I try to sort my head out.
While the bare bones of what I’m feeling are very much there, I feel like I need to spin this out a little more. I don’t quite understand exactly how I feel, but the best I can do is this:
(i) I’m not actually lazy. Recently I have taken on a lot of responsibilities at work, not all of which were voluntary. I’m coming home incredibly tired and often want to take a nap, if not immediately upon my return, within a couple of hours at least. While I may be lethargic, you couldn’t really call me ‘lazy’.
(ii) In previous situations, blogging was my escape after a hard work day (or, earlier, a hard week at university, or while jobseeking, or… etc.). I could be having a difficult time but with the knowledge that I can go home and write openly and unashamedly about sex being a sort of beacon I could carry in my heart, it didn’t seem so bad.
(iii) However, being unable to blog due to the aforementioned fatigue in point (i) above (plus other extenuating factors) is resulting in the “terrible weight in the pit of the stomach” to which I referred on social media. Whereas I often think of my blog as a boon, for the past few weeks I’ve been seeing it as more of a burden. I’m not good at this.
(iv) Whereas over the past week I have masturbated twice, and had an orgasm each time, in many cases the thought of being sexual with anyone, myself included, has made me feel slightly sick. I’ve been enjoying my own sexuality like I usually do, but again, it makes me feel slightly off – like I shouldn’t be doing this (I haven’t felt that way since I was 18!) – and it’s making me start to doubt myself.
(v) The mention in the post about “everyone else appears to be having quite a lot of sex” refers to specifically what I see on the blogs and all over social media. Yes, this is due to the people I follow – I am aware of this; it is, however, also becoming more of an issue to me. People I know and like enjoying active, varied and satisfying sex lives was always something I liked to see… now, however, I’m starting to feel like I’m not worthy to even know.
(vi) Not having sex hasn’t bothered me so far (well, it has, but not to any noticeable degree), but comparing this to what’s happening to “everyone else” (and yes, I know it isn’t everyone, but look above at point (v) makes me sort of… lonely? Left out? Envious? I’m not sure how to categorise it. Whatever it is, it certainly contributes to the aforementioned “terrible weight in the pit of the stomach“, which manifests when I see that stuff on social media.
(vii) I genuinely don’t have much to write about. Yes, I ran a session about this at Eroticon. Yes, it is also relatively effective to open a blank post and start writing at random (that’s how this post started). But I still don’t think it’s working. I sat on the bus on the way home today and tried to think of blog post ideas and didn’t even come up with a single one.
I think the real reason behind all this is twofold: one, a bitch is tired; two, a bitch is frustrated. I have very little creative impetus/outlet and no real consistent sexual one. Even my porn habits are starting to grate – I’m starting to spool at random, whereas I used to have a few cued up in my head to go through.
I’m not entirely without hope – as I say in the above post, I’m expecting my head to sort itself out. Give me a few days without any responsibilities and the grace to not feel the huge amount of crushing guilt for not doing anything for my readers and I might start to feel better about it all. I’ve even had a bit of a relief today at work and things are already starting to feel a bit lighter.
It won’t always be easy to find either. And it may take days, weeks, years even…
ILB wakes up in bed with ILB. Briefly, they look at each other, an uneasy grin unfurling on each face. Neither of them know what they have done, or how long for.
“Time to start my day,” says ILB-1. “Want some coffee? I’ll go downstairs to get it.” “No need,” says ILB-2. “The kitchen’s on this level.” “Mahar!” calls ILB-1’s dad. “I’m making tea; do you want any?” “Thanks,” chorus both ILBs at the same time.
ILB and ILB take their seats at the computer. It’s time to write their blog post, which is a simple routine: ILB-1 opens Blogger, gets a compose window open and copy-pastes the HTML in first before writing. He had an idea in his head last night and this is a way to get it down. ILB-2 opens his self-hosted WordPress compose window. He doesn’t have any ideas; he’ll probably write any old shit and hope it works.
ILB-1 will be going to host a session at Eroticon about how not to do that.
Both ILBs click the publish button at the same time and cross-post to social media: ILB-1 to Twitter; ILB-2 to 𝕏 and Mastodon and Bluesky. Immediately after this they both open their blogrolls, one blog at a time via multiple tabs. ILB-1 is still impressed that Mozilla Firefox will do this. ILB-2 would have been upset if Google Chrome didn’t.
ILB-1 reads through a succession of very sexy blogs by very sexy people. The first ones he opens are by Blacksilk and Lady Pandorah. Each of them has written something new and he devours every word. He also checks on Lace Stockings and Silverarcheress. LucyBoots may have some new porn she likes. Bitchy Jones is still hitting people with stuff. Leah is busily laying London.
He finishes by reading the blog belonging to the girl he has a crush on. He knows where she is and how best to get there, but it’s only a dream, he tells himself. He’s never going to get to have sex with her.
ILB-2 spools through a succession of very sexy blogs by very sexy people. He opens each of them in alphabetical order and checks quickly. Most of them haven’t been updated in a while and he clicks off the page impatiently. GOTN, Emma and Robyn usually come through with something new. He still considers himself part of something, but he isn’t entirely sure what that something is.
ILB-1 talks about how connected he feels. ILB-2 fears that he is becoming increasingly alienated. Put together, these average out to numb. That’s a very good way to describe the life of an ILB.
ILB-1 reaches over to ILB-2 and takes his hand.
“Don’t forget what I’ve done,” he says softly. “However long this lasts… however long we last… nothing is not worthwhile. Years down the line, you will always remember this. And I’m sure there’s more to come for me, as well.” ILB-2 nods mutely. “There is,” he whispers, almost conspiratorially. “It’s not all good, but the good stuff is very, very good indeed…”
They look at each other for a while, heart to heart but ten miles apart.
Later in the day they both get 40 minutes to themselves and decide to wank. They both have the same method, wrapping one finger and thumb around their shaft and rubbing the foreskin back and forth with their right hand. The left hand operates the computer, pulling up whichever scene of soft porn they can think of at the time.
They both orgasm at the same time to the same scene.
And so the Saturday evening social happened. It was a sequence of events.
I say that because I’m genuinely not sure what else to say about it. I ate too much food; I drank too much cloudy lemonade. Olly was chatty, Amy was sparkling and Robyn looked amazing. That’s what happened; I don’t have much else to say.
I went home via Kentish Town Station, having quite forgotten the farrago of the previous night, on which I clattered down the 100+ stairs in lieu of a working escalator. A helpful young man noticed me struggling with my bag and managed to convince me to let him carry it down the stairs for me – which he did. Thank you for your help, young man carrying bag full of sex things.
*
In contrast to Saturday, Sunday was a much calmer, more relaxing and relatively chill day. A pleasant surprise was the attendance of my dear friend Christine, whose name badge I had spotted at the Friday meet and greet but wasn’t expecting to see. It made me feel better to see her there, and I found her presence soothing.
Amy‘s session was nice and relaxed. As we should all know by now, I’ve never been particularly interested in adding affiliate links, but there were enough tips in her talk to help, and she was wonderfully composed while delivering it. Michael‘s first session – “Yet More SEO,” as I wrote in my notebook – was quiet but informative, and gave me an ego-boost by putting my site through GTMetrix. I don’t plan to use TikTok (I fail to see what I could do with it), but Sherryl seemed knowledgeable enough about it.
I didn’t take any notes during Michael’s second session. I don’t quite know why this is, but I’m really not keen on Mastodon. Probably mostly because I fear the unfamiliar. In any case, I now know enough about it to take the plunge. By contrast, I’m really not ready to have a Patreon, but GOTN‘s talk about it was so enthusiastic that I genuinely got some ideas about what I’d do with one if I did.
Goodbyes were said; the raffle was drawn. At this point it’s just become a matter of waiting to win the raffle, as opposed to wondering if I will. For my inevitable prize this year, I chose a book of erotica, and then sat with Olly trying to identify if I knew any of the authors.
And then we all went back to the pub.
*
And so that was it, basically. I ate some more, drank some more and then struggled my way down Kentish Town for the last time. Fair enough, it wasn’t the ribald ending filled with debauchery one would expect. We also didn’t get to play “I Have Never”, which I still want to do at some point…
…but it was Eroticon.
It looked like Eroticon. It felt like Eroticon. At some points, it very much felt like nothing had changed; as if 2020 hadn’t happened and we were returning to what was promised. At others, it felt so different that I began to doubt my own memory – surely there was more to ‘con than this? Was there something missing, or did I just have nostalgia for something that may not have existed?
But it was what it said it was. Frankly, I don’t even know what else I could have been expecting.
