Tag: sex bloggers

Lists

On November 2, 2010

Most notably, Essin’ Em is putting together a list of Bloggers Who Make You Think and I wanted to bring it to the attention of my readers just in case, you know, you felt like nominating someone. Perhaps someone whose first name is also a color. Just sayin’.

Yes, this is me asking for nominations. I don’t do this often, but for this list ((which seems the most sane list that’s been created thus far and far better than the list I did at the beginning of 2009)) I’m willing to do it. Why? Well, first, it’s not an ordered list, it will be alphabetical, which makes the most sense. Ordered lists just seem to be drama magnets and also not necessary. While it may feel awesome to be at the top of lists and there are some people who are happy just to be included there are also plenty of others who get offended by a low number. It’s just not worth it.

Second, it actually takes an effort in order to nominate someone. You’re not just supposed to link to their blog, oh no, you have to link to a specific blog post that made you think. You have to think about the nomination of someone who made you think. Yeah. That’s awesome.

So, if there’s a blog post (recent or old) of mine that made you think, please go nominate me. I’ll be grateful.

Speaking of lists of bloggers, I was also recently included in the Top 100 Sex Bloggers of 2010. I was included in 2009 and 2008 as well. There’s been some drama surrounding this year’s list which I don’t feel the need to go into. Ultimately, I’m glad to be listed, although I think there are tons of great blogs that aren’t.

EdenFantasys: A Sex Shop I Don’t Trust

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On May 27, 2010

In Sex Blogging

It’s taken me a while to get to posting about all the problems that have been going on with EF. I mentioned briefly when I stopped reviewing for them after all the crap that happened in 2008 but have never dedicated a post to it until now. I wasn’t going to, until I tweeted about EF and had people ask me what was going on, which made me realize there probably are people out there who haven’t heard about what is going on and would like to know. I think getting this information out there is important.

I would like to say, I don’t have any negative feelings about people who work for EF or who are continuing to review for/contribute to EF as long as you are making informed decisions. My problem is with the upper management of the company, the policy makers, and thus the corporate entity itself. I’m not advocating for anything with this post other than your right to make informed decisions. Reviews for EF will still be included in Pleasurists, just like they have been from the beginning, even though I have chosen not to work with them since 2008. I am actively encouraging you to read up as much about everything going on and make your own decision, even if that is contrary to my own.

What follows is a list of links regarding the controversy surrounding EF and my own opinions at the bottom.

Wilhelmina Wang has put together an awesome link round-up of the epic fail which is so awesome and amazing I am blatantly going to steal from it (and by steal I mean repost with permission). My own personal reactions are after the links (look for the line).

EdenFantasys History of Fail(s)

2008

– Sexblog giant Always Aroused Girl works on blogging & PR projects for EF, but is refused payment for her work, and so sues her employer and dukes it out in court, with little success.

– Another sexblog giant, Essin’ Em, works on developing a reviewer program and bringing in new products to the site. Her employer gives her a hard time when she leaves an IM conversation with him to take care of a friend who was just beaten up by her husband, then berates her for not mentioning EF in an interview she gave which had nothing to do with the company, and doesn’t pay her her affiliate commissions in a timely manner.

– EF agrees to sponsor the 2009 NYC Sexblog Calender, then backs out at the last minute.

– The Google Spreadsheet that contains reviewers’ confidential information (full name, physical address, along with their blog name and URL) is made public due to an ex-employee’s fuck up. EF claims that using Google Spreadsheets is not how they typically run their business, which Essin’ Em points out to be a blatant lie.

2010

– That Toy Chick blogs about how she was also forced to legally fight for pay that was her right.

– Epiphora, one of the most prolific sextoy bloggers out there, is banned from EF’s forums for no apparent reason. EF says that she was banned for “drama, rudeness and overall negativity”, but it appears that she was banned merely for stating her honest opinion. She was banned without being contacted about it first, without any of her posts being flagged, and EF goes on to publicly humiliate her in their forums under the guise of “being transparent.” One contributor decides to leave EF for good over this issue, and a whole bunch of posts are written in Epiphora’s support:

~ Essin’ Em: EdenFantasys, Not a Place I Trust

~ AAG: Problems with EdenFantasys, Take Nine Thousand

~ Garnet: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

~ Sarah Sloane, who used to be on the editorial staff of EF’s SexIs magazine: Money, ethics and real sex-positivity

~ Britni: Bad Move, EdenFantasys

~ Carnivalesq: EdenFallacys

~ The Blogging Slave: EdenFantasys.com Debacle

~ Toys in Love: When Push comes to Shove…

~ Woman’s Tribune: Eden Fantasys, A Sex Shop No One Can Trust

~ Erosblog: Edenfantasys.com Shoots Itself in the Balls… Again

– Maymay, who runs Maybe Maimed, Kink on Tap and Male Submission Art, and who also happens to be a professional computer programmer, discovers that EF’s linking practices are unethical. (This post has been cross-posted here, here, here, here and here, and Maymay is encouraging people to re-post the entire entry, or excerpts of it, in case he gets a Cease and Desist notice.) Basically, EF pretends to link back to its reviewers, contributors, people who they’ve done link-exchanges with, even companies whose products they sell… but they actually don’t. The links don’t work. This prevents others from getting traffic from all of EF’s sites, and ensures that EF will appear higher in Google search results. Google specifically points out that behavior like this is unethical. In his post, Maymay also outlines actions you can take in response to this. You can report EF to Google here.

Internet sex toy retailer Web Merchants, Inc., which bills itself as the “sex shop you can trust” and does business under the name EdenFantasys, has implemented technology on their websites that actively interferes with contributors’ content, intercepts outgoing links, and alters republished content so that links in the original work are redirected to themselves. Using techniques widely acknowledged as unethical by Internet professionals and that are arguably in violation of major search engines’ policies, EdenFantasys’s publishing platform has effectively outsourced the task of “link farming” (a questionable Search Engine Marketing [SEM] technique) to sites with which they have “an ongoing relationship,” such as AlterNet.org, other large news hubs, and individual bloggers’ blogs.

Articles published on EdenFantasys websites, such as the “community” website SexIs Magazine, contain HTML crafted to look like links, but aren’t. When visited by a typical human user, a program written in JavaScript and included as part of the web pages is automatically downloaded and intercepts clicks on these “link-like” elements, fetching their intended destination from the server and redirecting users there. Due to the careful and deliberate implementation, the browser’s status bar is made to appear as though the link is legitimate, and that a destination is provided as expected.

For non-human visitors, including automated search engine indexing programs such as Googlebot, the “link” remains non-functional, making the article a search engine’s dead-end or “orphan” page whose only functional links are those whose destination is EdenFantasys’s own web presence. This makes EdenFantasys’ website(s) a self-referential black hole that provides no reciprocity for contributors who author content, nor for any website ostensibly “linked” to from article content. At the same time, EdenFantasys editors actively solicit inbound links from individuals and organizations through “link exchanges” and incentive programs such as “awards” and “free” sex toys, as well as syndicating SexIs Magazine content such that the content is programmatically altered in order to create multiple (real) inbound links to EdenFantasys’s websites after republication on their partner’s media channels.

A similar slew of posts crop up in response:

~ Garnet: Business Ethics

~ She Posts: EdenFantasys Accused of Hoarding Links

~ Rayne: We’re Just Waiting, Hoping… Giving the Benefit of the Doubt

~ Sarah Sloane: Beyond Disgusted… Partly with Myself

~ Tom Allen: Beast of Eden

~ Figleaf: Web Merchants, Inc and EdenFantasys Unfortunate, Unethical, Link-Hiding Policies

~ Menstrual Poetry: EdenFantasys: Crumbling Community

– Britni posts to EF’s forums, linking to Maymay’s entry. The post is removed in less than a day. So much for EF being transparent! Luckily, both Britni and AAG took screencaps of the forum thread.

– EF posts a response to Maymay’s entry, which basically reads: bullshit, bullshit, placating-PR-speak, more bullshit. They claim that they’re using linking practices that many other big websites use, in order to prevent viral links. Hmm.

– Maymay explains why, exactly, their explanation is bullshit. (Cross-posted here.) (More information can be found here.)

– When EF forum members start questioning EF’s practices, voicing their concern, or, in some instances, doing nothing at all, EF responds by locking their accounts and deleting threads and posts, even though they claim to support freedom of speech and claim to not censor their membership. Again, with no warning or contacting of the members who posted the comments in question.

~ Juliettia: EdenFallacys

~ Britni: EF Continues to Dig its Own Grave

~ Woman Tribune: EdenFantasys: A Sex Shop No One Can Trust

~ DarlingDove: What I Tried to Say On EF

~ Forum Discussion Screenshot via Mistress Kay uploaded by AAG

~ Forum Discussion Screenshot via Of Sex and Law uploaded by AAG

– EF explains that they are disabling these accounts and posts as a “cooling off period.” They go on to add a FAQ thread, where they elaborate more on the locked accounts, as well as their linking practices, claiming that “there has never been an intention, or agreement, or any commitment to link back to a writer,” “there is nothing illegal or even suspicious in our business practices” and “if you read negative posts about us, look a few lines below or to the side, you will always find our competition’s promos,” none of which makes any sense.

– Sex educator and writer Violet Blue comments that EF may be looking at a reputation crisis, and says she will be writing more about the scandal shortly. Tristan Taormino re-tweets about the debacle, and sex toy stores such as myticklespot begin commenting on it, as well.

– In spite of it all, a number of people are deciding to stay with EF because of other factors.

There’s a good amount of discussion, re-tweeting, etc going on on Twitter under the hashtags #EFLies, #EdensFallacy and #EdensFucked.

Epiphora has put together a (much more well-written) post about these events, with more past-employee-horror-stories, here.

To summarize: the biggest issue some people are taking with EF is that they claim to want to foster a community, but their actions indicate that they could care less.

All the info above (after “EdenFantasys History of Fail(s)”) is from Wilhelmina’s awesome post!

My Opinions

When I first started reviewing sex toys I reviewed for EF. I stopped in 2008 when they screwed AAG over, when Essin’ Em posted about her experience with EF, and when the owner made some an extremely backhanded comments basically saying “we don’t need the sex blogging community so you should praise us for letting you in to our club.”

I get that EF is doing reviewers a favor in supplying toys to review, in trying to build a community, etc. But that doesn’t mean they should say one thing and then do another. While, yes, I highly appreciate any site that is willing to send me (or anyone) free products in exchange for a review, that doesn’t mean I should not hold them accountable for unethical practices. I do appreciate the fact that EF seems to want to build up the sex blogger community and sponsors sex toy reviews, (notice I said “seems”) but that doesn’t mean they should snub their noses at us, the reviewers, contributors, and bloggers, because if they didn’t really need us you wouldn’t see dozens of sex toy related websites looking for people to write reviews for them to drive traffic to their sites and up their pagerank.

I found Garnet Joyce’s post on “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” to be extremely spot-on as far as my feelings for EF, especially in her comparison of EF to SuicideGirls. Essentially they are trying to use sex-positivity as a marketing tactic rather than an actual philosophy they agree with. I highly encourage you to read it, especially if you know the controversy related to SG (and if you don’t, then you should definitely read it).

For the full list of things EF has done see above. The biggest thing recently (not counting the massive crap in 2008) is MayMay’s, discovery of their incredibly unethical linking practices. As it mentions above, EF responded to these claims extremely poorly, silencing anyone who dared speak against them by locking or banning them from EF.

MayMay tweeted about a TED Talk on How Social Media Can Make History by Clay Shirky which is extremely relevant to the situation, if you don’t want to watch the entire thing (it’s about 16 minutes long) I suggest you skip to 12:26 where he talks about the Obama campaign. Basically, instead of shutting down a controversial and negative group on MyBarackObama or simply ignoring the concerns being raised Obama issued a press release saying “I hear you, I understand your complaints, but I am still going to vote the other way.” While people were upset that he did not change his mind they ultimately respected this because Obama actually addressed the issue they were talking about and clearly showing that they were heard.

Clay Shirky says (I’m paraphrasing) the mature use of social media is to realize your job (as an administrator) is not to control the content of your supporters/contributors/etc. but to convene them together so they can talk amongst themselves. EF does not understand this.

Something @JulianArancia said at Sex 2.0 keeps coming back to me, especially in relation to EF: “In the PR world it’s always the cover-up that kills you”. There’s even an EdenFallacys.com now because of all the shit they have been pulling. If they had apologized and stopped their unethical linking once it was brought to their attention? It probably wouldn’t have been as big of a deal. Still a problem, but they would have addressed the concerns in a better way. If EF let us know that they were listening to our concerns and actually addressed them without lies, that would be a whole other issue.

Now, I’ve been on the wrong end of things before, said things that was taken wrongly and offended people. I get how defensive that makes you, I get how hurt you feel when people start attacking you, I get it. However, companies have PR people trained to deal with this kind of stuff, or at very least can hire one when they need one. There is no excuse for a company to react defensively or make backhanded comments, there is especially no excuse for trying to cover up their unethical behavior.

I also get that EF is a business, that they can do whatever they like in terms of that, but that doesn’t give them license to go against Google Webmaster Guidelines and do something completely unethical (and then say they aren’t in violation of GWG). It also doesn’t give them license to not pay people who have worked for them like they did with AAG.

(Also, as a sidenote regarding linking practices, I’ve heard people mention that WordPress (WP) automatically sets “nofollow” to links and saying that is just as bad or the same as EF’s javascript redirects. This is not the case. WP does set “nofollow” to comment links (ONLY comment links) to try and discourage spam. This is not the same as using sneaky javascript redirects that look like real links but aren’t. Setting links “nofollow” is acceptable to GWG, javascript cloaking links is not. It’s not like every link on a WP site is set “nofollow,” but if you are worried about it there is a plugin called DoFollow which corrects this.)

EF has proven time and time again that they do not do what they say, they change their policies at a moment’s notice once it doesn’t line up with the way they actually are running the business. They use the guise of transparency to be rude and negative and then turn around and cover up an issue without actually addressing the fact that what they are doing is highly unethical. They do not have the best interests of their contributors, employees, or customers at heart they are just in it for the money. While this is an understandable business policy what I am opposed to is the fact that they promote themselves as community-oriented, woman-friendly, and sex-positive while clearly using these terms as a business tactic and not an actual philosophy.

The (Un)conference: Getting to D.C. & Sex 2.0

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On May 29, 2009

In Introspection, Sex Blogging

Part of my trip to NYC and Washington D.C., continued from The Beginning: New York City. There will be more posts after this as well.

Somehow (after going the wrong way) I made it to the Bolt Bus with my stuff with about 15 minutes to spare before the bus was supposed to be there. I got a little to eat before heading out to the bus only to discover it was the wrong bus. That didn’t matter so much as I met up with Mollena, Essin’ Em, and MayMay before heading onto the bus. Not long after we were met by AvatarKoo and Sascha and the six of us headed on what was affectionately called the Sex Bus!

While there was a lot of chatting there was also a lot of quiet on the five hours that it took for us to go from NYC to D.C. and I got a bit of sleep (I had been kept up late the night before talking with Onyx and Marla). Bolt Bus has power plugs and wifi, which is why we all wanted to take it, but both stopped working halfway through the ride, which was highly annoying. I used that time to sleep, though, and it was no big deal.

Once we got to D.C., Mollena, Essin’ Em, and I took a cab to the hotel and got settled in. We had learned while on the bus that the pool and drinks activity scheduled was canceled as the pool was not open! This was highly disappointing to me as I had been dreaming about swimming for a good while, luckily I was able to that weekend but that’s for later.

The wonderful Domina Doll was gracious enough to let me share her room, and we ended up meeting up in the hotel restaurant before heading up to our room and settling in. We chatted for quite some time while I was tweeting with Carnivalesq and texting with Onyx and Marla.

After getting to know each other offline a little bit Domina and I headed to Carnivalesq’s room to meet her and her boyfriend Ripley both of whom I already knew I was going to like but I immediately loved them! I felt like we all got along very well and was super excited to meet them. The four of us went out to get thai food at a nearby restaurant, then headed to a liquor store and bought wine for the evening/weekend.

We headed back to our respective hotel rooms and Domina and I broke out the wine while chatting some more. I really enjoyed talking with her, and there was a little drama going on with Marla, mostly me feeling bad and worrying, so we talked about that among many other things. I was so glad to have met her and I felt like we hit it off as well, though I knew that was going to happen.

We headed up to the Brownies and Porn event happening in Match’s room and there met lots of other people, I can’t even say who all was there, but that was the first time I met Jay and Ellie and so many other people were there. At the time I was busy worrying about meeting Marla, I had not yet bought our hotel room for the next two nights either, and I was just in anxiety-mode, which made being in a room full of people I didn’t know too well who were also being loud something that I didn’t want to do.

I headed back down to my room, made hotel reservations for the next two nights at a hotel in Alexandria, VA on the other side of D.C. (technically we were in Silver Springs, MD) and called the hotel to make sure their pool was open. It was. Score! Carnivalesq and Ripley came along not too soon after, there was chatting for a bit until they were tired and decided to head back to their room. It was a strange night all around, really.

I ended up staying up super late (read: 5am) talking on the phone with Onyx about my own fears and insecurities regarding meeting Marla, and so I also ended up sleeping until the keynote had already started. Quickly I woke Domina up, showered, got dressed, and headed down to the main floor where the conference was being held. I opted for breakfast instead of the first session but then opted for talking with Marla on the phone instead of breakfast. She was already on her way up to D.C.

The first session I went to (which was actually the second session) was Mollena’s “Flying Your Freak Flag” session, I came in late with Carnivalesq, then Ripley followed not long behind. It was a wonderful session, Mollena is absolutely wonderful and I really was glad that I had chosen to go to hers. There were several wonderful quotes which i couldn’t help but tweet and just generally enjoyed the session immensely. It was basically about the decision to be “out” about being part of a community, how being out can help others around you not just yourself. Every session I participated in seemed to come back to person vs. personae in one way or another, something I definitely want to write about at a later time.

After that session I talked with Marla and Onyx briefly before settling down to actually eat something since I had neglected to do so before. Carnivalesq and Ripley kept me company and Carnivalesq discovered the sugar packets were njoy brand (njoy being also the name of a sex toy company we all lust for). It was highly amusing. Can you tell I clung to them a bit the entire conference?

This entire time, also, Marla was getting closer and closer to D.C. and my excitement for that was building and distracting as I was also enjoying everything else.

I stuck with Carnivalesq and Ripley and updated briefly during Jack Stratton’s session “History of Written Erotica on the Internet” which was highly awesome and included a snippit from a tentacle porn story which was pretty awesome. I tweeted a few choice quotes from that session as well. It talked heavily on the difference between person vs. personae and the ability of having anonymity on the internet but that also evolving into a personae of it’s own. Quite interesting, and for another post.

She was even closer by the time the session started.

We stayed in the same room to participate in Jack Murnighan’s session “Sex Writing Beyond Erotica,” which discussed various types of sex writing and also ended up touching on person vs. personae as well as various other things, such as comfortability in sex writing (“If I’m really comfortable writing this, it probably isn’t going to be interesting” tweet), the ever-evasive (for me) showing vs. telling, and all sorts of other usual suspects when it comes to issues with sex writing/how to write sex/etc. Again, there were many quotable tweets.

That session was also especially amusing because, as I tweeted, I was sitting next to Carnivalesq, one row behind AvatarKoo, two rows behind Ellie Lumpesse, and also across the room from Minx, all of us with our laptops, all of us tweeting. After the session I stepped away from my computer for less than 20 minutes, when I came back there were 60+ tweets under the #Sex20 hashtag on twitter. We were also trending on twitter, meaning so many people were using the hashtag it officially became a trend. Crazy.

The final session I attended was “Revisiting Naked on the Internet” with Audacia Ray, FurryGirl, Melissa Gira and Amber Rhea. It dealt a lot with the person vs. personae idea again, as well as feminism or not, sex work, and living your life on the internet (kinda similar to person vs. personae also).

After the session I went to the vendor room with Carnivalesq, where Ripley had already bought a necklace from Vera for me! I didn’t know they were going to, and it was so sweet of them! I am currently wearing it, and haven’t actually taken it off since it was given to me, it’s a simple chain held together with a heart-shaped lock kinda like the one on my wrist. I had mentioned liking it earlier in the day. It was so super sweet of them, I’m still kinda floored by it!

Marla was so close I could almost taste her, so I said my goodbyes to Domina Doll (who I barely saw all day), Carnivalesq and Ripley, headed up to the hotel room, packed up my stuff, went downstairs and impatiently waited for her to get to the hotel.

Part of me is sad I didn’t stick around for that night and the next morning, but I had something more important to do. Heaven forbid having sex actually interfere with a conference about sexuality! I really enjoyed all the sessions, and I have a lot more I want to write about each of them but specifically under the topic they raised in me: person vs. personae. In Jack’s Sex 2.0 post he mentions the point of the conference, which I will gratefully ~~steal~~ quote:

“One thing Sex 2.0 seemed to say to me is that we (feminists, sex workers, BDSM, poly community, LGBT, creators of explicit art and media, anyone ostracized, marginalized, disadvantaged or persecuted because of their sexual identity, choice or profession) may be part of different movements, but we have a lot of similar goals and we should come together and learn how to be better allies. We are all fighting first and foremost to have our voices heard, thus it makes sense for us to create forums where all voices can be heard.”

I couldn’t have said it better. It was a wonderful experience and I’m excited for the next Sex 2.0 to be held here in Seattle and further participation in it next year.

Meeting Marla, heading to the hotel, and the rest of the weekend? That will have to come in the next post…

The Beginning: New York City

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On May 28, 2009

In Introspection, Sex Blogging

Image by visionlightgallery.com

Even though I don’t know where to start, I have to start somewhere so I figure I will start at the beginning. The entire week was tainted (in a good way) by the fact that I would be able to spend Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday morning with Marla.

I left Seattle a drizzly Tuesday night, cinco de Mayo to be exact, though I hadn’t done anything to celebrate the holiday. I didn’t arrive into New York City until Wednesday morning around 7am even on a nonstop flight (do note the time change as well). Furry Girl was on the same plane as I was, which we had figured out a couple weeks beforehand, and so we ended up chatting and taking the subway partway with each other, which was very nice as I had no idea where I was going.

My sister, Bee, was going to meet me at a subway stop because we were hesitant about me taking the subway alone (though I think meeting her was more confusing than the actual subway trips and switching would have been). I’m happy to say I only got on the wrong train once while in NYC, and I realized such after just one stop. I was pretty proud of myself. Anyway.

After meeting up with Bee we got me to the right place and I promptly took a nap, as I hadn’t really slept much on that overnight direct flight and I had gotten in to NYC at 4am Pacific Time which was not as fun as it sounds. I hope I wasn’t too out of it when meeting Furry Girl for the first time, I felt kind of bad about that actually. Post-nap I went to dinner with Bee and her boyfriend, then headed to The Pleasure Salon to meet up with other NYC bloggers, out-of-towners who had come in pre-Sex 2.0, and Sinclair who I was staying with.

I was so nervous, and I felt very much like the outsider. I really am rather socially awkward and I don’t really know how to insert myself in a conversation, I’m worried at coming off as rude by being unwanted but inserting myself anyway or just taken as rude (though that was accomplished the next night… but we’ll get there).

I met a lot of people that I’ve wanted to meet for a long time, and I know I won’t be able to list them all but I’ll mention as many as possible! The first person who recognized me was Viviane, who came in not long after I did while I was still getting my name tag. Selena Fire made a name tag for me, complete with a lotus which was sweet and I continued once at Sex 2.0.

Mina Meow came in after we had been chatting a little and Viviane introduced us, which was really exciting because, even though we didn’t really talk that much, Mina is someone I’ve wanted to get to know better and meet for a while now, the same with Wendy Blackheart who I met not long after.

A lot of the night, and a lot of the trip for that matter, is a blur of meeting wonderful people! I was very excited to meet Natt Nightly as well, although we have not interacted much (I can say that about most people, really, because I fail at being social most of the time–even on social networks), I’ve always loved his writing, beyond loved, and I felt like he was excited to meet me as well which I was a little surprised at, maybe a lot of that was the shock of not realizing I was coming to NYC until I tweeted about being in NYC. I felt like we hit it off, even though I was awkward and a poor conversationalist at times (most of the time).

It was a pleasure to meet both Diva and Tess who I had a nice conversation with, Essin’ Em though we didn’t really chat much directly, as well as Jack Stratton and Mariella who I got a great impression of and I was slightly surprised that they knew who I was, also because we haven’t really interacted. I think I see them as superior stylistically, writing, and wit-wise so I kind of assume they wouldn’t know me or anything, which is silly because we all follow each other on twitter.

Twitter was definitely a recurring theme of the weekend, especially at Sex 2.0, though any of you who follow me there pretty much know that already. Tangent aside, there were so many people at The Pleasure Salon and I’m sure I’ve not listed them all, the people I listed are mostly people who I interacted the most with. A few hours in Sinclair showed up and after a short amount of socializing we headed home and after Sinclair attempted to make brownies we crashed pretty quickly.

The next day I was determined to take it easy, socializing takes a lot out of me like the introvert I am and I mostly slept and did very little except head to Re/dress a wonderful plus-size vintage and second-hand clothing shop in Brooklyn. I made it there on the subway all by myself, which was pretty great, without even taking a wrong train or getting off at the wrong stop! I bought two gorgeous dresses: a long red halter-top dress that is shorter in the front than in the back which is a little big on me at the top and I need to get let in, and a short black one with bell-sleeves that looks kinda 60s hippy-goth Fleetwood Mac style.

Once back at Sinclair’s apartment for a brief period I changed into my new black dress and we headed out to Audacia Ray’s apartment for dinner with Audacia (obviously), Natt, V, Essin’ Em, Augustin, and Melissa Gira. Although I was my usual taciturn self I managed to make quite an impression and break not one but two things in Audacia’s house, which I am deeply sorry for and ashamed about and will probably continue to be shamed about forever. I do not know how these things occurred, they were definitely accidents but I still feel horrible about them. Ah, first impressions.

Aside from my horrible blunders there was much delicious food, much good conversation (I’m all about listening), and I enjoyed myself even if I was a bit quiet, though that is also a theme of this weekend, along with twitter and most of it being a blur. Although I wasn’t so quiet come Saturday night… but that’s another post.

After the party there was much sleep before having to get up for the Sex Bus (Bolt Bus to D.C.) the next morning! There will be another post on heading to Washington D.C. and Sex 2.0 before getting to the wonderful and sexy things I did with Marla.