New Voices and other thoughts

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So here we are again dear readers and another year in the sex blogging world is almost over but we can’t possibly let it pass by without the Top 100 Sex Blogs list being published. Tomorrow will be that day but before I reveal the final list there are a few important points to be covered.

A Word about the Sponsors

A massive thank you in fact to Chaturbate who have agreed to sponsor the list for a second year in a row. Working with them has been an absolute pleasure and their enthusiasm for supporting the sex blogging community is wonderful to encounter. I really can’t thank them enough for their support with this project. Without them it would be much harder for me to devote the amount of time needed to do the list justice, with their support it means I can take a bit of time away from my other projects during November to get through all the reading that is required. Companies like Chaturbate really do make a difference and so please do take a few moments to go and check them out. You might find yourself hooked though as their site is full of many distractions!

How do you make the list?

I have written a detailed post on this which you should really go and read. It also explains what type of feedback you can get if you so wish. The Transparency Report

Why am I not on the list?

There are a number of possible reasons for this but the most likely is one of the following

• You were not nominated – To be considered for the list someone has to have nominated you.
• Not enough content – You had less that 24 posts over the last year or have not posted anything in the last 45 days.
• Not old enough – You have been blogging for less than a year.
• Password Protected – You blog is all or mostly password protected.
• Reblogging – Your content is all or mostly reblogged from elsewhere.
• You are not really a sex blog – The majority of your content is not about sex or sexuality.
• Your content is not sex positive. Examples are; sexual health advice that is untrue/harmful, content that is homophobic, sexiest, raciest, misogynistic, transphobic, anti sex workers or anything else that is openly discriminatory or hateful.
• You link to/promote sites that are sex negative in some way (see previous point)
• There are no dates on any of your content meaning I can’t determine whether you qualify or not

New Voices Awards

In the past I have awarded this to two bloggers who do not qualify for the main list as they have not been blogging for over a year but who have captured my attention for some reason or other. However this year it seems the potential list was way longer than any of the previous years. I went back and checked. In 2015 there were 5 potential blogs, in 2016 there were 6 and last year 8. This year there were 26! As a result I have decided to highlight more than 2 and to announce them here the day before the actual list.

After a lot of reading and thinking I have picked out 7 blogs that I think deserve a new voices award for 2018. They have all made their mark within the sex blogging community with their intelligent, thought-provoking and varied content and I am looking forward to seeing how they grow and develop over the next 12 months. I have listed them in alphabetical order rather than ranking them. (If you are one of these blogs and would like a New Voices badge to display on your blog send me an email [email protected])

• a boi named betty
• Focused and Filthy
• Jayne Renault
• Knkstriped
• Lupe Space
• My Controlled Ascent
• Your Heavenly Body

A Sad Goodbye

Earlier this year M from Cammies on the Floor sadly passed away. She had been blogging since 2012, originally alongside her sister who also passed away a few years ago. I was lucky enough to have met both her and her sister A at Eroticon USA in Atlanta, they were, as she always stated in her blog chalk and cheese. M was a dedicated, talented and popular blogger within the community and she is greatly missed by many. Just so you know if you do click on the link to her site, she had a tendency to schedule content many months prior to its publication and so currently her blog is still posting content from time to time.

I don’t like your list

I am sorry about that. I have worked very hard indeed to not make this a popularity contest but to score each and every blog fairly, and with as much of an unprejudiced eye as I can, based on the quality of the blog and content. I have spent hours not only reading but agonizing over the scores in the hope that the list will reflect this, but as with all things I am fully aware that you can not please all of the people all of the time. Trying to do so would only mean that the list would never get produced. If you really hate it that much then why not make your own?

Final Thoughts

Every year since writing taking over the list from Rori I have written some final thoughts. In the past couple of years they have focused on the difficult nature of writing a sex blog. How for many anonymity is vital and how increasingly governments and organisations attempt to create a hostile environment for those who want to share any type of adult content. That has not changed this year, if anything it has got worse with the Sesta/Fosta legislation in the USA and Twitter’s shadow bans to name just two issues.

Choosing to create and share adult content remains a huge challenge, we are maybe more censored and restricted in how and where we can share out work than any other genre of blogging and yet in the face of all this there seems to be more new sex blogs this year than ever before and in total nearly 180 different blogs were nominated for the list. Despite so much effort to silence sex content on the internet there seems to be more of us than ever before and maybe, just maybe that number will continue to grow and our voices will continue to educate and entertain as we shine a sex positive light into an increasingly dark sex positive world.

There is no way this list is going to change the world but if it helps just one person to find a new blog to read or helps to encourage folks to be kick arse sex bloggers and acknowledges the fabulous job you all do as content creators in this hostile world then in my opinion it is a worth while project.