Oh gosh. My baby blog turns three today. I think I might cry.
When I started this blog, I was 19 years old and had only recently recovered from a crippling fear of penises. I was taking a year off between high school and university, and had very little idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I really knew was that I loved writing about sex and had a lot of thoughts to share on that topic – plus I liked the thought of getting free sex toys – so starting a blog seemed to make sense.
At first it was just a casual side project, a labor of love. My boyfriend at the time was very encouraging and let me write about our sex life as much as I wanted, god bless him. He even tested out weird couples’ sex toys with me. This blog probably wouldn’t be here if not for him, so he deserves a shout-out, even though we broke up more than 6 months ago and I haven’t spoken to him since. (Sad trombone!)
After a couple months of blogging, my sex toy collection had grown to 25 toys. It’s now up around 150 somewhere – I don’t have the time or energy to count, to be honest with you!
I think my feminism has evolved a lot since I started this blog. It was always my goal to approach my writing from a sex-positive feminist perspective, but that’s an ongoing process and transformation and I never have been (and never will be) perfect at it. I think I’m more inclusive of trans and non-binary folks in my writing now, for example. (Well, I hope! Please call me out if I’m not.)
I also think I’ve become a way better writer! Six months after starting my blog, I headed off to journalism school, where I’m now in my third year. Granted, news briefs and feature articles are quite different in tone (and usually content) than the sorts of things I write on my blog, but I think they all feed into each other in one way or another. The more you write (and read, and edit, and draft, and re-draft), the better you get at it. What I know for sure: some of my old posts make me cringe, but I’m generally proud of the ones I rattle off these days!
I also notice that my anonymity isn’t as crucial to me now as it was back then. Of course, I still use a pseudonym, don’t show my face, and keep my GJ identity separate from my “real-life” identity online, but it no longer stirs up a desperate fear in me to imagine that I might be “found out.” Almost everyone in my life knows I’m a sex blogger and most of them have seen the site – and in turn, some of the folks in the sex blogosphere know who I am IRL (including Reenie who I actually visited and hung out with last month!). I still intend to keep my two identities separate to protect myself (openly sexual women are still shamed and devalued in a lot of ways in our society, unfortunately), but I don’t have anxiety about it anymore.
I’m very proud of the work I’ve done, both on this blog and on my overall self-improvement. And I want you to know that I’m in this for the long haul. I’ll be writing about sex until my brain turns to mush or my fingers are too arthritis-gnarled to form words on a keyboard.
I love you so much for being a part of my social sphere, and for reading my silly musings. Thanks so much for sticking with me and contributing to this space that means so much to me.
xoxoxox GJ