Girl on the Net

I had scheduled in some time today to write a full post about Eroticon 2023 – I knew there’d be a tonne of stuff to cover after the weekend, and I had high expectations of myself that I’d be able to post something that covered a lot of detail. But having slept in till 1pm then frantically written some other stuff that’s more PR-focused than bloggy, my body and brain are both telling me to stop being a dickhead and have a rest before I tackle the big stuff, so I’m going to do a quick three things I loved about Eroticon 2023 (one speaker, one sponsor, and one wonderful moment) with a promise to get a fuller post live a little later in the week.

For those of you unfamiliar, Eroticon is a conference for sex nerds: erotic writers, sex bloggers, porn producers, sex toy companies, and basically anyone who is interested in smutty creativity. One of the difficulties in writing about it is there’s such a breadth of incredible experience represented that you can’t sum it up in a few sentences. But for me as an anxious, anonymous fuckblogger, Eroticon represents the only opportunity I get to meet and chat to (and learn from, fangirl at, generally be delighted by) people whose work inspires me. Eroticon is a place to find and chat to my people.

As I say, this is a quick three things. I have left out LOTS and there’ll be more later, I promise. But for now I’m doing this just to make sure I write something in the moment while everything’s fresh in my mind. And to give other attendees an idea to copy if they want to quickly post something too.

Here’s one speaker, one sponsor, and one moment that I fucking adored from Eroticon 2023.

Speaker: Topher Taylor – Banishing shame

I found Topher’s talk incredibly moving. He started by telling us a bit of his life story, from growing up working class in South London and being inspired by the girls surrounding him who proudly embraced the label ‘sket‘, to working in Soho sex shops and learning from sex workers, then carving a space for his unique voice and style within the adult industry. He built on this to give us a really powerful understanding of why banishing shame is so important: talking openly about sex, not just in an educational capacity but also in a joyful way, gives others the permission to embrace and love themselves. And in a world that is currently taking some huge steps backwards in terms of acceptance, this kind of work is more vital than ever.

As someone with a lot of feelings, this talk absolutely floored me. And as a writer, it felt like a challenge. I think I’ve become more nervous in my writing over the years – there are many many stories I’ve not told you here. Along with Topher’s excellent advice to ‘grant your ego permission’ to talk openly and joyfully about your sluttery, I’m also going to be thinking for a very long time about how I can put his following piece of wisdom into practice:

“If it scares you, you should write it. If you feel like this is making you too vulnerable, it has to be in there.”

Thank you, Topher. You’re incredible.

Sponsor: ElectraStim – the tingle chain!

Those of you who’ve been here a while will know ElectraStim already – they make incredible e-stim equipment that has inspired me to have some super creative and truly delightful fucks. Lots of people hear the world ‘electra’ and think ‘oh fuck that’s gonna hurt right?!’ but actually this equipment can create such a broad range of effects and sensations, it’s a bit of a shame when it just gets lumped into ‘hardcore kink’, meaning newbies are often nervous to try it out. If you’d like a quick intro, you might want to check out these posts: my vagina is electric, feeling music inside my ass, and this glorious guest blog about a first-time e-stim orgasm.

Anyway. I love ElectraStim. And their marketing manager Claire Blakeborough (one of the loveliest people in the sex industry), told me before Eroticon 2023 that she was keen to try out a demo and see if Eroticon attendees could break ElectraStim’s currect record for the longest human electro chain. Cue me and a couple of other people running down the corridor late on Saturday afternoon yelling ‘who wants to be part of an electro chain?!’ and ushering interested parties through to the demo. Claire and I started by holding hands, then one by one other attendees (honestly, one of the things I love so much about Eroticon – and this year’s in particular – is just how keen people are to join in) stepped forward to join hands, each new person greeting the tingling tickle of e-stim with either a whoop of glee, a giggle of surprise, or (in the case of the more hardcore/electro-experienced) an exhortation to turn up the power. And we did it – thirteen people all in one lovely tingly chain!

It was a fucking lovely moment, especially when we started stepping out to make the chain shorter, with the intensity of sensation increasing every time a new person dropped out. By the end of the demo, we had three or four new ideas for fun smut stories that involve e-stim in some way, and if anyone’s interested in pitching one for a guest blog here do let me know!

Moment: nerding out about work

I don’t get to talk shop very often. My job is quite solipsistic, and apart from the occasional sponsor catch-up or chat with an editor on Skype, I rarely get the chance to just nerd out about the detail of the work that I do with others who do similar things. But this weekend I got to do exactly that with people whose work I really admire. On one evening, within the space of about an hour, I got to ask Robyn (of Robyn Eats Everything, whose audio porn has been taking everyone’s breath away lately) about the process behind a stunning two-part piece they published recently, discuss the grey area/creative playground that sits between fiction and non-fiction with JM Seaborn (likewise an incredible contributor to the audio project, who now runs his own erotic podcast), hear some stories from the sex shop frontline courtesy of the wonderful guys from Luke and Jack, plot a future project with Amy of Coffee and Kink, and compare notes on the relative joys and financial-precarity panics of freelancing with my fabulous friend Molly Moore (of Molly’s Daily Kiss, who’s also delivered some kickass audio smut over the last few years). Literally within one hour. Amazing.

As I say, more to come later this week once I’ve had a rest. I want to make sure I mention all the amazing speakers, sponsors, and creative fuckers I got to meet or reconnect with over the weekend – partly to make sure I’ve written it all down somewhere so I can look back in future and remember as much as possible. But mostly because I want to say thanks to them all. I don’t get to do this sort of thing very often, and it’s been four years since the last time we all got together. I know I get a bit loud and annoying and overenthusiastic when we do this kind of thing, which is partly why today all my nerves are frayed and I need to go hide in a hole. But I can’t stress enough just how much joy Eroticon brings me. An incredible group of people, doing powerfully cool and valuable things… it’s an absolute privilege to get to learn from them all.

Huge thanks to everyone who made this happen, above all to Molly Moore. It takes determination, hard work, passion and extreme generosity to set aside so much of her own life to bring something like Eroticon into ours, and I am in awe of her for doing it so brilliantly, yet again. If you’re a sex nerd and you’re wondering if this conference might be for you, it definitely is: follow Eroticon on Twitter, Mastodon or scroll down to the bottom of the Eroticon website to sign up for updates, and join us for whatever comes next.

 

The event wouldn’t exist without the sponsors who chip in to support it, so here’s a quick list of all of them so you can visit and check out their amazing work. More on all of them later – I took notes (and pictures!).

decoded:legal

ElectraStim

LoveGivr

Toii

The Ruby Glow

Spectra

WhippleTickle

Chaturbate

Godemiche

Literotica

Sheets of San Francisco