“So… I’m not a huge fan of the word ‘sexpert’.”
“Me neither.”
“What do you want to be called?”
“Umm… filthmonger?”

So went a conversation I had with the awesome Emma at SexToys.co.uk when I went to their offices for a meeting last week. Since April this year, I’ve been ramping up the amount of Real Work I do for sexy companies – from my initial blog sponsorship with Bondara, through writing about hot porn for Dreams of Spanking, and occasionally trying to make jokes about shagging over on The Debrief, as well as other bits and pieces. The most exciting thing about doing this stuff is the conversations I get to have.

While in my vanilla job an email might be subject lined “Updated KPIs spreadsheet”, in my GOTN inbox I get “Rimming?” or “new feminist porn collaboration.”

I get to discuss the minutiae of sex toys – looking at whether people who read my blog are more likely to buy a cock sheath or a rabbit (Spoiler alert – it’s the former). During conversations with my amazing editor at The Debrief, we’ve thrown ideas back and forth on porn moves, and when I met with Emma, we discussed whether people are more likely to wank during a thunderstorm (the jury’s out, but we’re going to look into some stats).

I say this not to make you jealous, but to point out that the world seems so utterly different to me now than how it seemed a year ago. At lunchtime I used to huddle outside my vanilla-job office, surreptitiously checking Twitter on my phone and praying there’d be no cock pictures in my timeline when colleagues were looking over my shoulder.

Best thing about working with sex companies

Recently, the lovely Cara Sutra got a lot of press coverage on National Orgasm Day. Newspapers and websites across the world went wild to hear of the woman who has 15 orgasms a week for work. The Pulse (a sex toy company that makes an amazing-looking vibrator for dudes, which I’m itching to try on my partner) recently advertised for a ‘sex toy tester’ and people leapt out of their chairs with delight. The main message being: getting paid to have orgasms? AWESOME.

It certainly is awesome, and it ticks a hell of a lot of the ‘job satisfaction’ boxes – if you can find something you love doing and persuade someone to pay you for it, you’re doing pretty well in the career stakes. But for me orgasms are always something of a sideline – like a Christmas bonus. Sure, while I’m blogging a particularly hot story, I might break off halfway through to rub myself into a foaming lather of delight, but I’d probably do that whether I was getting paid or not.

For me, the best thing about working in the sex industry is the conversations. From ‘what are your thoughts on rimming?’ to ‘do we get a higher newsletter open rate if we give it a flirty subject line?’ and ‘are people more likely to buy a butt-plug if you review it, or if you write a sexy story about this one time you fucked a guy while he sat on one?’

Sex is fun, but I’m going to do it no matter what. These conversations? They’re my favourite perk.

Enter the sex toy competition

This blog is slightly out of my normal schedule, and is mainly here as a big, enthusiastic welcome to my new sponsor – SexToys.co.uk. You’ll see their banner ads on site from now on, as well as relevant links in some blog posts. I’ll also be contributing to their deliciously eclectic and filthy blog over at The Vibe. 

To say hello, they’re running a sex toy competition which will be open for the next two weeks. They let me pick the prize, so I chose a few awesome restraint kits and we’ve put them all together in a bundle – the winner gets all of these:

This bed restraints set (rrp £35.99)

This door restraints set (rrp £29.99)

And this spreader bar (rrp £105.99)

Enter via the widget below if you’d like to win ’em. And if you’d like to support my blog, now’s the time to go and buy some sexy stuff from them. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you’re from outside the UK, you can’t enter this one, but I’m trying to come up with something good for you guys soon. If you have any particular prize-related preferences leave a comment below and I’ll see what I can do about a comp for people elsewhere in the world!