If you hate graphs and stats and nerdy things, please look away now. If you run a sex blog, or you’re just curious as to how one works, step a little closer.

I’ve always had a theory, based on what I tend to see on Twitter and Facebook, that despite billing this as a sex blog, the most popular posts are actually the ones that are fairly tangential to sex acts themselves. Posts about feminism, dating, the Friend Zone – anything that falls roughly into the category of ‘ranty ones.’ These posts tend to get more retweets, shares, comments, and all the things that a wanky social media manager would irritatingly call ‘engagement.’ But when it comes to traffic, the filthy blog posts get far more, by quite some margin.

When I’ve chatted to other bloggers about this on Twitter, some of them have been as curious as I am. If you’re a sex blogger, is it worth sprinkling some politics in with your filth? If you’re a different kind of blogger, is it worth expanding your reach with some well-targeted sex chat?

And, the thing I’m most intrigued about: despite occasionally being annoyed when I link to filth, are people on Twitter actually more likely to click a link if they think it’s #nsfw?

Let’s have a look.

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Yesterday I told people to tweet me with any topics they wanted me to cover. The suggestions ranged from quite bizarre through really fucking bizarre to seriously interesting. I haven’t been able to tackle all of them in depth, because blimey there were a hell of a lot of them. If you’ve better answers than I have (and why wouldn’t you? I basically know nothing), then please do join in below the line. Some of these I might do more on later, because there are some really interesting topics here.

So here goes: a slightly weird meta-blog, in which we discuss everything from knickers to nearly injuring yourself during sex, and ponder the intensely philosophical question: why do most people think it’s OK to eat a pig, but not to fuck one?

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When you tell someone a story, how much of it is true? Every detail? Probably not. Whenever you tell someone something that actually happened, there’ll be elements of it that you remember perfectly, and other elements that you don’t. You’ll perhaps gloss over some of the awkward details, or play them up to comic effect, or tell a story in a context which doesn’t fully explain the whys as well as the whats.

And so it is with sex stories.

During an email interview the other day, someone asked me how much of what I write is true. My initial, kneejerk response was: all of it. And that’s the simplest answer. Everything I write here – unless it’s specifically marked as a fantasy or bucket list shag – actually happened. But to say it like that is to gloss over what actually happens when you write up a sex story – whether it’s a relationship you had ten years ago, or a quickie you had last night.

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UPDATED 25th Feb – jump to why the Reddit image cull is not the same.

UPDATED 27th Feb – well, what do you know? Google’s reversed the decision and has now said it won’t delete adult blogs. However, given that Google could change its mind at any time, and given that it has a long history of trying to rub out anything sexy, I’d still be really wary if I were you, and much of what I’ve said below still stands. Beware omnipotent companies with the power to delete chunks of the internet. 

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Another day, another pathetic attempt to remove bums from the internet. If you’re a sex blogger and you’re hosted on Blogger (so if your url is DirtySexBlogName.blogspot.com or .co.uk or whatever) you need to either scrub your blog shiny-clean and start focusing on tulips or chilli recipes or something, or you need to migrate it to another site. Best to go self-hosted, although beware your host: I once had a heart-stopping 24 hours during which Bluehost decided that my site was too disgusting for human consumption and shut the whole thing down.

Advice, info, and all that stuff on the Blogger issue can be found over on Write Sex Right.

I know loads of people are still using Blogger for their sex blogs, and others are using WordPress. I’d advise you to get off both of these if you want to make sure you’re safe, and go self-hosted. Even if you don’t post pictures. Even if you think your blog is relatively tame compared to others. Even if you don’t run ads or use affiliate links or have much traffic: move it or lose it.

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