I just did the math. It's hard to believe. My Sexy Spot Blog celebrates seven sexy years!
When I first started this blog in 2006, it was just for fun. That was before Tumblr and Twitter and Wordpress and Instagram. Blogger wasn't even owned by Google, just some small free blogging platform.
It was probably in 1999 or 2000 that I saw my very first online porn. We had to dial up with a modem to connect to the internet, and photos--even though incredibly small and low resolution--sometimes took a minute or more to load. Still, the world opened.
Sure, I'd seen porn before. In fact, I have very fond memories of discovering my parents' hidden collection of Playboys and Penthouses, as well as snooping through the collections of my friends' parents.
Online was a great, and a free way to access porn. Still, it took a few years for the beginning of the DIY porn movement. Professional porn sites had already featured "amateurs," ie unpaid, or just not very attractive models. But it was still the professional porn studios making the usual porn. It truly changed when regular people, with a digital camera and computer, could shoot themselves doing whatever they loved doing, upload it, and share it with the world.
I loved writing. A little self-revealing: I was an English major in college when this internet DIY porn bonanza was breaking open. A lot of my very close friends--some of them "friends with benefits"--not only loved sex, but loved reading about sex, and writing sexy erotica.
One of the classics of the genre was, of course, Anais Nin. Some may know the story behind her collection of erotica, Delta of Venus.
She has been hired, via her publisher, by an anonymous patron who would pay handsomely for original erotica. We have to keep in mind, that this was the 1920s--not only long long long before the internet, but even two generations before magazines like Penthouse Letters. Not only that, but the Comstock Law was in full effect, and both authors and publishers could be fined and imprisoned for the dissemination of pornographic materials. In short, getting porn wasn't anywhere as simple as it is today.
So, it's not that surprising that a publisher asked Anais to pen some porn for a client. (Anais actually suspected it was the publisher himself.) Either way, it was a paying gig, and then, as today, any paying gig is a good gig for a writer.
Anais wrote a story, sent it in. The publisher said that the "client," loved the story and wanted another. So Anais wrote another. Again the publisher reported that the client was pleased, and had requested another. And then another, and another. He'd take just as much as she could produce.
So she gathered up her writer friends and together they all chipped in to write stories. Some stories were told from the male point of view, some from the female. Some were erotic, some more violent. Some even had homosexuality, cross-dressing, rape and incest, if I recall. All the taboos of the time.
This is where I got the quote that has been a guiding inspiration to me in starting My Sexy Spot Blog:
"I gathered poets around me and we all wrote beautiful erotica...Writing erotica became a road to sainthood rather than debauchery." --Anais Nin
In the same spirit, my circle of peers were all talented writers. Unfortunately, we didn't have a wealthy anonymous patron. But we did have the internet--a free way to post stories.
I asked my boyfriend to share some of his earliest sexual experiences, and I wrote those up from his point of view. I asked my friend Sarah to contribute, and my friend Laura Lee. We spent wonderful summer afternoons sitting in my backyard, sipping gin and tonics from mason jars, and exchanging sexy stories, and typing them up for our little blog.
We only published 25 posts in 2006. Then, well, life changed. I graduated, moved, started a job, etc. My Sexy Spot just might have totally faded away as a one time, just for kicks sort of thing. Over 2007 and 2008, I didn't post. I don't even think I logged in.
Perhaps it's not surprising that there were no readers of the blog. It was just me and my friends posting into the anonymous internet void.
By June of 2008 the google stats recorded 0 views. A little sad.
Then, for whatever reason, someone, somewhere came across us. Then someone else. By the end of 2008, we'd received just over 1,000 views. Not exactly viral.
By 2009, I was ready to return. I had more stories to tell, more sexy photos. And, I'd gotten emails from people who missed the old blog. So, I jumped back in with enthusiasm.
In the first year, I had only posted 25 times--essentially twice a month on average. In 2009, I created 517 posts, more than twice a day! Ever since, My Sexy Spot has been a daily blog.
We have personally selected and created 2,500 posts for you, our Dear Readers. Apparently, you enjoy them. Readership has steadily increased to nearly 70,000 views a month, totaling over a million views.
It's been a labor of love. Always free. Always simple and not-cuttered with banner ads, or spam links. I've always wanted to keep the sexy images and text direct and pure. Just how you deserve.
I hope you'll join me in celebrating this blog and how far we've come over the years. If you've got a website, blog, or like to post places, please pass on this blog. Because for as much fun as sex is alone--it's even better shared.
xo, Annie O
When I first started this blog in 2006, it was just for fun. That was before Tumblr and Twitter and Wordpress and Instagram. Blogger wasn't even owned by Google, just some small free blogging platform.
It was probably in 1999 or 2000 that I saw my very first online porn. We had to dial up with a modem to connect to the internet, and photos--even though incredibly small and low resolution--sometimes took a minute or more to load. Still, the world opened.
Sure, I'd seen porn before. In fact, I have very fond memories of discovering my parents' hidden collection of Playboys and Penthouses, as well as snooping through the collections of my friends' parents.
Online was a great, and a free way to access porn. Still, it took a few years for the beginning of the DIY porn movement. Professional porn sites had already featured "amateurs," ie unpaid, or just not very attractive models. But it was still the professional porn studios making the usual porn. It truly changed when regular people, with a digital camera and computer, could shoot themselves doing whatever they loved doing, upload it, and share it with the world.
I loved writing. A little self-revealing: I was an English major in college when this internet DIY porn bonanza was breaking open. A lot of my very close friends--some of them "friends with benefits"--not only loved sex, but loved reading about sex, and writing sexy erotica.
One of the classics of the genre was, of course, Anais Nin. Some may know the story behind her collection of erotica, Delta of Venus.
She has been hired, via her publisher, by an anonymous patron who would pay handsomely for original erotica. We have to keep in mind, that this was the 1920s--not only long long long before the internet, but even two generations before magazines like Penthouse Letters. Not only that, but the Comstock Law was in full effect, and both authors and publishers could be fined and imprisoned for the dissemination of pornographic materials. In short, getting porn wasn't anywhere as simple as it is today.
So, it's not that surprising that a publisher asked Anais to pen some porn for a client. (Anais actually suspected it was the publisher himself.) Either way, it was a paying gig, and then, as today, any paying gig is a good gig for a writer.
Anais wrote a story, sent it in. The publisher said that the "client," loved the story and wanted another. So Anais wrote another. Again the publisher reported that the client was pleased, and had requested another. And then another, and another. He'd take just as much as she could produce.
So she gathered up her writer friends and together they all chipped in to write stories. Some stories were told from the male point of view, some from the female. Some were erotic, some more violent. Some even had homosexuality, cross-dressing, rape and incest, if I recall. All the taboos of the time.
This is where I got the quote that has been a guiding inspiration to me in starting My Sexy Spot Blog:
"I gathered poets around me and we all wrote beautiful erotica...Writing erotica became a road to sainthood rather than debauchery." --Anais Nin
In the same spirit, my circle of peers were all talented writers. Unfortunately, we didn't have a wealthy anonymous patron. But we did have the internet--a free way to post stories.
I asked my boyfriend to share some of his earliest sexual experiences, and I wrote those up from his point of view. I asked my friend Sarah to contribute, and my friend Laura Lee. We spent wonderful summer afternoons sitting in my backyard, sipping gin and tonics from mason jars, and exchanging sexy stories, and typing them up for our little blog.
We only published 25 posts in 2006. Then, well, life changed. I graduated, moved, started a job, etc. My Sexy Spot just might have totally faded away as a one time, just for kicks sort of thing. Over 2007 and 2008, I didn't post. I don't even think I logged in.
Perhaps it's not surprising that there were no readers of the blog. It was just me and my friends posting into the anonymous internet void.
By June of 2008 the google stats recorded 0 views. A little sad.
Then, for whatever reason, someone, somewhere came across us. Then someone else. By the end of 2008, we'd received just over 1,000 views. Not exactly viral.
By 2009, I was ready to return. I had more stories to tell, more sexy photos. And, I'd gotten emails from people who missed the old blog. So, I jumped back in with enthusiasm.
In the first year, I had only posted 25 times--essentially twice a month on average. In 2009, I created 517 posts, more than twice a day! Ever since, My Sexy Spot has been a daily blog.
We have personally selected and created 2,500 posts for you, our Dear Readers. Apparently, you enjoy them. Readership has steadily increased to nearly 70,000 views a month, totaling over a million views.
It's been a labor of love. Always free. Always simple and not-cuttered with banner ads, or spam links. I've always wanted to keep the sexy images and text direct and pure. Just how you deserve.
I hope you'll join me in celebrating this blog and how far we've come over the years. If you've got a website, blog, or like to post places, please pass on this blog. Because for as much fun as sex is alone--it's even better shared.
xo, Annie O
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