Yesterday she posted a piece on her blog titled How To Get Robbed In The City Of Chicago, which reminded me that 1) I was mugged about a month ago, and 2) I had forgotten to write about it. So I thought, rather than trying to find my own way to explain this episode of my life in my own way – which I already failed to do once – I would write after the style of Alle, in a sort of call and response storytelling tradition of times gone by.

And it is with all this in mind that I offer you my response: How To Get Robbed In The Borough Of Croydon.

• Despite being accepted onto a handful of respected full-time bachelor of arts degree courses, pick the one that only runs classes at night so you will never be home before 9pm, and possibly not before 10.30pm (because the people there offered you a place within three hours of interviewing you).*
• In your second year, choose an elective class that runs from 7.30pm to 9pm on Wednesdays in central London when none of your usual classmates are there.**
• On your way home always opt to get off the train one stop early and catch the bus so as to avoid walking past the creepy park in your own neighbourhood.
• Also always opt to wait for the bus that stops right outside your house rather than getting on the earlier one that stops three minutes from your house, in order to avoid walking past the creepy shops in your own neighbourhood.
• Realise that by the time you actually get home everyone will be asleep and so you won’t be able to play Words With Friends.
• Get your phone out at the bus stop, as there are a couple of respectable-looking people standing not too far away.
• Begin to formulate a brilliant word in order to gain many points and catch up with your Mum on Words With Friends.
• Gasp as your phone is snatched straight out of your tired, cold hands.
• Swivel on the spot, squint (because you haven’t got your glasses on) at the hazy figure who just stole your phone.
• Yell “Are you fucking kidding me?” several times as he runs off, pursued by his somewhat (or ‘faking it’) confused friends.
• Pursue them yourself, shouting “You fucking cunt! You fucking asshole – are you fucking kidding me?” knowing you will never catch up with your Doc Martens on your tired and unfit feet.
• Start a fast-paced, out-loud dialogue with yourself as you round a corner and see no trace of the thief or his friends.
• Realise your phone is jam-packed with smut, and walk swiftly to the next bus stop where, in the distance, you see your bus pulling up. Begin to run for it.
• Avoid punching two teenage boys outside a pub who laugh at “the fat girl running”.
• Get on the bus, sit down, reach into your pocket for your phone, and freak out again because it’s not there. (Repeat this several times.)
• Reach your house, open the front door dramatically, drop all your stuff, and run upstairs, briefly yelling to your Mum that your phone was stolen out of your hand.
• Contact O2 and get them to cancel and block your phone before making a list of all 21 of the logged in email and social networking accounts active on your phone, and start changing all your passwords – just to be on the safe side – whilst ranting and crying about your stolen phone on twitter.
• Report your stolen phone to the police.
• Look up three hours later, when all your accounts are finally changed and checked and double-checked.
• Get a call from the police and arrange for them to come and visit you at home the next day.
• Realise you haven’t eaten dinner and are in no mood to cook, but then find some bacon and decide that maybe you could stretch to a little frying while your tea brews.
• Notice that three friends are offering you phones via twitter and feel your heart brim with love and appreciation. Take one up on his offer.
• Smile about the fact that you have a phone to go and collect from said friend in the morning and then frown as you realise you’d better clear the house up a bit before the police come by.
• Laugh at yourself, and drift off uneasily.

• Try not to giggle the next day when the policeman describes what happened to you as “snatch-theft”.
• Over the next few weeks begin to slowly persuade your Mum that she should really buy the iPhone 5 she wants (so you can adopt her six-month-old iPhone 4S).***

All in all, it may be “up and coming” but at 10.30pm, Croydon is still the shithole it always was. Which is why, when I go out and alcohol is involved I save money for a taxi home from the station. And why I will never have my phone in my hand outside East Croydon station ever again. Because the world is full of cunts who – guess what! – aren’t “fucking kidding me”.

*No, I don’t regret this decision.
**Or this one.
***It’s only a matter of time.

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The one thing I felt was missing from last year’s Eroticon was a chance for all us writers to read our work, and share it with the other delegates. So when Ruby asked me to organise an evening of erotic reading for Eroticon 2013, I was delighted.

I had a lot of interest from writers wanting to read their work, and paring it down to nine was a tough job, but I think what we have now is a group who will deliver a lot of filth, a little romance, and some diversity from the world of sex writing.

I am also very excited to announce that I have procured the compering services of burlesque and cabaret performers Miss Glory Pearl and Miss Maybe. These two lovely ladies are the producers of Wanton Words & Burlesque Bombshells which is “a unique cabaret night featuring author readings of erotic fiction with comedy, sketches, [and] lashings of burlesque”. They say “ it’s guaranteed to make you laugh, quite likely to make you blush”. They are bringing to us several sketches, a touch of comedy, and an audience competition.

And to top it all off we have an excellent venue in the “spacious yet cozy” Lock, Stock Bar – “once known […] as Bison Bar [it has been] renamed in honour of its cameo appearance in Guy Ritchie’s cult films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” – which can be found just two tube stops away from the Eroticon venue on Coin Street. Here readers and audience members-alike can purchase alcohol (or a drop of dutch-courage, if necessary).

The Lock, Stock Bar is located on the ground floor of Journeys London Bridge Hostel, which offers very cheap accommodation if anyone is still looking for a place to stay! and of course, if you haven’t bought your Eroticon ticket yet you’d better do it soon! as we are now less than three weeks away.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me – Harper Eliot – on harper (at) itgirlragdoll dot com. I look forward to seeing you all at Eroticon!

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I actually hate the abundance of cute little words to describe overweightness: plump, rounded, curvy, roly-poly, rubenesque, generous, BBW, padded, comfortable, chunky…adipose-enhanced? I despise them all. Having too many words for something is always a good clue that it’s a socially uncomfortable reality we don’t want to deal with.

I do not have the problem RG has with these words. I actually like and use them liberally. However, they are still problematic. Culturally words like ‘plump’ and ‘curvy’ are used to avoid the word ‘fat’ but in reality this just lends more negative power to it. The thing is, ‘fat’ is just a word, and one of the many things I adore about RG’s article is how many time she says ‘fat’. She doesn’t use it derogatorily, or in a complimentary way, she simply states it as truth. The word ‘fat’ is a descriptor and we need to stop endowing it with negative connotations. Let’s just call a spade a spade. I am fat.

And it is not just the thin police who give ‘fat’ a bad name. It is a word I have used many times to describe myself, and many times it has been answered with a chorus of “You’re not fat! You’re beautiful!” as though the two are mutually exclusive. They absolutely are not. ‘Fat’ is just a descriptor; it is not a value judgement. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. Dawn French, Beth Ditto, Nikki Blonksy, all of these women are fat. All of these women are also gorgeous.

Having said that, I also want to say a word for people who won’t date fat girls – and I’m purposefully addressing overweight females because I believe the issue for males is a little different. There are, to my mind, two kinds of people who will reject you for your weight. The first are those who feel it would harm their social status to be seen dating an overweight person. This is high-school type prejudice and anyone who feels that insecure about their standing is, honestly, not someone you want to be around. So don’t sweat it. I actually mentioned being honest about your weight in my piece about filling out your OkCupid profile, and this is why. Consider these your lucky escapes. The second group are people who are simply not attracted to overweight girls. This is perfectly acceptable. Being honest about who you are attracted to is a good thing. I turn OkCupid messages down on a daily basis because they are from people who are too young for me. The simple truth is that I am not attracted to people who are under thirty, and that is just a fact. So if I approach someone and they kindly tell me they are simply not attracted to fat girls, I’ll take that as written and move along.

But I digress.

As for those other words – ‘plump, rounded, curvy, roly-poly, rubenesque, generous, BBW, padded, comfortable, chunky…’ – to my mind they are all fine. In fact, with the exception of BBW (which I think should probably be reserved for porn tags, as it is otherwise largely* unimaginative), I love a lot of these words. They are creative adjectives, and for me they all describe a different kind of fat. Plump is a warm, homely woman with rosy cheeks. Rubenesque has a sense of dim lighting and eroticism. Rounded is geometric. I would never discourage anyone from using these words creatively. But we seriously need to stop using them to avoid the word ‘fat’, because the more we do, the more we give power to all the negative, fat-shaming that is so pervasive in Western culture.

As for the word ‘obese’? It is medical and scientific, and belongs exclusively between you and your doctor.

*pun intended

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Along with the rebirth of e[lust] comes a new feature: Sex Bytes, a site which offers bloggers a way to share their own work and the work of others more immediately, between the main e[lust] issues.

To give you some idea of how it will work, the Sex Bytes description reads:

Sex Bytes delivers the most interesting and talked about sex stories and posts on the Internet . The Internet is full of great stories, and we help you find, read, and share the very best ones. It’s simple, just click on the “What have you found” button on the right side of the page. Register for an account (if you haven’t already) and share the link. Remember to pick a category, give it some tags and share it on your social network. Don’t forget to vote for the stories that you enjoy!

A few weeks ago Molly asked me to be the editor of Sex Bytes, and I accepted. I will work hard to make this a productive and useful tool, and hopefully it will flourish into a site that everyone can use to share the best stories and posts on the internet.

Needless to say, I am very pleased to be working with Molly and Michael as part of the e[lust] team.

The post Sex Bytes: A New Day, a New Title appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

Almost every day I come across a writer who is struggling with writer’s block or irritated because they cannot find a new idea for a story; and almost every day I see someone tell them to “just write”. Despite the fact that we all seem openly accepting of the idea that everyone works in their own way, it appears that the majority of writers agree on this: whether you hate your writing or you can’t find a topic or you simply don’t want to put [fingers] to [keyboard], the answer is to just write something – anything! – and the words will eventually come back to you.

Well, I would like to free the writers who want to be freed from the bonds of this contract. Personally, if I cannot write, and I force myself to write something sub-standard, I come away feeling much worse than I did in the first place. Not only have I spent a good hour or so on a piece of writing I knew I was going to loathe from the outset, but I realise I have plenty of other things I could have achieved in that time.

In fact, sometimes writer’s block is a blessing in disguise. When I am in full flow, eager to write and full of ideas that simply seem to spill onto the page, other parts of my life invariably get neglected. The dishes stack up, or the carpet doesn’t get hoovered, or I don’t complete my course reading. Of course, ideally you find the balance, a place where you can hold onto and evolve ideas without letting your home go to wrack and ruin, but it is harder to do the daily chores when you are buzzing with ideas that want to escape through your fingertips. On the other hand, I’ve come across writers – myself included – who find the rhythm and mundanity of things like doing the washing up, or sweeping the floor, or gardening to be incredibly stimulating for their thoughts. Maybe it takes a few weeks of knitting to fully formulate an article, but eventually it is there, and so much better than it would have been had you strained to force it out. (I will add, however, that taking time off from writing for me does not mean sitting idly by and watching the seasons change. Nothing stimulates nothing. If I want to be at all productive in any areas of my life, I have to keep my mind and body stimulated. Perhaps all it takes is a good book followed by a long walk, but I have to do something. Taking a break from writing does not mean I am on holiday. Ever.)

Don’t get me wrong – if the advice to “just write” works for you, then go for it. If you’re the kind of person who feels that when you stop writing you will never start again, then perhaps getting on with it is the way forward for you – but it does not work for everyone; and it irritates me when I see people preaching, as though this is the one and only way to achieve something, that we all just need to put our heads down and get on with it. For some writers, this simply does not work. Furthermore, if you take a break from writing and it goes on and on, it does not mean you aren’t a writer. It probably means you need to focus on something else for a while. And if you never find your way back to your words, perhaps that is sad; but the chances are that you’ve drifted away because you’ve found a new passion – no less worthy, but simply more present at this time in your life.

As with almost everything in life, we each have our own ways, and the important thing is to find the one that works for you. Whilst the “just write” principle may be a noble one, it is remiss of us to assume it works for everyone. By all means try it; but if it doesn’t work, then it’s simply not for you. And if you’re very lucky, the time given by taking a break from writing is time you can put to equally good use.

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Although most of the photographs in the exhibition have been up on her site it really is a very different experience to look at them printed and framed. And, in fact, I was lucky enough to spend a little time amongst all the mounting equipment and the glass polishing during the run up to the exhibition, and just the difference between seeing them being prepared and looking at them hung on the walls at Sh! was exciting.

One of my favourite things about Molly’s photography is that she is confident enough to indulge in true exhibitionism when she wants to, but also understands how to capture atmosphere and eroticism without being at all explicit. Amongst photographs that display her body and her submission, there are other far subtler shots. These photographs are, perhaps, erotically charged if you understand the source, but would be completely acceptable on a living room wall. It’s not an easy thing to do, but Molly captures these moments beautifully.

If you would like to go and see A Taste of Molly, her photographs will be adorning the walls of Sh! on Hoxton Square until the end of February, for free! (Gentlemen need to be accompanied by a lady in order to visit Sh!, except on Tuesday evening between 6-8pm when the men are allowed to roam free.) If you want to take a piece of Molly home, I suggest you go soon and pick out your favourite shot.

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Name:

Twitter ID: @HarperEliot

Must attend Eroticon 2013 session: Gosh – there are quite a few! but one I’m particularly looking forward to is Polyamory 101 with Lori Smith and Amanda Jones.

Bloggers you’d like to be trapped in a lift with: How big is this lift? Lori Smith, Zoe Margolis, Remittance Girl, and Molly Moore. (Assuming Miss Kiddell would be present over the intercom, seeings as this is her event.)

Erotic writer you’d like to dramatize your life story: Oh! Remittance Girl. Undoubtedly.

Expected bigest fangirl/fanboy moment: I feel blessed that this is a difficult decision to make simply because I have met so many of the wonderful people who will be at Eroticon. But if I can elbow my way to Cindy Gallop I will. I’m also really looking forward to meeting Justin Hancock.

What keeps you awake at nights? My never-ending to do list, impending coursework deadlines, addictive TV shows, and, I’ll be honest, men – although, I hasten to add, almost always in a positive, if distracting, light.

• • • • •

I have actually been meaning to write about Eroticon for a while now but due to those impending coursework deadlines and deliciously distracting men, I’ve had trouble finding the time to do it. Nevertheless, better late than never, and for those of you who aren’t down to attend yet tickets are still available here! So if you want to mingle with some of the finest talent in sex blogging and erotic fiction, Eroticon 2013 awaits you!

Last year Eroticon proved to be so much greater than the sum of its parts. Between excellent seminars and thought-provoking panels I met more people than I can remember (off the top of my head), and came away with not only a long list of new connections, but months worth of writing material. Inspiring and endlessly informative, Ruby Kiddell pulled off something that we were in great need of – and this year is looking to be even better.

I also want to mention that I am organising an evening of erotic readings on the Saturday night. I would be thrilled to see you all there, and I can promise some truly wonderful entertainment set in an atmospheric venue complete with alcoves and alcohol. Watch out for more details coming very soon.

Please do leave me a comment and say hello, and I will see you all in March! – that is, if I can get my coursework done by then, of course.

See who else is coming to Eroticon 2013 in the Meet & Greet link up

The post Eroticon 2013 Meet’n'Greet etc. appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

Where the Creative Networking Nights provide a wonderful opportunity to make friends and exchange business cards, due to the social atmosphere it can be hard to get into serious discussion about art and about the industry we are working within. On Saturday (25th August), in a more conversation-friendly setting, the seven of us – a mixture of photographers, artists, writers, and even a fine woodworker – were able to talk, in depth, about a range of different subjects including marketing strategies, adult content warnings and the difference between erotica and pornography. Coming away, with a page of notes and some interesting connections, I felt both inspired and more aware of what it means to work in the erotic industry.

The post EM-CA Mixed Media Meet in review appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

All human beings are born free and equal (in dignity and rights).

This opening line is, of course, extremely important. The question of freedom is one that I have discussed here at great length, on several occasions, and it is something that many people devote many hours to in consideration, particularly as concerns situations where the expression of one person’s freedom impedes another’s. Which is why what follows this first line is so important:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The latter sentence suggests to me a particular kind of responsibility, and to my mind, nowhere is this responsibility so apt as in freedom of speech. When I’m writing articles (rather than fiction) I spend a lot of time considering how best to express what I have to say in a way that is neutral and discussable rather than offensive and provocative. Of course, this is something I do out of choice; I have the freedom to choose how to write and how to express myself.

With that in mind, do we, in fact, have any right to censor or condemn those who choose to express themselves with less care?

Just before the weekend Discerning Dom wrote a piece called ‘No Limits‘ which earned him a barrage of comments from disgruntled and offended readers, myself included. Generally speaking I am an avid reader of his blog; it is regularly insightful, oftentimes exciting, and DD himself is an elusive man which lends a sense of mystery to his writing. But I, as a reader, a submissive, a masochist and a writer, have also come to rely on a certain amount of level-headed good sense in his articles.

As a writer I feel that DD is particularly good at blurring the lines between his fantasies, his memoirs and his thoughts on BDSM. For the most part this is done quite seamlessly and it simply makes the reading experience richer. However, with ‘No Limits’ I felt this line blurring became less elusive and more irresponsible.

In the first paragraph he writes:

And while she was suffering, whimpering and wriggling, we had a most interesting conversation about safe words. I haven’t got one, she said (‘Can I take the clamps off now? Please?’ ‘No.’)

From the moment I read this, I felt uneasy. Of course it is completely up to DD and his partner how they choose to play; if it’s consensual then, to my mind, it is their decision. However, the way that sentence is constructed – “And while she was suffering […] we had a […] conversation about safe words” – hit a nerve with me. It seems to suggest that the question of safe words had never come up before. Again, everyone has the right to play in whatever way they want to, but as the piece goes on and the pair discuss limits, DD begins to draw some pretty clear boundaries, and lay them down as though they are absolute truths:

Let me explain, I said, being a reasonable man. You are my submissive, right? Yes. That means you will always do what I say. You have agreed never to say no to me. OK, she said. Submission that draws a line and says no further isn’t really submission at all, I said.

At this point, as someone who engages in dominance and submission, I felt my freedom had been somewhat impinged upon. DD is clearly a seasoned dominant as well as a knowledgeable writer, and personally I feel that these two things give him a voice or, at the very least, a tone of authority; so when I read his ideas and his thoughts on D/s, I take notice because I feel fairly sure he knows what he’s talking about. I think for a blog that does very little self-promotion, he is very well read; his pieces get a fair few comments and he seems to have a group of ardent followers. This suggests to me that I am not the only one who trusts his words, nor the only one who promotes his blog. So you can imagine how these words, coming from someone whose authority I usually trust, felt like an attack on my freedom to submit in whatever way my partners and I choose. The closest simile I can get is this: imagine you fall in love and then you go and see your therapist and s/he tells you you’re not in love.

Furthermore, reading the above section I couldn’t help but feel worried; had I read it two years ago, maybe even a year ago, I would probably have been far less skeptical and perhaps even adopted his apparent devil-may-care attitude towards safe words. To me that is a frightening idea, particularly when followed by sentences like:

That’s what submission is all about. It’s about giving in, not about negotiating.

And:

A submissive who isn’t a little bit scared isn’t really a submissive at all.

I find his ‘this is the only way to do kink’ use of language deeply unsettling. Not only is it irresponsible in regards to his readers, but it is also disrespectful to dominants and submissives who choose to play or interact differently. If he had simply taken the time and forethought to premise these sentences with “the way I play” or “in my personal opinion” (for example) none of what he wrote would have offended me.

As I mentioned, I am not the only one who commented on DD’s piece negatively, and I have discussed it with others as well; different people had slightly different takes on it, and I’d urge you to go and read their comments as well. But I also think it is important that I direct you to DD’s rebuttal. Reaffirming his own sanity and level-headedness, DD wrote a second piece – in response to our comments – which did allay several of my own fears:

I think that if you read the blog as a whole it’s pretty clear I am not a psycho and that I don’t advocate abusing women, no matter how submissive.

This is true. I have read his blog for a long time and this is the first time I have ever felt uneasy about something he has written. He also mentioned that his partner was not in the room with him in the scene he describes in ‘No Limits’ which, I’ll agree, does make a difference; I have played a lot online but have never felt the need to use safe words in that setting due to the fact that there is only a limited amount of power you can give up over the internet. However I don’t think that was made explicitly clear in his original piece. He goes on to explain the level of trust he and his partner share:

And because she trusts me she is willing to dispense with various props like safe words.

Recently someone described consent to me as something that can evolve into trust; where you might first have a list of things you consent to, over time, as the relationship you share with the other person evolves, the list gives over to your trust that the other person won’t hurt you. Although it is perhaps worth mentioning that I still felt a little irritated by his careless use of the word “props” to describe safe words. I know for a fact that many people don’t consider safe words “props” so much as they do essential foundations. But again, that is really up to the discretion of whoever is playing.

In this second piece DD also defended himself on the basis that he does not, nor has he ever claimed to, write an instructional BDSM blog; in fact, his blog has the word “memoirs” in the title. Whilst that is unequivocally true, I think the following comment, posted on DD’s rebuttal, illustrates pretty well that his blurred non-fiction style does sometimes read like advice or guidance on BDSM:

I have just read you last posting and as a very new sub I agree with what you have said it is your views and anyone reading should either go away if they don’t like what they see and read or like me read and say thank you because reading your blog is what has helped me with what for me was a very difficult time and transition. so thank you for your help.

Personally I think this comment speaks for itself, so I’ll let it do just that.

But I have hugely digressed. Whilst DD’s piece does beg discussion, is for me only one example of what might be considered ‘careless’ writing, and when I come back to this point, I have real trouble justifying my complaints. After all, what I would like to champion overall is everyone’s freedom to make their own choices. What is most important to me is that DD – and all other writers for that matter – has the freedom to write his blog, be it fantasy, memoir, or advice, in whatever way he likes.

However, blogging and commenting are communal activities, so while he has the right to write what he chooses, if the comments are left open, we, the readers, have the right to comment as well, and I have said many times that, for me, discussion and debate are the most rewarding parts of blogging.

So perhaps it is just that; whilst each writer has the right to publish whatever s/he chooses, s/he also has a responsibility to do so consciously, and if the author chooses to waive that responsibility or genuinely doesn’t see what in their writing might be offensive, the responsibility then falls to us, the readers, to respond.

Which is exactly what I have done.

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Oh where do I begin!

Like many of the people who could be found at Armada House, Bristol on Saturday 3rd March, I had been looking forward to Eroticon 2012 for close to a year. That is quite some build up! And with the amount of hype and excitement that preceded it, the bar was high.

Organised, hosted, run, (and many other verbs) by Ruby Kiddell, the day was divided into sessions, the topics of which ranged from Identity and Ethics, to Publishing, to Photography, to Podcasting, to Writing itself – the whole schedule is still up on the site for the time being, – and between which there was plenty of time to meet and talk to the other delegates.

I personally attended: Identity, ethics and sex blogging (Zoe Margolis, Lori Smith, Molly Moore, Mina Lamieux), Writing workshop (Maxim Jakubowski), Convincingly queer, writing beyond our experience (Aisling Weaver, Josephine Myles), Publishers panel (Hazel Cushion, Maxim Jakubowski, Paul Andrews, Monique Roffey, Richard Eadie), and Sex and the media (Lori Smith, Zoe Margolis, Rubyyy Jones, Matt Bateman).

All of the sessions either brought up topics which I will discuss in articles to come, or provided me with insights which I hope will enhance my writing in general.

The day ended, for everyone, with a demonstration from London Faerie on Sacred Kink, wherein he “whipped [Lori Smith] into a state of ecstasy’; I’m paraphrasing but I believe that is how he himself described it. After a day of thought-provoking discussion and debate, this was not only an incredible experience, but also a welcome relief. But I don’t think anyone quite expected what they saw. Watching the demonstration was deeply affecting, not to mention the intensity of sharing that experience with the rest of the audience. The whole room took on a strange kind of quiet focus wherein we were all drawn into their connection and what they were, so kindly, sharing with us. I think also, on a more political level, it is always good when a large number of people are able to see the consent, the intimacy, and the enjoyment of both parties when they engage in this kind of socially transgressive play.

As I have mentioned, Eroticon not only sparked great discussion and ideas, but brought a lot of people together, and I was thrilled to meet so many erotic artists whom I have admired, followed, and read for so long: I was thrilled to meet Aisling Weaver and Wyeth Bailey and get, well, never enough, but a significant amount of time to talk with them. It was also a delight to meet the illustrious Mina Lamieux. Of course, many of the usual Erotic Meet crowd were there, which is always a delight, and I also spent a lot of the day with the people behind Something Dark magazine – to which you can now find a permanent link in my sidebar. There were so many people there, many of whom I am now sharing my twitter timeline and my email inbox with, that I couldn’t possibly name them all now! but if you visit Write Sex Right, you will find links to many of their own accounts of Eroticon.

As I left Bristol, riding back to London late on Saturday night, one phrase continued to circle in my head: “Eroticon needed to happen”. It needed to happen because you can never have too much support and inspiration as a writer; it needed to happen because erotic writers need an excuse to get together; and most of all it needed to happen because we are all writing outside what is socially accepted. We are all pushing boundaries and making use of our freedom of speech. And to see so many other people in exactly the same situation as ourselves was empowering, inspiring, and incredibly comforting. I have never felt so at home with a group of strangers.

Finally, I would like to raise a metaphorical toast to Ruby: Eroticon went far beyond any expectation. It was perfectly organised, allowing us all room to grow and learn. A spectacular event, hosted with professionalism and style. My mind is still reeling. And I sincerely hope that it happens again. To Ruby!

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