Brace yourselves, I’m doing a special thing. Long time readers will know that for the last few months the fantastic Bondara has been supporting me. This has helped pay for hosting and domain stuff, pass a bit of money on to guest bloggers, and hire an amazing illustrator to create pretty images for some of my posts. To say thanks to Bondara and to you for your support, I’m running a sex toy competition to give away a £100 shopping spree at Bondara. You can buy anything – whether you want to wear it, smear it all over yourself, or turn it on and let it buzz deliciously against your sensitive bits. When you get to the bottom of this post, there’s a widget that you can use to enter the competition.

So what’s this post about? Well, I don’t really do toy reviews, but I wanted to do something that gives a bit of an insight into sex blogging, and also appeals to my nerdier sensibilities. So I’ve done some very top-level analysis of the kind of toys people buy via my site. A sort of ‘if you like my blog, you might like some of this stuff too’ – like Amazon does with books, but for fucktoys. The following graphs have been created using anonymised data based on purchases at Bondara via my website.

Which sex toys are the most popular?

I had a look at the percentage of toys sold for different genital uses. As you can see, my readers are generally a big fan of arses, which makes sense given the number of posts I’ve written about butt plugs. Penis and vagina toys sold equally, which I am pleased with, because it shows a delightful sex toy equality in the discerning audience of this blog.

Which sex products are the most popular?

Of course, it’s not just about things you put in/on/up yourself – there are other types of products too. While toys are by far and away the winner, plenty of people have been stocking up on bondage equipment, underwear and accessories too. For this, ‘accessories’ includes things like condoms and lube, as well as sex toy cleaners and things.

Sex toy sales by day of the week

Statisticians, please shield your eyes, because this one’s a fucking mess. I don’t think the data was significant enough to make a guess on the day that sales were most likely – apart from anything else, my traffic’s always higher on Sundays, Wednesdays or Fridays when I post. Still, in case you’re interested, it looks like Friday is officially the least sexy day, with Wednesdays and weekends being far more popular.

What are the most popular sex products?

I’d hoped that at least one person would have bought the fucking machine that I have on my sex toy wish list. Sadly not, but if you’re after something new, and you fancy following in the footsteps of other readers, here are some of the most popular products (or product categories) from the last three months:

– Cock rings. A solid and admirable choice.

– Male masturbators. I’m not surprised these are near the top of the list because I am obsessed with them – Tenga eggs came through as a strong favourite, which is handy because I have recently got the hang of using them without breaking them due to overenthusiastic wanking.

– Butt plugs. Again, solid choice,and I hope these hot butt-plug stories helped some people make their decision.

– Coquette knickers. I am 100% sure this came about as a result of this post about the sexiest types of knickers.

– Jessica rabbit vibrator. A classic. Also very cheap. I am impressed with your money-saving expertise.

Sex toy competition – win a £100 Bondara shopping spree!

Now on to the exciting bit – all you need to do is enter the competition using the magical widget below, and you’ll be entered into a draw. The comp will run for exactly two weeks – until midday (UK time) on the 11th of August, with the winner chosen the next day. If you win, you can spend £100 on whatever you like from Bondara. I’m afraid you have to be UK resident and over 18 to take part, but if this is popular, I’ll see if I can run something separate for US-based people so you can have sexy things too.

Best of luck, and thank you again for all your support.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

[Note from GOTN – I have never run a competition like this before, and in all probability I am a bit incompetent at it. I’ve tried to make it so there are plenty of easy ways to enter, but if you have any feedback or you’re not sure how to use it please drop me an email]

A couple of weeks ago Geraldine O’Hara wrote a warm, personal article about what life was like for her as an erotica author. Initially I leapt with delight at someone being so open about their writing, but my delight quickly turned to frustration and disappointment when I read on – it seems that even as she works hard to cater to her reader’s passions, she’s squeamish and pretty judgmental about them.

In the Telegraph article, Geraldine takes pains to explain to us that she doesn’t do ‘the things in [her] books’, and that she’s not a ‘sex maniac’ – the unspoken implication being, of course, that her readers are. Her worry is understandable: despite the explosion of erotic writing, many of us are still either giggling in a corner about sex or condemning it as something corrupting and vile. But how depressing when even those who produce porn feel compelled to protest: “Oh, I write it, of course. But I’d never think about doing it.”

It’s good to talk

I write filth, and the thing I enjoy most about writing is that I know I’m describing things that people actually do, and thoroughly enjoy. They email me their stories, and comment to say “oh God I did this once and it was spectacular.” I know it can be spectacular because I’ve done it too.

But as much as I’d like to think everyone’s becoming more open about their sexual needs, I still get a surprising number of emails from people saying ‘thank God it’s not just me’ or ‘I like [insert deliciously hot sex act here] too – I was worried that there was something wrong with me.’ These emails usually come from women, and they always make me sad. Men are equally likely to email, but their “oh yeah I love throatfucking” is more likely to come with a “lol” than a lament about how they’re probably sick and dirty.

You’re probably normal and it’s fine

Few of the acts I talk about here are particularly unusual. Even if the majority of people don’t enjoy these things, they’re relatively common fantasies: being spanked, enjoying giving head, having sex with groups of men instead of just one at a time, that sort of thing. And yet while we’re happy to accept male sexuality as a storming force of nature (often to the detriment of men), women’s heartfelt and lust-inducing fantasies are often treated as either faintly embarrassing or downright obscene: things we can write books about but never actually admit to ourselves.

I write mostly non-fiction. That is to say that almost everything I describe actually happened. I slept with that hot stranger. I had that threesome. I went to that bondage club. I didn’t do it because I was ‘curious’ about how other people got off: I did it because I, along with thousands of other women, enjoy it. I’m not ashamed of any of the sexual things I’ve done – I’m far more ashamed of times I’ve lied to people, ignored important phone calls from friends, or said cruel things to loved ones in the heat of the moment. The sex I’ve had isn’t just a collection of sordid fumbles which I’ve later come to regret: it’s sociable, heartfelt fun with adults who I like and respect.

Evil shameful deliciously hot sex

In her article, Geraldine explains that “I don’t write erotic fiction to satisfy any urges. I write it because readers want it.” I’m sorry to have to break it to Geraldine, but urges are definitely being satisfied – those of the readers. And alienating those readers by discussing their sexual fantasies as if they’re the deviant lusts of a sex maniac shows a stunning lack of understanding about sexuality, not to mention a lack of respect for the audience.

I’m not arguing that Geraldine should have to experience all the kinds of sex she writes about – far from it. I’d no more tell her what to do in the bedroom than what not to do, and if her imagination’s good enough to float people’s boats then I wish her the best of luck. But when she explains that

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking Stephen King if he’s murdered anyone lately”

it makes me want to laugh, then cry, then cry some more, then fight a rabid dog like they do in Cujo.

Sex is not murder. Not even if it involves whips, chains and squealing. An unusual type of sex might not appeal to you personally, but to compare consensual sex between adults to murder frames people’s fantasies as devious and evil, and makes me think that the author has fundamentally misunderstood that sex is a good thing. A more accurate comparison, surely, would be:

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking a romance author if they’ve ever been in love.”

Look: we’re all adults. We know that across the spectrum of adult humanity there is a veritable rainbow of sexual tastes and desires. There are those who would frown upon BDSM, pornography, threesomes, or anything that came with even a whiff of the sexually unusual, and they are well within their rights to do so. But for someone who creates porn – who actually makes money from the people whose fantasies she portrays – to compare those fantasies to an act of calculated evil? That’s just perverted.

Telling us we’re unhealthy is unhealthy

This sex shame is damaging and unnecessary: it leads to people (and women in particular) feeling like they should suppress their genuine desires for fear of looking deviant or freakish. In turn, the fact that there are few women publicly willing to admit to ‘this sort of thing’ means that younger women are more likely to feel guilty about their own (perfectly healthy) fantasies and desires.

It leads to the double-standards we apply to women and men (when was the last time you heard a male pornographer declare that of course he wouldn’t watch his own material?). And, of course, it creates an odd dilemma for people like me: unashamed to write about sex but preferring to write under a pseudonym lest future employers are horrified to find I’m not a sexless work-robot. It leads to those awful articles in magazines in which self-appointed ‘experts’ explain to strangers exactly how to please your lover in bed, because you’re scared to ask for what you actually want in case you’re branded a pervert. Above all, it leads to a hell of a lot of bad sex.

It’s not fair to lay all of this at Geraldine O’Hara’s door – it’s not her fault that we, as a society, are weird about sex. But as someone who writes about sex, and makes money from catering to people’s sexual fantasies, it would be helpful if she remembered that these are actually real desires – these fantasies take place in the heads of real people, who will (quite rightly) be offended when they’re compared to murderers. We aren’t perverts or souls to be pitied: we’re adults who are making informed choices about our sexuality. I’m not a bad girl who needs to be punished: I’m a woman who knows what I want.