Luv Bunny’s day at Eroticon 2018

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Daytripper

I may have been at Arlington House, Camden Town for one day, but I learnt loads of new things. This post will serve a dual purpose of being my recollection of Luv Bunny’s day at Eroticon 2018. It will also be my #SoSS Share Our Shit Saturday shout-out to all the new friends I’ve made. For anyone I may omit, please forgive me. If I talked to you and do not already know what you look like / you were not wearing your lanyard at the time, I may struggle to recall to whom I’m referring.

Friday night meet-and-greet at the Holiday Inn, Camden Lock

I signed in, met the lovely Molly for the first time in person, before stopping to order a rosé wine. Drink procured, I made my way into the main area of the meet-and-greet, looking out for the one face I’d met in person before, Isabelle Lauren. Luckily with her purple hair she is easy to spot! I met Victoria, from Houston; a great advocate for female sexuality.

The black-and-pink wristband she gave me has the message #WOMENSORGASMSMATTER. Yes, they so do! I got chatting to Petra Pan, Posy Churchgate, Cousin Pons, and May More. Posy and May were also staying at the Holiday Inn overnight, so we made arrangements for a pre-conference breakfast. It was great chatting to May about her day job.

In my attempt to circulate, I struck up conversation with Submiss34F, wearing an awesome black waist corset. Her photos are cool, and she recounted having a photo session at home in an empty room. Sounds like bliss! The not-so blissful part was having to ‘leg it’ to collect the kids! At one point in the evening I got some bar-food then met Eve E, who blogs about being a sex worker and having disabilities. These in no way hold her back! Eve spoke at the conference for the first time, and I’m sorry I couldn’t clone myself to go to her talk.

Various other lovely people chatted to me during the evening. Domsigns and I had a random exchange about beards. I don’t have one, but Mr Bunny did, before I got him to shave it off. I’m so cruel. I ought to have waited until warmer times. The fabulously vintage EveRay1 had an exchange with me. One of the Hannahs (sorry I cannot remember which one) was chatting to the pair of us.

After a night cap in the hotel bar with May, Posy and Cousin Pons it was time to get some rest!

 

Arlington House; Conference centre, accommodation and home of the Museum of Happiness!

The schedule for Saturday was packed with several talks running concomitantly between 3 rooms. Following the welcome by Molly, Girl on the Net, gave her insightful keynote talk on the good, bad and sexy of 2017. Some of the issues she addressed included

• Censorship. In more detail, the publisher Nook, Patreon and shadowbanning on Twitter.
• Sex robots. We need more variation in robots. In some ways this is being addressed by making them more androgynous.
• New data laws. These should have come into force in April, but because of campaigning the government have issued a reprieve. Yay!
• #MeToo. This has been prolific. If you don’t know what it’s about just search for it on social media and you’ll get the idea.

I missed the first round of talks to visit the Kink Craft workshop. I sat with Marie and GrandMasterT to make a paracord choker. It is made from Cobra Knots.

One lesson I learnt!

I went to Kayla Lords’s talk, How to Make Money From Your Blog Without Losing Your Soul or Your Audience. The take home messages were:

1. No matter your goal, it is slower than you think to reach it. Keep writing, have a routine and schedule your blog workload.
2. Integrity is something you do when nobody is looking. Develop your own set of ethics / when making money from your blog. Stick with them. You may have to say ‘no’ at times, but that’s what you got to do to keep your soul.
3. Affiliate sales work best when you love the company.
4. Have a disclosure policy making it transparent to those you work with/for what you are prepared to do and what you are not.
5. It’s up to you what you take payment for. Set your rates in line with what you believe your service as a blogger is worth. Ensure you acknowledge that you have ‘promoted a company’ by adding disclaimers into blog posts. On social media, use #sponsor / #affiliate as appropriate.

Legalities, the Erotica Effect and Self-Editing Tips and Tricks

Neil Brown had loads of material to cover, in his talk Essential legal tips for sex writers and bloggers.  The main topics were Age Verification, Liability, Freelancing and advertising / sponsorship. It would most likely take several blog posts to cover the entire contents. All his slides can be found here if you are interested in finding out more.

Annabelle Knight discussed the 5Es of the Erotica effect; Escapism, Eroticism, Education, Experimentation and Experiences. Her talk, Exploring the Modern Dimensions of the Erotic Genre highlighted the importance of giving sex an open, positive voice in mainstream media. As a genre, Erotica is at risk of being shut down as it is so dependent on finding individuals (producers, commissioners, etc.) who are willing to take a ‘risk’ by supporting it.

There seems to be still too much negativity surrounding the image of Erotic fiction, with comments like ‘erotic fiction just describes sex in graphic detail.’ Is this an honest opinion or a preconceived idea from ‘hearsayers?’ I won’t tell you what to think, but from my personal experience of reading erotic fiction and writing some short stories on this very blog, I believe it is the latter.

Anna Sky’s editing tips were so helpful, and included gems like:

1. Continuity matters, as does factual accuracy! In a scene you depict, ensure any sexual positions / other bodily movements are anatomically feasible! From a commercial perspective, editors pick the more correct stories as it’s less work to improve them!
2. Keep a list of words or mistakes you commonly use and check for them. It may help to  change the format when proofing to trick your brain to look at the words differently.
3. Listen to what you’ve written out loud to highlight repetition or anything that doesn’t make sense.
4. If you’re unsure whether you are using the passive voice, do a self-test by adding the phrase ‘by zombies’ to the end of the sentence. If you can add this, then what you are saying is in the passive voice!
   

KinkLab workshops

There were various demonstrations by ElectraStim, as well as wax play and vac play.

Molly and DomSigns were on hand to give information about a range of kinky implements, including scratchers, gloves, canes, and cupping chambers.

 

List of Sponsors

• Doxy
• Hot Octopuss
• Sheets of San Francisco
• ElectraStim
• Mystery Vibe
• Fetish.com
• Bijoux Indiscret
• LoveGivr
• The Ruby Glow™
• SexToys
• EroPartner Distribution

Overall I had a great day at Eroticon, though, with so much going on there were talks I missed that I perhaps would have liked to have listened to. I will just have to go back next year!

 

Fabulous people I met (not mentioned previously)

• AuroraGlory
• Pixie Heart
• Zak Jane Kier
• Emmeline Peaches
• Sub Bee
• Tabitha Rayne
• Jadis
• Jerusalem Mortimer
• Amy (Coffee and Kink)
• Charlie Rose
• Eye

For anyone I’ve forgotten, I do apologise! Feel free to give me a reminder 😉