I've known for quite a while that I've been marked as "sensitive content" at Twitter. I first discovered it by checking to see my scheduled tweets were showing up, but while not logged into Twitter. I got this lovely screen:

If you haven't heard of this relatively new aspect of Twitter security, here's an overview. There appear to be gradients; if I log in as my non-adult-user and turn off "Hide sensitive content", I can see CR_LF and its tweets in searches just fine. Erosblog seems to indicate that you can be banned even further, to a point where you don't even show up if sensitive content is what the user wants to see.

I discovered a bit of insidiousness during my testing: the CR_LF twitter settings showed "Hide sensitive content" as enabled, which I definitely had turned off a long time ago. So, if you're someone who wants to see naughty stuff, better plan on checking those settings on a regular basis.

I'm sure the reason I'm shadowbanned is due to the amount of nudity I post; it's nearly all Playboy-grade cheesecake images, very little actual sexual contact, but it's more skin than a lot of internet users want in their feed, so I understand. The rest of my content isn't much more 'sensitive' than a lot of non-shadowbanned sexperts I can still get to on Twitter while not logged in. For a while I was seeing weird retweets from hair care companies, presumably because a nude phone was tagged #Redhead, and mountain-climbing aficionados because of the tag #Outdoors; I blame this on SEO bots -- I do not doubt that there are business who will, for a price, make you look like a real Twitter user by following and retweeting based on tags and I definitely encountered quite a few of those in recent years. I often would reply back to a new follow, who obviously hadn't viewed my content, with a "thanks for following!" which was immediately responded to with an unfollow. That's their fault, not mine.

So, I'm at the crossroads of: "what does this mean?" On one hand, this makes it harder to get readers: I post quite a few affiliate links, both adult and non-adult, and getting clicks and sales are what keeps me rolling in Mello Yello and Cheese-Its. I want to reach as big an audience as I can, and being blocked doesn't help this.

On the other hand: the people I do reach are those who have deliberately asked to view the type of content I'm providing: these are opt-in readers. If I had a golfing blog, and Twitter had a "Hide Golf-Related Content" checkbox, I'd definitely want to only reach those people who have unchecked that box; it's Marketing 101. It's the reason everyone wants you to sign up for their email mailing list (which if you think about it, is a downright ancient method of reaching people during the internet epoch). It's why Subway wants me to take a survey to get a free cookie, along with submitting my contact info. Twitter is filtering users, but in a way that helps thresh out the vanilla normal people from those with a taste for the naughty.

This only really helps tweeters like me, who is aiming for a more prurient level of content. I can totally understand why this has an impact on sex educators and erotic artists, both of whom have a definite value to those who aren't super interested in adult content but still have a need for knowledge. The "sensitive content" label also envelops hate speech and other content I don't want to be associated with, so the audience I'm reaching may still not be exactly who I want as a reader. It also appears that people are getting shadowbanned for swearing too much, so the banning appears to bundle together a bunch of "blue" content which isn't necessarily a monolithic group of like-minded individuals.

If you look back through this blog, the tone tends to be irreverant, appreciative of women's beauty, and sex-positive whenever possible. As things got busier at work and I have less time for real blogging, I moved towards just tweeting interesting links I found (which, really, were most of what the blog was made up beforehand). Google, long ago, made it difficult to find adult content, thanks to safesearch and pagerank, and people have moved to walled gardens like Twitter and Facebook; Looking at my twitter statistics, things I post get a lot more traffic than if I had posted them at the blog. Blogging's weakness is that people have to seek out the content in the first place; RSS feeds and the aforementioned mailing lists were a way to push content to people who desire to see it, but randomly running across something via search terms is becoming more difficult. Twitter seems like the right place to post, have people interested in the content see the post, and maybe respond with a like, or retweet, or very rarely a comment. That interaction makes the content more visible to other like-minded readers more interested in consuming that content too.

So, I'm hesitant to say that the "sensitive content" filter on Twitter has defeated my purpose for being on Twitter: the shadowban has created a Twitter-After-Dark, which those who elect to view it can do so. Although it reduces the number of possible content viewers, it is filtering them to those interested in the content I post, and the drawback comes from there being users who are unaware that the content filtering is enabled on their account; those are readers I want to reach but can't.

The "Share Our Shit" movement is important, not just because of shadowbanning or Google search results, but because the only reason content can reach readers on the internet is through curation and recommendation; the reason Facebook and Twitter exist is for those functions. If you've got an audience, and you're also someone else's audience, passing along things your audience appreciates matters more than attracting users you've never seen before. That's value in content, and it can still be done while shadowbanned.

It does show me that keeping all the eggs in one basket isn't the best option either; I tried crossposting images to Tumblr with little response, but I also haven't been an active Tumblr user to begin with. It has made me look again at this blog, which has been organized the way it is for at least ten years now (optimized for a 1024px wide screen!). As the internet has changed -- rewarding walled gardens and shadowbanning undesirable content -- I'm going to look at revamping what I've already got here. Not eliminating any of the existing content, but looking at some of the other tricks of modern content providers, cross-connecting content and holding readers eyeballs, as a way of being a useful content provider. It's something I've been working on a while -- again, busy real-life makes the internet harder to devote time to -- but we'll see what I come up with.

Another "new" book of erotica from your's-truly. It's actually three previously-published stories that I had put up at EroticStories.com a decade ago (fuck, I'm getting old), and I've edited them and polished them into something worth publishing. In one story, a single mom hooks up with a teacher; in the next, two single parents find love; and in the last, a single dad connects with his babysitter. Each is a quick, short naughty read: you can buy/download Parental Relations from Amazon and Smashwords, along with many, many other ebook websites.

Next in my series of 10,000-word erotica e-book novellas comes Heidi Goes To School, a taste of youthful exuberance. Heidi grew up in a very liberal household...in the middle of the Montana wilderness. She could drink, smoke, swear, and otherwise do all the things most kids did to rebel. The only thing missing was the opposite sex, so once she hit the road, on her way to school, there were a few things she wanted to cross off her list. As with the others (1, 2), Heidi Goes To School is available on Amazon and Smashwords, and other fine ebooksellers everywhere.

Here's another for you: in my attempt to get back into erotica writing, here's another novella for you. Greg surprised his family by bringing his ex-girlfriend home for Christmas -- with a wedding ring on her finger. Greg's got a chip on his shoulder, though: Mike was a football star, made a million as an internet entrepeneur, and now is a VP with a Porche. If Greg wasn't such a dick, Katie might stick with him...but when she met Mike, all bets were off. Christmas With Katie is available on Amazon and Smashwords, for your fine reading pleasure.

You may not know this, but way back in the early days of the internet I wrote erotica at various places, primarily EroticStories.com, but other places, too, and even some long-lost blogs that I don't even remember the URL for. Anyhow, Gracie has been talking about getting into the erotica business again, so I'm going through my old files to see if there's anything to publish to test the waters. Crashland was originally held back to submit to erotica digests, but I never got around to it. This magical electronic world of ours lets people self-publish ebooks with nary any trouble, so Crashland is now available at Smashwords and on Amazon. I'm even inkling to do some new writing, too, so I'll keep you posted.

What? Oh, what's the story about? It's a sci-fi story of an interstellar delivery person who crashlands her ship on an unfamiliar planet, and goes in search of help. She finds the person she was sent to meet, who turns out to be one of the most powerful men on the planet, and romance grows while she waits for rescue.

Merry Chrismas everyone! Hope you got lots of good shit under the Christmas Tree, you're getting to spend time with all the people you want to, and don't forget it's back to work on Monday so get your fun done now.

Hello, All! A perfect storm of Blogger fucking up their software and more layoffs at work is where I've been since last winter. But, summer has been good, I got a friend to put together some blogging software, and now I'm going to get back into it. Maybe not 5-posts-a-day, but something.

Weekend's here, the holidays are finally fucking over, and now I'm sure you're ready to relax and use the ongoing cold as an excuse to fuck and cuddle. So, the news is in that K-Y Intense actually works (nipples too), and I've got one to give away. In order to enter to win this 10mL bottle of K-Y Intense arousal gel for her, I want to know the answer to this question: Do you stash porn on your computer, or do you maintain a virginal hard drive and get it off the internet when you want it? Sure, there's a certain convenience (and hard drive space is cheap these days) to saving the good stuff in an accessible place, but with the constant stream of new stuff and the risk of being caught with four gigs of boobs there's no reason to download anymore. So, let's hear from you: stash or don't stash? Pick one of three ways to enter:

• Either post your response here;
• or Twitter it; you have to in order for me to know you entered;
• or Email me your entry.

Disclaimers: no monetary value, one vote per entrant, entries limited to people in the United States, don't be an asshole. That last disclaimer applies to pretty much everything at this site. Cut off is the end of the day, Monday, January 11th, 2010, but I may continue to take entries if there aren't enough by that time to pick a winner.Update: I'm going to take entries for the rest of the week. New end of contest deadline - end of the day Friday, January 15.

I kinda like explaining what's going on with the site from time to time - makes me feel like there's actually somebody reading who cares when things are quiet for a while. Anyhow, in a stroke of financial genius, work authorized overtime from last Wednesday until this coming Wednesday, so that they can lay us off next Wednesday night through next Monday. The theory was: if everyone was taking a paid holiday for Thanksgiving and half the office is using vacation for Friday, that's 40% of the week's payroll still going out without any production to cover the expense. Things are tight, don't you know, so they'd rather pay us extra to create billable work than to have us end the month two days behind. It sounds like somewhat of a pain in the ass, but, hell, an overtime paycheck right before Christmas wins out over updating this site, don't you think? So, next week I'm planning on making up for it, expecially since Thursday and Friday I'll be sitting at home in my underwear, drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on a constant loop from the Tivo. Oh, and for any legal eagles who want to say, "hey, they can't lay you off for two days like that and make you work a 60-hour week, blah blah blah", there was an unwritten opt-out option, which is why they offered the overtime to sweeten the deal.

I do this so rarely, but with readership growing and last week's prolonged absence, I thought I should say something. I've skipped a Monday or Friday here and there when I've taken off a long weekend, but last week was a combination of taking off Monday for a long-weekend and picking up extra shifts because we let a delivery guy go; being at work at 5am to drive a truck for five hours and sticking around until my regular shift ended at 6pm made it tough to find time to look at porn - how horrible, right? This week I'm around all five days, I'm splitting up the windshield time with another guy until the new driver gets trained, so I'm hopefully back on track.

You know -- I can't believe I forgot to post this. I wrote an erotic tale for sex-kitten.net. Go have a read -- the topic I was given was "a couple decide to have some photographic fun".

A month and a half?!!? What's WRONG with me? Like most blogs, I hate to resort of posting simply to announce that I haven't posted anything.

Frankly, this site bores me a little. I haven't come up with a voice for it, unlike some other sex-centred websites. I'm not sure what I need to put here.

Plus, I've been occupying my time having hot, juicy phonesex with a certain lovely woman. She's told me I'm pretty good.

OBLIGATORY SOAPY PIX! Not one -- but TWO sexy soapy women. Unfortunately, I'm not in the picture, so these women have nothing to play with but each other.

Gone so long? See, I've had a temporary roommate for a while, one who wouldn't be very tolerant of me looking at nudie websites all day. So, I've struggled to put my horny lifestyle on hold until they find a new residence. It should be pretty soon.

It BETTER be pretty soon. I don't know how long I can hold out.

Until then, maybe I should go back to school -- Adult Webmaster School! For $140, I can learn how to make money off internet porn...and that's everyone's dream, now, isn't it?

At long last, Crain and his Kittygirl are back in Episode 3: Die Kittygirl Die! (Free registration required, but not insecure or harmful). There's a little more violence in this one, more "Spy vs. Spy," which gives this a bit less erotica feel even though there's still plenty of fucking. If you missed the first parts, they're available with FanClub EroticStories registration, or I have them posted here as well.

Hey, kids! I had a bit of a dry spell, what with the holiday season, but my writing bug is creeping back now. New story: "Not until their wedding day" -- young lovers are told to be celibate up to their wedding day. Can they do it? EroticStories requires free registration, but they don't sell info or any other naughty activities.

Another new story: Marlys Isn't a Loser Anymore. After 20 years, Jeremy runs into Marlys, the girl who had a big crush on him in school. She was too clumsy, too friendly, too weird, and too obsessive for him back then, but he sees her in a different light now! As always with EroticStories, registration is required but has no drawbacks (no spam, no selling of info, just erotica.)

I've got a new story published on EroticStories! The Translator and the Tradefair (free registration req.) It's not exactly a threesome, but Ray still gets both girls in the story. It's a pretty traditional storyline, and I think I'm losing a little creativity in my sex-scenes. Maybe it's time to buy a few new books on the subject. The Joy of Sex isn't quite cutting it anymore.

Welcome to my new domain! Hornydemon.com deleted my account for some stupid reason (although the email still worked), so I had to hunt for a new home for my website.

It's surprising how many webhosting services specifically say NO ADULT WEBSITES. This screwed up my hunt for webhosting because 'adult hosting service' also turned up hits for every terms of service stating no adult hosting allowed.

Happily, I discovered Adult-Website-Hosting. They have a $7/mo option. It's only 10MB, it only has one email account, but that's plenty for me.

So, welcome, look around, there's a lot more to come, so check back again!