Sex(Gender) Saturday

New hair-do and color after I came out as non-binary (mostly to myself at that point)

This is a somewhat link-heavy post.
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Inspiration struck me for this post some time before 6 am, when mouth-ache on the right side of my mouth woke me. Sadly, Meredith O'Reilly has announced an end to #WipItUpWednesday; I don't blame her at all-running a blog hop is hard work and participation is almost nil. I tried my hand at running a hop- Women-Loving Women blog hop; it didn't lost long both because of poor reception/participation and also I had the sense that people who'd read such a hop wanted “Gold star lesbians.” Well I'm not a Gold star lesbian (ie. I've had sex with men and non-binary people as well as women) and I don't write Gold star lesbians either.

With that failed blog hop under my belt, I started thinking of existing romance/erotic fiction blog hops I know of and potential hashtags for themes I could just do on my blog. Most of the blog hops I know of are focused on cishets; again, I'm not a cishet and I rarely write such characters. Also, often enough, the names and/or themes of these hops irritate me from a moral ground; much of the word choice around sexuality still strikes me as shaming. So thinking of hashtags, anything that seemed shaming was quickly released into “not happening on my blog.” That left me with 3 possibilities: continuing “WipWednesday” without a hop to support it, “Therapeutic Thursday,” and “Sex (Gender) Saturday.” Of course, I will continue participating in Masturbation Monday and I can try to be more regular with Rainbow Snippets on Saturday/Sunday. While some people will say that “blog hops don't help [sell books or gain readers],” for me they are an important part of my mental health. To have something I regularly participate in.

As I imagined it in my bed, #SexGenderSaturday would be the hashtag for this post (although I will also share this in Rainbow Snippets- click here to see the weekend's post for that blog hop on Facebook). Including my understanding of my own complex sexuality and gender as well as my characters, I consider sex(uality), sex, and gender as separate but related things. I have an idea for a 6 line thing that I will write and share tomorrow for #RainbowSnippets, although Sunday is often about “Writing for Masturbation Monday” for me. I also have an idea for next Saturday already :D ; being inspired feels good.

So yes, I've spent more time in explaining “why the hashtag” than writing to the hashtag; I hope you'll forgive that because my sore mouth is messing up my ability to concentrate. #SexGenderSaturday feels rather appropriate for my site.

This coming Wednesday will be the last week for the #WipItUpWednesday hop and I do plan to take part. I'll be writing for Masturbation Monday soon after that; I know what I want to write, even if it isn't particularly inspired by the lovely image Kayla Lords selected for inspiration.