In 2005 Brett came down from the tech towers of SF, where I’d had to pay $20 parking to visit his downtown office, one of the first sex toy web stores. I remember him telling me he had researched me online (stalker?) and the oldest post he could find was a comment on Susie Bright’s Salon.com column on the Starr Report. He said it was a really intelligent response.
I still remember that column- It felt dire, that the sky was falling, that all even moderately liberal agenda was going to be washed away based on the president’s sexual indiscretion with his intern and the report that came from it. I wrote in the comments then, and still believe now, that Susie just had a really bad day, and that this hullabaloo too would pass (only apparently, I said it much more intelligently).
The Starr Report, google tells me, was published September 11, 1998. Give the original Sexpert 2 days to read it, knowing Susie it was less and that, this is the first time Metis Black’s name appeared in an internet website.
I also remember, a couple days after it came out, being called from the owner of two stores in the DC area begging us to make 100 cigar shaped dildos… but that’s a future post.
Tantus began at the same time as my web searches began and the same time as I was dipping my toes in the web.
We started selling dildos wholesale since May in ‘98. We had launched one Thursday sending a slick flier sheet, a price list, a why silicone sheet that was way too technical and a friendly business letter saying “We’re Here” with a business card attached via glue stick. My daughter Athena had thought of tacking the card onto the letter. She was 11 and had collated mail at her school.
Our mailing list we had culled from two main sources- The resource page from “The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex” by Cathy Winks and Anne Semans and the “Where to buy” web page from Vixen Silicones. For years after we had a website of our own I wouldn’t let anyone make a listing of our customers for it for that very reason— it was MONEY.
We posted packets on Thursday, worked through the weekend at the Colorado Renaissance Festival and Monday morning— voila, we had two faxed orders waiting for us. We were on our way- slowly.
Those first few months were glorious and we were on top of it. We had made a lot of backstock so you called an order before 3 and it was out the door by 4 when UPS showed up. In silicone, no one had ever seen business organization like this, or so we heard. Meanwhile, there was a lot of down time: taking the dogs to Garden of the Gods for midday hikes, walking over to the brewery a few buildings down the street for a to go growler, looking online for more leads…
LiveJournal was my first personal posting site. It was anonymous. I went by DildoGirl. And I did not tell anyone who I was or what I did for a very long time. It was just the run of the mill stories of daily life and sex tales. I told scandalous tales of bending men over, of bdsm play, of seductions and surrenders. I also got involved in a lot of kink and sex ed communities and answered questions along side Hardy Haberman and Grey Dancer.
I don’t recall when I finally let my guard down (we really had a false sense that we could remain anonymous online) but I outed myself and in doing so I found more followers. I also found that some fellow writers actually knew Tantus, were customers or store clerks who sold us. And now they knew me… perhaps too much of me!
The profile came down after an interaction with a troll set their sights on me, first to friends only, then DELETE- but it had a good run. And first, of course, I copy and pasted many of the best of DildoGirl on my computer (they are password protected with no idea what the password was- eventually I’ll crack that safe. *Grin*)
I think it was Chris Knight who invited me to the Google experiment Orkut (by invitation only). He’d been a computer programmer I’d dated for a minute and a half, then he’d run away with us on the Renaissance circuit, and he’d always remained a dear friend. He actually housed our first website on his servers. A perv who knew his way around the web.
Orkut was magic. It was community based. There was the Nietzsche group I was a part of with over 10,000 members. Then there was the “Shaved Pussy” group, of genital grooming, “Fetish Follies”, the “Virtual Affair Lounge”, and my favorite “The Great G Spot Expedition”. You flirted your way through Orkut. Everyday was a new escape into trouble. Your personal profile was a mini bio and a lot of new friends propositioning you with humor and wit while extolling your talents. It was a back and forth of tennis volleys and when you were put in a time out, mine was for too many posts too quickly, it was humorously done with a “No Donuts for You” notification.
Social Media watched me grow as a writer. It saw me navigate drama. It saw me separate and divorce and hook up over and over. It also honed my writing. I’d been a decent writer in college but these verbal interactions on the screen really honed my tone and pace.
I made so many amazing friends on Orkut. And I got laid so well on Orkut! I was also one of the first members to have another member make a fan group on Orkut for me- it was a private group called “Perversity”. You could voyeur but you couldn’t post unless you were a member. For a long time, I did not hold the keys to the castle. People would contact me to get in, but Joshua had set it up and only he could let you in. Unfortunately, his computer had crashed and he didn’t get it rebuilt for a while… meanwhile there was quite a back and forth in messages between this Edenborough Poet/Engineer, who wanted in, and I. He was Topping and Oh My God it was amazing. When Joshua finally got back and running and let Michael in, the messages did not end but we edited them for public consumption.
One of my favorites posts was a three-way golden showers fantasy. It started off Rick Robin and I. Meanwhile, Kelly I think wrote about getting popcorn for the show. The words- it was all words- were absolutely glorious. Rick and I hooked up about a year later and we tried that scene twice- once in LA and again in SF.
And on Orkut I met my brother Syd. Sydney Rome was a moderator of the competing Fetish Folies. Someone had written something off color that needed moderating in his group- I waited to see it removed. It wasn’t. I messaged Syd… wtf?
Moderation on social media has never been a paid gig. You have a group and it’s cool and you grow it. It’s not a job, it’s a hobby. Sometimes you’re off line. And that’s what was happening. Syd was off line. When he saw my message, it was a week or so later. The post had so many responses and most were negative. He pulled it and we started talking. Funny thing was we never really flirted at that point. It was all vision and methods. Soon he was herding me away from Orkut and to all the other startups.
Syd is how I became one of the first 10,000 on MySpace. He herded me there to help him moderate the “Fetish Lounge”. He herded me here and there and everywhere. I had more forgotten accounts- just in case that was the next big thing. That and as MySpace and Facebook teach us- first websites want the steamy posts to get the traffic, then they shun you and shut you down for bigger corporate investors.
MySpace loved us. First off, Syd is a graphic designer by trade and he couldn’t and wouldn’t allow anyone to post pictures. He was THE picture poster and they were all the same exact size and he edited them and they looked marvelous (and thereby there was no graphic nudity). We did massive sex education in a time before webstores and websites were doing it. We had a huge membership; it was private and you had to be a member to read the posts. I did erotic writings there as well, but after the first year, I was mainly adding sage advice or giving factual sex ed. People got to know my brand but it wasn’t advertising in the way it is today. It was real and it was purposeful. I also almost always mentioned other products alongside ours when I mentioned products at all- on Myspace, on Orkut, and on LiveJournal. The Fetish Lounge was the largest kink community there. It wasn’t as intellectual as Orkut, but it reached so many more people.
As a platform, MySpace had a lot going for it. You actually got stats on how many times a note or blog was read. When the platform was full tilt boogie, my friends list was amazing. It intersected adult business, kink, academia, and buyers as nothing had before that. I’d gone from an anonymous DildoGirl to a well-spoken expert in no time- and I had the following to prove it.
I remember a couple things from those days. I remember I made a second profile and named it Mom NOT (I am not your Mom) so I could succinctly, usually with humor, tell people what they were doing wrong especially on postings that were inappropriate or (in my mind) stupid. I cleaned up a lot of messes with her without mixing words.
I remember someone writing me and telling me he had asked his fiancé, who he had dated 8 years, to don a strap-on and she decided he was gay and broke up with him over it. I had so much compassion for him. Obliviously I’d never even realized that could be a thing before.
I also recall when a very young NobEssence, maybe a year old by then, was being ripped off and I finally had had enough. It seemed unconceivable that a small manufacturer could survive having their intellectual property stolen so soon—I know Tantus wouldn’t have been able to survive it our first year had that happened. With my audience on my personal profile, I posted a thing I was really proud of. The post called out the bigger companies in the adult industry. It had no words other than the title- something like “Can We Talk About Plagiarism In Adult?” I put images side by side of two of Greg DeLong’s innovative NJoy toys and the Nob Essence amazing Romp and their copies brought out by Pipedreams and California Exotics.
I had over 10,000 views to that post. I don’t know that it did anything substantial, but it got people talking. It urged companies towards ethics.
I first heard of Facebook by the Canadian Buyer Erin Anstey, before she added Horea. Rupert Murdock had bought MySpace for an ungodly amount and then made it “family safe” so all our work had been deleted in a touch of a button. I was just being me on Multiply with my brother Syd and some of our old friends, making new friends as we went. I really wasn’t paying attention but I finally made a profile.
Almost immediately after I made that page, my daughter died. She also had a page, both of MySpace and on Facebook. I could only view the MySpace. She hadn’t accepted my friendship yet on FB and her profile was set to friends only.
While I’d been invested in social media before, FaceBook for me, was mainly marketing; it was life edited for responses. I don’t think that ever changed.
I remember Eden Fantasy pulling in huge sales from their FaceBook posts. So we set up our own Tantus company profile and filled it with ads, with education, and with small edited moments. It was a science. We were more savvy than many. I’d already done more online work than most.
Twitter was set up about the same time. It had more educators, more intellectuals, more activists there and in 140 spaces we (would either feed or encourage those eager people (Mentorship will be a whole different post— and also a can of worms).
With software- we mass marketed, timing ads to post on multiple platforms every few days. Long weekend sales could be boosted. And we made good money there.
We learned the secret of Reddit; a modernized BBS place you are forced to engage with others if you want to get anywhere. Honestly Reddit is a cash cow. If you aren’t there you should be.
What has all this taught me?
I was too far away for TheWELL, too late to Tribe (it’s heyday was over by the time I signed up), and I didn’t Friendster. But, I grew up on the internet as the internet grew up. I still miss Orkut. I swear that MySpace could have a resurgence if the board wanted to take it there.
I have never felt bad when a social media corporation decided my profile or post was inappropriate. I understand how an image three years later can be unacceptable when at the time it was fine. I understand it’s about the bottom line— it’s a business. I’m grateful that my small dildo company could get free advertising and the fact when FaceBook opened up advertising for dollars, no matter how much they begged us for it; they wouldn’t take our money, LOL.
I have made amazing friends- ones like Syd who travel the world and, when in North America, make it a point to stay with me where ever I’m living (I really need to visit him now that I have time— the beaches in Spain sound incredible); ones who have come to my aid when my life has gone sideways; ones I would do anything for…
Networking and friendship are no less real on the internet than in your neighborhood.