CommUNITY

I first saw that word used in a post Catalina wrote this past summer. I didn’t know of Catalina that well back then. I had read her blog here and there and mainly knew of her from the Best Sex Bloggers blog but the post about her daughter caught my eye. As a parent myself who has had my battles with school systems that don’t seem to want to put the children first I could identify with Catalina’s cause. I personally was going through a rough time in my life at that moment but what she wrote really hit home for me. It amazed me the overwhelming support Catalina was receiving from this community. My personal contribution to her was small but put together with others in this community we were all able to help both Catalina and her daughter.

At that time I myself was questioning being part of this community and if I wanted to be because of what I had been going through. What Catalina’s post at that time showed me was that there was so much more to this community than the small part of it that I had been exposed to. There were so many people out there who wanted to help and support Catalina whether they knew her or not.

When we launched the NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar blog last week we were a small group getting together in support of Sex Work Awareness. That was just over a week and over 10,000 hits ago. What I have seen happen since then has simply amazed me. Each day we received more and more support from this community for our project. So many people wrote about and linked us, bought calendars and days or added the NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar button to their site in support of us.

I am very new to this community only finding sex blogs just one year ago. I look at my life now compared to that year ago and am overwhelmed with all the changes in it. I have found many new friends in this community and so much support in my life. What I personally like best about this community as a whole is that I am not judged for who I am or what I do. I look at my friendship with Tess and how we are different in so many ways. She wears skirts, I wear jeans. She wears fancy heeled shoes, I wear boots. She likes bruises and razors, I like…..well you get my meaning. But then I see how Tess and I are both working mothers struggling in our marriages and trying to find happiness at this point in our lives. We are both different and alike in so many ways but we can have our close friendship because it is just who we are and we both accept that about each other.

That is also what I have found this past month in this community. It doesn’t matter if I am married, single or whatever. It doesn’t matter if I am gay, bi or straight. The people I have been lucky enough to get to know in the past month accept us all for whoever we are.

As each day passed this past week it seemed more and more unreal to me at times. I had started blogging last year and created Diva as somewhat of a joke on Jefferson’s life and his blogstar status. I was now being listed on blogs all over the internet. We were written about on Fleshbot and by more than 40 different bloggers. I find myself now in contact with people who I have only heard about and read on the internet. I kept thinking how much my life has changed over this past year.

What I have also found over the past week is that it didn’t matter who I was, what I have written or who I have sex with or even what type of sex. What I saw in this community was a strong group of individuals who all came together to support a cause doing whatever they could to help us. No one cared if I was married, poly, kinky or just me. What mattered was making and selling a calendar to benefit Sex Work Awareness. I wish that was how it could be for everyone in this world.

Imagine living in a world where everyone is accepting of each other. Maybe then so many of us wouldn’t have to blog anonymously.

I want to say thank you to all of you who have helped to get the word out about this project and to all who have bought days and calendars too. I haven’t had as much time as I would like to write these past few weeks because I have become Tess’s slave on this project. Oops, I meant to say assistant. That is latest the title I believe she has given me this week. Hopefully now that our photo shoot is over and once the calendar goes to the printer my life will get back to a more normal pace because there are several things I need to write about from this past month. Please be patient more regular posts are coming. Right now I am spending most of my free time on twitter these days so you may want to follow me there. You can keep up with the latest escapades of Tess and I there.