Girl on the net is an anonymous sex blogger and self-proclaimed pervert. She writes real life stories about her own sexual experiences, and aims to create space for people to explore sex however they like it.

She hopes to fight against sexual stigmas and make her work as accessible as it can be, shown through her audio porn project to include her blind and visually impaired audience.

Pomegranate sat down with her to find out more about what she does, who for and what the audio porn project was…

What kind of work do you do?

Girl on the Net: I’m a sex blogger. I’ve been sex blogging since 2014. I’ve started doing it full-time, although very recently I’ve also had to take on a part-time job because online censorship means it’s much harder to make an income from sex related stuff on the internet. So basically I mostly blog about my own sex life because I have very little imagination. So I write mostly true stories about the things I’ve done.

And I think it was 2016, maybe 2018, when I started the audio porn project, which is essentially a way of paying other writers and sex bloggers to turn their work into beautiful audio porn to make their sex blogs more accessible to blind people and anyone else who’s got, accessibility needs where it’s easier and more enjoyable for them to enjoy the blogs as audio rather than text.

Credit: Girl on the Net

Who exactly do you write for?

Girl on the Net: I hope I write for anyone and everyone who is interested in sex, who is a bit horny and wants to explore their own horn. I would be lying if I didn’t say I also write for myself. I find writing a really good way not only to process emotions, develop more better ways to sort of articulate your own emotions, but I think the writing feeds into the sex that I have and being able to spend time thinking about what was brilliant about past shags and ideas for future shags, fantasies, all that kind of stuff. I find that really helpful.

I think in general, one of the things I want to do with writing is encourage more people essentially to sort of say no to sexual shame and to embrace the things that they love about their own kinks and desires and recognize that they’re not alone. You’re not weird or perverted for being a pervert. Lots of us enjoy things that might not necessarily sit in a normal spectrum of  what sex is expected to be. and it’s fun to explore it. It’s a nice thing for grown-ups to do.

 What keeps you motivated to keep making this content?

I was freelancing for various magazines and newspapers when I first sort of went full-time as Girl on the Net and I noticed some really cool positive things were changing. So, for instance, when I first started freelancing, I wouldn’t have been able to write a sex positions guide, which was completely gender-neutral. And then by the time I stopped freelancing, that’s actually pretty common now. It’s a fairly standard way of doing things.

And so I think one of the things that motivates me to keep writing is knowing that not me personally and individually, but if enough of us who are sex positive, sex critical, sex interested, if enough of us can push our work out into the mainstream, we can help to change people’s minds. We can help to make people feel less alone, and then I think in more recent years, some of the things that motivate me to keep writing and particularly to keep publishing guest blogs and commissioning guests is noticing the way that that conversation is shifting. I think the right-wing in the UK and obviously also the US is starting to gain a really worrying hold. 

I think censorship is increasing. I think things like transphobia and homophobia are increasing. I think it’s important that basically anyone who is interested in sex, love, relationships keeps pushing that message forward that these people are wrong and they always have been wrong and even though they’re getting more power now they are still wrong.

How did you get into sex writing in the first place?

Even when I was young, before I even really discovered sex, I always wanted to write. And then when I got a bit older, I had a partner who I met while I was at university who was disgusting in the best way. Both he and I were very kinky. We were getting involved in kink much earlier than most of our peers. So I think we went to our first kinky club night when we were 19.

And we loved all of that stuff and we loved doing things that were a bit outside the norm, coming up with ideas that would make the other one go, “oh my god, that’s so hot.” And also a bit weird. and so he and I sort of talked at one point about starting a sex blog together. This was back in the day, the heyday of Belle de Jour, Bitchy Jones and Girl with the Onetrack Mind. And I was like, maybe we could start a sex blog together.

But we wrote a few posts just for each other and he decided that he didn’t want to do that publicly, which is totally fair enough. So we shelved that idea. And then after we broke up, I was like, maybe I could just do this. Maybe I don’t need somebody else to hold my hand while I do this. So I took him out for a very awkward coffee. I was like, “Hey, I know we’ve broken up, but are you up for me sharing some of our stories? I think I want to write a blog. Would you be up for me sharing some of our stories as part of that?”

And he was like, “Yeah, that’s fine. Keep me anonymous and make sure I’m not too significant in those stories, but yeah, of course you can share them.” And so yeah, that sort of came out of that.

Credit: Girl on the Net

Why did you start doing audio porn and how did that become a big part of your content?

Girl on the Net: So, it actually came from a couple of readers of the blog, one of whom is blind and one of whom just has sort of serious vision impairment and basically just really struggles with screens, who contacted me and said, “Have you ever thought about recording your posts”? One of them specifically told me, “I use a screen reader to read anything on the internet and your sexy posts are just not hot when the robot voice reads them.”

And it never occurred to me. This was before the sort of major explosion in audio porn with sites like Quinn and Dipsy. So basically it was prompted by people saying it would be more accessible if you recorded it. One of the things I think is important about sex is making it as accessible to as many people as possible. And I was like, that’s such an easy thing to do to just record the posts.

So I started doing that and very, very rapidly that became one of the most popular pages on my site and to the point that now the actual audio porn page is now far more popular and more visited than the homepage of my website because people love audio porn so much. 

The project has expanded. It initially started as just me reading my work and I set up a Patreon to fund that. Then as I got a bit more money through the Patreon, I was like, “This is great because now I can pay other writers for their work.” So basically, I pay license fees and I pay other writers to record their work as well.

And then we put it on my site and I also give them a widget to embed it on their site. So then their site becomes more accessible and hopefully also might inspire some other people to record their work too and then the whole internet becomes more accessible. That’s the goal.

Did you ever expect it to blow up as much as it did?

Girl on the Net: No definitely not. I don’t have a huge marketing budget, so my site is really small compared to the massive players who have startup funding and marketing budgets. The reason I’m popular is because I started it early and I got a lot of search traffic for audio. So, when that took off, I was basically seeing in real time as more and more people were searching for audio porn, because I was top, then I’d see my traffic, go up for that. It did surprise me that it took off that way.

But I think one of the things that surprised me more is how it developed. Because to me, I’d never seen audio porn as something that I was specifically doing for any particular gender. But when it became popular, you’d start seeing all these articles saying, “Why is audio porn so popular with women?” Every time I see an article like that, I’m biting my lip because I want to say it’s not just popular with women. The thing that makes porn appeal to people of a particular gender is more about the content and who’s being represented in it. 

So it surprised me a bit that it took off and, then it really surprised me when everyone was saying, “It’s just for women though. Isn’t this nice for women?” Men like it too. I promise you.

You describe this porn as ethical audio porn, what does “ethical” mean to you?

Girl on the Net: I would always aim to be ethical when I’m producing porn. I don’t think that audio porn is necessarily ethical, but I personally adhere to a set of principles about it.

So, for instance, if I’m making money, then the person who creates the work also needs to make money. I would never ever want to put people’s work up on my site where I haven’t offered them payment. 

There are a lot of big platforms, where they are making a ton of money based on content that they have acquired for free. And I don’t think that’s ethical. Another thing that is important when it comes to ethics is checking in with writers about things, like how you’re selling their work, or the bios that you write for them. I do sometimes change people’s titles when I put work on the site. If they start off with a short title, I’ll add some for SEO, but I wouldn’t ever use language that would dehumanize them or objectify them.

When I’m marketing the audio, I always try to stay as true as I can to the original piece. When I’m recording with people, or if I’m commissioning people to record work, I will check in with them first  about what their limits are, if they have any boundaries like words that they would prefer not to be used, or kinks they would prefer not to read about? That way, if I’m hiring a reader and I’m assigning them a text, I’m not going to send a reader who’s really triggered by CNC a story like that.

There’s loads of things that help with ethical porn production, like paying people’s invoices on time, making sure if someone’s coming into a studio to record to check with them about their accessibility needs, all that kind of stuff.

I use the word ethical as it’s a challenge I’m issuing myself rather than a medal that I’m awarding myself. So that if someone turned around to me tomorrow and said, “I want to work with you, but this thing is preventing me.” I’d turn around and say “I want to be ethical, so let’s see how I can include you.” 

What do you want to see for the next chapter of Girl on the Net?

Girl on the Net: Honestly, I would love to work with more writers. I’ve got an incredibly brilliant and talented pool of writers. Most of them are other sex bloggers where they write work on their own sex blogs or they write blogs for other websites. I would love to meet and commission more incredible writers. I recently got a part-time job so now I don’t need to spend as much of the “Girl on the Net” money on myself. The aim of the game is to spend more of that on other writers so I can empower more people to get paid for their work and then create more of it.

Mainly what I want is more people on the site. And if anyone reading wants to submit a guest blog, I am always looking for people with interesting stories,

Credit: Girl on the Net