. . .If the sex-writing bubble is bursting, that isn’t entirely a bad thing – and I say this even as a victim of what’s been going on. I like reading and hearing lots of perspectives on sexuality, and delivering real information about sexuality is real work. But writing about sex also has a really low bar for entry – you just have to have sex, or think about it, and be unashamed of putting it out there.

Certainly, the glut of sex blogs that people write for free is affecting the market for those of us who want to be paid for our sex writing. Certainly a lot of what my career is today is the direct result of maintaining a blog though, ahem, I’m not so good at keeping it consistent these days, and I don’t make money from this blog at all.

I would be sad if the above people’s voices disappeared from the internet – but I also don’t think professionals should work for nothing, and I don’t really see a clear path to piles of money for this smart bunch of writers. Compulsively producing more and more content isn’t the answer, and that’s what’s been going on with blogs for the past few years – Gawker publishes posts every fifteen minutes during weekday work hours. There is no reason for there to be that much content – its compulsive, its stressful, it reduces the quality and the impact of the work.

. . .I want to see these folks I so admire, many of whom I’ve worked with and who are my peers and my inspiration, rise from the ashes. But I don’t want to just see another round of blogs founded, columns assigned. I think there has to be more than that – it has to be about culture, not just words and pageviews and links.

Link

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