Well hey everybody. I’m on vacation this week making a lifelong dream come true as I’m currently somewhere in Japan! Imagine me speeding along on a bullet train, eating a little bento box for lunch and crying at the view of Mount Fuji out the window.
So while I’m out I thought I’d take a second to reflect on a year plus of posting on Substack, something the platform encourages me to do from time to time.
I started this Substack in a moment of crisis last year, right after my 115K follower Instagram got deleted. In that moment, I resolved to put everything I had to showing up here in a new way I’d never been seen online. But posting twice a week certainly isn’t easy. In fact, recently Trixie and Katya (superstar drag queens) were discussing on their podcast how much they hated having to come up with articles weekly for their short-lived Substack and said it was the hardest thing they’d ever done. Katya announced she’d rather be “waterboarded with pig’s blood” than figure out something to write about every week.
And it is hard!! Very hard sometimes!! But also it has allowed me to show you all my real self behind the memes. I’m a writer first and foremost, and hiding everything behind a paywall over on Patreon wasn’t giving me the chance to show you all the deeper thoughts that go into all this ask a sub work.
Being a little one sub content machine online for five years now has been quite a grind. In the first year of my Instagram I posted a meme every day for over a year. This last year on Substack has brought me back to that level of dedication, and as a result deepened my own relationship to kink. You all have been here for the fluff, and for my darkest moments. You’ve offered laughs and support when I’ve needed them most, and have overall proven the internet is full of kind, normal people who aren’t going to sit down and send me emails containing walls of text about how disappointing it is for me to call myself slutty in a meme (if you survived 2019-2021 Instagram you deserve a medal). Substack, on the whole, is a much, much better place.
Moreover, I know how upsetting it can be to sign up for yet another email list, so I’m even more grateful than you know as I watch the subscriber numbers tick up here. Many writers use substack as a launching place for other projects and use those subscriber numbers to make those dreams come true. And I’m no different! So what lies ahead in the coming year for the ask a sub universe?
The podcast, of course, will continue rolling along. Please send in your voice memo questions to keep us cooking! Email to podcast@askasub.com.
Also, as some of you have heard me talk about, I’m writing a novel and this is the year I finish it (god damn it I better). It’s set in the San Francisco Leather scene in the late 1970’s, tracking a group of four protagonists who all interact with the sexual liberation of the era as they hurtle towards the assassination of Harvey Milk and the huge challenges the queer community faced in the 80’s — the AIDS crisis, gentrification of gay neighborhoods, and cultural backlash against LGBT+ representation. Come for the historical content, stay for the graphic sex!
Your subscriptions have made it possible for me to spend my days writing and doing research. Some things I’ve been able to afford thanks to you:
A subscription to Drummer magazine so I can pore over their 70s archival issues and the amazing classified ads therein.
A vintage copy of Coming To Power, a very rare collection of writing from Lesbian Leather folk. I scored my copy for $100 — a steal, considering.
Gas for my trips up to SF to walk around the Castro, and for my trip to the Folsom Street Fair last year.
A recurring monthly donation to the Sex Workers Outreach Project, because none of this would be possible without our sex work community.
If you’d like to support these perverted pursuits, here are some ways to contribute:
A monthly subscription here on Substack or on Patreon. Sustained income is really the main thing keeping the creators you love churning out the content you crave!
If you’re not into a monthly subscription, consider buying one of my online courses. I currently offer Sub Survival Guide, which takes you from submissive dreaming to submissive doing, and Conscious Kink which will guide the creation of your very own power exchange dynamic.
In honor of this post, both courses will be 20% off for the next week (until 5/15 at 11:59pm pacific) with code 1YEAR at checkout.Get on the list to be notified when my next course comes out sometime before the end of June. It’s called Kink Tasting Menu, and it offers couples bite sized courses of kink to try out together. I specifically designed this for relationships where one or both people are possibly kinky, but the idea of taking on kink writ large is too overwhelming so both are paralyzed! Also can just be a fun tour of the kink world for those who want to reinvigorate their practice.
And if you’re just here for the greatest hits, here are a few Substack pieces I’m particularly proud of:
In summation, thank you for being here. This work has meant so much to me and to so many other budding perverts and varsity kinksters alike. Here’s to 10 more years of churning out the filthy stuff.
Love,
Lina
You creating a Substack lead me to make my own, and for that I owe you quite a bit. Excited to get a copy of that novel once it hits the shelves - NYC signing tour pls 🤍