Hi Holly. Thank you for the constructive criticism.

The title (which is the original title — I haven’t changed anything in the article) was meant to be cheeky. That’s the whole point of titles, right? ;) Encourage curiosity, incite emotion. I was definitely going for curiosity and sure, I could’ve said “Why I Think Women Shouldn’t Rely on Lube” or something… I kinda don’t think the original title is that bad, based on how I ultimately ended the article. (I could totally be wrong about that.)

BUT…I did repeat that statement again in the first paragraph, as you said (again, to be cheeky and dramatically set the scene), and I can see how that maybe didn’t come off well. And yes, I possibly failed to execute this piece well — maybe it was confusing to state both that I am not a fan of lube for women (in the sense that we often use it to “hurry a woman up”) yet I believe anyone should use it if she wants to. Those two statements can exist together — they aren’t mutually exclusive — but I can see how they might be confusing.

Also, I kept using that phrase “I believe” because I wanted to make it clear that it was JUST MY PERSPECTIVE (sorry for the all caps — I don’t know how to bold this in a comment). I would never have said, for instance, “Women shouldn’t use lube!” The “I believe” was supposed to soften anything that came after by framing it as one woman’s perspective. I’ve seen people write some pretty intense, black and white stuff without the “I believe” and it doesn’t guarantee that they’ll get hammered by angry readers. I kinda think it depends on the subject matter and maybe there’s more going on here about this subject than I realized (more research for me!).

I also just reread the first few paragraphs and remembered that I was, actually, scared that that piece would attract a lot of anger. I had totally forgotten that, even when I looked at it again to write this follow-up piece. Honestly, I think that was half the failure right there. I think it would’ve come off better if I’d shown more confidence.

Anyways, I’m happy to cop to the article being a failure of execution. That happens. Though I admit, I wish I had failed an article on a different topic, being as this one (respecting the timing of a woman’s body) is so important to me. I hate to think what a lost opportunity that was to highlight that point and have so many women walk away without having gotten that.

Although, even if that’s the inarguable reality of the situation — that I didn’t execute this well — I still question the motivation behind some of the criticism I received.

In any case, I can definitely see that I upset a lot of people with that article and as you can probably imagine, that wasn’t my intention AT ALL. In fact, by the way you wrote your comment, I suspect you were one of those people, and if that’s so, I doubly thank you for taking the time to re-read it and read this article and to send such a thoughtful response. (Thank you. Thank you. That’s double. LOL.)

Again, I’ll just say that it saddens me that I missed the mark with that particular topic. Maybe I’ll try again in the future with a totally different angle and without mentioning lube. :)

Thank you again. ❤