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So Long, and Thanks for All the Smut

Dear friends and fans of Black Heart,

It’s been swell, but it couldn’t last forever. Black Heart has been a pet project of mine for years, and while I’ve enjoyed producing some of the most intelligent, in-your-face and flat-out HOTTEST smut on the web over the past five years, it’s time to move on. I’ve left Montreal—with its laid-back attitude and cobblestone streets that first charmed the pants off me, the mountaintop that encouraged further public nudity and necking, and even the industrial loft spaces that inspired deviant sex acts and other cheap thrills—behind, so it’s time to close this chapter of my life as a Smut Mistress and try a few new things.

I’ve enjoyed Montreal’s liberal attitudes toward sex, as well as Montrealers’ desire to lead the good life (i.e., work a little, play more), both of which led me to pursue my passions here at Black Heart throughout the years. But honestly, there’s only so much sexual revolution one can foment in an already incredibly open-minded community.

Sometimes you need a little resistance to help you understand your freedoms. I’m currently living in a city that doesn’t even have a sex column in its alternative paper, and while I find it a bit ridiculous that they haven’t at least got everybody’s favorite columnist, Dan Savage, on their payroll, I’m not really interested in stepping up to that plate. The opportunity is there, but I’m letting it pass. I’m tired of being pigeonholed as “that sex writer,” being asked if I’d like to be a part of some stranger’s threesome, assumed a slut because of the subject matter I cover in my work. I’m over it all; I’ve moved on.

As my die-hard fans no doubt already know, I’ve been working on a totally unrelated project for the past year or so, over at Shoestring Montreal, a cheap-eats site that aims to bring Montrealers the best of the inexpensive food and drinks the city has to offer. Because living on a budget doesn’t have to suck! I’ve also started a site for my current hometown, Shoestring Austin, to chronicle my cheap-eats adventures as I settle into my new life deep in the heart of Texas.

It may feel as though I’m abandoning this project, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I enjoy writing about and how I would like to be perceived as a writer. While sex, love and relationships will always be of interest to me, I am often astonished by the multitude of intelligent sex sites currently available online, from reliably witty Dan Savage columns to button-pushing pieces like Susannah Breslin’s They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They? Heck, even the December 11 Natalie Dee comic is a great commentary on sex, love, relationships and the dangers of stereotypical gender roles. (Plus the idea of “17 luscious holes!” is pretty hilarious.)

There’s a helluva lot of material out there. And it’s up to us to sort through it, digest it, ponder it and decide whether we think it’s good, bad, ugly or some grey area in between. I’ve always enjoyed bringing my readers bits and pieces of the news that somehow relate to sex, in order to drive the point home that sex is everywhere. It’s unavoidable, like it or not. So we might as well figure out what we think about it, and what we want to see in the future, because otherwise we’ll just get the same old, dumbed-down porno crap that we’ve always gotten.

To quote one of the great elders of smut, Susie Bright: “If you don’t like what you see, go out and make your own.”

I’ve always kept that idea in the back of my mind, and now I think it’s high time I go out and make some of my own multimedia art creations to share with the world. Here, it’s been a lot of sexual philosophy, a bit of sex ed and a dash of T&A to keep things interesting. Out there, in the wilds of the Internet and the rest of the wide world, it can be so much more. It can be another very important revolution, one of creativity at all costs.

So I hope that you’ve enjoyed some of the things I’ve written and published here at Black Heart, and if you’d like to keep on following what I read, write and do with my free time, please feel free to check out either Shoestring Austin or my personal website at buttontapper.com. And don’t despair: I’m not entirely done with Montreal and her dirty, pretty things just yet. I’m currently finishing up my guidebook to the sexy side of the city, Naked Montreal, and if you can’t wait for the final version, you can buy a copy (or 3) of the mini-book previews online at Lulu.com.

For now, let’s go out with a bang together, dear readers. Think of your dirtiest fantasy, the thing you’d do in a second with no strings attached, and go someplace private for a little one-on-one wank session. Consider this my gift to you, as you moan and wail and stroke your way to happiness. Happy New Year; I’ll see you in cyberspace.

XXX,
Laura Roberts, Editor-in-Chief

(An earlier version of this article was originally published at Hour.ca)

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