Mommy blogs are big business these days. A recent Washington Post profile on ur-mommy blogger Heather Armstrong (a.k.a. Dooce) suggested that her site could be raking in up to 40 grand a month. While most mothers who blog are nowhere near as influential (and their sites nowhere near as lucrative), they take pride and satisfaction in the work they do, and the websites they maintain offer valuable community, a sense of connection to other parents, and occasionally a little pocket change.
“People think I have the greatest job in the world,” says “Spooky” Suicide. On any given day, he’s busy coding, designing, or holding up the business end of his website. It doesn’t sound too glamorous—until you realize that his site, Suicide Girls, is probably the best known in a growing trend in adult entertainment: alternative, independent web porn. Of course, amateur pornography is nothing new—the popularity of home videos and webcams have made it relatively easy and cheap to produce—but the average amateur site doesn’t feature girls with baby-blue dreadlocks and septum piercings. As one Suicide Girls slogan declares, “We’ve kidnapped your daughter and given her a tattoo.”
“I have a ‘glamour job’ on the Hill. That is, I could not care less about gov or politics, but working for a Senator looks good on my resume. And these marble hallways are such great places for meeting boys and showing off my outfits.” So begins The Washingtonienne, the short-lived blog of one Jessica Cutler, a young Capitol Hill Staff Assistant since dubbed the “New-insky” for her chronicling of kinky sex among D.C.’s power elite.