I’m writing to offer an update, a pep talk, and a reminder about some resources that might be helpful right now. This is longer than I intended, which is very in-character for me, and it’s also shorter and less polished than I want it to be, because I am honoring my limits today.
If you’re here to contribute to the mutual aid effort I made this weekend for SizeCon event supplies, scroll to the section below Protect is a verb.
Content tags: this article discusses mental health, COVID, wildfires, censorship and banning books erotic content, and activism efforts against fascism. As always, I welcome help in tagging—please let me know when I have missed anything important.
Personal update
I’ve been on hiatus for many months now due to a bad writing-related injury. Creatives—please take steps to care for your hands and arms as you work. Especially if you live in the US and have to rely on our “healthcare” system to see you through it. Don’t risk it!
My hiatus is also due to the fact that I feel caught in limbo between the platforms of Twitter and BlueSky because I don’t have the capacity to transfer over hundreds of muted words. My mental health has been so rough that I can’t really join the transition to #SizeSky until I figure that out. (I did offer some tips here.) I’m glad that muting became a feature last year, but until I can manage to face a wall that was built, brick by brick, of my hard-limit content, I’m feeling back to square one.
I’ve been making slow, small progress in backing up my stories to Archive of Our Own, AO3, the platform that actually won a Hugo back in 2019. It’s largely for fanfiction, but many original creative works live there too, and a surprising number of my most beloved authors seem to have made their start there. If you want to support me creatively right now, then offering kudos, comments, and bookmarks to my stories on AO3 will help me connect with my audience.
I’m not planning to share anything there that won’t be living here on my website as well, but in this uncertain world where romance authors can be locked out of their own Google Drive accounts, and where Project 2025 is taking aim at all explicit sexual content, it seems wise to at least try to have my content in multiple places. I’m backing up my work and website on external hard drives and the cloud, but honestly after the loss of Tumblr in 2018 I don’t trust any platform completely. Have you backed up your work?
Update on porn & book bans
Please watch this 9-minute video on Project 2025 as it is urgently relevant to romance writers, erotica writers, librarians, sex workers, and anyone who reads or consumes romance novels or porn. Quoting from Project 2025:
Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.
Project 2025, page 5
Source for the direct quote here, with longer quotes, definitions, and additional analysis. The book ban has already begun in Oklahoma and Florida:
- Oklahoma Anti-Pornography Bill: What It Means for Romance Writers – February 2, 2025
- Multi-level barrage of US book bans is ‘unprecedented’, says PEN America – February 7, 2025
What to do
If, like me, you are confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed, I’m going to offer some resources for what to do.
My top tip? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Look for the helpers. Look for people already doing the work and ask what they need. Then the leadership can come from those closest to the issues and most familiar with the nuances and actions that are most helpful.
I am copying this directly from The Romance Studio‘s article on the subject:
What Can Romance Fans Outside of Oklahoma Do?
Even if you’re not in Oklahoma, this fight affects you too. Here’s how you can help:
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Raise Awareness Nationwide: Share articles, social media posts, and videos about SB 593. The more people know about this bill, the harder it will be to pass similar legislation elsewhere.
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Support Oklahoma Authors and Bookstores: Buy books from Oklahoma-based romance authors and indie bookstores. Show solidarity by keeping their voices heard.
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Get Involved with National Advocacy Groups: Support organizations fighting for free speech, like American Library Association (ALA), PEN America, and National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).
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Stay Vigilant in Your Own State: Watch for similar bills in your state legislature. If you see something, speak up immediately to prevent it from gaining traction.
I have also been having luck with the 5 Calls app, which offers quick, tailored scripts for 5-minute calls and takes a lot of the anxiety out of yelling at our representatives. Here’s why it’s worth it, even if you live in a place like my home state of Texas where you feel you won’t convince your reps. It’s how they measure pressure and risk, and people who want to take away our rights are far more consistent with calling. So yes, calling does make a difference. Even if that’s just to help us all feel less helpless.
Speaking of ways to feel less helpless, one of my favorite tips on this comes from Emily Nagoski’s book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle:
“Feeling helpless and hopeless after watching news about the state of international politics? Don’t distract yourself or numb out; do a thing. Do yard work or gardening, to care for your small patch of the world. Take food to somebody who needs a little boost. Take your dog to the park. Show up at a Black Lives Matter march. You might even call your government representative. That’s great. That’s participation. You’re not helpless. Your goal is not to stabilize the government—that’s not your job (unless you happen to be a person whose job that is, in which case you still need to deal with the stress, as well as the stressor!)—your goal is to stabilize you, so that you can maintain a sense of efficacy, so that you can do the important stuff your family and your community need from you. As the saying goes, “Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.” And “something” is anything that isn’t nothing.”
Resource for personal fortitude
On a more personal note, to help my community members to have enough energy to keep fighting, I would like to point to a resource from past Elle, which also draws from the research of Emily Nagoski.
Five years ago I wrote a resource on processing stress using size kink during traumatic historical events. It’s a review of a book by @enagoski.bsky.social + tips.
I’m still on hiatus, but I also still care about the #SizeSky community.
Rest, and keep going. 💜
ellelargesse.com/2020/07/12/s…
— Elle Largesse (@ellelargesse.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 1:38 PM
I’m offering the post on BlueSky in case anyone wants to repost it and help others find it. But of course the article is hosted here on my website: Sexual Brakes, Trauma, & Kink in the Burning 20’s.
I know it won’t be for everyone, but I hope it helps us stay resourced and in touch with our anger and our power.
Community updates
I want to turn to two positive updates about our size kink community.
The first update is in solidarity with sex workers that makes me so happy I still don’t know how to properly put it into words. The size kink community’s foremost expert in human sexuality and multidisciplinary art, Abigail Jacqueline Jones, donated funding to name part of a building after me. And not just any building.
You know what? While I’m sharing positive stories surrounding SWers and the East End, I want to do a shout-out to The Scarlett Letters too. They’re the UK’s first SWer-owned bookshop, and I donated to their inaugural crowdfund. Which allowed me to name part of the shop after a close #SizeSky friend!
— The Seven-Foot Slut (@abigail-is-nancy.bsky.social) February 10, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Abigail, thank you so much for honoring me in this way, it means the world to me. I love that you’re supporting such important work and a community space like that, and raising awareness about our community too! I hope someday I can go see it and support them in person. You are an absolute gem!
This has caused me to realize with mild horror that I somehow never made an update on the zine. Abigail has been generously creating scholarship on people in the size kink world by interviewing many of our community members. She even published a single-color risograph zine featuring a 2023 interview with me, which you can buy on her website here for £6.00, with £2 for international shipping. Cover art credit to @ednem.bsky.social.
Please support her in this work! I don’t know of anyone doing research of this kind for people in our tiny corner of the world, and I think we are exceptionally lucky to have her. Just look at this:
This interview is part of a series examining the function of the erotic imagination in helping individuals with marginalised or non-normative anatomies, neurologies or neurotypes, gender identities or queer sexualities explore their relationship with their bodies, their brains, and their relationships with/perceptions of the world around them. Focusing upon size kink communities — consisting of individuals or collectives whose erotic fantasies predominantly involve giants/giantesses and tiny folk, superhuman growth or shrinking, or the particular expansion of certain body parts — this series explores how figures within this particular niche kink space have used the limitless creative potential of their erotic imaginations to empower themselves: to help accept, or even embrace and take pride in, their unique bodies and neurologies.
The second community update:
This weekend I was also thrilled to learn that organizers at SizeCon made a special effort to highlight my free resource on Content Tags for our community. My partner pseudoclever was in the audience and messaged to say that this part got a huge round of applause. I was moved to tears to realize that the years of effort I put into that resource has made a positive impact for people.
Just learned my free resource on Content Tags for our community got a huge round of applause at @sizecon.bsky.social today! TYSM SizeCon! 😭
This article was 3 yrs in the making. Please read & share widely!
How to tag things
Top 16 tags to always use
130+ #SizeKink tagsellelargesse.com/tags
— Elle Largesse (@ellelargesse.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 2:51 PM
When I hit “publish” on the resource back in 2022, it wasn’t long before everything on Twitter began devolving and I beat myself up for taking too long with it and making something that already felt worthless. Knowing that people are still benefiting from that work means the world to me.
All of our actions have ripple effects. You never know the impact you will make on others, even years after your effort!
Protect is a verb
The world is growing scarier and more dangerous with each passing day, and many of us with marginalized identities are fighting on multiple fronts. But we are fighting.
I am heartened to look around me and see how many are standing up for what’s right, even when it doesn’t make the papers. People are facing down fascism in creative, wild ways.
Every person and everything we are able to protect, makes a difference. Yes, even erotica.
Just like the words ally, care, and love are verbs, so too is protect. It’s never going to be a one-time effort, but neither is love. Like Ursula K. Le Guin wrote: “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
We must continually protect our joys, our health, and all the things that keep us alive and remembering what kind of world we are fighting for.
The world I want to live in contains pleasure, sensuality, and eroticism. I’m scared right now, and I don’t feel very sensual. But I sure as hell want a world where I am the one who gets to decide when, how, and if I engage with my sexuality. Not some outside force. Nobody should get to decide that for me, and I will protect my right and your right to decide for ourselves.
Who or what do you want to protect?
Today when I learned of a COVID outbreak at our beloved community gathering, SizeCon, I decided to become a Mask Fairy from afar and ordered masks, Clorox wipes, and a HEPA air purifier to be sent to the organizers at the hotel.
I can’t always help out like that, but this time I could. It felt worth it to me because for every person masking up, that’s one less possibility of passing along COVID, especially for everyone traveling, and especially when asymptomatic cases represent at least 20-40% of all infections. I did this because I love this community and want to protect my people when I can.
If you’d like to support this mutual aid effort, I can take donations here (any extra over the cost of the supplies will be donated to SizeCon):
If you want to get involved by sharing masks in your local city, like how the LA Mask Bloc saved the day during the January wildfires, then this international resource will help you search for a Mask Bloc near you.
Who takes care of us? #WeTakeCareOfUs!
What I mean when I say “stay strong”
Please take care of yourselves, too, my loves. Rest when you can, fight when you can. Both are vital in this long-term struggle, and part of a cycle that long-term activists know well to reduce burnout.
The famous lesbian writer and activist Audre Lorde wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” Many people know this quote, but few people know that she came by this wisdom because she lived, survived, and even thrived with cancer for many years. Self care is revolutionary, especially when combined with community care.
Step up so others can rest. Step back so you can rest, too. We need everyone to stay strong, but that doesn’t always look like holding the front lines endlessly, every day, forever.
Be kind. Crank up the gratitude for those taking action, and show love to everyone you can, because you never know how close someone is to giving up.
Hold compassion as much as humanly possible for the ways we are all reverting to old patterns under stress and trauma, and need additional grace and support.
I can’t find the study my therapist gave me years ago (will update later if I can) but this knowledge has helped me a lot: Neurologically speaking, it literally takes fewer calories of effort for our brains to use old neural pathways, like the survival strategies we defaulted to in childhood that may not serve us as adults. It takes more mental effort and caloric energy to use the new patterns, communication tools, conflict resolution, and other healthier skills we’ve chosen for ourselves. So when you’re exhausted, your brain may try to shut down newer parts that take a lot of energy, and instead move back into the easier, well-practiced mindsets you had when you were younger. That’s one reason many of us are behaving terribly right now, even when we know we’re capable of better. So, take a beat, take a breath, ask who you want to be right now, and give yourself and others some grace.
De-escalate interpersonal conflict when you can, and share gratitude, food, face masks, money, time, energy, and your unique skills with everyone pushing hard right now.
Fight with the tools that are uniquely yours. — @RadicalEmprints
If your unique skills involve writing erotica and essay pep-talks to small niche communities online? Then that’s what you have to offer.
No one way works. It will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down. – Diane diPrima
Sometimes it’s filling a food pantry or baking bread to cheer up your favorite librarian or writing a story that brings pleasure and comfort to people you’ll never meet. Sometimes you’ll have the resources to print zines, donate masks to an event, or to give to a mutual aid fund. Sometimes you have the energy to march in a protest or call so many representatives that their phone lines threaten to melt. Sometimes all you can do is breathe.
Here’s the thing, though. All those things are needed to protect and build the world we need.
Strength comes in many forms, in ways large and small. Stay strong.
I thought I might wrap this up by sharing a quote from one of the wise people I featured in Sexual Brakes, Trauma, & Kink in the Burning 20’s. But I find that perhaps these words from my past self are resonating most for me now:
I want to hold space for everyone, and wish that I would always be able to show up in every way possible. But the world is burning. It’s okay for us to rest, to need help, and to ask for others to show up, too.
That’s what community is for, after all. Compassion is best when shared.
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