Author: admin

The man knows his latex! I entered Lust, Love & Latex with trepidation, expecting to see something raunchy and very adult – which is is, but the site is professionally maintained (it’s not filled with latex porn as I was fearing) and is a great jumping board for those interested in the latex fetish or simply those wanting to buy something sexy and rubber. The design of the site is effectively sexy without being over the top. It’s a very talented coder who can make a concept such as this work well online.

The site started in mid-September last year and has a wealth of information about latex and the life of the writer, a man who wears the stuff (and loves it with a passion). To be more specific, it’s about one man’s attempt to come to terms with the fetish and help his wife come to terms with the fact that her husband is a latex fetishist. Needless to say, it makes for interesting reading.

3xL – three Ls which refer to Lust, Love & Latex and not the man’s actual body size – is an extremely intriguing individual and he writes with clarity. It’s obvious that he knows what he wants to achieve. The blog doesn’t deviate much at all from it’s original purpose of discussing 3xL’s relationship with his wife and life with rubber and when it does, it’s simply to promote other latex fetishist bloggers and sources where one can procure the latest in rubber finery. There’s also a gallery you can sign up to view all manner of latex-type pictures if you’re interested.

All in all, if you like latex, or even if you think you don’t, go visit 3xL and his world of rubber. You’ll be surprised and maybe even tempted. Heck, even I was tempted to purchase a few bits and pieces for myself, he makes it sound like fun. A very impressed 4.5/5 for Lust, Love & Latex.


(Note to those who read the sites reviewed on TheWeblogReview.com at work – due to some of the pictures onsite, this is not a work-safe blog, so save it ’til you get home.)3xL : Lust, Love & Latex!

Pirate Cafe is a new weblog, dating back only to the beginning of July, but wow, there’s a lot to be getting through.

Unfortunately, there’s no logical introduction to the site, no “about” page, which is a shame, because this is a blog by a girl with a real story to tell. From what I can make out, the narrator, going by the name of pirate-tron, is in her twenties, has a boyfriend and works as a teacher.

From such a generalisation, however, the blog streams forth with witty and interesting opinion pieces. For example, read about the writer’s introduction to small-town sex parties in a very well-crafted tale on July 27th. Or go further back, and read of one of her experiences with an inept co-worker.

There are many types of entry, too. Aside from the longer comments, which are what I found to be the highlight of the site, you’ll also find a smattering of illustrated recipes, poems and shorter, personal updates. Pirate-tron is politically-minded, but not overbearingly so, and represents an interesting and interested minority in America that feels alienated by George W. Bush’s presidency (perhaps not so small a minority).

On the left hand side of the site, accompanying the scant internal navigation (a few archive links) are external links to sites of interest, and a nifty message board. I think the board is a great idea, especially having it on the front page, and not hidden away from the majority of everyday visitors.

Unfortunately the design, on the whole, is generic and doesn’t fit the length of most entries (a lighter background, better word and line-spacing would help readability), though it isn’t intrusive and the site is quick to load.

I foresee a strong future for Pirate Cafe. I will be following the narrator’s search for land with interest, and hope that I won’t be alone in doing so.

pirate cafe

Ho-Hum…thought I as I dropped by ‘Come Back to What you Know…’. Visually it was a very standard blogger template. Fortunately blogging is more about the content. So… in I went.

Written by Jae. This was a curious read indeed. Jae has numerous suicidal references and has some complex issues dealing with being gay, homophobia and how society treats him in general. The more I read the more I empathized with, what must be, the daily ostracization he much feel. It comes across strongly in his blog:

“Why do I dwell on this? Because I fear these people. They threaten my way of life each and every day. See here. maybe it is my messed up mind, but really I want to go hide in a gay ghetto somewhere and never come back out. Most straight people confuse me and I really am unable to comprehend them.

Gay rights are nearly secured. But gay culture? We are still attacked on the street. People still use the old “I thought he fancied me so I killed him, doused him in petrol, throw him in a river and then danced on his grave” excuse to get off almost scot free in homophobic trials. How can we just sit around and say “Thing are getting better”. On paper yes. In real life? No.

So I have decided. Whenever anyone asks me: Have you got a girlfriend? I won’t say no, as I normally do. I’ll say no, I have a boyfriend. When people are homophobic, I shan’t sit back and silently curse them. I shall question them. Interrogate them. And if they hurt me? So what?!

Time to put my money where my mouth is.” This was clearly one of his better entries where his emotion and feelings and reasoning all came across quite well. It must be strange living when you may suddenly have to hide your identity: “My mum and Debbie made an unexpected visit today. I had to hurriedly de-gay my room (not fun!!!!). “. When I first read ‘de-gay’ his room I thought the term was rather funny… but after reading the whole blog… I now find it rather sad for someone to have to hide any part of their identity in the so-called closet.


The numerous references to suicide, depression and darkness reoccur quite often:

“1p.m. that Thursday I took a MASSIVE overdose of various pills in an attempted suicide attempt.” or ” It was getting late I was tired slightly suicidal as I missed my family and friends so I stopped in Florence” or “But I am going to kill myself. That is now the only option. I want to apologise to everyone I have hurt ever. To everyone I have lied to (I only wanted to seem more exciting and normal). I want to say that I miss everyone family, friends and flatmates. I am so alone. I have 95 euros left once thse are used up I am going to commit suicide. Goodbye. God Bless. Good Luck.”

Overall the entries vary from being deeply personal and engaging to ‘what-I-did-today’ entries. The writing is rather witty at times and the author writes as if talking to a friend. “come back to what you know” is something a lot of people would benefit from reading. Homophobia has real casualties and this blog demonstrates it in painful detail.

I had some strange issue with my browser only being able to scroll down as far as the left column extended down – which truncated each month to about 5-7 entries. This should be looked at. One last entry:

”They had me sussed as being gay in seconds and were chuffed when I freely admitted it. It earnt me their respect for having the balls to say “Yes I’m gay”.

For whatever it is worth, you have my respect too. Cheers!

come back to what you know

When you first visit wars of compassion(woc), you can’t help but notice how simple and clean it looks. Empty, in a way, devoid of frills and decorations. Minimalism at its height. Some might find it a sign of the blogger’s incompetency or laziness, but others might, like me, find it refreshing.

woc is not your typical personal blog. There are less things-that-happened and more personal opinions and thoughts on a wide spectrum of things, from The War to music to sex. Another big distinction is that Ryan writes every entry like an essay by itself. He uses a more extensive vocabulary than most bloggers under the ‘personal’ category do, and the effect is at once stiff and formal, and also coherent and charming. The winning point of woc lies in the subtle, sometimes heavily veiled sarcasm and slight exaggerations of Ryan’s entries. He is a little quirky, he is straight-faced deadpan, he is cheeky in a sophisticated way. Occasionally there are pictures that may be related, some quite mysteriously, to the entries. Ryan never captions them. They make a nice distraction on the otherwise barren site, though.

As mentioned, the design of woc is bare, simple black and white. Even the title is just the three words spelled out in plain black font. The archives are located at the bottom of the page, along with a total of three links and a tagboard.

woc is not for everybody, certainly not for those wanting to take a glimpse into a person’s everyday life. It is good, intelligent reading, however, and will bring a chuckle or two.

wars of compassion

Messy, messy, messy. Informative, but messy. This “blogmanac” covers various items world-wide. The huge, and I mean huge, header section on the site basically says hello and asks you to be patient – and even on DSL you have to be patient. It was a good three or four minutes before the site loaded up for me and I shudder to think how long it would have taken if I’d been at home on my dial-up connection.

The content of the blog is provided by four people, and they do a good job of finding very interesting links (I did take the opportunity to check out a couple that caught my eye). The news items described on the site range from points of interest to political articles and the links are sourced from a wide range of websites and do not soley focus on main news groups like CNN, BBC, etc. My favourites were those about mythology and culture. There is also a large number indepth entries detailing the writers’ opinions of the links along with some extra information to tempt the reader into going to have a look at the link.

It really is a site that has lots to offer those who are bored or looking for something interesting to read during their coffee break – and it was during these times that I perused the site and the links. There’s lots of ground to cover and it’s updated several times a day, so you’re bound to see new things all the time.

Having said that, I personally feel that the site is poorly designed and would do a heck of a lot better on it’s own server using something like Movable Type, Greymatter or one of the plethora of personal publishing tools out on the web these days or organise it’s content. Wilson’s Blogmanac