If you follow a sex blogger or sex toy company on social media, you’ve probably seen more than one giveaway post inviting you to enter and share in hopes of winning a beloved product. These giveaways are frequently done in collaboration between bloggers and companies – often to celebrate milestones like a blogger’s writing anniversary – and are mutually beneficial because they build and reward both parties’ audiences.

Being a baby blogger, I haven’t co-hosted a giveaway yet, but I’ve participated on the hopeful entrant side, lusting after blogger beloveds like the We-Vibe Tango and Njoy Pure Wand. And last week, to my complete and utter shock, I won an VixSkin Mustang from Betty’s Toy Box in Toy Meets Girl’s 5 year blog anniversary giveaway.

Yeah, seriously. A Tie-Bright Vixskin Mustang! $120-$150 of multicolored, skin-soft silicone with a rigid core for function and realism. One of the most – if not the most – desired dildos among body-safe cock connoisseurs. A silicone dick so immediately enamoring I had barely gotten it out of its packaging before I needed to blow it.

I actually don’t enter giveaways all that often because I don’t consider myself an especially lucky person, and growing up in and living in poverty until very, very recently caused me to internalize the belief that I don’t deserve nice things even if I receive them though happenstance. Hell, receiving products to review from the amazing companies who have seen potential in my voice has made me itchy with freeloader-flavored impostor syndrome, because while I recognize it’s in exchange for my labor, my labor’s always been undervalued everywhere else. The gratitude I feel is often overwhelmed by intense guilt, like I’ve somehow pulled a con.

I’m working on it.

But I guess I wanted to talk about it because I feel so much about it. About winning something myself, but also about how significant it is that I see giveaways on my Twitter timeline daily, because gifting things is seen as a positive and beneficial thing. A way for everyone to win, including the companies and bloggers who also benefit through amassing a larger (and more endeared) audience.

In other spaces I’ve been in, the idea of celebrating – and especially of giving things away for free, even when it’s obviously great exposure for all involved – would be sneered at. I reviewed comics on and off for several years, and most major publishers had an aggressively negative attitude towards bloggers, reviewers, and even readers, despite obviously needing all three. It was such a hostile environment I eventually stepped away altogether because it made me ill with anxiety to be constantly punished by an industry I loved. I haven’t read a comic since.

So it’s surreal to me to see bloggers being celebrated by the companies they work with. It’s surreal to see businesses recognizing the goodwill and attention they can generate by giving away products. It’s surreal to me that the same readers who give bloggers a platform in the first place are rewarded for their engagement with the chance to own things they might not be able to acquire otherwise. It’s surreal to have my Mustang sitting on the kitchen table beside me as I write this because I’ve been reading Dizzy’s blog for months and she and Betty’s Tox Box decided that was worth celebrating right along with Dizzy’s milestone.

I’m not going to forget the care package Blush Novelties sent me back in March. I’m not going to stop feeling faint with appreciation over the products I receive to review, either, and the companies behind them that take the risk on me. I still struggle not to cry like it’s Christmas every time I get a package, and sometimes I can’t stop myself. Last year I had never owned a silicone toy despite avidly reading every sex toy blog I could find – today I get to share my thoughts on them, thoughts that might be read by folks who are in the same position I was. Who might be saving up like I did, or who might get lucky in a giveaway and win something they could never afford. Just because they’re here. Just because bloggers and companies know they’re here.

And I am so, so fucking grateful to be here too.

Thank you again to Dizzy and Betty’s Toy Box for bringing this fantastic dildo into my life and indirectly gifting me with really great, gender-affirming sex.. because holy shit this thing feels like an actual dick but the color doesn’t give me envy-based dysphoria. If anyone reading this doesn’t already follow Dizzy and Betty’s on Twitter, what are you waiting for?