Goodbye Edenfantasys, and Good Riddance!

I should have seen this coming....well, to be honest, I kind of did.

Late last year, I discovered Edenfantasys through my own research after AOL posted an article about a woman who was paid to review sex toys. After doing very thorough research I found a website that offered alot of benefits for contributing members and decided to sign up.Though it wasn't what I originally was looking for, through my search results it was the closest thing and looked like an amazing opportunity. From day one I fell in love with the site but would soon discover it was all smoke and mirrors.

Here I discovered the amazing world of sex toy reviewers. The community of EF was just overwhelmingly supportive, helpful, creative, and just plain awesome. Here you could be your own little sexy self and have the opportunity to test sex toys, review them, and earn benefits. At that time I was really a newbie to sex toys but being that the community was just so damn awesome I wasn't intimidated, I was encouraged, helped along the way, and super excited. After a while I built up a profile with a staggering amount of articles and a hefty amount of reviews and all was well in the  world. I enjoyed writing and I'll admit I'm no pro but it was still a ton of fun. After a couple of months however I started to learn things I didn't like.

I'd noticed several high profile reviewers' profiles on the site but with no activity and I thought to myself, why would anyone leave EF? EF is just too perfect of a score for someone to leave! My brain couldn't wrap around it. Shortly after I discovered there was some back stories about EF and the way they actually operated was more or less on an unethical standard. Upon more research I started to learn names. Most notably I think the most heard of person and also most shushed name on the EF website was Epiphora. I learned her back story with EF and was completely floored. But like most people who stick with EF you turn your cheek and say well that's just not the EF I know.

After several months on EF I started to notice alot of grey area. It was like staring into the matrix. You don't know what's real and what's not. People start bringing up certain things and admins start hushing them. Even higher rated reviewer started getting in on the secrecy and it was very, very unsettling. People start fighting and picking sides. I thought we were all on the same side. How naive was I? I witnessed a falling out that ended with a couple of really talented reviewers being banned. Beck & Kira. And me being both curious and concerned I reached out only to learn yet another back story that was just coming to light within the community. Some knew about these stories, usually the one's who've been there the longer do, but most abashed away from them or joined in on the secrecy.

My EF fantasy was starting to slip away.
I won't go into detail about the reviewers I've talked about so far but if you wish to learn more their blogs are mighty helpful and also full of warnings that I begrudingly ignored.

Not long after, the beautiful facade of Edenfantasys started to chip away piece by piece. The atmosphere started to unveil itself in a haze of secrecy, fakeness, an tension. It seemed like everyone was trying to be on their p's & q's in fear of losing their benefits, and high profilers and admins seemed to be trying to hard to be overly nice and hide their misery. It stunk of fakeness. It boiled over with tension and I was no longer as happy as I was on day one.

Being with EF I managed to make alot of money actually, even though I didn't really see how I could without promoting a blog, I managed to roll in some much needed dough here and there and that was the driving force for why I stayed. Even though I could see through the charades the benefits were outweighing the bad for the time being. Riots became every increasingly possible but most were nipped in the bud before they started courtesy of censorships that were strongly implemented by many admins. Changes started happening left and right and most of them seemed to be very good because they meant reviewers had more benefits. It started to look like the site just might get through some dark times and we'd be happy, productive little workers. Ha! Until shit hit the fan!

The first huge announcement was the removal of the free review program. It was announced that a strong implement of changes were coming and they would be good ones. The toys we got were free once a month and that would change. This wasn't as devastating to alot of us but it was unfotunate.

Not long after we got a huge awakening. All of a sudden the admins were rolled into one little phone call and fired. No warning to them or to the community. There was a riot. And a very, very nasty one indeed. Not only were the employees and community shocked (though some admins probably felt it coming before we did) rumors started popping up left and right all over the EF forums and the twitter and blogging communities. It was no time at all before these little rumors were found to be nasty truths. The owner of EF addressed the mass firings and rumors as false and the firings were for productive reasons. Though, unbeknowest to him their phone call was recorded and leaked for the world to hear the real reason was for a massive decline in funds and the company was sinking. Fred then took to the community ts again debunk the validity of any claims and that was that. But, it was already too late for the community. The mass firings set some things in motion and what happened a couple of days ago was the straw that broke the camels back. He removed our benefits.

Now, our points will only cover 15% of our purchases. Before we could earn our points and redeem them for the whole order, and now our points are 85% worthless. What we all worked hard for and were promised was taken away so quick you couldn't bat your eyes.

Alot of us prized our points. Alot of us can't afford the prices on EF for toys. Alot of us rely on those points to even have something to review. Now we would have to purchase our toys with a mere 15% discount (essentially that's all the points really offer as of this new rule) to review for their site where they are the beneficiaries for our hard work. It is a slap in the face. And to make matters worse this new little rule was our own doing. Fred pointed out we were abusing the points. Um....excuse me? We were WORKING for those points. He changed the point system so it would benefit both the site and the contributer. How are we abusing the points if you're offering us them on an awards based system. And why should we all suffer for the acts of those who actually abuse the system. Also, how do you expect to monitor these abusers if you FIRED YOUR STAFF?? (Which to my understanding is the second mass firing he's done.)

In my eyes the only one who's really abusing the website is Fred himself. He had a wonderful staff, though there was alot of secrecy and covering up I can understand doing what you need to do to keep your job and make your boss happy so I don't blame them directly. He let them go. He had a team working on making a better community and preventing point farming. He let them go. He raised the amounts of points our reviews would recieve which for a short time made us feel that we were worth alot to him. He showed us other wise. We are worth 15% to him. The people who feed his site with purchases, reviews, website activity, blogs, and praise, are worth 85% less to him than we were just last week. Well, Fred, good riddance.

Leaving EF is not an easy thing to do. There is NO site like EF was. Was. EF used to be an awesome site and the benefits were absolutely amazing. There is no other site that offered what EF used to offer and you feel like you're left in the smoke after your house just burnt to the ground. Where do you pick up from here? Well, I suppose we just have to accept we won't get it all back but maybe we can still do something. Sure, there are a few companies that have reviewers but they aren't like EF used to be. The points are low and only a small few send free toys, unless of course you're a big name reviewer. Where do the little people go? There's alot that changes when you finally leave but the weight off of the shoulders is really an amazing feeling. And now that I'm leaving, I won't be looking back.

Anyone leaving, I strongly suggest you go check out Epiphora's blog. She's posted some amazing information for life after Eden.

I'm not a very active blogger for the time being but I will be posting here and there. Especially now that Eden if officially off of my roster I won't have near as new items to review. But I won't leave my blog to sit without any content and since I have a pretty large box of toys I should be able to muster up plenty of reviews when I get some free time =)

Thanks for reading & GL!

<3

update

Things have been going busy for me at the moment at home, so blog has been slowing down like I previously mentioned it would. But I will have a review coming out later for a toy I've wanted for what seems like forever. look out for it in the near future!