■ I’m Maxim. Fractional communications manager and I only work with sexual wellness brands.

■ I run the words: social, editorial, email, media and the message sitting underneath it all. Not as a freelancer you brief and re-brief. The person who holds the voice, so you’re approving work instead of rewriting it.

■ Around then, I lived somewhere queerness ran underground. People dancing in rooms carved out of a city that wanted us invisible. Freedom you could get arrested for. Language was the difference between being found and being caught. Now I write with the lights on.

■ Your brand is asking someone to be honest with themselves. The least it can do is go first.

■ I started Tongue because this category keeps getting written by people who need a glossary first. Hire a generalist and you end up teaching your own market to the person you hired to explain it. So: no meeting about what a kink is. No explaining why silicone lube ruins silicone toys. No email from me asking if we can say vulva. 

skin in the game.

■ Before this, five years across PR, talent and change communications. I've written the holding statement, pitched the lifestyle editor and briefed the creator. Mostly I've taken language that was scared of itself and made it sound like a person.

■ Shame isn’t built by products. It’s built by language. The kink someone can’t say to a partner. The search they make in a private tab. The thing they assume is only them. Change the words and you change what people believe they’re allowed to want.