I'm doing something similar to what you did. I have a blog style/fetish site with around 20 articles and lots of sexy pics. It's been a year and a half and it's up to 600 uv with 15,000 page views.
This is with NO backlinks but tons of thorough keyword research. I got scared off with all the BL strategies going down the drain. It takes longer without the backlinks but it's still doable. I think a few high PR links are the way to go now, but that's just my take.
Hope that helps!
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