Greetings from Gnomedex
Technology blogger Susan Mernit mentioned this morning that she'll be quoting from my Rays of sunshine, rays of warmth post about blog hackers and stalkers in a talk called Sex & Longing & Web 2.0 this afternoon at Gnomedex, a large technology conference, this afternoon.
She'll also be quoting or linking to a number of other sex bloggers
Quotes from personal bloggers related to my Gnomedex talk
Figleaf: "As you know, one of my on-going themes is that the average sex blogger doesn't do anything the average non-sex/non-blogger does except admit it. One of the huge benefits of sex blogging, especially anonymous sex blogging, is that we learn from each other that we're not the only ones."
Magadalena: "I have absolutely no idea how many sexual blogs there are or what percentage of the 40.1 million sites Technorati currently tracks dedicate themselves to sexual content, but I would think it's pretty high."
Bliatz: "I wish I had the courage to turn this blog into my main outlet. I wish I had the guts to just write everything here, expose the whole picture and expose it all to everybody. I wish I didn't feel I had to hide something as natural and straight-forward as my sexuality and all the thoughts and emotions connected to that."
Evil Minx, commenting on Anastasia's Sexualitie blog (which was hacked): "It's the loss of freedom that gets me also. The sheer uninhibited joy of being able to write as the person behind my eyes is what has kept me going over the last year. "
Some of the blogs, videobloggers, web sites and podcasters I may reference:Real writers, cloaked identities
Unfurling My Sexuality --divorced and searching
Jefferson, One Life, Take Two --pervert and parent
Viviane--Viviane's Sex Carnival --bright and sexy
Freya-- Freya's House of Dreams --erotic wife
Always Aroused Girl- -erotic wife 2
Figleaf-- Real Adult Sex --wise guy
Rent Boy-- MonMouth --sex adventures
Bliatz --sex and identity
Girl with a one track mind--bright and searching
Erotica Lee 1--Memoir of a prostituted child, now adult
Coming Out at 48 --long married, coming into new lifeOpen for viewing(and making money from it...)
Violet Blue-- tiny nibbles
Adacia Ray-- Waking Vixen
Susie Bright-- Susie Bright's Journal
Bridgett Harrison -Ropelover JournalPodcasters:
Polyamory Weekly; Notes
Violet Blue-Open Source SexOuted/Hacked & related (examples)
Magdalena-Delta of Venus
MamaliciousBrand new blog, with issues
In My DNA
While it's flattering anytime someone quotes you, I *really* appreciate that she's bringing public attention to some of the issues around anonymity and privacy in the online world. As we learned last January, a lot of anonymous bloggers go dark because someone contacts them, threatens to out them, or just plain threatens them.
It's still happening, of course. The anonymous blogger, and extremely popular, Armando from the political blog DailyKos had to withdraw when he was outed by a gang of conservative journalists, and dozens of smaller bloggers of all stripes (including, of course, sex bloggers) wind up going dark because someone creepy starts drawing conclusions.
I'll have more to say once I hear her talk (Either in person if I can get in to the sold-out event or if I can catch a live feed of it online) but while I don't think she'll be talking much about security *directly* this is a good opportunity for me to bring up the main point of my Sunshine post: being outed as a blogger is almost always embarrassing, to say the least, but stalking, threatening, or blackmailing a blogger is almost always a criminal offense.
More later.
Wow, that's awesome. Can't wait to hear what she talked about.
[Hi AAG. It turns out the talk was more about how the heavily techie (and heavily male) audience thinks of internetworking in terms of exchanging ideas about technology and maybe politics, thousands or millions of people are using it to network about their relationships. The consensus view was that the guys there weren't really ready to talk about it but the women (maybe 10% of the audience) seemed perfectly comfortable discussing it. I may have a little more to say about *why* that was, but *that* is was was pretty incontestable. :-) Clue: While scarcely anyone raised their hand when she asked if anyone browsed sex or relationship sites, and while nobody seemed to be browsing the URLs she mentioned (I could see everyone's laptops from the back of the auditorium) I got a noticiable spike in traffic after her presentation ended. Susan did mention the issue of, for instance, site defacement and other hassles anonymous bloggers face but the audience was largely still in throat-clearing mode when the session ended. By the way, I do hope you get your blog sorted out, AAG. I miss you already. Take care. --fl]
yes - i'd love to see what she has to say. this is a scary issue and one i wish wasn't a problem. i watched your blog, and a number of others, for about a year before i managed to get up the nerve to start my own. if only the world was more accomodating - but.
[As I mentioned earlier her talk wasn't directly about anonymity and security but instead focused more on how anonymity lets people tell more of the truth about themselves. Still, I'm thinking about putting together another summary about blogging anonymously and, of course, I'll post it here. Thanks, A. --fl]
well, part of what i meant was that it's scary to anonymously tell the truth about yourself. one gets so used to not doing so. even if you're taking excellent precautions. i think it would have still taken me just as long to start the blog even if i'd known for sure that no one would ever know who i was. (hoorah for personal anecdotes, eh?)
[Yeah, I noticed it was kind of nerve wracking to say *anything* anonymously at first. Which might seem paradoxical since the whole point is that nobody knows who you are so you *ought* to be able to say anything, right? Except for me I kept thinking "what if someone figures it out" and, at first, that was more inhibiting than anything. And, to be honest, I didn't really find my voice till I sort of got over that. Once I decided that, well, it *could* happen I decided to post with as much integrity as I could -- not worrying so much that people would learn that I'd done X and figured out I must have done it with Y, but instead worrying that if I said, say, "oh I never have that problem" then people I know who learned it was me would say "oh yeah he does!" :-) Oh, by the way I'm really enjoying your posts, A. You're off to a good start. --fl]
Thanks for this good post, figleaf. AAG, I am a fan of your blog as well...and hope you keep writing.
[Thank you, Susan. I appreciated your talk today. It was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Enjoy your stay in the sunny (in the summer) Northwest. --fl]
thank you so much for the compliments! (i've been blushing a bit, i'll admit.)
not worrying so much that people would learn that I'd done X and figured out I must have done it with Y, but instead worrying that if I said, say, "oh I never have that problem" then people I know who learned it was me would say "oh yeah he does!" :-)
oh man, i hadn't even thought about that! great, something new for me to worry about! ;)
[Nyahh, don't worry about it. The best thing about it, though, is the more you try to just be yourself the more readers you'll tend to get and keep. And that naggy littly fear of an outing that keeps you honest also helps you be yourself. Thanks, A. --fl]
I dearly wish that people would read what is written before summing blog posts on blogs. Susan Mernit clearly didn't read the post she quoted from (in relation to my blog) and my blog wasn't hacked. So its a case of people reading what they like to read and ignore the remainder of a post.
[She can probably speak for herself about that. You have to admit Minx has a good point in her comment, even if her quote was put in a different context. Thanks, Anastasia. (Oh, also I corrected the typo you pointed to in your second comment.) --fl]
But if the post wasn't written Fig, then would there be a comment?
I don't think it's too much for people to link topics and/or mention them in some way.