"Live" Blog of Let's Talk About Sex
OK -- I'm over my dismay at losing a chunk of my live blogging due to all the connectivitiy problems we experienced at this year's conference.
Here is what's left of the material I typed into Word during yesterday's brilliant panel with Susie Bright, Melissa Gira, Logan Levkoff and Halley Suitt:
1:30 - 3:00 p.m.: 2. Let's Talk About Sex: Join Susie Bright, Melissa Gira, Logan Levkoff, Halley Suitt, and other blogging woman who prove: when it comes to talking sex online, women don't just like to watch!
Logan Levkoff introduced herself.
Melissa: I used to have a webcam site called beautifultoxin.net. Kicking off with a historical perspective. 28 years old has been blogging since 1999. You were just blogging about your life, not necessarily about sex or politics or whatever. So noticed at that time that most of the guys who were big name bloggers were not talking about sex, but the women were. All kinds of women - all have been part of the blogosphere since the beginning. Big question is how does that genre effect how we present ourselves online? what can we say? If I talk about politics but also use this graphic description are people going to take my politics less seriously?
We're not just talking about the dirty things you did last night, it's about the rest of your life and who you are.
Question to all of you: why are so many people secretive about their sex blog reading habits, writing hbabits? At last year's BlogHer, I was shocked that people told me they read me but would never put me on their blogroll? Identity management not just as a writer but a reader.
If you are not blogging about your sex life why aren’t you?
Susie: We had this rehearsal on the phone about what we were going to talk about I started as a writer and an underground journalist in the 70’s in high school at the height at the women’s liberation movement. I was having sex and we were using pot and we were publishing an underground newspaper. Interestingly, at that time, with the whole burgeoning women’s press there was publishing going on that said a woman could be intellectual, have a sexual appetite and also be the nurturer, the mom – all three, because the double standard is bullshit. Enough of the Madonna/whore thing because we are all both. And the whole origin of the word “sex work” as strippers, prostitutes, other professionals started appearing in small feminist publications. But we were not ubiquitous.
Yet there is something about blogging, for a woman blogger who has a personal blog, there is something normal about blogging about her sexuality and all her roles and nobody even blinks. It’s called real life. But we’ve never had our real life this big. But the mainstream media – they never see us. They think the Internet is about child predators. It’s a sex panic. It’s about that or it’s about getting laid. But that’s so minuscule in terms of what is actually going on. To think that there is not a place for us – we are firewalled and not safe for work.
An example: about how I noticed my body changing when I got pregnant. It was like a physical physiology lesson. I wrote this piece called "Egg Sex" that stated that the more I learned, the more I realized that orgasm was just preparation for childbirth. A lot of people loved it, but just as many people thought this was taboo. Just an honest appraisal about what happened to one woman. Women have no notion of being X-rated, but if they apply to Google Adsense, they are told they have no family values. People tell me they can’t read me at work. This is what happens frequently when being marginalized. I'm one of these people who’s all over the map. What’s interesting to me, is that if you want to discuss sex frankly or from a female point of view at all, you are going to face a backlash that’s discouraging and I want to know how some of you who are dealing with this are dealing with it.
Halley: I love what Susie’s been talking about and I’ll just step back and say that Im so stupid that I started blogging and I never saw any reason why not write day 1 about lasagna and day 2 about sex and then why not put them together and then why not start a business? That’s my introduction to my blog and my most peculiar life.
When I started in 2002 – what I really started writing about was my dad dying in a nursing home (really sexy shit, right?) I had that experience of wanting to understand who the hell men are because I was not able to figure it out, and particularly who the hell my dad was (because he was this big sexy alpha male) and that was something I had to write about, understand, forgive him and then watch him die. And I wrote that on my blog, got divorced and then started having sex with this myriad of people and then discovered I wasn’t supposed to do this. You know you have these programs that decide a porn site by how much pink is on it?
And now I’m a CEO and do I still write about sex? Uh Huh! I'm a CEO with a real life that I want to write about all over the board.
Logan: I'm a sexologist, sex educator - fairly new to blogging. Only recently became spokesperson for Elexa by Trojan and recently did a MySpace campaign where we had an opportunity to start a dialogue with young women and men about sexuality and sexual health. I want to share my positive and not so positive experiences.
It's always been positive - there are 15 year old girls who write that they have no access to information. Occasionally you are thrown for a little bit of a loop. This was part of the MySpace campaign and I see this very long post and I open it and it's a thread of 20 comments and the first thing is "Logan is" and sandwiched between "stupid" and "whore" is the c-word, and it's not very often that people just say that. it was because we were talking about condom usage and condom failure and safer sex and their problem was that I attributed condom failure to human error and that I said abstinence often failed. and this put them over the edge. In reaction, they questioned my credibility and they started to post to websites that were religious right sites. And it's not because I'm concerned about people who want to voice their opinions, but because people use the Internet for real information, and when the first thing that comes up in Google is a pro life site that says condoms don't work. I wonder what are our responsibilities? My purpose is not to lie or sell condoms but to give you the facts to make independent decisions for yourself.
When you write about sex, realize that people read you and pay attention - what are your responsibilties to give them the facts?
(INTERNET WENT DOWN - LOST A PORTION OF THE DISCUSSION)
Audience Member: Why aren’t we talking about sex? Unless you’re talking about masturbation, you are talking about other people as well. And if you’re a mommy blogger, it’s one thing to talk about your kids’ potty training or that your husband’s cock turns to the left.
Melissa: Like everything else, start with masturbation first and then work your way up. (LAUGHTER). There are ways to talk about your sex life in veiled ways that may work for you. There are people who have secret sex blogs (I would love to have the Technorati Top 100 Secret Sex Blog List) unless you’re totally passionate about the angle of your husband’s cock, what’s it doing on your blog? In terms of working with other people’s identity, it hasn’t come up because none of my partners ever read my blog. There’s different ways to manage it and play with different ways of cover. I find it really boring with people who always tlak about what they did last night. What’s interesting is the humanity of it.
Susie: I’m glad you brought that up. When you are single and slutty, it’s easy to blog about it. But when you’re married, everyone knows who you are talking about. One of the advantages of being old is that you can blog about things that happened in the past and nobody knows who you’re talking about.
When you have a kid of 10 or older it’s all over. They get embarrassed, they don’t want to know. It’s interesting because once you’re very out – I can only go in by creating a completely separate persona. That’s out, but I am envious sometimes when I read other people’s blogs who are allowed more candor because they are anonymous. And I allow my commenters to be anonymous because after all, they are dealing with some cutting edge issues.
Audience: I don’t do sex blogging and I’m not going to, although I have been involved in sex education and communities since before the Internet. One of the things we talk about is providing a safe place for people to talk about sex. It’s a deeply personal issue. It’s off putting and a little scary. And when you hear people say why aren’t you blogging about sex – when I think of all the time I spent doing this – I don’t talk about my sex life except to the extent that I have to offer something first to put people in a safe place. People who need the anonymity of the Internet most aren’t there yet. The people who are here have made a huge leap already. But the people who need the most help really need a safe place. And sometimes making it too much a crusade scares people off.
Logan: I don’t think the idea is why isn’t everyone doing it, but that everyone can if they want to. One of the things I can share with you is that one of the things that one woman shared was that she goes down on her boyfriend but he doesn’t do that to her because he doesn’t like the way she smells. One of the amazing things is that once you create these spaces, you give them the opportunity to get help and advice and that’s why these communities do thrive.
Melissa: Community outreach and activism. Educational workshops. I also do that kind of work with clients. When it comes to blogging it feels like this is one of the topics, sex and kids and the way they are interrelated and the way they relate to women – it’s about control of women, not sex. When women show up, we seem to bring sex. Why is it that we’re thought to be the sexy ones? Why is it left off the table?
Audience (Susan Mernit - Sex & Relationship editor at BlogHer): Part of the power of sex blogging isn’t that people choose to reveal their real world identity but because of the community. I began reading these blogs after my divorce and saw the diverse voices. Incredible sharing going on. Gave a talk on this topic at Gnomedex – it was terrifying because it was a room full of men and they were so embarrassed they would not say a word. But at the same time, all these men came up to me afterwards to tell me privately that they loved it, but they could not talk about it in public.
They would not contribute to it when asked, but they could not admit they looked at breasts on Flickr. The point to make is that I don’t really know a lot of people who are writing about sex unless it is part of their business. No reason to beat yourself up if you’re not out with your sex writing – it is no less authentic. Like Halley said, not to be shy. This is something to be proud of, because we are sharing our own personal stories.
Audience: Wanted to address the tidea that most of the sexual blogging is by women. Gay men blog really effectively about sex, politics, a wonderful combination of all those things. My personal blog is a strange combination of sex, politics and dogs. A lot of people come to me and probably don’t know I’m a lesbian.
Reminded Susie bright of a film festival in San Francisco when they met. Thinks it is really possible to write about all these things, be funny, be smart – blog in a really sassy manner about the really male political blogs. Shouldn’t write stuff that makes us uncomfortable – sometimes you just have to push the line and put yourself out there as a completely full person and just say “fuck them.” There’s been a lot of people who make negative comments about the use of profanity at this conference. I’ve had people tell me I’m so foul mouthed and I say, well I am – it’s true.
Logan: One of the things our society has a problem with is understanding what sexuality means. Because at the end of the day it’s not about positions or frequency – it’s so much bigger than the actual act of sex. We are always talking about our sexuality, it’s just not always explicit.
Question for Melissa: about Trojan and nonoxynol 9.
Melissa: – Nonoxynol 9 is essentially a detergent that irritates the inside of your cunt or related organs. As an aside, last year I went to the obscenity session thinking it would be about sex and it was all the moms getting flak for using profanity on their blogs!
About nonoxynol-9 – at my clinic we don’t distribute this.
Logan: The Elexa condoms don’t have it in them.
Audience: As an aside – My husband was at Gnomdex and he commented at your talk and he was disappointed that no one else would rise up to the discussion. (LAUGHTER)
Regarding sex in a family environment – I was raised in a conservative environment, it was dirty and bad so save it for the one you love when you get married. Anyway, my husband is very gracious about what I blog about and we’ve had discussions because we’ve had lots of sexual healing between us. I want to blog about something that has happened, but how do I do this in a way that won’t kick me in the ass later? My kids are young but I want them to grow up with the feeling that sex is a positive thing (that’s my baggage showing up). I’m a very frank blogger – it’s challenging, but I concur it’s difficult to figure that out.
(UNFORTUNATELY, THE REST OF THE DISCUSSION WAS LOST. MY APOLOGIES TO ALL THE PARTICIPANTS.)
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