Today Zoe Margolis spoke at the Mumsnet Blogfest (a blogging conference organised by the parenting forum Mumsnet) I couldn’t attend the conference but when I logged onto the PC this evening I saw Zoe talking about the fact that she and her blog had been called “the blogging equivalent of flashing in the park”, not by a member of the audience but by the chair of the panel she was contributing to.
Host just referred to @girlonetrack as “the blogging equivalent of flashing in the park”
— The Vagenda Team (@VagendaMagazine) November 10, 2012
For everyone at Mumsnet who is confused about the difference between a sex blogger and a flasher here is a quick summary:
A flasher does not ask your consent, they force you to see them. Â A sex blogger writes online about sex, factual, fiction or somewhere in between. Â They are not forcing you to read. Â You get to choose.
Consent is key to much of the content that sex bloggers’ write about. Â Choosing who to have or not have sex with, how, when and where they do or don’t have sex. Â Sex bloggers’ choose. Â Flashers force.
Moreover, as Jemima pointed out, to dismiss someone with such a comparison negates and undermines not only their work but the experience of those people that are the victims of flashers.
@Eroticon @vagendamagazine @girlonetrack and dismissing the experience of women who have been flashed at, some find it v traumatic
— Jemima (@itsjustahobby)
This evening I took to Twitter and asked the sex bloggers to complete the phrase #sexbloggersare, so here from sex bloggers and their readers are some of the things that #sexbloggersare:
#sexbloggersare not always who you suspect would be. — Scarlet (@ScarletRoseFox) November 10, 2012
#sexbloggersare Smarter than most — Signs (@DomSigns) November 10, 2012
#sexbloggersare Talented — Marie Rebelle (@RebelsNotes) November 10, 2012
#sexbloggersare prone to creating some of the web’s most exciting, titillating and moreish content. Fans of quality sex blogging unite! — Festival Erotic Arts (@eroticarts) November 10, 2012
#sexbloggersare removing a lot of the unnecessary shame and stigma around sex in it’s many forms.
— Bunny White (@BurlesqueBun) November 10, 2012
In fact sex bloggers are like other bloggers, people, with feelings. Â The only difference is the content. Â All bloggers are somewhat self-indulgent, we like to write about our interests and ideas, the difference with sex bloggers is that with our content comes respect and openness. Â We know not everyone wants to read what we write, we know that sometimes what we write will challenge assumptions and possibly butt up against someone else’s view of the world. Â But we aren’t writing to upset you, or to force you to think the same as us, to fuck the same as us. Â We aren’t writing to shame you, we know you and your version of sexuality is sacred to you, just as ours is to us.
So next time  you want to insult a sex blogger, or get a cheap laugh, please stop and think about what you are saying and how you say it, because #sexbloggersare standing up for ourselves.
Nicely summarised. Potentially an innocent mix-up in which the speaker mistook exhibitionism that sex blogging can at times be seen as in their choice of the flasher allusion. However, I think that this is a misguided comment, especially coming from the host of this event.
#sexbloggersare an easy target for some who should think before they speak.
LadyP
Great post, and hopefully the difference between a flasher and a sex blogger becomes clear. A flasher is a coward, preying on others. A sex blogger is brave, trying to bring the positive side of sex out there.
#sexbloggersare are real people with real lives and real feelings too.
Rebel xox
If sex boggers are flashers, what are food bloggers? Force feeders?
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Well, why are we surprised. This is in the same tradition as the establishment calling D.H. Lawrence a pornographer. It reflects the ignorance of the speaker, and says nothing of any substance or value about the topic. In it is the subtextual validation for the ‘proper’ order of things, where out of touch publishers get to determine what is ‘fit news’ for the rest of us to read and who is worthy enough to express themselves in the public sphere.
What it really comes off as are the remarks of someone who is not coping all that well with the contemporary world (where the decision as to what is worthy of airing in the public sphere is now left up to readers instead of some privileged white guys in a fucking boardroom).
I suspect, with the massive success of FSOG, you are going to see a lot more people like this come out of the woodwork and claim the civilized world is coming to an end. They’ve spent their whole lives negotiating two realities – a public, surface world of power-imposed order, and a secret, repressed world of what really goes on in people’s lives. The idea that those two worlds might merge in the light scares the living shit out of them.
When someone insults another person’s writing in that way, they have a vested interest in shutting other people up. The question is ‘why’?
The answer… is usually because they fear it makes them look terribly uninteresting in comparison.
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