the ch!cktionary

    9 Feb 2011

    I’m Not Scared Of Your Slut-Shaming (And Neither Are My Readers)

    I appreciate that you guys are being so supportive (and hilariously defiant) in the face of the bullying being directed at readers of my blog. There ARE a lot of employers, parents, whathaveyou who will be understanding and realize immediately that the type of stuff being written is a malicious attempt at intimidating me into silence. Of course, there may also be those who are less understanding or simply don’t know what “trolling” is like and for that reason, I won’t take it personally if people start commenting anonymously on the site. (In fact, I encourage this.) And those of you who have written to tell me that you’re super sorry but will be cheering for me silently/from afar/off-line, I totally get it. I wouldn’t wish this creepy stalking on my worst enemy and I certainly won’t hold it against any readers who want to minimize the attention to them. (To those I haven’t responded to yet, give me a week until I’m back in Boston and back to a regular Internet connection.)

    At this point, I can’t even send out a Tweet mentioning that I met a friend without someone finding said friend’s name and publishing it on my hate blog, which I refuse to link to. (And I would highly recommend that you do NOT go around trying to find it, lest your click leads to this site rising in my search results.) So I don’t really know what I’m going to do exactly, since the majority of my career is online … though as my haters will tell you, I’m actually unemployed! Yeah, I apparently don’t have a career. Just stealing other people’s bylines and making up speaking dates!

    Why my stalkers are willfully ignoring the truth is anybody’s guess, but I suspect that it’s because they’re very, very displeased that I fucked around, blogged about it, and emerged (relatively) unscathed. They predicted that I’d never graduate from Harvard, and I did. They predicted that I would never be able to get hired upon graduation, and I did. They predicted that my boyfriend would leave me after getting tired of my “gaping” and “diseased” “cunt”, and three years later, we’re still together. Fallen woman I am not, and that infuriates the living fuck out of these people. Because in their eyes, I should’ve been punished for talking openly about my sex life. I should have gotten my comeupannce. Slut had it coming! And so do her readers! And friends! And boyfriend! Well, guess what? This slut broke every single rule, didn’t get her life ruined, and realized that there’s not so much to be afraid of in the Big Bad World after all. There’s nothing that scares me anymore, least of all a shitty little Blogspot page whose primary mission consists of speculation about the contents of my credit card bill.

    25 Jan 2011

    Cyber-Bullying & Slut-Shaming: A Cautionary Tale

    A lot of you guys are understandably upset, because someone out there is trying to punish you for following a blog that happens to talk about sex and feminism. Trust me, I hear ya. I’ve been feeling slut-shamed and bullied and attacked for years, and what kept me going through all of that were the kind comments and messages that I received from the same type of people who are now being targeted. So I really, really appreciate that there are so many of you being supportive of me and of each other. (Just look at all the folks volunteering for my “skank-army” in my preceding posts!) That said, I don’t expect anyone to be a martyr, and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with displaying your support anonymously.

    If I had the choice two and a half years ago to keep my boyfriend’s identity hidden, then his life and our lives would be a lot easier today. That choice was taken from us, because he was outed on JuicyCampus, and due to that incident (as well as several incidents targeting my friends from college), I decided to stop blogging on SexAndTheIvy.com. When I started this blog, there was a marked difference in content. I mention Patrick and my friends in a purely superficial way, and most of my writing is about feminism. When I write about sexuality, I do so in an academic manner and don’t relate it to my personal life. I make a purposeful effort nowadays to not write anything even remotely intimate about any of my relationships.

    I present the above as a cautionary tale. While I wouldn’t have the life and career I have now if I hadn’t experienced the trial-by-fire that is Internet harassment, I wish I could have spared myself the stress and anxiety that resulted from writing publicly about my life. As Tiger Beatdown’s Sady Doyle wrote in response to this debacle:

    Before I moved to New York, I made a point of asking a lot of people from New York how to keep myself safe there, what to do and what not to do on the street. They should give girls these tutorials before they move to the Internet. Because it sucks to change your behavior in response to someone else’s bullying, but sometimes, out here where the basics of self-defense are still being worked out, it seems particularly harsh to figure all of these things out on your own.

    And by the way, because Sady wrote the above, she was called a “dumb cunt” on an Internet forum where a lot of this harassment is taking place. In the same forum, the female readers who “liked” my post were identified by name and called “cum-guzzling ho”, “whore”, “slut”, and “skank”. The male readers were accused of having Asian fetishes and wanting to fuck me. I’m not linking to any of the above for obvious reasons. While some of you have asserted that you will continue to put your name on comments on this blog, I think it’s hard to predict how you’ll react if you’re targeted, even if you know of the potential consequences ahead of time. (I do appreciate the sentiment, though.) I was very lucky that I encountered an understanding employer and that I now work with progressive publications, but it would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that online bullying campaigns can cause problems in your professional life. (In the most extreme cases, it can force you to leave your job, as Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan did.) And even if your boss doesn’t find out, no one likes to read cruel remarks about themselves, even if they know they’re untrue.

    When I say that you shouldn’t demonstrate a modicum of support for this blog unless you are absolutely prepared to deal with being anonymously attacked, I’m not making an understatement. And I’m not writing various frantic blog posts about it because I’m Such A Selfless Blogger!, but because when this type of stuff happened to my roommates and friends and boyfriend and people I knew in real life and really cared about … well, I didn’t have any warning, and neither did they, and it frankly sucked. Of course, we deserve to exercise our right to free speech without fear that someone out there is going to republish the contents of our LinkedIn profile, take a bunch of made-up and out-of-context quotes, and paste our name all over it in hopes that this will prevent us from one day getting a job. I shouldn’t be receiving anonymous emails informing me of my home address. Patrick shouldn’t get emails calling him a rapist. There shouldn’t be an entire blog devoted to misrepresenting every post that goes up on my website.

    Unfortunately, we currently live in a society where the above can and does happen. But at some point, law will catch up with technology, and the Internet is going to cease being a Wild Wild West. (JuicyCampus, for one, no longer exists. Vindictiveness and cruelty apparently don’t constitute a viable long-term business strategy.) Until the scum of the net are wiped out, take heart in the fact that your online bullies know they’re fighting a losing battle. They’re willing to out you for what you support and believe, but they’re not willing to out themselves. They know their actions are wrong, and they know that there is no shortage of people willing to tell them that if they were to reveal themselves. So they cower behind a keyboard and fall back on the same old hackneyed sexual slurs and laugh about being so much better than all those “whores”, because as long as they can call us names anonymously and get props from their cyber-friends, they don’t have to confront the fact that no one gives a shit about what they think outside their hateful little corner of the web.

    To put this into perspective: they have a Blogspot page full of poorly articulated rants, and I have an entire skank-army. I hope for the former’s sake that the twain shall never meet.

    25 Jan 2011

    Anonymous asked: Maybe you should expand that warning on your blog. I mean, I didn't even comment on your blog; I just "liked" it on my tumblr. Now I have a BUNCH of STI-related posts and pics at the top of my google-search! (No disrespect to my sisters with STIs, but it's kinda embarrassing to wonder who might be thinking "does she...?" when its none of their fucking biz...) Plus, I gotta apply for jobs this fall. I know your employer didn't give you shit, but your foot was already in the door, yknow? Maybe I just need a chill pill. Thanks for reading...and blogging.

    WOW. That’s … beyond ridiculous. I was under the impression that the online harassment was happening to people who commented, but it looks more widespread than I’d previously thought.

    First of all, if someone has attacked you for commenting on, reblogging, liking, or linking to my blog, please email me personally so I know the extent of who’s been affected. (If the flurry of emails I received last night were any indication, it looks like there are a lot of you being harassed.) If you want to avoid being harassed, then refer to my post on how to comment anonymously, and also take the above note as a warning. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I would encourage you to NOT reblog or like my posts on Tumblr if you’re doing so from an account that identifies your name or personal information. You may be at risk for potential harassment, and while I don’t believe in victim-blaming, there’s nothing wrong with taking precautions.

    More thoughts on the matter? Submit them here.

    24 Jan 2011

    But on the not-so-bright side …

    I keep getting emails from readers who are like, “Your online stalkers also stalked me for commenting here!”

    Even though it’s emblematic of the shittiest type of misogyny and sexism, I absolutely want to be informed of this behavior. And I am currently informing all readers of this behavior, because guess what? Next time someone says that we live in a gender-blind society where women can do whatever the hell they want and not worry about judgment? Um, you can point them to this post. There is still a lot of anger and hate directed at women who support open dialogue about sex. And we’re talking about bloggers and readers of a blog, not politicians or lobbyists or anyone with any sort of significant influence. Your opinions are simply that objectionable, you guys.

    While it’s super disheartening to know that there are creeps out there who are really invested in punishing you for reading and commenting on a blog that mostly includes photos of my bulldog and occasionally includes opinions on sex (seriously, that is a SIN, people!), it’s a little bit encouraging to know that you are not alone. They don’t hate you personally; they hate all sinful women in general! Okay, maybe that wasn’t the most helpful observation. I’m all out of pep talks for the night, but here’s an excerpt from an email I wrote to a reader who just contacted me about being harassed:

    I don’t know how encouraging this piece of advice will be, but it’s something I learned from enduring many years of online harassment: At some point, it does get better. By that, I don’t mean that people stop criticizing you, but rather that you stop caring. It’s a lot easier said than done to not fear judgment, and I remember quite painfully the unrelenting self-doubt I felt when I first started blogging on SexAndTheIvy.com. Like you, I know that these slurs are coming from narrow-minded people who have some major issues if they’re spending free time stalking others online. That doesn’t, however, mean that it’s easy to let these words roll off our backs. As a result of the harassment, I became incredibly depressed and anxious, symptoms shared by some of my blog commenters who have been attacked. I felt bullied and unfairly persecuted (perfectly reasonable reactions, given the circumstances), and sometimes, I even believed them a little bit, because they’re so damn persistent. In college, friends had to tell me over and over that I’m not, in fact, a “disgusting whore” or “chink-eyed whale”, which in retrospect, seems rather ridiculous to be insecure about.

    Even after I got over the fact that people are judgmental, it was much harder to come to terms with the reality that some people are simply petty, cruel, and (for lack of a better word) bad people. Once you realize that, however, it’s a lot easier to not take them seriously. It’s also a lot easier to recognize that other people likely see these anonymous hate-filled screeds for what they are: the rantings of a sad, sad individual. I was always worried that an employer would discover this nasty corner of the Internet and believe what was said about me there, but the only time this ever happened, my boss sent me the link and told me that he was sorry there were people out there anonymously attacking me. And this wasn’t a job related to sex writing or feminist work either. It was a position as the editor of a college admissions blog run by a non-profit. As it turns out, there are a lot more reasonable people in this world than there are misogynistic cowards. What the latter want you to do is to cower in fear so that they can feel vindicated and superior. But I suspect they already realize that they’re outnumbered and that their attempts at shaming are futile. If they had any confidence in their beliefs, they’d put their name to their words, as I have.

    Take heart in the fact that even your attackers know they’re fighting a losing battle. Like I said, not everyone is in a position to make a public stand, but you can always stand up for what you believe in your private life (and as I’ve learned, sometimes that’s the more difficult task).

    24 Jan 2011

    On the bright side, my “army of skanks” is coming along nicely.

    I’ve already counted three enlistments, following my public service announcement. You guys rock!

    (Also, be honest: you so caught the above Mean Girls reference.)

    24 Jan 2011

    Slut-Shaming In Action: A Warning To Readers

    As I’ve mentioned before, writing a sex blog has made me a moving target for some of the most hateful screeds in the Internet’s existence. My comments section used to be a much more nasty place than it is today, and I was regularly attacked by trolls who called me a whore and wished me death on a near-daily basis. As a result, I’ve developed pretty thick skin over the years, and I can generally brush off these intrusions no worse for the wear. I never expected, however, for these people to also go after my friends, then my family, and now, my readers. And that’s exactly what’s been happening.

    They’ve written rants about Patrick, my college roommates, my best friends Jason and Kennedy, and even my little sister. The attacks on my blog commenters, however, appear to be a recent phenomenon. Today, I received notes from two readers, one who found out that several websites published her full name and college, while calling her a “skank” for commenting on my blog. The other also informed me:

    “Someone apparently discovered the identities of a bunch of commenters on your blog and put them on a messageboard, as one of the named commenters I’m extremely creeped out and have no idea how this happened.”

    I’m really sorry that this is happening and I have no explanation for why anyone would put in the effort to stalk not only so-called “sluts” but also the supporters of said sluts (who my deranged detractors refer to as my “tiny cluster of skankleaders”). I think we can all agree that this is a new low in online harassment. Shaming people for reading a blog is completely despicable (not to mention, a total waste of time and energy), but unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where people are mature enough to refrain from calling each other names. Therefore, I think that we have to be practical about the measures one can take.

    If you want to leave a comment without putting your name on it, by all means do it anonymously as a “Guest” and don’t log into my Disqus comment system through a third-party account connected to a Yahoo! ID, Twitter or OpenID profile in which you identify yourself. When choosing a pseudonym, avoid one that uses your initials or actual name. If you are submitting a longer comment or question through the Ask feature, you can always do it anonymously if you don’t want it linked to a Tumblr account. Even if you “like” or reblog one of my posts, you may want to ensure that your Tumblr blog does not contain identifying details like your name, school, or occupation. (And if you’ve already posted something that you want taken down or ever have second thoughts about a published comment, just contact me at the email address listed in my sidebar.) I hate that the only solution I can think of is to encourage anonymity, and I wish I could offer people a 100% guarantee that they can speak freely without fear of retribution, but I can’t, so the best I can do is be honest about the situation and give you guys proper warning. I know firsthand how disheartening it can be to be targeted for simply stating what you believe, and I don’t expect anyone to martyr themselves by principle.

    That said, I’m now accepting applications for additional foot soldiers in my skankarmy! (Doesn’t that sound like the sort of thing that would come in handy in the event of an apocalyptic world war?)

    27 Sep 2010

    A peek inside my inbox. Oh, look, it’s new hate mail! How exciting, how unexpected, how — oh, it’s just a racial slur. That’s disappointing.
Is there a greater sin than unimaginative hate mail? I think not.

    A peek inside my inbox. Oh, look, it’s new hate mail! How exciting, how unexpected, how — oh, it’s just a racial slur. That’s disappointing.

    Is there a greater sin than unimaginative hate mail? I think not.

    15 Sep 2010

    Anonymous asked: How many times has herr patrick snorted drugs out of your asshole?

    OH YOU GUYS! I’m so glad my haters have moved on from generic insults like “slut”. Y’all are so much more entertaining recently.

    For more hate mail , check out my Haterade archives. Want to submit anonymous and incomprehensible screeds? Leave a message in my Question queue!

    8 Sep 2010

    Hate Mail of the Week / Logic Fail of the Day

    I let readers submit questions anonymously because people are sometimes embarrassed by what they want to ask. Of course, this also opens the floodgates for idiots who want to clog my inbox with crap, such as the following:

    Q. What’s the difference between sleeping with your TF for a grade, sleeping with your boss for a promotion, and self-publishing your sexcapades for a splashy media career?

    A. Nothing

    Uhhhhh …. what? As the Roomie said after I forwarded this to him, “We are not dealing with a disciple of logic here.” We are, however, apparently dealing with a Resentful Commenter (one of the five types of commenters that women bloggers encounter).

    I’m not going to disable anonymous questions and force everyone to sign up for a Tumblr account. But I will start publishing more hate mail, because these poorly worded missives are actually really hilarious and demoralizing at the same time. The least I can do is share the joy.

    For more hate mail , check out my Haterade archives. Want to submit anonymous and incomprehensible screeds? Leave a message in my Question queue!

    25 Aug 2010

    Hate Mail of the Month

    Usually, I’m pretty good at sniffing out the riff raff on my blog, but distinguishing between trolling and ignorance is always a close call. I wasn’t quite sure which was the case when this hit my inbox after I wrote an article for Skirt! Magazine’s August issue (“What did Cosmo teach me about feminism?”):

    I have to say that I do not understand WHY “Skirt” would bother including one of your absolutely frivolous, dumb and weak article in their publication?  Are you really serious—  No wonder Harvard is putting out such uneducated graduates.  What a waste of money!!!!  I am a writer and find you very well lets just say a bit of a buffoon.  You are so willing to give away your privacy what is left I would ask you?

    I wish you the best, but you would think you would have more respect for yourself and other women.  I hope you find that G-spot after all that is of grave importance.  What do your parents think of your blog?  I am sure they just love it and discuss it over dinner right?

    I am sorry, but I  had to write you because I am amazed at how little class and respect you have for yourself and other women!  I guess with a rag like Skirt that is what they want to publish.   Sad!  The lack of real writing about real issues are really above their heads and obviously yours.

    Say what? Given the content of my not-so-incendiary article, I’m surprised they took my account of my Cosmo-reading days as such an … affront to their personal value system. But given the absence of crass language, I’m inclined to think that this letter writer is for real and not someone purposely trying to incite a reaction. Even I’ve written more controversial things, no? Likely, this woman read (or “read”) my piece, looked me up, and was terribly offended by my Google results. Not really my problem, though I’d still like to know what her beef was with my article.

    My response:

    If there are specific passages in the Skirt! piece that you take issue with, I’d be happy to discuss them and you can certainly leave a comment on the website where the piece is published. Without any excerpts, it’s hard for me to understand where some of your criticisms (lack of respect for myself/other women, “uneducated”, “frivolous”, and “dumb”, etc.) are coming from. If it isn’t clear from the article itself, I am critiquing women’s magazines for their non-substantive content and for their emphasis on consumerism/the beauty ideal (things that are harmful for women).

    As for my blog, I don’t see what my parents’ opinion has to do with anything. Again, if there is something specific on my blog that you take issue with, please make that clear instead of just making ad hominem statements.

    And the author’s answer:

    Did you find your G-Spot?  I am sure many have!  Women like you can never be considered writers—you are an overexposed Blogger!  Big difference!!!!!

    Troll or not, someone failed to look up the definition of ad hominem. Whatever.