Jezebel Readers Respond: Is Sex Blogging Consensual?

A round up from Is Sex Blogging Consensual comments on Jezebel
“Sex” isn’t dirty

I don’t think this is specific to sex blogging; frankly, I think it’s an issue dealt with whenever one chooses to write about their personal life (and, by extension, the other people in that life). See: Ayelet Waldman and Neal Pollack writing stories about their children.

I think placing emphasis on the concept of consent specifically as related to sex blogging, and not other forms of personal blogging, simply reinforces the idea that sex is dirty, secret, and behavior worthy of stigma. Which, frankly, isn’t helpful (and, in my experience, is the exact sort of idea that most sex blogging attempts to break down, by normalizing sexuality).

Journalistic approach:

Try using the rules of journalism

1. Off The Record – this is when no means no. If your partner wants the entire event kept private, you need to respect that and not mention it at all. You can’t even hint at it – it’s is strictly between you and your partner and no one else

2. Deep background – you can describe the act, but you can’t name the partner, the time or geographical location of the act (you can use terms like “the bedroom”, but not “Seattle, WA)

3. An confidential source – nothing is off limits except the name or any description of the person that would give away their identity.

4. On the Record – nothing is off limits.

Creative writing guidelines:

I wonder if the guidelines I was taught in my creative writing classes could apply. My professor is a (relatively) well-known novelist, in the literary world at least, and drew on his personal experiences in the war he fought for three of his books.

He always taught us that the bare minimum you should change is the name. But he recommended you go further and change the major identifying characteristics, even possibly combining two characters or incidents. The important thing, if you don’t have someone else’s permission to write about them, is that nobody should be able to read what you’ve written and ID who you’re talking about. Yes, it compromises the “integrity” of what you’re writing about. But if you can’t get someone else’s consent when you’re sharing personal details, your main concern should be protecting their privacy. It’s basic human decency.

Pro Dom freelance writer:

I think about this lot, actually, since I’m a freelance writer who used to work as a dominatrix. It was such a strange and fascinating time (to me, at least) that I am constantly tempted to write something about it, and yet I never do. Even though I would not use my clients’ names or any other identifying information, I feel like these men entrusted me with really vulnerable part of themselves, and I want to respect that, even if they would probably never recognize themselves in my writing if they were to read it. But I desperately *do* want to write about it, so I wish I could think of a graceful solution. Oh, and asking the men for their permission is not an option, because, with the exception of one or two, I don’t have contact information for them.

Tags: communication, consent, Media, respect, sex