I support Miriam

I'm not gonna pretend to be unbiased about this, because anyone who's been reading for any length of time knows that I am a huge supporter, fan and friend of Columbia Spectator sex columnist Miriam Datskovsky. In the little over a year I've known her, she's become my total ally in this wacky business called sex writing, and beyond that, an extremely good friend. But when I saw the blog Fire Miriam yesterday, before I'd even been alerted to the Bwog posting complete with over 80 comments about it, I was upset. Because the truth is, I don't know if any of us could stand up to that kind of scrutiny. It is the Internet and I believe in free speech, so I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't post whatever the fuck they want. My immediate thought was that I know I have plenty of haters out there, and what if someone did a line-by-line on every one of my columns (so far I think only the "Fucking and Feminism" one has warranted that, and while part of that, like the talk of my saggy boobs, sucked, I learned a hell of a lot. Can't say I loved it on a personal level but as a writer, you can only control your own words. How they're interpreted is out of your hands, though you can learn from what people say about it and decide how to proceed in the future, which I've done.) I'm sure they don't all stand up to such strict scrutiny, and that's okay.

But (and of course there's a but), I feel the same way about anyone who devotes so much time to taking someone else down, myself included, that the more angry you get about someone else's writings, the more you obsess over them, the more it eats away at you. The more they start to invade your head, the more the attempt to discredit them and direct your hate and anger at them boomerangs back to you. That part has nothing to do with Miriam, and is all me speaking to my former self.

I've been in places where someone's writing or just very being has made me so angry I wanted to scream. I've spent hours googling, complaining, attacking, berating, hating, and at the end of the day, I had to look at myself in the mirror and figure out what it was about them that got under my skin. I don't get it so much (yet), but I hear talk about my very good friends. Why did she get a book deal? Who'd they fuck? He's a crappy writer/artist/whatever. Oh, her? I've heard she's a bitch. Hang out in the New York media scene long enough and it's enough to make you want to drown yourself in dirty martinis. It's funny, too, because then those very same people fret about every fucking comment ever made about them. That's the beauty and the misery of the Internet, and I think the lesson to any of us is to try not to be saints, but to live our lives in ways we can be proud of. In ways we can stand up and say, "You know what? You're totally welcome to disagree with me, but I stand by my actions and decisions." And being able to admit when you're wrong is a good one too. The more they go out of their anonymous way to disparage her and attack her writing, the less it looks like an actual critique and more like a vendetta. And I think this is the biggest copout they could bring to the table:

This isn't really about Miriam. It's about sex. Fire Miriam is just a cute name that people could remember.

All this to say that I'm not going to jump into the Bwog comments or Fire Miriam, which basically in its post today not-so-backhandedly disparaged my Gothamist interview with Miriam. They go on to acknowledge that Gothamist is indeed a blog. I know I didn't go to journalism school, but I've conducted a hell of a lot of Q&As, and quite often the ones with people I know personally are some of the best interviews I've done, because I bring that personal insight into the Q&A. Miriam's also done other media interviews with people who found her through her Spec column.

As for the Bwog on her "vanity website," it's actually called a website. Lots of writers have them. I think it's pretty much an essential tool in this day and age for any writer. So as I said to Miriam last night, just keep on doing what you're doing. Take the high road.

As for the Fire Miriam bloggers, I think constructive criticism is totally valid. As a writer, I totally welcome it. But I don't really think what they're doing is all that constructive. But it's all about your opinion, and, as far as I know, opinions, like the ones expressed by Sex and the Ivy, can't be "false." So everyone is welcome to theirs, but what I'm going to urge readers of this blog to do is read Miriam's columns for yourself and then form your own opinion. I know a lot of you already have, and I hope you will do so with an open mind. For the record, I don't agree with every single thing she's ever written; I probably don't agree 100% with every single thing anyone's ever written. I will be watching this unfold but on some level, I already know what I think about her column and her role as the Opinion Editor of the paper and I doubt they're going to change.