Boo hoo all the way to the bank

I've only occasionally read her blog and haven't read her book, but apparently (via Viviane's Sex Carnival), Girl With a One Track Mind author Abby Lee has been outed.

My initial reaction to the "poor me" defense is the same one I have to celebrities complaining about the papparazzi. It's one thing to be an anonymous blogger, anyone can easily do that, but you take a huge advance from a major publishing house, and isn't it a no brainer that people will be out to identify you? This is totally different than a Robert Steinbuch situation, and you know how I feel about that. This is not, in my opinion, someone being outed so much as someone trying to cash in on their anonymity. And, again, my reaction is really the same as Steinbuch's; why are we so fucking scared of sex that we can't say these things openly? And yes, I'm not stupid, I know why, because we live in a culture that judges us based on our sexuality, but how will that ever change if everyone's racing to hide behind the false security of "privacy?"

It's not that I'm arguing that anonymous bloggers should be outed, only that it does sortof seem to become a game. You start an anonymous blog, get a book deal, and get outed or out yourself. Jeremy Blachman, Melissa Lafsky, Nadine Haobsh, Alex Balk, etc. etc. So why is "Abby Lee" so different? Because it's about sex. It's just not clear to me, except perhaps that instead of a coordinated media campaign, her name was published by a newspaper. I wonder what Eurotrash would think of this.

I'm sure this won't be a very popular opinion amongst the sex blogosphere, but I think that you can't really have it both ways. She's got links to all kinds of press, numerous Fleshbot pieces, major British newspapers, giving interviews, a book deal I'm sure most bloggers would die for, and yet it's as if her life is over. Would she have said/written those things without the cloak of anonymity?

The Times article even feeds into the idea that anyone who writes or thinks about sex in such a way (hello, prurient interest!) should either shut the fuck up or embrace anonymity. This is why we are so fucked up; publishers want to make money off these types of books, the public wants to buy it, but nobody wants to fess up to being interested. If they did, then I think much of the need/desire for anonymity would disappear.

Her character Abby asks: “Does thinking about sex all the time mean there’s something wrong with me? It’s a question I ask myself on an hourly basis . . . Is it common to look at men’s crotches as they walk down the street?” With such a shameless interest in sex it is no surprise Margolis has gone to great lengths to try to conceal her identity.

I guess perhaps I've just seen the New York blogosphere desperately trying to unearth anonymous bloggers here that I'm not that shocked and don't see why someone would be surprised that people are curious about their identity. Of course they are!
I'm sure this comes off as really mean, and I don't have anything against the blogger in question, and while I don't know precisely how the paper went about ascertaining her identity, until I do, I really don't see how it's all that different from what Gawker and other gossip blogs do all the time: try to get information about people, especially when they want to hide it (and make money off of it).

I guess, ultimately, what I'm asking is why we can't talk about about orgasms, butt plugs, BDSM, wanking and tight pussies as honest, open, consenting adults. Maybe we can't, maybe we crave and need anonymity, but if you ask me, the mad dash for privacy, the lawsuits against people whose lives are supposedly damaged because the world knows a few facts about a few moments of their sex lives, actually serve to further the shame people feel around sex. It's secret, meant to be secret, as if your friends, neighbors, family members, etc., weren't having sex or thinking about it.

Please note: I'm not saying there shouldn't be anonymous bloggers. I'm saying that you shouldn't go all Bill Clinton or Robert Steinbuch on us, especially if you have a big ass book deal that's filling your bank account, and act all astonished that people are interested in your identity or want to deny parts of your sexual self once they become known. Especially in a case like this. You wrote it, you put it out there, you courted press and a publisher; it just seems a little unrealistic, not to mention disingenuous, to then act like a journalist is the freaking devil who deserves to rot in hell (see the comments about wanting to slap her, etc.). I don't hate her, I don't even know her and in fact, I'm sure she'd make a fascinating interview and I definitely want to read her book now, I just don't think it's the end of the world or that surprising that her real name surfaced. I quite often wonder about the many anonymous bloggers seemingly courting book deals if that's not the plan all along. Maybe not for her, but for some, it just seems like it has to have been what they were hoping for when they started their blogs.

p.s. Little snippet from The Independent on women sex bloggers. (it also says her book deal was for an "undisclosed sum")

Abigail has been overwhelmed by the response from her readers. "I regularly get women writing to me, saying that I have helped them feel better about themselves because they connected to something I said, or that I have enabled them to have a better sex life. Getting emails like these makes me immensely proud."

For a few minutes' typing a day, then, the sex blogger receives as much free therapy as she needs, an adoring audience, a huge new potential dating pool and the possibility of a book deal - and she even gets to remain anonymous. Another aphorism of Tallulah Bankhead's was: "If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." If she had to live her life in the 21st century, no doubt she would also post her mistakes on a blog.