An excellent question posed by mksboy on his blog.
In short, I post because I need to process my life and feelings through the written word. Were I living in 1920, I’d be writing a journal. But I live in 2014 so I blog. Way back at the dawn of time (October 12, 2008 to be precise — shit I forgot the blog’s anniversary again!), I said this:
The reason I started this blog, though, was not to categorize, compare, and contrast all the various practices (though that might happen along the way). None of the sites I’ve found seem to be written for me or my partner. There are elements of nearly all of them that appeal to me (and my kinky side), but when I think of how I want orgasm denial (OD) to work in our relationship, I can’t find an analogue. So, since we’re at the very beginning of our exploration and I don’t have anyone other than my partner with which I can discuss it, here I go. Maybe this will prove helpful for someone else.
So, even though I could still write a journal and be done with it, I also write a blog because it allows me to benefit from the community aspect of my readers (which, along the way, has been very helpful) and also to be a resource for those in a similar spot as Belle and I were in at one point. While I didn’t start out to become well known (at least to Google) on the particular subject of enforced male chastity, I’m not sad I did. But I am more than that.
Regardless, the subject of mksboy post wasn’t why any of us blog (and a lot of you do). It was about the other day when I was annoyed. His take on all that was:
If you are going to write about your life and your experiences with chastity (or any subject for that matter) you have to expect that some people aren’t going to like what you have to say.
Its not about right and wrong really. Its about people’s perception of what you write and who you are as a person. This often comes across as judgmental on the part of your readers. Guess what? It IS judgmental and that’s just how it goes.
Sure, I get that. If someone is massively turned off by the idea that a man would want to have sex with another man, there’s nothing to be done about that. That person is not wrong for what they feel just as the man who wants to bone another guy isn’t wrong in his feelings. Seems that’s from chapter one, page one of the Kinky Blog Reader’s Handbook. YKINMKBYKIOK.
Mksboy continues:
If I had any advice for Thumper I guess I would tell him to accept the negative and the positive comments. We learn from negative comments. Sometimes we learn that we need to reconsider our actions and make changes. Other times the comments just serve to reinforce what we already believe. There is no need to get defensive.
We blog and in doing so put ourselves out there for scrutiny. We are not always going to like what our readers have to say but what does it really matter? We have to have tough skin if we are going to put our sexual activities on the internet for all to read.
There’s a difference, I think, between negative comments and constructive feedback. Feedback, I’ve been told, is a gift, even when it’s negative (maybe especially then). Negative comments are just that. Of the three I quoted, only one could even barely be considered “feedback” (the one that warned, since I had had teh gay sex, to get myself tested for HIV). The other two were just negative and seemed to violate the YKINMK rule.
I have followed dozens of kink and sex blogs and sometimes they go places I have a hard time following. I DO NOT post to that effect. It is not my place to tell someone they’re doing something I don’t personally find interesting or sexy if it’s consensual on all sides. In other words, sometimes you just hold your tongue. I, as a reader, am always free to stop reading. I may judge them, but it’s not my place to tell them I don’t approve for no other reason than I don’t approve.
In my opinion, none of the comments that got me riled up were constructive in any way. They were rude and homophobic and distasteful. There was nothing whatsoever to learn from any of them and, being generous, two of them weren’t meant to be anything other than negative.
As I said, feedback is a gift. I will accept mksboy’s post in that light. But I disagree that I overreacted or failed to see the value in the comments in question. As always, I welcome feedback that is meant to be helpful. I totally reject anything that judges me or anything I do. I’m tired of being judged. Life’s too damned short.
