I’m a freelance writer researching an article about the trend in people blogging about infidelity / relationship secrets – why they blog, what purpose the internet serves for them – is it a ‘safe’ neutral space to say what’s unsayable in real life etc. I’ve been commissioned to write it for The Independent ...
is the end result.I really felt, after reading this article, that this "journalist" missed the point, and a prime opportunity to open a real discussion. My email to her is below.
Well, I have to say I'm disappointed, XXXXX.You had a real chance to open eyes to something, and instead you were preachy and biased throughout the entire article. You managed to give the impression that we are a bunch of horny women, all just in this for the "fuck" of it, and I have a really hard time believing - given who you quoted - that this is the impression you were given by the bloggers you talked to. That was probably the most one-sided, half-assed attempt at discussing infidelity blogging I could have imagined.Reading the comments, it's even more clear that you failed to tell the whole story. I, frankly, don't care what any of these close-minded jerks have to say about my life. None of them live my life, and therefore have nothing to comment about. But what struck me is that they've all made the assumption that it is only women that blog about infidelity. I can list more than a dozen - off the top of my head, and among the blogs I regularly read - blogs about infidelity written by men. In your initial email request, you stated this article was about people blogging about sex and infidelity - this article was a barely veiled, sneering jab at women (particularly of the married variety) that blog about sex and infidelity. Had I thought that this is what you would be writing, I can assure you I would NEVER have participated.Those of us who write these blogsdon't expect anyone to necessarily agree with or approve of our actions - neither do we need anyone to do so - but if you're going to throw the topic out there, at least be fair and thorough and unbiased. Your article was none of those things. Did you actually read any of the blogs you quoted? Did you try to discover why these women had turned to these lives? Where is the discussion about husbands or wives who are so wrapped up in their own selves that their spouse is left utterly alone? What about the men and women who have so little interest in intimacy of any sort - emotional or physical - that their spouses feel completely abandoned? A lot of these people who you think are just 'having their cake and writing about it too' are sharing intensely painful experiences, looking for feedback and advice, not attention or absolution.I wish you'd had the courage, or the intention, to tell the whole story with this article, XXXXX. You passed up a glorious opportunity to open a reasoned and intelligent discussion. What you did instead was to fail your readers, and open several people who made the decision to trust you to discovery and abuse. Well done, you.
The resulting jump in traffic to my blog has made me extremely nervous. I truly don't believe that anyone I know who came across this blog would be able to identify me - but the pictures might just be enough to make someone do some digging. For this reason, I'm removing the pictures from my HNT posts for now. I promise I will put them back up eventually, but right now I'm on edge.
This article pissed me off. I feel like a classic bait & switch was pulled on all of us who supplied this person with answers to her questions. And isn't it convenient that all my email elicited was an out-of-office reply.... how surprising.
17 comments:
Hear, hear! Well said Ms Scarlett, I too participated and I was misquoted rather badly, I have never used the word 'heady' in all my life (still giggling about it actually)
And in hindsight am rather pleased they thought my blog was too 'x-rated' to publish the address...I had a sudden fear the other day of all these nuts reading my blog and making judgemental comments. I sincerely hope that it doesnt happen to you, you are too nice a person :o) The comments that had been left on the article made for some scary reading.
I completely understand why you would want to take down your HNT's, a shame but sensible idea!
I think too think she had a fantastic opportunity to write a very good article and she blew it...
I would agree completely that the journalist missed the chance to include men in the discussion, since there are many many that I read. Some are indeed crass accounts of sexual conquests. But many of the blogs written by men, as is the case with those written by women, are personal explorations of life, love, and sexuality in the moddern world (see my own newly-formed blog for a timid example; there are many more as you know).
the following article from the New York Times may be of interest on this topic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/health/28well.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1
I haven't yet read the article (I will), but as a quick note of support, there are few people who judge equally before casting the first stone. It's unfortunate - your experience is good warning for me if anyone ever comes crawling my way with questions, because I'm sure there are some journalists who genuinely want to examine the underlying factors rather than conduct a witch hunt.
I agree that it's too bad the author took such a biased view and completely overlooked male infidelity bloggers. It sucks when journalists approach you with apparently honest intentions and then come up with something judgmental.
Too bad about your HNT pictures too :-(
I think you gave that journalist a good tongue-lashing. As a real-life journalist, I have over time developed the ability to refrain from deciding "the story" before I talk to interviewees, although there was a time when I didn't know better. You have to be open to letting the story takes itw own form rather than having a POV and finding people to support it, which is what it seems like XXXX did.
Anyways, if there is one thing I hate it is disappointing the people I talk to to write my stories, so I am confident your letter will give the writer at least one sleepless night. Well done, you.
oh.my.god. what a slimy journalist for twisting things so much. that's not at all unbiased or fair. so unfortunate. i sure do hope the folks who come to your blog as a result are not so close minded. wow!
it was very brave of you to have taken part. i agree that had it been done in the way you were led to believe, it would have made way for for discussion on very real issues that many married couples face world over.
I too was asked to contribute to the article. Can I just say, for the record and in what I consider to be a safe place (unlike the Independent online forum - ugh!) that I would NOT consider getting caught by my husband to be "good blog material". I would stop this blog in a heartbeat if discovered.
When she asked me the question "What, if anything, would cause you to stop blogging?", I answered "Being found out. Then again . . ."
What I meant by this is that I have enjoyed blogging so much I would probably continue to blog IN SOME FORM, but not continue with this one. I am annoyed that she leapt to two incorrect 'implications' without clarifying it with me.
Overall, I think she made some interesting points and she did try to qualify some of the more inflammatory remarks, such as " but it's not always easy, either, to condemn the choices of those for whom adultery and the internet offer a release from the realities of difficult relationships."
However, it was just all so 'surface' and yes, I agree, a missed opportunity.
I don't know about you but I am seeking neither 'virtual absolution' or 'just attention'. Anyone who has read the majority of my blog would know that, and you're the only ones that matter.
No, gorgeous! Anything but the pictures. I know what you mean, but this is punishing the rest of us! ;-)
Luv ya,
BlueEyes
Hello Ms S,
I was also asked to contribute.
I demanded to check my precis before I agreed, just in case I was misquoted in some way. In my business life I am used to press coverage and know how it can be altered for the slant.
Sorry to hear that so many of you have had this problem. I checked her out via google and hoped as a fellow Mum she would be careful in choice of words.
An opportunity was there to highlight so much more. I would think carefully about this in the future and ask for more control for sure.
The subsequent comments/witch hunt has become quite acid.
I checked the rest of the section and noted anything about men got a more positive response. I hope they remove them, bitches and whores should not be allowed to remain on the page.
Keep writing hun, you are great doing work. Don't let this slight hurt you.
Betty YM x (((Hugs)))
I'm so sorry this happened. That said, you are brave for doing this. Many times I think unfortunately people, and particularly the media need to always try to categorize and label.
I wish i can say i'm shocked but i'm not. I've had someone say based on my blog its obvious i just say i don't want to get married coz no man will propose to me. Apparently thats coz i will be an unfaithful wife due to my 'nymphomanic tendencies'. When i read that, i decided i have finally seen and heard it all!
WOW. I'm sorry. Sorry the story sucked, and sorrier your pictures are on hiatus. Journalism can be both astounding in its precision and vicious in its ignorance. Karma is a bitch though, worry not.
I read the article first then came to your reply. My sympathies are with the journalist whom you attack in the most vicious and exaggerated manner. It is possible to disagree without resorting to insult, or haven't you learned that?
Journalists are not there to write what people want, it is not their job to be mere typists to someone else's opinion.
So the Indie writer by giving a different view to yours has indeed opened up a discussion. One which you seem determined to stop.
Anonymous: I'm afraid you're going to have to point out exactly where I insulted the writer. What I did was point out my disappointment with what I was told the article was about, and what it was actually about. There was no name calling involved. Nothing about what I wrote to her was either vicious or exaggerated.
And call me crazy, but I thought the cornerstone of journalism was impartiality. Writing without bias, telling the WHOLE story, not part of it, to encourage discussion by laying out the facts. I never expected the writer to write what I wanted, but I did expect her to write the article she told me she was going to write.
I also expected us to be quoted accurately, which we were not. I expected her to have the facts straight, which she did not. She did not open up a discussion, she provided a venue for a whole lot of pretty vicious comments (speaking of insults...).
The real discussion is taking place here - in our blogs - where we can speak our minds without fear of condemnation, and where we own what we say.
Nice response. The cornerstone of journalism should be objectivity, and this writer clearly is not objective. I find it interesting that this piece was written by a "freelance writer" rather than a journalist. Me thinks their agenda was slanted more toward writing something that would sell and get published rather than something accurate.
I'm posting for the purpose of merely offering a counterpoint to the very one-sided conversation you've created on your blog.
I couldn't help but notice the hypocrisy of your diatribe against the journalist who wrote the infidelity-blogging article in the Independent. She seemed surpisingly open-minded and balanced; in fact most of her article consisted of direct quotes by you and your fellow bloggers. Your response to her article, however, was a model of closed-mindedness. Apparently, anyone who doesn't praise and accept a married woman screwing other men behind their husband's back and then flippantly blogging about it with neither the cuckold husband's nor the co-adulter's consent is just closed-minded and judgmental. Right?
I'm sympathetic to the pain, lonliness, despair, or boredom that may have been the impetus for your choosing to betray your husband and participate in the betrayal of your lover's spouse, but, even in your own mind, do you think such a betrayal is really worthy of social acceptance or praise? Don't you see the inevitable harm, instability, destroyed self-esteems, emotional schizophrenia, heart-break, etc. that such behavior wreaks on families, children, individual adults, and communities? (Oh, shoot. I'm just being closed-minded again!)
Clearly you recognize those inevitabilities or you wouldn't be living your clandestine double life, filled with browser-history deletion, proxy internet connections, and the removal of photos from your blog that may identify you. Or perhaps your motivation for secrecy is wholly self-interested. You just want to maintain your safe and comfortable relationship with the husband you "love." (I wouldn't presume to judge the sincerity of the emotional attachment you have for your husband, but I do know that there are higher brands of love that don't include deceit, irreverence, and making a mockery of your husband's trust.)
I'll permanently leave your blog in peace, but, from one closed-minded person to another, there are better, happier, less socially harmful ways to live your life. I'm not suggesting, nor do I believe, that there's one mold to which all must conform to achieve happiness, but can't we agree that a happier, more peaceful life probably doesn't include incessant lying, distrust, secrecy, and constantly teetering on the edge of devastating the man you claim to love?
Again, my intent isn't to demean or judge. If I knew you personally, even being aware of your behavior, I would whole-heartedly embrace you as a fellow traveler in life searching for happiness. However, I felt impelled to counter the glamorous but disingenuous illusion about infidelity that you and your fellow bloggers peddle to the public.
Oh Anonymous #2, I do love a commenter who has the courage to sign his words.... ok, let's go, point by point then...
I'm sure from your point of view, this writer does seem surprisingly open-minded and balanced. I'm sure you've never given more than a passing thought to infidelity as it pertains to your world. Her article did consist of direst quotes, it's true. However, she did misquote almost all of us. Words and facts were changed or mistaken - is that still considered a direct quote? I am more than happy to hear both sides, I don't require praise or acceptance - as I have stated before, both in my correspondence with the author and here on this very blog. There is nothing flippant about this blog. It is an exploration of this experience. I don't requires anyone's consent to do so - no real names have been used... no one situation has ever been described in such a way that anyone could ever be identified. This is merely an outlet for me. That people stop by and comment and commiserate, and advise is a huge bonus.
I'm glad you're sympathetic (though you certainly don't come across that way), and, yet again, I do not think my current situation requires social acceptance or praise. As I have said, time and time again, I don't seek it. Of course I see the potential for disaster, I'd be a fool not to. But before you condemn my actions, trying living six months in my life. I don't think you're being close-minded in the least, you just don't have the benefit of experiencing my life. Don't presume to comment on my life and relationships until you have at least attempted to understand them.
So now that you've spent several paragraphs throwing words like liar, betrayer, cuckoldry, and irreverence around with great abandon, all without the benefit of actually understanding the situation, I do hope that you will, in fact, permanently leave my blog in peace. Because, you you claim not to intend to demean or judge, that is exactly what you did. I'm sure you'll never read this, I'm sure your life is perfect, I'm sure you'll never be faced with any difficulties in your relationships, I'm sure you'll be quick to judge and condemn if you do.
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