My tongue was somewhat in cheek when I entitled the presentation, which concerned the risks of putting one’s sex life online. I addressed my ex wife’s discovery of my blog and her subsequent (and unsuccessful) effort to use my sexuality to take my children from their father. I also talked about the flame wars and smear campaigns initiated by a team of three sex bloggers—Dacia and the brain trust she encouraged, Tess and Dee—as they outed me and otherwise sought to tarnish my reputation and affect the custody case then underway.
The title was in earnest, however, as the lessons drawn as these episodes overlapped. My ex wife cynically believed that the State of New York would concur that my writing endangered my children. In fact, the State of New York proved unconcerned with either my writing or my sex life. My ex learned that, like everyone else, the father of her children is allowed free speech and sexual freedom. The State of New York doesn’t care about my blog.
Further, in their slanderous gossip and malicious online attacks, Dacia, Tess and Dee seemed to believe their blogs were powerful engines to destroy reputations and damage people, including families. Their actions revealed wild delusions of import. Putting gossip into blogs doesn’t make it real or influential. Dacia later regretted this “feverish, sad drama” as a figment largely of her own creation. Their attacks were engineered by blog drama, not in reality, and in real life, no one cared about their blogs.
