I moved out on Independence Day.
Eight years ago today, I left the suburban home my wife and I had purchased three years earlier. She had not spoken to me since April, when I departed for a business trip she strenuously opposed. I had been offered an opportunity to write two related stories—one for a magazine to which I frequently contributed, the second for The New York Times—requiring a stay in Dubai.
I regarded these assignments as steps forward in my career. She regarded my consideration of them as idiocy. The invasion of Iraq was then underway, she argued; it was a dangerous time for Americans to travel anywhere in the world, much less to the Persian Gulf. I argued that I wouldn’t be remotely in harm’s way. She countered that I would be a “big dumb blond walking target” for “them,” all of whom “hate us.” If I went on the trip, she threatened, we were “finished.”
I had heard that threat before. By and large, I ceded to her preferences on day-to-day matters. I had learned that it was simpler to give way than to argue over the picayune. Yet now and then, I had strong opinions on matters, particularly those affecting my career. When I was accepted to graduate school, which she felt we could not afford, I was told that we were “finished.” When I took a job that paid more and demanded more time, she asserted we were “finished.” We had been “finished” so many times already, I felt I could write these articles and deal with the fallout later.
The trip was uneventful. The articles went over well and I was assigned more. My wife stopped speaking to me. She refused to acknowledge my presence. She constantly muttered to herself about the “asshole” she had married, never minding the listening ears of our three children. Her rage had surpassed concerns for putting forward any fronts. She fucking hated that “asshole” and made sure everyone knew it.
Her father came forward with a solution that he hoped would placate Lucy’s rage. He owned an apartment in the city that had gone unused since Lucy and I lived there with the children some years earlier. He urged me to move there, at least temporarily, until Lucy’s anger blew over. If Lucy has a problem with me, I said, perhaps she should move there. I saw no reason to leave my home. “She’ll never do that,” he said. “It’s up to you to create some peace in that house. Give her some time to get over this; she can’t be angry forever.”
When the school year ended, Lucy took the children on a trip. It was agreed that I would pack up some things and move to the apartment. I packed my car with the clothes I would need for work, a box of files and the iMac I used to write my articles, and drove off. I saw no reason to take more; Lucy’s rage would burn itself out, as it invariably did.
In the weeks leading up to my departure, as Lucy fumed, I confided in very few friends that I feared my marriage was ending. Dacia expressed sympathy, yet wondered if it might be for the best. Despite my efforts to keep my family intact, I was, she knew, exhausted by arguments and bitter silences. My long-time friend Marcus, himself recently divorced, encouraged me to look at the positive aspects of creating a new life. He still had conflicts with his ex-wife, he acknowledged, particularly over their children, but he was personally happier than he had been in years. “And then there’s the sex,” Marcus added. “Let me ask you a personal question: are you satisfied with your sex life with Lucy?”
“There’s no such animal.” It felt sad to acknowledge this out loud, as if confessing my shame at our utter lack of intimacy. “We’ve been through therapy and all, but she’s just not that interested in sex.”
“Are you?”
“From what I recall of it, yes.”
“Lucy’s giving you a gift,” Marcus said. “If she’s insisting on a separation, if she’s asking for divorce, she’s giving you freedom. Use it. Go get laid. See what freedom tastes like.”
I unpacked my car at the apartment I had once shared with my young family. I hung my shirts in a closet and set the rest of my clothes in half an empty drawer. My work files rested on a stack of boxes storing the remains of my father-in-law’s former office. I reset the clock radio next to the bed in which Lucy and I had conceived each of our three children. Dust covered its dark duvet.
I poured a bourbon and sat on the couch. Dusk settled. Two bourbons later, I picked up the iMac and put it on the dining table. I plugged the cord into an outlet, detached a nearby phone and ran the line to the computer. Before long, the modem’s familiar whines and belches echoed in the near empty room. I had mail. Ignoring that, I followed Marcus’s road map to chat rooms. ("It takes time to meet women," he had told me, "but hooking up with guys is easy.") It took a drink or two and several failed attempts, but I finally got into a chat entitled “M4MNYC.” Instant messages littered my screen with nonsensical terms:
sup
Pics?
Loc?
a/s/l?
Stats? Into?
I watched messages pile up in the main chat. I finally typed in one of my own.
My marriage ended today. I was exiled to an empty apartment. How does this begin?
An answer swiftly came. Wow, that’s hard. I’m sorry to hear about that.
Me too, I thought. Me too. What’s your name? I’m Jefferson.
Jim. Nice to meet you. Do you want company?
I twirled my glass and took a sip. Yes, please. Thirty minutes later, he was at my door. Jim was handsome, resembling Matthew Broderick. I offered him a drink.
“Can I have a kiss instead?”
I nodded and he came forward. Jim’s kiss was so warm, so inviting and so necessary. I had not felt desired in years. He tugged at my clothes. I tugged at his. “Where’s your bed?” he murmured into my mouth. I walked backwards, not daring to take my lips from his. We fell backward on the bed, sending up clouds of dust.
Sex, as it turned out, was much easier outside my marriage than it had been within. I knew that Lucy would eventually come around and I’d be invited back home. We would work it out and sustain a truce until the next time we were “finished.” There would remain this void in our marriage—one month, two, four—that we would refrain from discussing. She had given me this freedom, as Marcus pointed out, however temporarily. I had not been the one to put the brakes on our monogamy, but I intended to make the most of my freedom before being called back.
I was stunned when the divorce papers arrived.
The divorce was nasty and unnecessarily protracted. Not long after it was finalized, Lucy—stoned and drunk—proposed we get back together. By then, it was too late. Independence had taken hold. I had already begun to write about it here.
Years later, Lucy would discover my blog and sue for custody of our children. She shared my blog with her family, who read, in as much detail as they pleased, of my experience of Lucy’s mental illness, her problems with intimacy, and the impulsivity with which she ended our fifteen-year relationship. Lucy described the contents of my blog to our children, telling them that their father was bisexual and a bad man. A few months ago, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my birth family.
If I enjoyed a new sex life, partly led in public, Lucy ensured that my public would include those I had chosen not to tell. It was a fitting punishment for my happiness without her, for abandoning her when she pushed me out the door.
But her rash behavior, as ever, backfired. No one really seems to care that I have a pretty great sex life. No one seems to care that the husband who loved her went on to love others. Her loneliness and rage weren’t mitigated by her destruction of my privacy. If anything, her outings only cleared my path to greater freedom. After all, who does she have left to tell?
Eight years ago today, Lucy sent me out the edge of the Earth, hoping I’d fall over. Instead, I found freedoms beyond her reach.
Showing posts with label outing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outing. Show all posts
Monday, July 04, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Family Picture
For spring break a couple of months ago, my ex-wife decided to take our two youngest children on a road trip to New Orleans. By saying “decided,” I mean to underscore that she didn’t consult me, or even tell me of her plans. She hasn’t said a word to me since Christmas. I heard of the planned trip when the kids mentioned it.
The trip took them through my hometown. Lucy asked our youngest daughter to contact my parents to ask if they could stop by for a visit. Of course, my parents agreed, and offered to arrange for other family members to visit as well. It would be the first time Lucy had seen my family since we separated eight years ago. We assumed this was a nice gesture. Presumably, Lucy had no special interest in being with my family, but she wanted to allow the children to see their Southern folks.
Afterward, Mom called to say that Lucy had been surprisingly pleasant. I was glad the trip went well. I had been a bit suspicious of it.
Last weekend, I went home for my high school reunion. I was sitting with my family when someone brought up how big my children have become since their last trip South. I said I had heard good things about the visit from the kids. I was impressed that my middle son had wanted to take so long a trip to see New Orleans as it recovers from Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.
My brother Frank looked at Mom. “Well, that’s not why they made the trip,” he said. He looked at me. “You want to know the real reason she came down here?”
“Do tell.”
“Brother, Lucy came down her to tell us about your blog.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Nope, he’s not,” Mom said. “She sat right there and told us you had a blog and were having all kinds of sex and writing about it.”
I shook my head. “Wow.”
“Yeah, she told us about the blog—what’s it called, ‘One Life, Take Two?’” Frank went on. “She said she found it and read about the things you do now. She took me over to Mom’s laptop and typed in the whatcha-ma-call-it and showed it to me.” He laughed. “You’ve got some hot pictures on there, man.”
“She typed in the URL for you? On Mom's laptop? Jesus. Well, what did you say, Mom?”
“Well, I told her I always knew you were a good writer. Your Dad said it sounds like you’re having fun.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. Then I asked of they wanted to spend the night. They were planning to drive a few more hours, but I said that didn’t make any sense when we’ve got room.”
I stood up and put my hand on my brother’s shoulder. “Well, sorry you had to find out that way. Obviously, I didn’t see a reason to tell you. So know you know the dirt on why Lucy felt empowered to spend a year and two-hundred-thousand dollars chasing me through court.”
“There wasn’t any reason to tell us!” Mom said. “We don’t care what you do like that. You’re not married and you’ve been grown up for a long time.”
“Thanks.” I thought a moment. “Wait, you’re not still reading it, are you?”
“I read a little bit to see what she was talking about,” Mom said. “But honey, I don’t need to read about your sex life.”
“I mostly liked the pictures,” Frank laughed.
I can only imagine Lucy’s disappointment in my family’s reaction. Planning her drive to New Orleans, she must have rehearsed many scripts in her mind. When she outed me to her own family, Lucy found they rallied around her, severing ties to me and writing checks to her attorneys. When she outed me to our children—the youngest of whom was then eight years old—Lucy found they were frightened and confused as their mother wove dark tales about the father they adored.
My family shrugged off Lucy’s revelation and offered a place to stay for the night. Privately, they now told me, they felt pretty sorry for her. I suppose that’s how I feel about it, too.
It would be right to be angry. I began having sex at an early age, with males and females, and recognized my bisexuality at age nineteen. I went to college the following year and never returned home to live. I saw no reason to come out to my parents, particularly after I entered into monogamy and marriage with a woman. Now, as I near fifty years of age, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my family. She did so by making it possible for them to read about my sex and sexuality in whatever ways I’ve reported it here.
It must have been a long, bitter drive back to New York.
“I still love him," Lucy told my family, “but I don’t like what he’s become.” As my Mom said in relating this to me, “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not love.”
Clearly, my family knows a few things about love.
A week before I returned home to my high school reunion, I attended the high school graduation of my eldest son. With our younger children seated behind us, Lucy kept her gaze trained to the stage, avoiding eye contact with me.
After the ceremony, everyone filed out of the auditorium to the lobby and street beyond, proud parents and family searching to congratulate the new graduates. We found Jason. Lucy pushed ahead to kiss his cheek, standing on her toes to do so. Collie shook his brother’s hand, smirking at his own staged formality. Lillie affected disinterest, saying, “Um, hello? Everyone just graduated. Why does he get all the attention?”
I laughed at her as I pulled Jason into a bear hug. “I love you, baby boy.” I pulled back and grabbed his shoulders. “And now, goodness, you’ve got two months until going off to college.”
“I know, “ he said, beaming as he does, his lips struggling to restrain a smile. “Guess I should start packing.”
“Not just yet,” I smiled, hugging him again.
We made our way to the sidewalk, which teemed with clusters of people, each centered on a graduate in a blue gown. I followed as Jason navigated through the crowd in search of his friends. Lucy and the kids trailed me. I took photos of Jason and his friends I shook hands with their parents, congratulating them as they congratulated me.
We found an empty space. Lillie goofed with her brother. I took more photos. Lucy had forgotten her camera, and I had promised to share mine.
Lucy came forward with Collie. “Let’s take a family picture,” she instructed our children. She gathered them together, wrapped an arm around Collie and looked at me expectantly. “Everybody say ‘cheese,’” she smiled.
I raised the camera to snap Lucy’s family picture.
A woman tapped my shoulder. “Would you like me to take a picture so you can all be in it?”
I smiled and handed her the camera. “Thanks, that’s very nice.” I showed her how to use the camera and took my place in the lineup. I beamed at the camera, our children arrayed between their mother and father. I thanked the woman and took back my camera. I turned to Jason. “Do you have any plans? Maybe we can all get an early dinner or something.”
“Um, no, no plans.” He paused. “Oh, I just realized I haven’t eaten today.”
“Oh, so let’s fix that.” I looked around. “Did you see where your mother went? Where’s Collie and Lillie?”
Jason peered around the families surrounding us. “Huh, I don’t see them.”
“They probably went inside to use the bathroom or something. I’ll wait by the door while you talk to your friends.”
Jason ambled over to pose in another photograph. I made my way to the door. Twenty minutes later, Jason joined me as the crowd thinned. “You see Mom?” he asked.
I shrugged. “No sign. You neither, I assume.”
“No.” He looked around.
“Why don’t you call her, then?”
He raised his gown to retrieve the phone from him pocket, pushed a few buttons and raised it to his ear. “Voice mail,” he reported. “I’ll try Collie.” Voice mail again.
“Maybe we should stand on the corner. Maybe they’re at the other exit looking for us.” We moved. They weren’t there. A few minute passed. I suggested Jason try his mother again.
“Hello?” He nodded to tell me she answered. “What did you say? . . . oh, okay . . . so what should I do? . . . okay, see you in a minute.” He hung up and look at me. “She said Lillie wanted to go home.” He began to walk down the street.
“Oh, okay. I’ll walk with you to say goodbye to them.”
“No, actually, I’m not meeting them. They’re already at home.”
“They left?” Not a word to me or our graduating son. “Okay, well, hmm . . . did you want to get a bite, or . . .”
“I’m hungry,” he said as we passed a diner. “But she said I should come home, and I can just eat there. Where are you going?”
“I guess I’m going to the subway.”
“Me too.” We walked along, talking about the graduation and fell to talking about movies. We rode the subway together until he reached his stop. I kissed him as the train door opened. “I love you, son. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He waved as the train pulled away.
I went home and downloaded the photographs. I sent them to Lucy’s family, my family, the kids and various friends. I posted our family picture on Facebook.
Madeline sent me a note, congratulating me on the graduation. “Nice-looking family, Jefferson. Lucy sure looks miserable, though.”
“She didn’t say a word to me, start to finish, and left without a word to Jason or me,” I replied. “She must’ve been pained to share that photograph with me.”
I may not like what’s Lucy’s become, but I do feel sorry for her.
The trip took them through my hometown. Lucy asked our youngest daughter to contact my parents to ask if they could stop by for a visit. Of course, my parents agreed, and offered to arrange for other family members to visit as well. It would be the first time Lucy had seen my family since we separated eight years ago. We assumed this was a nice gesture. Presumably, Lucy had no special interest in being with my family, but she wanted to allow the children to see their Southern folks.
Afterward, Mom called to say that Lucy had been surprisingly pleasant. I was glad the trip went well. I had been a bit suspicious of it.
Last weekend, I went home for my high school reunion. I was sitting with my family when someone brought up how big my children have become since their last trip South. I said I had heard good things about the visit from the kids. I was impressed that my middle son had wanted to take so long a trip to see New Orleans as it recovers from Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.
My brother Frank looked at Mom. “Well, that’s not why they made the trip,” he said. He looked at me. “You want to know the real reason she came down here?”
“Do tell.”
“Brother, Lucy came down her to tell us about your blog.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Nope, he’s not,” Mom said. “She sat right there and told us you had a blog and were having all kinds of sex and writing about it.”
I shook my head. “Wow.”
“Yeah, she told us about the blog—what’s it called, ‘One Life, Take Two?’” Frank went on. “She said she found it and read about the things you do now. She took me over to Mom’s laptop and typed in the whatcha-ma-call-it and showed it to me.” He laughed. “You’ve got some hot pictures on there, man.”
“She typed in the URL for you? On Mom's laptop? Jesus. Well, what did you say, Mom?”
“Well, I told her I always knew you were a good writer. Your Dad said it sounds like you’re having fun.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. Then I asked of they wanted to spend the night. They were planning to drive a few more hours, but I said that didn’t make any sense when we’ve got room.”
I stood up and put my hand on my brother’s shoulder. “Well, sorry you had to find out that way. Obviously, I didn’t see a reason to tell you. So know you know the dirt on why Lucy felt empowered to spend a year and two-hundred-thousand dollars chasing me through court.”
“There wasn’t any reason to tell us!” Mom said. “We don’t care what you do like that. You’re not married and you’ve been grown up for a long time.”
“Thanks.” I thought a moment. “Wait, you’re not still reading it, are you?”
“I read a little bit to see what she was talking about,” Mom said. “But honey, I don’t need to read about your sex life.”
“I mostly liked the pictures,” Frank laughed.
I can only imagine Lucy’s disappointment in my family’s reaction. Planning her drive to New Orleans, she must have rehearsed many scripts in her mind. When she outed me to her own family, Lucy found they rallied around her, severing ties to me and writing checks to her attorneys. When she outed me to our children—the youngest of whom was then eight years old—Lucy found they were frightened and confused as their mother wove dark tales about the father they adored.
My family shrugged off Lucy’s revelation and offered a place to stay for the night. Privately, they now told me, they felt pretty sorry for her. I suppose that’s how I feel about it, too.
It would be right to be angry. I began having sex at an early age, with males and females, and recognized my bisexuality at age nineteen. I went to college the following year and never returned home to live. I saw no reason to come out to my parents, particularly after I entered into monogamy and marriage with a woman. Now, as I near fifty years of age, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my family. She did so by making it possible for them to read about my sex and sexuality in whatever ways I’ve reported it here.
It must have been a long, bitter drive back to New York.
“I still love him," Lucy told my family, “but I don’t like what he’s become.” As my Mom said in relating this to me, “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not love.”
Clearly, my family knows a few things about love.
A week before I returned home to my high school reunion, I attended the high school graduation of my eldest son. With our younger children seated behind us, Lucy kept her gaze trained to the stage, avoiding eye contact with me.
After the ceremony, everyone filed out of the auditorium to the lobby and street beyond, proud parents and family searching to congratulate the new graduates. We found Jason. Lucy pushed ahead to kiss his cheek, standing on her toes to do so. Collie shook his brother’s hand, smirking at his own staged formality. Lillie affected disinterest, saying, “Um, hello? Everyone just graduated. Why does he get all the attention?”
I laughed at her as I pulled Jason into a bear hug. “I love you, baby boy.” I pulled back and grabbed his shoulders. “And now, goodness, you’ve got two months until going off to college.”
“I know, “ he said, beaming as he does, his lips struggling to restrain a smile. “Guess I should start packing.”
“Not just yet,” I smiled, hugging him again.
We made our way to the sidewalk, which teemed with clusters of people, each centered on a graduate in a blue gown. I followed as Jason navigated through the crowd in search of his friends. Lucy and the kids trailed me. I took photos of Jason and his friends I shook hands with their parents, congratulating them as they congratulated me.
We found an empty space. Lillie goofed with her brother. I took more photos. Lucy had forgotten her camera, and I had promised to share mine.
Lucy came forward with Collie. “Let’s take a family picture,” she instructed our children. She gathered them together, wrapped an arm around Collie and looked at me expectantly. “Everybody say ‘cheese,’” she smiled.
I raised the camera to snap Lucy’s family picture.
A woman tapped my shoulder. “Would you like me to take a picture so you can all be in it?”
I smiled and handed her the camera. “Thanks, that’s very nice.” I showed her how to use the camera and took my place in the lineup. I beamed at the camera, our children arrayed between their mother and father. I thanked the woman and took back my camera. I turned to Jason. “Do you have any plans? Maybe we can all get an early dinner or something.”
“Um, no, no plans.” He paused. “Oh, I just realized I haven’t eaten today.”
“Oh, so let’s fix that.” I looked around. “Did you see where your mother went? Where’s Collie and Lillie?”
Jason peered around the families surrounding us. “Huh, I don’t see them.”
“They probably went inside to use the bathroom or something. I’ll wait by the door while you talk to your friends.”
Jason ambled over to pose in another photograph. I made my way to the door. Twenty minutes later, Jason joined me as the crowd thinned. “You see Mom?” he asked.
I shrugged. “No sign. You neither, I assume.”
“No.” He looked around.
“Why don’t you call her, then?”
He raised his gown to retrieve the phone from him pocket, pushed a few buttons and raised it to his ear. “Voice mail,” he reported. “I’ll try Collie.” Voice mail again.
“Maybe we should stand on the corner. Maybe they’re at the other exit looking for us.” We moved. They weren’t there. A few minute passed. I suggested Jason try his mother again.
“Hello?” He nodded to tell me she answered. “What did you say? . . . oh, okay . . . so what should I do? . . . okay, see you in a minute.” He hung up and look at me. “She said Lillie wanted to go home.” He began to walk down the street.
“Oh, okay. I’ll walk with you to say goodbye to them.”
“No, actually, I’m not meeting them. They’re already at home.”
“They left?” Not a word to me or our graduating son. “Okay, well, hmm . . . did you want to get a bite, or . . .”
“I’m hungry,” he said as we passed a diner. “But she said I should come home, and I can just eat there. Where are you going?”
“I guess I’m going to the subway.”
“Me too.” We walked along, talking about the graduation and fell to talking about movies. We rode the subway together until he reached his stop. I kissed him as the train door opened. “I love you, son. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He waved as the train pulled away.
I went home and downloaded the photographs. I sent them to Lucy’s family, my family, the kids and various friends. I posted our family picture on Facebook.
Madeline sent me a note, congratulating me on the graduation. “Nice-looking family, Jefferson. Lucy sure looks miserable, though.”
“She didn’t say a word to me, start to finish, and left without a word to Jason or me,” I replied. “She must’ve been pained to share that photograph with me.”
I may not like what’s Lucy’s become, but I do feel sorry for her.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Feverish, Sad Drama
Everyone seemed to have an opinion about my custody case. In managing her
smear campaign, Tess modified her gossip to be sure it resonated in receptive
ears. Above all, she wanted to impress the women whom she felt could further
the reach of her new “secret sex blog cabal.”
On the day after I learned that my ex had filed a motion against me, Tess huddled over lunch with Dee and Rachel, a sex writer with a popular blog. Tess had been pressing Dee to end our relationship. Now, she encouraged her to complain about me in detail, hoping to influence Rachel against me.
A few days later, I posted some details about my case. The Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had set up a legal defense fund to support my case and I needed to get out word about that. I took care not to reveal anything that could impact the case; just to be safe, I ran the text by my attorney. She encouraged me to point out the free speech ramifications in the filing, as this was fairly unique in a custody case. I did as she suggested.
Reading my post, Rachel was confused. How could a custody case have anything to do with the First Amendment? A former law student, she could not imagine any circumstance in which that could apply. Although I had asked my friends not to comment on the case as it was before the court, Rachel felt moved to blog “if you've ever studied anything about the First Amendment, you should know that it applies to the government dictating what you can and can't say, not your vindictive ex-wife. Nobody ever said he didn't have the legal right to post anything he damn well wanted.”
Rachel had never read my ex’s motion against me. She didn’t discuss it with me before blogging about it. Small wonder, then, that her uninformed conjecture was simply wrong. I had never claimed that free speech issues were involved because my ex wife was upset by my writing. My attorney informed me that First Amendment rights were involved because my ex-wife’s attorneys sought to have the State of New York shut down or curtail my blog. My attorney’s research showed that this was a case of first impression, meaning that if the court ruled against me, we would be able to appeal, perhaps so far as the United States Supreme Court.
Thankfully, the court did not rule against me. But in the court of blog opinion, Rachel had established a critical fact: I was either misinformed or lying.
Tess added this to her gossip.
Tess lobbied Dacia to come out against me and to discourage contributions to my legal defense fund. Persuaded that “this is a big and important thing for the sex blogging community to talk about,” Dacia wrote a blog post in which she questioned my revelation that my ex’s motion was concerned with my sexuality as discussed in my blog. “The bisexuality and the blogging is just a piece of the puzzle,” she ungrammatically opined. “Anyone who reads his blog knows Jefferson’s affinity for bourbon—and though he has a flip way of writing about it, his drinking is a real problem that I personally have seen unfold in embarrassing and fucked up ways.”
Substance abuse was very much on Dacia’s mind. She was then breaking up with her boyfriend of several years due to his inability to kick his cocaine addiction. Of all the subjects covered by Tess’s gossip, my drinking resonated most for Dacia. If the motion was not about my bisexuality and blogging, my former drinking buddy could certainly imagine that it might have to do with alcohol.
Dacia had never read my ex’s motion against me. She didn’t discuss it with me before blogging about it. Small wonder, then, that her uninformed conjecture was simply wrong. The motion, which was the size of a phone book, made no mention of my drinking. Dacia had originally noted that her post was based on her six-year relationship with me; she would eventually revise that to say that she had not spent any time with me in the previous three years and therefore, she wasn’t speaking with any direct knowledge. “Much of what I know about Jefferson in the here and now is admittedly second hand information,” Dacia confessed. She was repeating gossip, much of it proffered by Tess. Neither Tess nor Dee had witnessed me drinking to excess, so Tess sent Dee in search of evidence to support Dacia's claim.
As comments flowed into Dacia’s blog, people alluded to their own lives with alcoholics and shared stories of abuse and neglect. One commenter, attracted by the drama, offered to start a blog outing me and other bloggers. Anyone contacting the commenter was given our names and told how they were discovered. This was brought to Dacia’s attention, but she declined to remove the comment. In fact, she did little to moderate what another commenter aptly characterized as her blog’s “witch trial.” Dacia let the flame war burn, impressed that her betrayal of those who had trusted her proved so beneficial to her ratings.
In the court of blog opinion, Dacia had established a critical fact: my ex-wife was suing for custody of our children because I was an alcoholic.
Tess added this to her gossip.
On the day Dacia posted her attack against me, Tess added a post to her own blog. Dacia’s post had given Tess the grounding to take a public stand against me. Tess made a point of discouraging contributions to my legal defense fund. In subsequent posts, Tess turned her attention to the women she courted for her “secret sex blog cabal.” In order to impress them, Tess felt it was important to maintain an air of indifference to me in her blog, even as her gossip about me provided her with the material with which to keep them entertained. Still, she encouraged Dee to post about me frequently. Tess and Dee knew my ex read Dee’s blog—Dee had provided me with my ex’s IP address—so it was the site most likely to do damage to my case. The strategy had the added advantage of making Tess appear far less obsessed than Dee, at least publicly.
Tess and Dee added their own negative comments to Dacia’s blog, both under their own names and under pseudonyms. Tess continued this practice on other blogs as well, repeating common refrains under a variety of identities. People were dissuaded from donating to my legal defense fund; indeed, its very legality was questioned. Bloggers were encouraged to remove links to my blog from their blogrolls. If enough followed suit, Tess felt, she would succeed in erasing me from the blogosphere.
It satisfied Tess to believe that so many people were thinking ill of me, but she was frustrated that my case garnered support from Lambda Legal, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund. The latter had set up the legal defense fund Tess was working hard to downplay. If the organization was made aware of the online controversy Tess had helped to create, she felt, surely they would not be willing to continue supporting my case. As she fanned Dacia’s flame war, Tess became impatient to put the controversy to use in destroying me. It was time, she felt, to cut off my support.
A month after Dacia's initial attack, comments to her post continued to come in daily. By this time, the comments reached into the hundreds. The flame war had deteriorated to such an extent that commenters referred to my addictions to alcohol and sex as established facts and my real identity was routinely outed. Dacia dug in to assert, “I think that most readers of this post and others that have been scattered around the Internet have enough information to realize that this is not a clear-cut case of being persecuted for sexual orientation.” It was no longer conjectured that perhaps my ex wife’s motion against me was not based solely on my sexuality as described in my blog; Dacia now stated with confidence that the motion she had never read was not “clear cut.”
Dacia’s confidence emboldened Tess and Dee. The day after Dacia’s assertion, Dee wrote an appeal to the members of the Friends of Jefferson, beseeching each to abandon her support of me and my custody case. That same day, an email was sent to Valerie White, Director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund. “His custody case is not based upon his bisexuality,” the writer categorically stated. “His wife has known about his bisexuality for a long time. The case is based upon his reckless conduct which is not in keeping with responsible or even barely adequate parenting.” The writer repeated allegations that I was an alcoholic and added new claims that I was a gigolo and other suppositions that had surfaced in the unmoderated comments on Dacia’s post. The writer offered a link to Dee’s blog in order to detail “the ugly truth about Jefferson's life,” and concluded by urging the organization to “please reconsider lending your good names and influence to this cause.”
Valerie White forwarded the note to my attorney. Valerie knew that my ex’s motion against me was, in fact, entirely concerned with my sexuality as described in this blog. She knew it made no mention of alcoholism, prostitution or other awful suppositions. Valerie and the Board of Directors of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had reviewed the motion before agreeing to establish a legal defense fund, as was standard procedure for the organization. She recognized that the writer of the email was uninformed about the motion. My attorney dismissed the note as a poor attempt to adversely influence a case before the court.
When I read the note, I saw Tess’s gossip neatly surmised in one text, articulated in her distinctively melodramatic idiolect. It was clear to me that gossip had displaced reality in Tess’s mind. Anonymous blog comments and slanderous attacks were now the truth as she wanted it represented. It was the truth that that Tess could use to destroy me and deny me my family. Nearly a year later, after the custody case had been settled and the blog drama laid to rest, the allegations and language used in the letter to Valerie were reiterated in an anonymous online attack outing me. Tess's obsession continued to seethe.
Flame wars come and go in the blogosphere. Dacia’s flame war against me burned brilliantly, but eventually, it died down as others flared up. Looking back, Dacia would later describe her destruction of our relationship as a “feverish and sad drama” largely of her own creation. Perhaps from the experience, Dacia learned that attacking people feels awful, particularly when attacking people who care about you.
Recently, another blog drama reminded me of Tess’s obsession. Some unidentified person had started a blog revealing the identities of sex workers, echoing the use of Dacia’s blog to out sex bloggers. As Tess had since come to care about sex worker rights, she addressed the controversy in her blog. First, she advised others to talk about the blogger offline but not in tweets or on blogs, as that only gave more attention to the blogger. Evidently, she felt the strategy of back-channel gossip had worked well in her campaign against me. “The best way, the only way, to make people like [ . . . ] go away is to starve them of any attention,” she intoned. Gossip is good, she suggested. Direct confrontation was to be avoided.
Tess decried the blogger’s effort as “mired in vindictiveness, in pettiness, in meanness and its intent is solely to cause harm. Let me repeat that because it's that important—its intent is solely to cause harm.” She concluded by shaming the blogger’s “goal of harming individuals by disseminating private information.”
Tess couldn’t have done a better job of describing her campaign against me. In fact, Tess’s behavior just a few months earlier presaged actions she now decried.
In the days after her break up with her lover Victor, Tess dealt with her despondency by anonymously attacking me online. Creating an account at a website designed to be used by women complaining about bad dates, Tess described “Jefferson Blogger” as follows:
“He's known for being charming when you meet him and he's seduced countless young, inexperienced women. He keeps a blog onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com where he makes his life sound wonderful and glamorous. But he seeks out mentally unstable or naive women and he uses them for his benefit. He's an alcoholic and has been accused of sexual assault. He is also known for getting his young girlfriends into sex work.”
To this profile she added a photograph of me that is readily available online.
When I revealed Tess’s anonymous attack in post entitled “Tess’s Obsession” she quickly made revisions:
“He keeps a blog onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com where he makes his life sound wonderful and glamorous. He's an alcoholic and has been accused of sexual assault. He recently fabricated a long post about who he thinks posted this profile. However, he's wrong. I've decided to snip out the things that are hearsay, but include only the bits that I've witnessed myself to be fair.”
Not surprisingly, Tess claimed I was wrong in identifying her as my attacker. As she knew I was not wrong, she dissembled into damage control. She backpedaled, admitting that her claims against me were hearsay, merely gossip she had concocted and spent a year honing through constant circulation.
Tellingly, the hearsay that Tess omitted in the revision concerned the countless “mentally unstable or naive women” I had allegedly seduced into sex work. When Tess began her smear campaign against me in the summer of two thousand and eight, she and Dee were quick to condemn me as a “whore.” They were called aside by Dacia, who discouraged them from using that word as an epithet against me or, indeed, anyone. Dacia began to educate the two women about sex worker rights, a cause of great concern to her. Many strong women make the choice to become sex workers, Dacia instructed, and archaic myths of white slavery insult their intelligence. Certainly, no one should out the identities of sex workers.
Tess and Dee were impressed by Dacia’s lessons and guidance in their assaults against me; so much so that they began to style themselves in her mold as activists for sex worker rights. Dee was charged as, in middle age, she began to acquire a political consciousness. Tess saw the advantage of impressing Dacia in achieving her own ambitions. Just as she wooed Rachel in hope of participating in readings, Tess knew that associating with Dacia could suggest an intellectual credibility she otherwise lacked.
Still, her lesser demons could not rest. A full year after Dacia’s lessons—a year spent forging a new activist identity, a year in which she neither saw nor spoke with me—Tess couldn’t resist decrying me as a Svengali who forced feeble-minded women into the horrors of sex work. What’s more, in posting a photograph of me, she was outing me, using precisely the same tactics of the blogger she would soon self-righteously decry.
Embarrassed by my exposure of her anonymous attacks, Tess revised her language. Minus the admitted hearsay, all that was left was her claim that I was an alcoholic and an allegation that I had been accused of assault. She claimed that she was, in fact, an eyewitness to these claims.
Tess had seen me drink; as recently as fourteen months prior to this attack, she had invited herself to drinks and dinner with mutual friends. From what Tess could recall of the night, before she staggered home, she had seen me imbibing alcohol. She clung to this claim as Dacia had made it central to her own online attack against me: Dacia alleged that as recently as two thousand and five, three years prior to her own post, she had seen me drink alcohol. Tess needed to align herself with Dacia’s authority, and so sent Dee in search of proof of my alcoholism. During our eight-month relationship, Dee had never seen me drunk. Dee’s entreaties to Avah provided further frustration, for in our two-year relationship, which included countless parties, my teetotalling kinky girlfriend could only recall seeing me drunk on one occasion. Evidence be damned, Tess clung to her claim. Apparently, by her reckoning, alcoholism was a moral failing that should bring me down in the eyes of others.
Even more serious was Tess’s claim to have witnessed an assault. On the one hand, this allegation avoided the problem of giving offense to those she sought to impress. Some may be concerned with protecting the rights of sex workers, but who would defend assaulters? Still, as the revision settled in her mind, the limitations of her allegation became clear. If Tess had witnessed an assault, what action did she take? Did she report it to authorities? Isn’t that what anyone would do? Or was her reaction limited to making anonymous allegations online?
Tess knew there had been no assault for her to witness, nothing on which to take action. Now that attention was on her anonymous attack, she found herself in a bind. She could dig deeper into her trench, hurling mud at me with the increased audience I had brought to her forum. There could be some satisfaction in that; attacking me enflamed her passions, and now the dickhead that obsessed her had provided a new opportunity to scratch that itch.
However, Tess was no longer in the heated throws of anger at Victor. She had made her attack in the summer, when the break-up was days old. Now it was autumn and Tess was basking in another kind of attention: there was soon to be a launch party for the sex blogger calendar she had helped to create. Her anonymous attack, taken in an impetuous fit of misandrist pique, had been revealed at a most inopportune time. Everyone was talking to Tess about me. Attention was once again drawn to her obsession. Despite her weak defense—“he’s wrong”—she recognized that my discussion of her actions would ring true to those she wanted to impress. She had, after all, gossiped the narrative of her anonymous attack for well over a year.
The letter written to the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had asserted, as fact, gossip that the recipient, Valerie White, recognized as false. The letter made claims about a legal motion that Valerie had read and the letter writer had not. The writer of the letter was simply wrong.
Tess’s gossip consumed her thinking. If words fell from her lips and flew across her keyboard with enough repetition and frequency, they took root as fact in her mind. She could not let go. Everyone must see, as she did, what a dickhead I am. Establishing that meant all. It allowed her to push me aside in her urge to take what she coveted.
Now, in revealing her attack, I had exposed the fissures in the façade of her new persona. Continuing her attack was too risky. If she appeared consumed by attacking me, those she sought to impress may see her as no better than Dee. And, as Tess enjoyed repeating, Dee’s most useful function was in making her look good.
A few days after the attack had been revised, I was contacted by the administrator of the website on which it had appeared. The anonymous post had been removed. Now, no one would have further access to this evidence of Tess’s obsession.
The anonymous attack was removed just days before the sex blogger calendar launch party.
On the day after I learned that my ex had filed a motion against me, Tess huddled over lunch with Dee and Rachel, a sex writer with a popular blog. Tess had been pressing Dee to end our relationship. Now, she encouraged her to complain about me in detail, hoping to influence Rachel against me.
A few days later, I posted some details about my case. The Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had set up a legal defense fund to support my case and I needed to get out word about that. I took care not to reveal anything that could impact the case; just to be safe, I ran the text by my attorney. She encouraged me to point out the free speech ramifications in the filing, as this was fairly unique in a custody case. I did as she suggested.
Reading my post, Rachel was confused. How could a custody case have anything to do with the First Amendment? A former law student, she could not imagine any circumstance in which that could apply. Although I had asked my friends not to comment on the case as it was before the court, Rachel felt moved to blog “if you've ever studied anything about the First Amendment, you should know that it applies to the government dictating what you can and can't say, not your vindictive ex-wife. Nobody ever said he didn't have the legal right to post anything he damn well wanted.”
Rachel had never read my ex’s motion against me. She didn’t discuss it with me before blogging about it. Small wonder, then, that her uninformed conjecture was simply wrong. I had never claimed that free speech issues were involved because my ex wife was upset by my writing. My attorney informed me that First Amendment rights were involved because my ex-wife’s attorneys sought to have the State of New York shut down or curtail my blog. My attorney’s research showed that this was a case of first impression, meaning that if the court ruled against me, we would be able to appeal, perhaps so far as the United States Supreme Court.
Thankfully, the court did not rule against me. But in the court of blog opinion, Rachel had established a critical fact: I was either misinformed or lying.
Tess added this to her gossip.
Tess lobbied Dacia to come out against me and to discourage contributions to my legal defense fund. Persuaded that “this is a big and important thing for the sex blogging community to talk about,” Dacia wrote a blog post in which she questioned my revelation that my ex’s motion was concerned with my sexuality as discussed in my blog. “The bisexuality and the blogging is just a piece of the puzzle,” she ungrammatically opined. “Anyone who reads his blog knows Jefferson’s affinity for bourbon—and though he has a flip way of writing about it, his drinking is a real problem that I personally have seen unfold in embarrassing and fucked up ways.”
Substance abuse was very much on Dacia’s mind. She was then breaking up with her boyfriend of several years due to his inability to kick his cocaine addiction. Of all the subjects covered by Tess’s gossip, my drinking resonated most for Dacia. If the motion was not about my bisexuality and blogging, my former drinking buddy could certainly imagine that it might have to do with alcohol.
Dacia had never read my ex’s motion against me. She didn’t discuss it with me before blogging about it. Small wonder, then, that her uninformed conjecture was simply wrong. The motion, which was the size of a phone book, made no mention of my drinking. Dacia had originally noted that her post was based on her six-year relationship with me; she would eventually revise that to say that she had not spent any time with me in the previous three years and therefore, she wasn’t speaking with any direct knowledge. “Much of what I know about Jefferson in the here and now is admittedly second hand information,” Dacia confessed. She was repeating gossip, much of it proffered by Tess. Neither Tess nor Dee had witnessed me drinking to excess, so Tess sent Dee in search of evidence to support Dacia's claim.
As comments flowed into Dacia’s blog, people alluded to their own lives with alcoholics and shared stories of abuse and neglect. One commenter, attracted by the drama, offered to start a blog outing me and other bloggers. Anyone contacting the commenter was given our names and told how they were discovered. This was brought to Dacia’s attention, but she declined to remove the comment. In fact, she did little to moderate what another commenter aptly characterized as her blog’s “witch trial.” Dacia let the flame war burn, impressed that her betrayal of those who had trusted her proved so beneficial to her ratings.
In the court of blog opinion, Dacia had established a critical fact: my ex-wife was suing for custody of our children because I was an alcoholic.
Tess added this to her gossip.
On the day Dacia posted her attack against me, Tess added a post to her own blog. Dacia’s post had given Tess the grounding to take a public stand against me. Tess made a point of discouraging contributions to my legal defense fund. In subsequent posts, Tess turned her attention to the women she courted for her “secret sex blog cabal.” In order to impress them, Tess felt it was important to maintain an air of indifference to me in her blog, even as her gossip about me provided her with the material with which to keep them entertained. Still, she encouraged Dee to post about me frequently. Tess and Dee knew my ex read Dee’s blog—Dee had provided me with my ex’s IP address—so it was the site most likely to do damage to my case. The strategy had the added advantage of making Tess appear far less obsessed than Dee, at least publicly.
Tess and Dee added their own negative comments to Dacia’s blog, both under their own names and under pseudonyms. Tess continued this practice on other blogs as well, repeating common refrains under a variety of identities. People were dissuaded from donating to my legal defense fund; indeed, its very legality was questioned. Bloggers were encouraged to remove links to my blog from their blogrolls. If enough followed suit, Tess felt, she would succeed in erasing me from the blogosphere.
It satisfied Tess to believe that so many people were thinking ill of me, but she was frustrated that my case garnered support from Lambda Legal, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund. The latter had set up the legal defense fund Tess was working hard to downplay. If the organization was made aware of the online controversy Tess had helped to create, she felt, surely they would not be willing to continue supporting my case. As she fanned Dacia’s flame war, Tess became impatient to put the controversy to use in destroying me. It was time, she felt, to cut off my support.
A month after Dacia's initial attack, comments to her post continued to come in daily. By this time, the comments reached into the hundreds. The flame war had deteriorated to such an extent that commenters referred to my addictions to alcohol and sex as established facts and my real identity was routinely outed. Dacia dug in to assert, “I think that most readers of this post and others that have been scattered around the Internet have enough information to realize that this is not a clear-cut case of being persecuted for sexual orientation.” It was no longer conjectured that perhaps my ex wife’s motion against me was not based solely on my sexuality as described in my blog; Dacia now stated with confidence that the motion she had never read was not “clear cut.”
Dacia’s confidence emboldened Tess and Dee. The day after Dacia’s assertion, Dee wrote an appeal to the members of the Friends of Jefferson, beseeching each to abandon her support of me and my custody case. That same day, an email was sent to Valerie White, Director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund. “His custody case is not based upon his bisexuality,” the writer categorically stated. “His wife has known about his bisexuality for a long time. The case is based upon his reckless conduct which is not in keeping with responsible or even barely adequate parenting.” The writer repeated allegations that I was an alcoholic and added new claims that I was a gigolo and other suppositions that had surfaced in the unmoderated comments on Dacia’s post. The writer offered a link to Dee’s blog in order to detail “the ugly truth about Jefferson's life,” and concluded by urging the organization to “please reconsider lending your good names and influence to this cause.”
Valerie White forwarded the note to my attorney. Valerie knew that my ex’s motion against me was, in fact, entirely concerned with my sexuality as described in this blog. She knew it made no mention of alcoholism, prostitution or other awful suppositions. Valerie and the Board of Directors of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had reviewed the motion before agreeing to establish a legal defense fund, as was standard procedure for the organization. She recognized that the writer of the email was uninformed about the motion. My attorney dismissed the note as a poor attempt to adversely influence a case before the court.
When I read the note, I saw Tess’s gossip neatly surmised in one text, articulated in her distinctively melodramatic idiolect. It was clear to me that gossip had displaced reality in Tess’s mind. Anonymous blog comments and slanderous attacks were now the truth as she wanted it represented. It was the truth that that Tess could use to destroy me and deny me my family. Nearly a year later, after the custody case had been settled and the blog drama laid to rest, the allegations and language used in the letter to Valerie were reiterated in an anonymous online attack outing me. Tess's obsession continued to seethe.
Flame wars come and go in the blogosphere. Dacia’s flame war against me burned brilliantly, but eventually, it died down as others flared up. Looking back, Dacia would later describe her destruction of our relationship as a “feverish and sad drama” largely of her own creation. Perhaps from the experience, Dacia learned that attacking people feels awful, particularly when attacking people who care about you.
Recently, another blog drama reminded me of Tess’s obsession. Some unidentified person had started a blog revealing the identities of sex workers, echoing the use of Dacia’s blog to out sex bloggers. As Tess had since come to care about sex worker rights, she addressed the controversy in her blog. First, she advised others to talk about the blogger offline but not in tweets or on blogs, as that only gave more attention to the blogger. Evidently, she felt the strategy of back-channel gossip had worked well in her campaign against me. “The best way, the only way, to make people like [ . . . ] go away is to starve them of any attention,” she intoned. Gossip is good, she suggested. Direct confrontation was to be avoided.
Tess decried the blogger’s effort as “mired in vindictiveness, in pettiness, in meanness and its intent is solely to cause harm. Let me repeat that because it's that important—its intent is solely to cause harm.” She concluded by shaming the blogger’s “goal of harming individuals by disseminating private information.”
Tess couldn’t have done a better job of describing her campaign against me. In fact, Tess’s behavior just a few months earlier presaged actions she now decried.
In the days after her break up with her lover Victor, Tess dealt with her despondency by anonymously attacking me online. Creating an account at a website designed to be used by women complaining about bad dates, Tess described “Jefferson Blogger” as follows:
“He's known for being charming when you meet him and he's seduced countless young, inexperienced women. He keeps a blog onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com where he makes his life sound wonderful and glamorous. But he seeks out mentally unstable or naive women and he uses them for his benefit. He's an alcoholic and has been accused of sexual assault. He is also known for getting his young girlfriends into sex work.”
To this profile she added a photograph of me that is readily available online.
When I revealed Tess’s anonymous attack in post entitled “Tess’s Obsession” she quickly made revisions:
“He keeps a blog onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com where he makes his life sound wonderful and glamorous. He's an alcoholic and has been accused of sexual assault. He recently fabricated a long post about who he thinks posted this profile. However, he's wrong. I've decided to snip out the things that are hearsay, but include only the bits that I've witnessed myself to be fair.”
Not surprisingly, Tess claimed I was wrong in identifying her as my attacker. As she knew I was not wrong, she dissembled into damage control. She backpedaled, admitting that her claims against me were hearsay, merely gossip she had concocted and spent a year honing through constant circulation.
Tellingly, the hearsay that Tess omitted in the revision concerned the countless “mentally unstable or naive women” I had allegedly seduced into sex work. When Tess began her smear campaign against me in the summer of two thousand and eight, she and Dee were quick to condemn me as a “whore.” They were called aside by Dacia, who discouraged them from using that word as an epithet against me or, indeed, anyone. Dacia began to educate the two women about sex worker rights, a cause of great concern to her. Many strong women make the choice to become sex workers, Dacia instructed, and archaic myths of white slavery insult their intelligence. Certainly, no one should out the identities of sex workers.
Tess and Dee were impressed by Dacia’s lessons and guidance in their assaults against me; so much so that they began to style themselves in her mold as activists for sex worker rights. Dee was charged as, in middle age, she began to acquire a political consciousness. Tess saw the advantage of impressing Dacia in achieving her own ambitions. Just as she wooed Rachel in hope of participating in readings, Tess knew that associating with Dacia could suggest an intellectual credibility she otherwise lacked.
Still, her lesser demons could not rest. A full year after Dacia’s lessons—a year spent forging a new activist identity, a year in which she neither saw nor spoke with me—Tess couldn’t resist decrying me as a Svengali who forced feeble-minded women into the horrors of sex work. What’s more, in posting a photograph of me, she was outing me, using precisely the same tactics of the blogger she would soon self-righteously decry.
Embarrassed by my exposure of her anonymous attacks, Tess revised her language. Minus the admitted hearsay, all that was left was her claim that I was an alcoholic and an allegation that I had been accused of assault. She claimed that she was, in fact, an eyewitness to these claims.
Tess had seen me drink; as recently as fourteen months prior to this attack, she had invited herself to drinks and dinner with mutual friends. From what Tess could recall of the night, before she staggered home, she had seen me imbibing alcohol. She clung to this claim as Dacia had made it central to her own online attack against me: Dacia alleged that as recently as two thousand and five, three years prior to her own post, she had seen me drink alcohol. Tess needed to align herself with Dacia’s authority, and so sent Dee in search of proof of my alcoholism. During our eight-month relationship, Dee had never seen me drunk. Dee’s entreaties to Avah provided further frustration, for in our two-year relationship, which included countless parties, my teetotalling kinky girlfriend could only recall seeing me drunk on one occasion. Evidence be damned, Tess clung to her claim. Apparently, by her reckoning, alcoholism was a moral failing that should bring me down in the eyes of others.
Even more serious was Tess’s claim to have witnessed an assault. On the one hand, this allegation avoided the problem of giving offense to those she sought to impress. Some may be concerned with protecting the rights of sex workers, but who would defend assaulters? Still, as the revision settled in her mind, the limitations of her allegation became clear. If Tess had witnessed an assault, what action did she take? Did she report it to authorities? Isn’t that what anyone would do? Or was her reaction limited to making anonymous allegations online?
Tess knew there had been no assault for her to witness, nothing on which to take action. Now that attention was on her anonymous attack, she found herself in a bind. She could dig deeper into her trench, hurling mud at me with the increased audience I had brought to her forum. There could be some satisfaction in that; attacking me enflamed her passions, and now the dickhead that obsessed her had provided a new opportunity to scratch that itch.
However, Tess was no longer in the heated throws of anger at Victor. She had made her attack in the summer, when the break-up was days old. Now it was autumn and Tess was basking in another kind of attention: there was soon to be a launch party for the sex blogger calendar she had helped to create. Her anonymous attack, taken in an impetuous fit of misandrist pique, had been revealed at a most inopportune time. Everyone was talking to Tess about me. Attention was once again drawn to her obsession. Despite her weak defense—“he’s wrong”—she recognized that my discussion of her actions would ring true to those she wanted to impress. She had, after all, gossiped the narrative of her anonymous attack for well over a year.
The letter written to the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had asserted, as fact, gossip that the recipient, Valerie White, recognized as false. The letter made claims about a legal motion that Valerie had read and the letter writer had not. The writer of the letter was simply wrong.
Tess’s gossip consumed her thinking. If words fell from her lips and flew across her keyboard with enough repetition and frequency, they took root as fact in her mind. She could not let go. Everyone must see, as she did, what a dickhead I am. Establishing that meant all. It allowed her to push me aside in her urge to take what she coveted.
Now, in revealing her attack, I had exposed the fissures in the façade of her new persona. Continuing her attack was too risky. If she appeared consumed by attacking me, those she sought to impress may see her as no better than Dee. And, as Tess enjoyed repeating, Dee’s most useful function was in making her look good.
A few days after the attack had been revised, I was contacted by the administrator of the website on which it had appeared. The anonymous post had been removed. Now, no one would have further access to this evidence of Tess’s obsession.
The anonymous attack was removed just days before the sex blogger calendar launch party.
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