At a Crossroads

[via the Pin Up Files]

I haven't been blogging for a while. I've been suffering a writer's block of sorts which has been trigged by many things: coming out to some of my friends as a sex blogger, finding and getting together with J, and wanting to broaden the scope of my writing. For the last month or so I've been trying to figure out where my blogging is going and what I want to get out of it, and I think I finally have the answer.

I first started this blog because I wanted to write about sex, but it turned into much more than that. When this blog first began, I had a lot of upheaval and confusion in my life. I had begun to explore my budding sexuality in a serious way, and was figuring out what sex meant to me. A number of my lovers had left my college, or were in the process of leaving, and I was dealing with my emotions surrounding that. In many ways, Heartbreak Nymphomania was the frustrated ventings of a lonely heart, who was searching for intimacy and a relationship but was unable to find it.

But a lot of that has changed. After I became comfortable with my single life and, after that, got into a stable and happy relationship with J, I had a lot less need to work through my relationship issues & feelings here, which was initially what this blog was all about.

Now, I want to write about more topics, and in a more intellectual, involved way. Many of which I already address to some extent here, but with some other additions: gender, sexuality, queer issues, body image, BDSM, feminism, race, pop culture, art & literature, college & education, fashion and media. I also want to be "out" as a writer, blogger, and someone with a strong interest in issues surrounding sexuality. Not like I am here, with only a handful of friends knowing about me.

I am at a crossroads. At first I was loath to pull away from my Wilhelmina Wang identity - god knows I've grown into it very much since I first started writing and interacting with people online as Wilhelmina, and doing so has been very good for me and has made me very happy. I've also established myself quite nicely under this name - more than I ever expected to, really. But I'm ready to move on, and instead of fearing the change (because change is always scary for me, even positive change) and trying to avoid it, I'm going to embrace it.

I'm not going to leave this blog behind - it still serves as a safe place for me to talk about my personal & love life when I need to work through things, and I've always sort of envisioned using my Wilhelmina Wang name to write & maybe even publish works of erotica. However, if I'm going to make this blog a smaller part of my life and devote my time to writing about other things, I'm not going to write here as much.

I plan to start a new blog, where I'll devote a lot more time and aim to produce high-quality content. The style of my posts will probably be more article or essay-like, citing from other blog posts, articles and maybe books. I will also be writing under my real name (!), so the eyes of my school, potential employers, acquaintances, and whoever else cares, will be on me. In spite of that, I hope to continue to be as unerringly honest with my opinions and observations as I am here.

I don't plan to merge my two identities. I really can't afford to, and the style of the content will be so different that it really doesn't make sense to.

The good news is that I want to take you, my readers, along for the ride. I can't make a public announcement about my new blog, because I don't want everyone knowing the connection between the two, but if you email me, DM me, leave a comment, or otherwise contact me, expressing your interest, I'll send you an email with the new blog URL once I get it up and running.

I am unspeakably excited about this

Disclaiming & Snowballing

[via rent-a-moose]

...no, not that sort of snowballing, you pervs.

So, since I began the coming-out process as a sexblogger, I've told most of the friends that I've written about; or they have found out somehow. So far, I've been happy to find that nobody has any hard/hurt feelings about my writing about them, or look down on me for doing this. My outing myself has actually encouraged a number of dialogues between me and the friends I write about here, as well as a few interesting conversations with people I haven't mentioned.

However, one person, upon reading this blog, decided that one of her friends, who I'd written about, should never read it because it would hurt his ego too much.

He did, in fact, end up reading it. And I talked to him about my writing negative things about him. He took it all very well, fortunately. In any case, I feel like I should repeat some of the things I told him here, since it's something I'd like my readers / other bloggers to think about...

In a sense, I'm being very unfair to everyone I mention here. I'm writing things about them and presenting them in a certain way without giving them the chance to "defend" themselves or give their side of the story. It's actually pretty similar to blabbing about someone to other people behind their back. Of course, now that they know about this blog, they could present their perspectives if they so wished, but that was not always possible.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but people who read this blog need to understand that I'm pretty much the epitome of "unreliable narrator." I'm recounting all these events from a very specific point of view: mine, and I'm a pretty self-absorbed, neurotic, emotional person (if you haven't noticed that already) at that. I also wrote many of these posts at a time where I was stressed and filled with emotions and in dire need to work through them, so I probably presented a very skewed picture of what happened. Many of the things I said were true in the moment but then evaporated hours, days or maybe even months later. And with certain people, I wrote more negative than positive things about them... while I want to record the happy moments so that I can better remember them, the negative or troubling happenings tend to be the ones I need to process, and therefore need to write about more urgently.

You'd be wrong in assuming that everything I wrote about here, I later talked through with the people in question. That has happened at times... but many times my writing here was the total extent of my dealing with the problem. Yeah, I know it's better to actually talk things through with people instead of sitting around and ruminating. Expressing myself verbally, and confrontation of any kind - they're not my strong points, and I need to work on that.

...Anyway, just something to think about.

---

I was talking with one of my Zeta Mu friends the other day. She and her girlfriend have been going out for a month now, and at one point were keeping the relationship a secret. And then they started telling people. She said something that struck a chord with me - that you tell people a piece of news, and it gets to a certain point that you don't have control over who is told anymore. People tell more people and it just... snowballs.

That's exactly how I feel about me telling people about my blog... it began with me telling people and knowing who I told. (I know I said all this stuff about not hiding anymore, but the truth of the matter was that I was basically out to my close friends and to certain people at Zeta Mu. And Zeta Mus are so accepting and sexually liberal that that was hardly even a step.)

Then people started finding out without me telling them. Some of them (like K) said something to me, letting me know that they knew. But I know that it's easy enough to not say anything. And if I let myself think about enough - wonder, does this person know? What about that person - it would turn me into a paranoid, crazy mess.

Basically - you can only control who knows about you for so long, until things escalate...

Anyone who knows me well enough will eventually have a conversation about sex/relationships about me, and realize that I'm very open, liberal and experimental, and not afraid to say so. However, there are definitely people who I would prefer didn't know about my blog, simply because I know that it would change the way they treated me. A few asshat male acquaintances come to mind - guys who I know are attracted to me, and might see this blog as a sign that I am a "skank" and therefore would agree to sleeping with them (no). Or might harass me, or something. (The guys I have in mind are the same guys who, for some reason, think because I've slept with a lot of people and like sex, that I will automatically sleep with them. Even though I've told them I'm not interested multiple times. Again - no. Jeez.)

Besides that, there are certain people who don't see me in a negative light, but I'm afraid that my openness about my sex life here and on Twitter makes them uncomfortable. I mean, I'm not making them read this, but because it's just here and they know it's here...

---

I haven't blogged much over the past week or so. It's not a coincidence. I mean, part of it is due to finals (which I should be working on right now...) but some of it is just self-consciousness. I'm thinking about doing HNTs less, and only writing very little about my sex life with J. That isn't only because of self-consciousness. Lately I've had little reason or inclination to do HNTs, and I also prefer keeping the majority of my sex with J private just because, well... it's nice to keep some things a secret.

It's just as well. Lately I've been wanting to write more "intellectual" posts about feminism/gender/other stuff. Maybe less smut will mean less readers, but eh. (Notice I said less. I'll be continuing to write erotica, and chronicle my experiences with Sir and the Optimist, but adding different material means less frequent erotica posts.)

To conclude, for now, though - I'm happy with how things are turning out. I'm not constantly watching myself, worrying that my friends will find out, because they already know. And that's a big relief.