Mixing It Up

The blogging world is such a delightful mix of macrocosm and microcosm.  Thoughts I have swirling around in my head sometimes show up, in bits and pieces, in others’ musings, sometimes others’ posts inspire my own blog ponderings or bring them into sharper focus, or sometimes a comment here or there make me stop and think, analyze, assess things in a way I may not have before.
Posts on FetLife do that as well at times, but not as often as the blogosphere does, although I have found threads on FL to be good fodder for discussion between W and I, and oftentimes accidentally echo our discussions after-the-fact.  Many times I have emailed him or said to him, “Did you see that post on (whatever-it-is) that we were talking about the other day?  What did you think?” (And in fact that just happened this morning, reading a post on buttplugs, and what kind are best to use if you have to wear them, say, all day.  Within his response to me he said, “when I start making you wear them to work…”  Hmmm…)
But that’s a post for another day. Today I am pondering the role of my various blogs and my own online presence, and how I integrate them (or not.)  This is something I have thought (and written) about before, and in fact addressed in my own way by specifically developing this blog.  But a comment by a reader recently gave me pause, and made me think about what I write about here, and, conversely, what I don’t write about (although I don’t think her comment was about that, directly, it was just where my thoughts went.)  And then a post on Pandora’s blog got me to thinking about my online vs real life presence, and how and why I separate the two, even to separating my “real life” blog and this one, as well as separating my “real life” presence on FetLife and this one. I have even gone so far as to not link either my FL profile to this blog, or this one to my vanilla blog.  And in fact, though I had originally posted my “Other Blog” link here when I started out on another bloghost, when I moved it here, I deliberately dropped it from my blogroll. I mentally noted that I had done so, but put it in the back of my mind to be contemplated later.  (It’s obviously later.) So why did I refrain from sharing it here?  What is it I am keeping separate, and why? And should I continue to do so?
I talked about this with W when I first started thinking about writing a blog that talked specifically (and in great detail) about my sexual life. He knows and reads my Other Blog, the one where I talk about my kids, work, & homelife, my thoughts, my hopes and dreams, as well as the occasional disappointments, insecurities and challenges that everyone faces. I’m freer there, in a way, because there I can share my thoughts about my life, I can be all of me that is the woman in my head, all my crazy thoughts: the woman that is afraid of losing, or that is insecure about her weight; the one feeling the bite of jealousy or feeling overwhelmed or angry at an SO or is afraid of growing older–any of the other myriad things one feels and seldom talks about, for fear of how we will be perceived.  I do talk about my sex life there as well, but mostly as it relates to what I am thinking/feeling about it, WIITWD, and poly in general.
I work hard not to censor those kinds of thoughts there, and for that precise reason I don’t often invite my “real” people (SO’s, lovers, friends) to read it. Sometimes it’s just too raw to put out there and then to face them the next day, knowing they know that about me, that they know my weaknesses. In fact, W may be one of the few real life people that I have allowed to know about that space, and even with him, if I need to say things that are too raw or scary for me to share with him, or just need to vent, I can place it on a filter that only allows certain online people to read it. That is my safety valve.
(The reality is that I have never used that filter, though, as (good or bad) I tend to speak my mind/talk about what I am feeling with W as much as write about it: I have come to a place of trust with him that I am not afraid to do so. I may be wrong, but I truly feel that I could share anything with him, even the ugly scary stuff, and he’d still love me. Or at least still want to hurt me, and that’s a sort of love, right? lol)  My SO also knows it exists, but he doesn’t read blogs, and so it is almost as good as not having shared it with him.  He knows I’ll share with him what I want or need him to know; he doesn’t always realize that sometimes I wish he would read about it, or that there are things I don’t tell him.
So why don’t I link from here to there?  It makes sense not to have all my real life friends/lovers reading all that bunch of hooey over there.  But what about my readers here?  I link over freely from that blog to this one, so why not this one to that one?  Obviously because although I share some deeply intimate pieces of myself here, I don’t want/need everyone to know the “real” me that I expose over there.  Then again, I have read many “sex” blogs that mix their real life with their sex life, and I find those hot and sexy, and they seem able to integrate the two effectively.  I’ll have to give it some thought…and maybe I will change that a bit here, talk more (occasionally) about what goes on in my head outside of a heavy scene or a sexual encounter.
So why do I separate my FL profile/persona from this blog?  The first reason is the content of this blog is just so…much.  Again, most of my “friends” on there are real life friends, and most of them I don’t want to read about the intimate details of my sex life, as odd as that sounds, considering I post all kinds of very graphic pictures on the site and most of my friends are pretty well aware of the kinds of things W does to me.  But I don’t share that stuff in my FL writings.  It is only here that I describe my sex life and the scenes that I engage in.  Only here that I can write those things.  I want to write about the raw, dirty, nasty sex I have.  I want to write about scenes we have that others (real life friends and lovers) might be horrified over.  I want to be able to share all the dark, scary parts of myself, first because I am an exhibitionist and second because I need to talk about these things, about what I do and why I do them.  I need this space to feel safe to me to be able to talk about all these things, without worrying that my RL friends will be worried or horrified or disgusted.  I like talking about sex.  I like talking about my sex life in a way that is hot and sexy and arousing.  But I don’t want some new potential playmate from FL to read about W fisting me, and think that he/she can/should do it too.  Or to think that the way W and I are is the way I want him/her to be.  Everyone is different, and that is what I like about multiple partners.  I only need one W in my life, and I don’t want others to either a) try to live up to what he does, or b) get scared off by what he does to me.  If we get together, I want to find our own pattern, our own rhythm.
Lastly is Pandora’s concern, that of her family finding out the extent of what she does.  Fortunately, I don’t worry about my own parents, they live far enough away that they don’t really have much contact with the reality of my life, we don’t have too many heart-to-hearts in which I would feel I needed to share those parts of my life with them, they don’t read blogs, I don’t give my real name anywhere and I am not (to my shame) an activist.  They know about my poly life, but the kink…not so much.  And yes, they would be horrified if it came out.  OTOH, if it happened…it happened.  We’d all live through it I am sure.  My kids…hmm…that’s another thought all together.  And perhaps the subject of anothr post.

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