Check out the Naked Ladies!

I'm all atwitter--we've got our Naked panel finalized! These four women will be participating in a panel discussion on identity blogging called "How to Be Naked". As I've mentioned in an earlier post, identity bloggers share more than just info on their favorite gadgets, least favorite pundits, and beefs with the IRS. They share themselves. And none of these girls I would describe as shy (at least not online).

As more and more women take up personal blogging, questions of diclosure arise: How much can I say about my job? My sexuality? My marital situation? How can I express myself without overexposing myself or others? These panelists have all asked these questions and come to different conclusions.

One has lost a job from blogging
One ponders if she will get a job, despite blogging
One reveals her transition from He to She
One tells it like it is, even if it means flaming herself

Please no scratching or kicking to get into this session, folks. Single file! First come first served! Some pre-press from our panelists on coming to BlogHer:

Heather Armstrong, of Dooce:
"At the end of July I’ll be headed to Santa Clara, CA via San Francisco to speak on a panel at BlogHer Conference, an estrogen-packed weekend with all The Ladies. The panel I am speaking on is called How to Get Naked, which when it comes to delivering a baby or just walking around the house I know EVERYTHING about. Word is no one on the panel will actually be naked but you know that we’ll all be thinking about each other’s boobs.

Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By:
"Despite the title of the panel, this old lady is keeping her clothes on."

Koan Bremner of Multidimensional.Me:
Now, I just have to decide what to *wear*... ;-)

Jeneane Sessum of allied:
"Proud to be among the panelists for blogHer's personal bloggers' panel. I remembered saying something I liked about blogging naked, so I searched my archives. This was a good one from 2003:"

"...I think too many bloggers get trapped in a catch-22 over self-exposure, though. They start out with a few self-telling, honest, often painful posts, and suddenly put pressure on themselves to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth in all manner of all things on their blogs. Some of us who tend toward very public expression of very private places begin to feel an unreasonable responsibility for 24/7 exposure. Even begin to resent blogging. And who wouldn’t.

"Perhaps pure-personal-truth-telling can be sustained, but does it need to be? Who puts the pressure on—-our readers or ourselves? Unless we’re going to live here, naked, all of us, with a real time voice recording of the goings on inside our heads and hearts, we can’t sustain the open-wound model. And we shouldn’t have to."

This'll be good.

Comments

[Lisa Stone]

Have. Achieved. Nirvana...

[mobile jones]

Does every identity blogger feel pressure to push the envelope? And is it inevitable that they will make a mistake or show bad judgement somewhere along the way?

I'm at a loss to understand how making a joke for the boys out of such a horrific degrading image is fun or entertaining. This identity blogger should have followed his initial hesitation. If you don't know what the word means, DO NOT click on any of the links which represent it. I've spent allot of energy trying to erase the one and only viewing that I was tricked into of this foul use of technology. Trust me. This isn't an image you want in your head.

I wonder how the reporter, Stephanie Rosenbloom will feel about the joke played on her given the nature of the image?

[Elisa Camahort]

This is the dilemma: here you've posted that link on our site that's getting literally thousands of hits a day...didn't you just help propagate the "joke" and the image behind it?

The blogging world really seems to get into these loops where we end up promoting the very things that appall us...and that's something the no follow tag doesn't fix.

[mobile jones]

Elisa, hopefully I've been clear enough in my communication above that no one would mistake it for promotion of the joke. Feel free to email me if that's not clear to you.

There seems to be an implied question in your admonition that I'll gladly address. This site is about women's voices. Those voices are not represented in any of the discussions around this stunt. I couldn't find a single comment from a woman. There's lots of congratulating going on, and it seems a very appropriate occurrence to both post and discuss under the auspices of an effort to gain aknowledgment of the female voice in the blogosphere.

I think maybe you just missed the point. I encourage you and others who read about this event to be heard and be counted. You can choose to contribute your perspective only if you are aware that the discussion is occuring. You may also choose to let it slide...to not offend. But without awareness you have no choice. Without objection, do you think there is awareness on their part that this behavior is offensive and disrepectful?

[mobile jones]

OK. Here's the fun part. The image that I was shown as "goatse" was in fact not "goatse." It was far worse, but don't worry I won't link to it.

So basically, I'm looking for the delete comment key. Where is that again?

[Elisa Camahort]

No I didn't miss your point at all. I don't need to email you to get clarity, thanks though.

And BTW I did comment on Niall Kennedy's blog about it, where one of those self-congratulatory discussions is going on, so you must have missed that.

I am talking about a bigger picture than this particular instance. I am simply seeing this as the latest example of what I was talking about: the inevitability of the way blogging works is that we end up in some ways supporting that which we do not wish to support, because we feel obligated to link to it. Some guy writes a post trashing blogging. Every blogger talks about it and links to it. The blog-trasher gets loads of link love, and he couldn't care less that it's in the form of complaining posts. That kind of thing is happening with this too. It's the old "any PR is good PR" at work.

Whenever I feel bored with the blog world, it is inevitably because of such stunts/memes. When everyone feels obligated to talk about the same thing.

[mobile jones]

There's lots of interesting discussion that your position could lead to, but I'd like to return for a moment, if you'll indulge me, to my orginial questions. There are hundreds of posts on links and the relative importance of those. It's tempting to take up the topic, but I think I'd like to move back closer to the topic of the post where I'm commenting.

Do identity bloggers feel pressure to push the envelope to a point of inevitable error?

The effort of identity blogging is a bold one, generating content on a regular basis which is tied to your identity in an effort to share your inner thoughts reflecting your personal world view. Not everyone can perform this balancing act and be authentic, entertaining and relevant. The recent ponderings of notable identity bloggers punctuate the issues that arise over time. As one's situation changes, as time goes by and as one is exposed to new information, experiences or perspectives, their blogging voice may change. Their audience may change. Their willingness to share some parts of their inner thoughts may change.

Is it more difficult for identity bloggers to over come a faux pas, because the writing is inextricably tied to who they are? Yes, to Elisa's point, the swarming effect of bloggers doesn't help, as swarming can artifically elevate visibility and importance of achievement and blunders. So, how do indentity bloggers resolve temptations to take them beyond, say, political correctness and then absorb the criticism they receive? And finally, how does one preserve their reputation following a faux pas in the harsh light of the blogosphere?

[fp]

Not everything that ends up in a comment string must be saved. Maybe we'd all be better off if you just tore out this part of the thread, including my suggestion!

[Koan Bremner]

fp - may I respectfully disagree with your suggestion, and justify why? There may have been a crossing of wires / difference of opinion here; and it may have been expressed, er, "sub-optimally" (and maybe not). But this post describes a session which will cover what happens when you "blog naked"; and, in my opinion, part of blogging naked is dealing, in public (and with transparent integrity) with those who disagree with you, sometimes heatedly. On one's own blog, one can set standards as to what is or isn't on-topic; what is or isn't acceptable language; and so on. Anyone who's going to blog naked really ought to consider those questions (among others), in my opinion.

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of any individual commenter's position or tone, I think this comment thread helps to justify *why* a session on whether (and how) to blog naked is necessary.

[fp]

Yes. I opened mouth before checking assumptions. I THOUGHT that all the goatse references would lead one to some truly execrable linkage, were one to click. As it turned out, my assumption was wrong, I was wrong, I should have checked out my assumption before commenting.

I thought Anil's t-shirt was quite a fashion statement actually.

Blogging naked was never at issue for me. Linking garbage is every blogger's choice. Turns out that Debi wasn't linking garbage at all, and I was ... W R O N G!!!