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What do people know about you online? What do they know about your personal life, your sexual preferences, the little things that make you go weak in the knees?
How do others understand how you perceive yourself? How comfortable you are with your own sexuality? With your relationship life choices? With the people you live with and/or date?
Over the past four years, as I’ve made my own journey from monogamous mom to single explorer to partnered, uh, explorer(still), I’ve had the chance, again and again, to marvel at both the depth of the secrecy some folks engage in (think about Suzie Orman and Michael Stipes coming out) and the radical transparency others practice (my brilliant friend MayMay and my equally amazing friend Sarah Dopp come to mind, as do the inspiring Carol Queen and Good Vibes co-founder—and co-housing authority Joani Blank).
For every person who keeps their sexual self separate from the rest of their identity, there is someone else who just doesn’t see the point of going to the trouble. For many of those who practice radical transparency, their sexual identity isn’t only a private matter, it’s a political statement about what permitted—or not—in a male-dominated society—which means being transparent isn’t only about being true to, and acknowledging yourself, it’s using yourself as political fodder to (help) make a larger point.
Interestingly, this view of sexuality (and transparency) is more about identity than it is about sexual preference. It’s not who you sleep with (or date), it’s how you identify yourself and how you share that with others. Do you integrate your personal life with your work, or try to keep it separate?
For me, over the past four years, I’ve made a effort to keep my personal life both true to my beliefs and relatively transparent. Readers of my blogs know when I got divorced, some of the relationships I’ve had, my personal values around non-monogamy, and some of my interest in sex and culture. On the other hand, I’ve tried not to over share, holding back from giving too much information(TIM) in a way that pits people off or interferes with my work life.
Recently, I read an exchange between young bloggers (in a post and the comments)that got me thinking about what the right degree of transparency might be, and how to achieve it. The post was by Corvida, a young tech blogger who blogs at SheGeeks and at ReadWriteWeb. Apparently, Corvida had a pretty wild time at her 21st birthday party, and was debating whether to post the pix.
“Only a handful of my online friends knew what I’d planned for my birthday and those friends weren’t all that surprised. This is because they’ve seen the “other” side of me. The side of me that’s not all tech, “ Corvida posted. “The side of me that loves rap music, girls, and who is a bit of a…flirt. (snip)…I don’t want to pick and choose which pics should go and which pictures to keep to myself. Yet, I ave a reputation and image to maintain.”
Teresa Wu, another young blogger, responded in the comments to Corvida, saying “ I know how you feel! I'm 19 (almost 20!) and I've had an incredibly difficult time figuring out what's professional enough to go online and what's not. I'm all for transparency in the workplace, but how much transparency is TOO much transparency?”
How much transparency is too much transparency, ladies? How do you decide what parts of yourself to share with the world, and what you keep private? And how do you manage making sure the people you are close to in your life know the right stuff before you tell the world?
Here’s some thoughts from others putting it right out there:
Sarah Dopp, who runs a blog called Genderfork (and who works for Cerado, the tech company that has done work for BlogHer (and is run by Lisa Stone’s partner), came out as queer a year ago and did a post about it. Her point, to cut to the chase, was that this was who she was and she wanted people to know it so they got her. Sarah writes: “…it’s been easier to let people make assumptions about my personal life than it has been to try to explain it to
