Many years ago, when we were about 17, someone brought a men's magazine back from a gay club. 'Look at this!' she said, throwing it open at the centrefold, just to show me, well, the centrefold - but as I looked at it, I realised that there in all his well-endowed glory, wearing lip-gloss & nothing else, was our friend J, soul music aficionado and deflowerer of most of North London.
I hasten to say, wasn't judging him - we were more surprised than anything else as he'd kept quiet about his 'modelling' - but the sensation of looking at this picture of man-candy, and then the abrupt shift in feeling when you realise it's one of your friends, is impossible to describe. (though maybe J Geils would know whereof I speak.)
Why am I telling you this story? Not just for cheap titillation - it's because there's something sort of similar in my recent reading experiences in blogs. Usually I am totally happy with the voyeurism of it all. At the moment it's making me uncomfortable. And somehow, ashamed of myself. Shouldn't click-click, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...
I know we've been here before,but for me it’s a question that won’t go away. It’s finding a balance not just as a writer but as a reader too.
What do you reckon?
About Courbet (yet again)
2 days ago
23 comments:
What bothers me are the people who pour out their feelings and then wallow in the faux sympathy they elicit.
Then again, I don't read their stuff.
Interesting... do you think it is faux sympathy?
This reminds me of the time when RoMo suggested how weird blogging can be. I'd never even thought of it like that (probably cos I'm weird to an extent).
If it's voyeristic, it's because it's like keeping an open diary, at least to start off with for many bloggers. But as you get more readers, you start thinking about them and perhaps what they would like to be reading - you get more accomodating to other peoples tastes.
Take the post you did recently about rubbish English men for example. For a brief moment, you thought that everyone hated it - but look how popular it became!
Blogging's become more developed from the diary theme, which is how it was meant evolve.
You shouldn't feel quilty about beeing seen as voyeristic, reading and writing blogs is far better than being addicted to mindless soap operas on telly.
Balance? Do whatever it takes to feed the soul. Just don't commit a murder while you do it.
BTW, I forgot, RE: You discovering a mate in a porn mag.
Years ago, I worked in a huge factory that made cardboard boxes. They used to have an incinerator in one part of the factory to burn the surplus card (this was before recycling).
Every now and then, the Obscene Publications Squad would come round with a load of porn to be burnt. Of course, some of the factory workers ended up saving some of the dirty mags from the incinerator which were then kept in a special 'porn locker'.
I ended up reading one (the erotic stories were much better than GWAOTM, plus I was single at the time - don't judge me, m'kay?) when I shockingly discovered my mate's other half in the Reader's Wives section. It was only then that I discovered this flame haired woman to truly be a 'collar-and-cuffs' girl.
I know of the feeling that you talk about in this post.
Ha! BAD Istvanski.
Hmm. Not explaining myself very well, I think. Will come back at a less ridiculously early hour when I'm awake...
I feel a bit uncomfortable about confessional blogs - don't know how to react to them and usually don't leave comments. Possibly to do with the fact that I'm not part of the touchy/feely generation and was brought up to keep my feelings to myself! I'm definitely awkward around people who have emotional outbursts and feel the same about bloggers who are like that.
Mind you, I've learned to keep personal stuff out of my blog as much as possible. A couple of years ago I made an off the cuff remark about a lad I had a crush on when I was six years old (!) and stupidly put his name in the comments on that post. Forgot all about it. Of course, recently he Googled his name, spent a couple of hours on my blog and sent me an e-mail in which he said (in a jokey way ... I hope ...) "I never realised I was your first love". I was mortified! So, only very vague references to people from my past in the blog from now on, and definitely nothing that can be Googled!
I seldom write anything personal aside from funny or nice things on my own blog, because it's just not that kind of blog I suppose, but I do quite enjoy reading more personal stuff from other people. Partly that's probably voyeurism, and partly it's a kind of intimacy. I admire people who can be so honest (even if they're doing it anonymously). I seldom comment on personal things, but find it all thought-provoking and rather moving, and I don't want them to stop. That said, I also don't want to know who they are personally, and might be a bit perturbed if I found out that I knew someone whose confessional-type blog I'd read.
Hmmm, the only thing that really bothers me is overly sexual blogs. I can take most of them, but I once read what i think was the Belle de Jour one and was horrified by her graphic detail about pleasuring herself in a changing room.... it was a bit too much.
I think i try and take each blog as i find it and accept that different people blog for different reasons, but on my own blog, very personal things are mostly under password as the world doesn't need to know unless they want to and ask to.
I agree with jellybaby - things can get a bit much. I kind of find it annoying - too many blogs about sex and nothing is kept private anymore. I dunno - I am not a prude but I just am finding so many blogs like this and it's kind of getting same samey.
By the way - I saw that picture of our "friend" Miss Dawn showed it to me as she was going out with him at the time. His dong was GINORMOUS!! HA! She was telling me that she could only take half..that is hurt - it's so sex in the city. Read it and weep boys:)
I was going to write a really crass comment in response to Bad Sarah's last one but thought better of it.
go on - do it - don't hold back. I hope you're not going to be mean though.
Well, you're always a paragon of discretion in your own writing - your New Year post, for example. Nosily want to know. Might e-mail to nag it out of you. Just joshing (a bit) - so I hope you're not giving yourself a hard time, though I think you mean when you read others' blogs. But, yes, it's all horses for courses. Occasionally I might cringe when I read something someone's written, for whatever reason. But still think it's OK to have written it. I feel more self-conscious about the writing part, often thinking, "Hmm, this doesn't deserve to be written." Still, blogging's a good thing, I think, and we all love yours because we all know you're lovely.
Of course people are like this in ‘real life’ too.......the friends/acquaintances/colleagues who blurt out all sorts of personal information about their health/relationships/family when all you want is some lighthearted banter about the weekend’s football.
Easier to avoid it online though….just don’t click!
Don't hold back *and* not be mean?
You drive a hard bargain.
I wasn't going to be mean about anyone else, it was to be a self-effacing comment.
Have no fear, I have censored myself.
Why are blogs so different to other forms of writing? People publish letters and diaries, write personal books, maybe based on truth maybe not, but then who's to say blogs aren´t made up? Surely the freedom to write whatever you want extends to the reader to read whatever you want, if it´s too personal for your taste, skip on to the next one. I don´t blog, but the people who write very personally are obviously finding some benefit in doing so. Are you feeling guilty about the amount of time you are spending online or the content of what you are reading? Sounds like a case of overload to me...
You describe perfectly what I'd like my blog to be: a place where "people get a sense of you without giving away all your secrets".
I have posted in oblique confessional mode but it didn't feel successful in writing terms and I felt a bit silly afterwards.
This is a tricky one, isn't it? Some topics aren't appropriate post material for the same reason you wouldn't discuss them with the person next to you in the bus queue. However, a blog solely about the weather and the inadequacies of public transport would be extremely boring.
I think if you post about something, you must expect people to read it. What I think is harder to nail is the ability some bloggers have to write about the personal in an amusing or entertaining way without being senationalist or cringe-inducing (I think you are a good example of this, by the way).
Don't feel bad about reading other people's confessional stuff. Bored, perhaps but not bad.
Usually voyeurism is fine if both parties are in on it. But I know what you're saying. Someone crosses the line in their writing, and you realise it's more a cry for help or the sign of going off the rails. Or you realise you're getting more from it than you feel comfortable. And it's not fun any more...
I really must get a new job, one in which I can read blogs and respond to comments during the day...
Betty, ha! Let that be a warning to us all.
Timorous Beastie, I think intimacy is a good word - I guess it's where it crosses the line from feeling intimate to feeling slightly like some weird stalker that worries me.
Pink Jellybaby - now I'm intrigued! I don't think we can do this on Blogger (?) though it would be handy...
Sar, sex blogs make me feel inadequate. I like to think they're making it all up. Who's gonna know...?
Aw, cheers BiB. Your writing is lovely too. (Sometimes I do wonder why I wrote stuff, and have a strong urge to delete everything.)
Alan, too true, but easier said than done sometimes.
Em, good question - I think it's because it's a bit like Being John Malkovich and having a portal into someone else's head, (or having someone else inside yours) which is sometimes amazing but sometimes too much... When another Hackney blogger asked 'was that you on the ___ bus today?' it gave me a jolt. Please feel free to read my inane shit, but recognise me in real life? Chills...
I hear that, Arabella.
Ah, thanks Marsha. I think if you post about something, you must expect people to read it. Yes, that's the bottom line. I only read personal blogs (ie not business, music, food blogs etc which are more like old-school media columnists) but it's such a new phenomenon when you think about it - absolutely different to any other way of communicating with people that we've had in the past. Maybe I'm getting something like vertigo at getting to grips with this new technology & communication.
Del, right. It's a curious mixture of anonymity and, um, whatever the opposite of anonymity is, (onymity?) that makes me queasy sometimes.
I know what you mean about sex blogs and feeling inadequate! I don't think they do make it up. But I think you have to be a certain type of person... and they usually end up with the same type of person. Let's put it that way.
Hi Annie.
Leaving aside qestionable subject matter, it feels weird even commenting on a blog by someone I don't know. A bit of a PMFBI situation. Yet reading a blog regularly induces this false sense of familiarity. It's a one-way valve though, and if that lack of reciprocity is unnerving for the reader, what must it be like for the writer? I don't have a public blog, so can only imagine what it's like to have readers out there whom I don't know. Let alone the unkown unknowns.
OTOH, a mature blogger of my acquaintance used to blog cheerfully about his students and colleagues, believing his blog to be "a semi-private journal". He seemed to think no-one but his close friends would read it. Although he used initials, he didn't blog anonymously, so anyone who knew him could work out whom he was talking about: it took several casual but concerned readers to drive home to him the very public nature of what he was doing. (If he'd wanted to be private, he could have restricted access.)
Having said all that, it's the writing that interests me. If someone is in control of their material (ie, if the writing's good), I tend to take them at face value and assume it's intended for public consumption, whether or not I'm on the blogger's Christmas card list.
Voyeurism? Yes, maybe the net makes voyeurs and exhibitionists of us all. Hence the appeal of Second Life, I guess.
(Is a voyeur ipso facto a bad thing?)
Hi and welcome, Anne! It's not a bad thing, I guess, if it's a happy meeting of voyeur and exhibitionist. I think it's the anonymity that I'm a bit mistrustful of... can't really explain the sensation that my conscience is saying 'Oy! Should you really be reading this?', which originally prompted this post...
Post a Comment