Although I've always had a fondness for technology, my income throughout my adult life could best be described as erratic. Consequently, while I was among the first people I knew who wasn't employed in a scientific or technical field to have a personal computer at home, I was among the last to get connected to the internet. When I finally did, a friend of mine encouraged me to look at his website. It wasn't much, he modestly suggested, but he did put up some examples of his photography. So I obliged. What should greet me when I typed his address into my browser but my own butt. And tits, thighs, and. . . . Welcome to the World Wide Whaaat?
The shock, I admit, is feigned. The photos he had posted were just a few of many he took of me about ten years earlier. It took me a few minutes until I recognized that he had only posted photos in which my face wasn't visible and he did not refer to me by name. Thinking about it, I felt ambivalent. These were hardly the only nude photos ever taken of me. Yet back in the eighties and early nineties, the possible places the photos could surface was limited. They might be displayed on a gallery wall. One photographer told me that she sold some prints of a photo of me. What the collectors may have done with them, I don't know. Whatever they may have done, they certainly had more interest in the photographer than in the subject. Even if some of the photos had been published, back in nineteen eighty-eight or eighty-nine, I could safely assume they would have a limited audience. Unless I ran for high office or became a movie star, acquaintances with whom I was not close would be unlikely to know of them.
In favor of my being blase about this new level of exposure was the fact that anyone who knows me well probably knows, or at least would figure, that I would be perfectly willing to pose nude. Not only would they guess that I'd be willing to pose nude, but they would probably guess that I wouldn't feel uncomfortable if the photos veered towards the sexual. Nudity and sexuality are far from synonymous, but they are both legitimate subjects for art. I've posed for painters as well. Most of my own paintings are nudes and many of those are intended to be sexual. By the time I saw those photos on the internet, I was in my thirties and very actively trying to produce a coherent body of work and get it out there. I came to the conclusion that part of being an artist was having a willingness to explore and expose those aspects of oneself that most people choose to keep private and decided to accustom myself to this new level of exposure.
One day during this same period of my life, my ex-husband phoned. He confessed that he searched on the internet for my name. Gee, why didn't I tell him about that film I'd been in before we met. Um, because, to steal an expression, it didn't even suck.
All of this happened before Google, let alone Facebook.
More recently, on a trip to France, I was sitting around a dinner table with a group of strangers. One person, iPhone in hand, asked me how I spell my name. A few seconds later he had pulled up a painting that had been in an exhibition of erotic art that had been put online. Good thing it was France. The phone was passed around the table. "Pas mal." "Pas mal." Perhaps in a country less open about sexuality the result would have been less supportive.
I'd like to broaden the question beyond the personal matters to a more political one. Recently, there have been many diaries on this site that have been written in response to Republican attacks on reproductive rights. Several of them contained first person accounts of controversial subjects like adoption and abortion. There have been numerous comments in which people have revealed highly personal information about sexual experiences and contraceptive practices. Sexual assault is another subject that has arisen. How many of the personal revelations would have been stifled if people had to publish it under their own name. This information is essential to the discussion. Perhaps it would be better if we could talk about these things without psuedonyms, but that is not realistic for many of us.
When I first signed up here, I took a few minutes to decide whether I should use my real name or a psuedonym. Using one's real name has much to recommend it. It was exactly the fact that I would completely muzzle myself on certain topics that made me decide in favor of a psuedonym.
Recently, there have been a couple of diaries questioning the ability of employers to ask for a job candidate's Facebook password. The usual response is "Don't post anything you don't want people to see." I don't have a Facebook profile and I'd rather not have one.
I do not live my life in fear of what the neighbors might think. However, I am not independently wealthy. I do not make my living dispensing my opinions. I do not even make a living as an artist. "Don't post anything you don't want everyone to see" really means "don't post anything that the most small-minded, judgmental person who might have any modicum of power over you would not approve." A pinched, clipped life like that would not be anything I would care to share with anyone at all, therefore, I have nothing worth sharing on Facebook.
It is not only potential employers, but insurers, banks and others, as detailed in an article that appeared in the Daily Beast in 2010. The ability to gather information has likely increased since then.
In an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times a few years ago, Maureen Dowd asked, "Who are these people prepared to tell you what they think, but not who they are?" Although she admits there have been legitimate uses of anonymity in the past, on the internet she can see only bullies.
In a widely read piece by David Sirota, he sees a potential negative consequence for losing anonymity. He says that "anonymity’s real social value is rooted in helping the powerless challenge the powerful." This is a valuable point. Unfortunately, he does not give examples beyond whistleblowers. Although whistleblowers are valuable, the concept of a whistleblower implies that the institutional structures are good but are being abused by the individuals currently in charge. A woman speaking frankly about how reproductive issues have impacted her life is not a whistleblower.
I feel comfortable with the paintings I've done and the photos I've posed for. Discussing the difference between erotic art and pornography is a subject long enough for a diary of its own. Let me just say that I think that are both are valid forms of self-expression and I would be happy to defend that position. Yet I know that is a position that is not universally accepted.
Finally, I had to come to the conclusion that I needed to find another career to save for retirement and do other financially responsible things. Unfortunately, my career is currently in flux and until it is settled, it will be prudent to err on the side of caution.
Randi Zuckerberg has said that ending anonymity online will make users "a lot better behaved." I believe there is an old saying about "well-behaved women."
(By the way, the Maureen Down Op-Ed piece contains information about a woman who filed a defamation suit against someone who called her a "skank" and a "ho," which might also be of interest.)