You know, this is one line of inquiry I keep seeing theferrett NOT respond to (well, apart from loligo's suggestion). I've been reading about this whole thing and fuming for the last few hours, and this is my first comment on anything. I know that there is a lot of heavy emotion still being flung around on other people's blogs, although sensible, insightful discourse has started to pop up on my radar as well.

I can't think of any other way to say this except this: Hey, theferrett. DUDE. THIS IS A SIGN. I've read other things by you before, and even had your LJ in my RSS reader at one point earlier on this year. I took it out because you kept rambling about stuff I didn't care about, and the occasional pearls of posts you put out weren't enough to justify me spacing past the crap in NNW every other day. There were also a couple of sexually themed posts that skeeved me the fuck out, and added to my general sense of "no, thanks".

I wouldn't have put you in my reader if I'd seen this. Or this. And now, this whole kerfluffle. Not only do you seem to have a raging case of male privilege ("I'm not capable of being That Guy! I'm a Nice Guy, people! Oh wait, we need access control here...against Those Guys. None of whom may ever be me despite the fact that I am human and fallible"), you also seem to have a serious problem editing yourself.

Now, your raw, straight-from-the-gut style has been a good thing for your writing at some specific times. AT SOME SPECIFIC TIMES. This utopian take-back-the-breasts campaign was entirely, entirely, ENTIRELY the wrong post to slather what you truly seemed to feel ("heal me of my high school hurts"; "liberate YOUR sexuality for MY pleasure"; "OMGBOOBIESLOL";) all over it, especially since you proposed the campaign would be traveling out of your group of way-more-comfortable-with-it friends. There are some situations where you just need to learn to edit yourself, check yourself, or risk hurting others or skeeving them out, and this was one of them, and man, I am never going to risk coming to this journal again without a predetermined purpose or a direct link from a trusted source behind it, because I can't trust you not to do yet another number on me and come all over That Guy, tainting your post and leaving me skeeved and out however many minutes I spend struggling through your work.

You like to write about sex and sexuality, right? That is awesome. That is fine by me. What is not fine by me is writing about it in a way people (including me) point out as skeevy, and then not owning the fact that while you may not have meant all of the skeeviness, the words you wrote implied it to us. Authorial intent can only neutralize a very tiny portion of skeeve factor for me; it is not a get-out-of-correction-free card. If lots and lots of people are telling or have told you that the skeeve-factor of your writing may need fixing, please listen.

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I wouldn't have put you in my reader if I'd seen this. Or this.

Or this?

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Yeah, or that too. Ugh.

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You know, I agree with you.

The problem is that at this point, I'm pretty sure that anything I say publicly is just going to make it worse.

I've been trying to figure out a way to make a post that would clear up some of those issues, and if it was just me, I would. But unfortunately, a lot of my friends are also caught up in this shitstorm, and it's hurting them, and I'm pretty sure any reopening of things is just letting fresh oyxgen in on a dying fire.

I was wrong about that. I've received over 300 emails of support from people who did get it, but clearly those who didn't are also out there, and I blew my writing check significantly. And I am sorry for that, and I apologize to you and anyone else.

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