On my mind: Facebook, hypocrisy, and stomach flu

How's that for an intriguing title?

I'll start with the latter and get that out of the way. Wednesday, my stomach felt a bit upset most of the day, but I was able to ignore it for the most part. By that night, it was clear something was wrong. I had a stomachache that just wouldn't quit. It was so bad, I couldn't sleep at all, because I couldn't find a comfortable position while lying down. Finally, at 6:00 a.m., I got out of bed, threw on clothes and went to the drug store to get Pepto-Bismol.

That, basically, was my only activity yesterday. I crawled back into bed after dosing with Pepto and ginger tea, and watched crap TV all day long, dozing on and off when my stomach wasn't killing me. Had a little fever, too. Weird thing, though -- nothing came up or came down, just that godawful pain in my stomach. And last night, it finally eased off. I was able to eat a little and get a full night's rest.

Today, I still feel blech, but functional. I guess I should consider myself lucky that it didn't turn into that Norovirus that's going around, the ones that's making people violently sick to their stomachs. Guess mine was just a little 24-hour viral thing.

Anyway. I should catch up on the work I didn't do yesterday, but I'm going to blog first and ramble a bit, once again.

My pal Richard Windsor actually inspired this ramble with something he posted on Facebook this morning:

90% of my social media life is spent related to my lifestyle, where nobody is shocked. It is hard to turn that switch off for Facebook. A comment in one area can get 50 replies, the same comment here will get 50 rolls of the eyes and 50 deletes.

It is tough to be proud of who you are, while at the same time trying not to cram it down people's throats........ There is a fetish for that as well by the way :)

So if I offend, feel free to delete me, I won't be offended :)

This got me thinking: How many of you are on Facebook? In what capacity? Are you under your kink name or your real one? If you are in your vanilla identity, do you friend your kink pals? If you're under your kink name, what do you do about vanilla friends? How do you handle your kink in what is essentially a rather conservative environment?

I really don't know why I joined Facebook in the first place, but I did. I decided to use my scene name. Why? A lot of scene people are on FB under their real names, but I didn't feel comfortable revealing mine in a realm where perhaps some kinky stalkers could see it. I am very, VERY careful to keep my proper name in a compartmentalized work area and that's it. So I'm Erica Scott on Facebook.

However, do I advertise my kink? Not really. I don't hide it, but I don't broadcast it, either. Hint at it, sure. It's irresistible not to. But I don't post OTK or bare-bottom pictures, I don't post about my sessions or videos or anything like that. I don't need to; I have FetLife and this blog for all that. So I guess I sort of straddle the kink/vanilla fence. I'm under my kink identity, but I'm relatively subtle about it.

Yes, I belong to the Spanking Fiction and Blushing Books groups, and people can see that. Yes, I post my blog address in the About Me section. So, as I said, I don't deny it. I just don't make it the main reason for my being there.

So what do I do there? I play Scrabble. I post about other stuff on my mind that day. I "Like" my friends' photos and comment on their posts. I keep up with current events. And during the election, I admit it, I posted a lot. 

Who has friended me? A lot of spankos, to be sure. They recognized me. Some of them use scene names; others use their real ones. And many of them have families, co-workers and so forth on FB as well, so out of respect for that, I endeavor to be subtle about my proclivities.

Over my years on there, I've had a couple of scene friends, on FB under vanilla identities, sheepishly write to me, full of apologies, saying, "I'm so sorry, Erica, and I hope you won't be offended, but I have to unfriend you here. I have my boss, my mom, my so-and-so and such-and-such, and they're asking how I know you, blah blah blah." When presented like that, I'm not in the least bit offended. I understand, and I let them off the hook, saying it's OK. I know how nosy people are, and we have to practice due caution, after all.

Back in October, when things were heated and ugly pre-election, I got in a feisty mood one day. (I know, imagine that!) I decided to have a bit of mischief on FB, tweak a few people. So, in my photo album, I posted this picture:

And I captioned it: "After all, a woman's place is in her binder(s)."

Mind you, I chose this picture very carefully. I have clothes on, my panties are up. My bottom is not red. It's simply a bondage photo, playing on the "binder" comment that caused such a firestorm.

At first, I got floods of comments and "likes," from kinked and vanilla friends alike. No one seemed to be bothered or offended by it, which made me smile. I checked my friend count; no one deleted me. Overall, everyone loved it, thought it was hilarious.

But then that night, I received a terse message from a friend, essentially, "Sorry, had to unfriend you on Facebook." Nothing more. No follow-up explanation, no checking in to see how I felt about that. Just poof. That was three months ago, and I haven't heard a word from that person since.

Now that hurt my feelings. That made me feel like I was good enough to associate with in the kink world (this person is a fellow kinkster), but elsewhere, this person who supposedly was such a good friend and loved me so much found me to be an embarrassment. And this was the only individual who unfriended me over that photo, too. However, I took it down. It left an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

After I deleted the photo, I posted on FB about how I had taken it down, that I'd been unfriended over it and I was sorry if I offended anyone or caused anyone discomfort or embarrassment. I received many comments, all along the same lines, from both the vanilla and the kinked: "I thought it was funny." "You should have left it up." "Really???" And, overwhelmingly, "Sounds like that person wasn't much of a friend to begin with. Friends accept you."

But is it really that simple? Honestly, I don't mind the unfriending part. As I'd mentioned, others had done so as well, because they were concerned about families and so forth. But they were nice about it. They didn't make me feel like an embarrassing reject. It's all about the presentation, I guess.

I'm not changing what I do on FB. I won't post a photo like that again, but I'm not going to deny who I am if people ask, or figure it out. And so, it's up to whomever to friend me or not. Just do me one favor, OK? Don't friend me, and then unfriend me because you find me embarrassing. I'd rather you simply not connect with me there in the first place. There are lots of other places to connect with me that are much more satisfying. :-)

Curious about people's thoughts on this and on Facebook in general. Have a great weekend, y'all.