Contrary to certain things I may write about on this blog, I do like and value my privacy an awful lot.

By the time I hit my teens, social media was really starting to take off. So naturally, I got swooped up in the world of pictures, status updates and likes to reinforce my validation as a human being. Why couldn’t I get so many likes on a picture of myself like the popular girls in school? Why couldn’t I get hit on online? Why couldn’t I have boys paying more attention to me like the ‘pretty girls’ who had blunt, choppy layers and wore foundation for lipstick? (Ah the 2000s, those were the days!)

I stopped using personal social media (with the exception of the occasional message to the odd friend to keep in touch) around two years ago after a bit of a lightbulb moment. For a long time it became toxic to me. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that people only put, most of the time, the good stuff on their Facebook and Instagram pages. While I am happy for old university friends purchasing houses and boasting about lavish weddings, it started to make me feel depressed and my self-esteem, which isn’t as good as it should be, really took a punching.

Plus, it almost seems an expectation to share your relationship online for your friends and family to see. Pictures, status updates, soppy posts etc. And after a little while of feeling shitty whenever I was on my then-active personal Facebook, one day something just clicked.

Why?

Why should I post about my relationship out of feeling of obligation, when it’s no one’s business but mine and my boyfriend’s? Why should I post status updates on random shit no one cares about, or default my validation from how many likes I get? In that moment I decided I’d had enough. Since then, I feel much better for it. I feel like I have more agency of my privacy, particularly the privacy of my relationship.

Now I know this might sound like an oxymoron, considering I write some intimate details of my relationship here. This to me, is very different. Being a sex blog, and with the full consent of my boyfriend, I post what I do. Even then I don’t post an awful lot about my relationship itself. You don’t see the day-to-day goings on, our little running jokes, the disagreements or pet names that I prefer to keep just between us.

Also, I am rather active on my blog social media, namely Twitter. So I might sound a bit hypocritical here. But again, to me, this is different opposed to personal social media. It’s there because I choose it to be. Not out of obligation.

When it comes to writing this kind of content along with the erotica I write, I prefer to write under a pseudonym. Not only because it comes with the territory and I find it fun to have a different name, but also because word travels fast and kink-shaming is still alive and well.

As well, I am able to write about what I enjoy by having more agency about what I share. I don’t feel obligated to share things about my life or parts about myself. I like to think that I can still have a space to share whilst still maintaining privacy. I enjoy writing about sex (what shame is there in that?) writing erotica, and personal experiences regarding thus, mental health and sex, gender and society. Claiming back more privacy has made me appreciate it all the more. I have more control over what I choose to write about with no social obligation on my part whatsoever.

Plus, I don’t think you need to know about every time I make a sandwich.