I guess it's just one of those things I'm very curious about. Although we are still on the subject of women with pseudonyms, this one is much more recent and from quite a different angle.
Many of you may have heard of "Girl with a one-track mind" but in case you haven't, "Girl with a one-track mind" is a blog (on this very site as a matter of fact) written by Abby Lee. Her blog won the "Best British or Irish Blog" in 2006 and 2007. For the longest time though, Abby Lee wrote under the name Zoe Margolis which is not surprising in any way because the blog goes deep into many of her sexual experiences. When her true identity was revealed Lee was traumatized and had to go into hiding for sometime. Many criticized what she was writing about because it was very explicitly sexual. Would it be different if she was a man? Women have often felt certain areas of writing off limits to them and sexuality is definitely one of these but could a man really write the same things without being criticized?
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That's a good question. Men's sexuality has always been more publicly discussed, while women are seen as this sexual enigma yet to be discovered. We're sexual beings, but we're also supposed to be chaste and pure.
Abby Lee writes a post on August 18? 2008 where she and this guy had some conversation online. the guy says something about, "You're more of a man than me...you write like one of my guy friends would write." Are women not allowed to be sexually explicit? Only men? Didn't Anais Nin do anything for women's sexuality in poetry and short stories?
No matter who it is - man or woman - people will get offended by any sexually explicit thing you say. that's just how people are. But really, a strong woman with an opinion about sex is compared to a man?
Maria, you write that women have often seen certain areas of writing off limits to them--I wonder if you wouldn't go into this a bit more. What are some other areas of life that women have been limited in exploring as artists?
I wonder, too, at the few women who've managed to create a multifaceted public AND expressly sexual self (Angelina Jolie, Madonna, or Ellen DeGeneres, for example) and the others who remain sexual objects no matter what. What do you think has allowed those three women to be overtly sexual (although we could argue that Ellen's sexuality would hardly be so overt if she didn't live in a society where heterosexuality was seen as the norm) and yet still known for something other than their sex lives?
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