So a writer at The Guardian threatened to dox me today...

Doxing, if you're unaware, is the process of posting personal information about someone, effectively revealing the real life person behind the online pseudonym.

This is a fairly nasty threat against anyone who writes explicitly about sex.  By and large we live in more enlightened times, but they're not that much more enlightened.  People are still highly judgmental about matters of sex.  Writers of erotica write under pseudonyms with good reason!  They don't want their enjoyable and harmless online hobby causing potential problems in their real lives.  There are school teachers and other similar professions that use writing on places like Literotica as an escape valve.  If the nature of their hobby became exposed it could cause them considerable difficulties in their careers.  For people with the misfortune of living in more repressive regimes, being unmasked could have far more serious repercussions.

I'm fortunate that I'm not in that situation, at least I think so.  Which is the problem.  Maybe my employers would be cool with what I write, maybe they wouldn't.  Maybe my friends would mostly remain my friends, or maybe they'd spend all day squinting at me sideways as if I was an alien.  That's the problem with these things, no one can really tell.  Which is why the majority of erotica writers choose to use pseudonyms.  It's safer that way.

I don't know if the threat was serious.  It was a heated discussion.  I and others were hurt and offended by the article and let the author know.  When the red mist rises cross words are typed.  The threat might not have been any more credible than the average twitter death threat.

But...

As much as I dislike bowing down to holier-than-thou thuggery, there are real life risks and consequences.  I have a family and a career.  The fear of a threat like that starts to eat away.  Was it serious?  Were they bluffing?  If they weren't and my real name leaked into the public domain what then?  Will I lose my job and then have difficulty finding future employment?  It's easy for the mind to prey on worse case scenarios.  This is a fun hobby I enjoy a great deal, but it is a hobby and I have to weigh it up against a career that puts food on the table and pays the bills.

I'm sorry to the people coming here in expectation of fun fantasy stuff.  I'm going to have to take a pause and think on this.  I love what I do, but I also love my real life job and I can't take a chance on jeopardising that.

I really loathe bullies, always have.