Maintaining Separate Identities Online
Society’s attitudes regarding sex (and sex work) aren’t keeping up with the times. Here are a few tips on how to create space between your online personas
At this point, nearly everyone has a story about the moment that their chosen social network recommended the wrong person, or connected them to someone who is too many degrees away for it to be anything less than creepy. Whether it’s LinkedIn recommending a partner’s ex’s boss as a connection, or Facebook recommending that one add someone they emailed once from a completely different email address, social networking sites have our movements on lock. While for some this may be a minor inconvenience, or perhaps a little salt in an old wound, for folks who have made sex their profession, this can have long-lasting, devastating consequences.
As social media becomes an ever-important element of advertising, folks tapped into the sex industry are finding that pseudonyms aren’t enough anymore. Sex workers have always compartmentalized their lives, but as the information gap between us all closes, it becomes harder to do. As facial recognition takes on Facebook, recommended “tags” offer opportunities for accidental outing, and Google image search requires vigilance about what is posted where.
Being outed also carries a whole new level of significance. Once your legal name is strongly associated with sex, any future employers that google your name will immediately know your history. Sex workers have even been outed years after they’ve stopped working and lost their jobs, lost their children, and suffered continual abuse based on their professional history.
While sex workers suffer the worst of it (thanks, whorephobia!), other people who are tangentially connected to the sex industry, or who are involved in sex education/activism, also face some of the same issues. Many sex writers, from folks who write erotica to those who review sex toys, operate under pseudonyms for the very same reason. Conferences like Catalyst Con allow attendees to opt out of photos with a bright red button that makes it clear that their presence is to remain anonymous for their own safety and well-being.
Even when someone is extremely out about who they are and what they do, operating under a pseudonym and creating two separate internet lives is still a necessity. Although my parents are well-aware of my many jobs, including the sex work one, they don’t necessarily want access to the details. While they are comfortable with the conversation, they aren’t interested in seeing me as a sexual being (which is a good thing). I mean, hell, I don’t want them to have access to my work information, which presents a different side of myself that isn’t meant for parental consumption.
Different relationship dynamics call for different protocols regarding information, and what I might share on Facebook as Tizzy Wall is a helluva lot different than what I share under my legal name (and actually, a lot different than what I would share under my performer name, too). With each separate name comes different levels of honesty, and each piece of information I put out there is evaluated based on the audience. Taking care to keep searchable social media that addresses sex work is only under the appropriate name, and taking care of what personal information is released (and who I am connected with publicly) protects the people I care about, as well as myself.
And while I am extremely out, I still avoid using my real name for writing and activism because I want to continue to have options. I’m a young woman, and if my legal name were to be associated with this work, it could bear consequences in the distant future. Sex is still highly stigmatized, and being associated with it at all can largely limit a person’s options.
Here are a few things to consider when managing separate personas:
- Limit the images used to represent you
Thanks to Google Image Search, it is incredibly easy to connect two social media accounts with the same profile image. By selecting which images you have shared yourself, or that are tagged on Facebook, your chances of maintaining some distance between the personas are better.
2. Keep your Facebook profile personal
This means that when those old acquaintances from junior high add you, consider whether they are contributing in some way to your life through that medium. If not, they are just another person who has access to your personal information.
Every six months, I go through Facebook and delete people that I have not spoken to in over a year. Of course, there are a few exceptions: There are some friends or family that I have fallen out of touch with, but I am still interested in them and their lives, even if we aren’t in regular contact. This rule applies to people who I met at a party one time who added me, or to someone I worked with at a retail job four years ago, but have little in common with. Facebook is wonderful for communication amongst communities that you operate in regularly, but evaluate if someone who has access to your personal info is contributing something to that space.
3. Be proactive about privacy protection
On my “Tizzy Wall” profiles, I have outright blocked some family members so they will never be encouraged to add me or be exposed to the things that I share that may be alienating or uncomfortable (for them or me). Choosing to use different email addresses for different profiles and different purposes, and keeping them distinct, means that my profiles won’t be recommended to a family member who signs up for the same social media platform.
4. Have a plan
At this point, being on the internet in any capacity is anathema to maintaining personal privacy. Most of us know that by now. Even when you are being proactive and very careful, sometimes things come apart. Know what you are going to do if (or when, depending on how pessimistic you are) your grandmother stumbles across your Twitter account, or if your ex decides to share your separate persona with your mother. Is there going to be fall-out if this information gets shared? What is it going to mean for you? What are the consequences? Having a game plan for what you are going to do and how you are going to deal with it will make it easier to deal with.
As there have always been boundaries amongst communities, within families, and in professional situations, it only makes sense that this would translate to the Internet. Hopefully, there will be a day that that the fallibility of humanity will be better accepted; as younger generations are living out their entire lives on the internet, it is inevitable that dirty laundry will hit the permanent air waves. We are still discovering what defines a forgivable moment, and how the internet documents personal and intellectual growth. Although I am a child of the internet, I am glad that its ubiquity and significance was largely understated during the times when my ability to competently make decisions was questionable.
Until that time that this has been better established, hopefully these tools aid you in your need to maintain separation and balance amongst your many different lives.
