I read last night of the "death threats" against blogger Kathy Sierra. I feel for her, as I've been the recipient of threats, too. There's a price of 72 virgins on my head for the first Muslim whackadoo that gets to me. I've also had to deal with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up from creepy dudes who troll the Internet looking for women to sicken. And I'm not alone.

But I'm also not an Internet coward. I'm not going to stop blogging, or even lay low. I report my threats to the authorities, I double-bolt the door, and I keep on blogging. I'm not the only one. Sure, it's mostly females that have to deal with the sexual deviants, but we're all open to some form of 'net intimidation. If you blog politics, or terror, or religion, or anything more powerful than knitting patterns, you will piss someone off, and maybe they will threaten you.

Because I'm a woman, I'm subjected to different kinds of threats and taunts. If I was a fat guy, I would be unremarkable. But because I'm a fat chick, my detractors would often prefer to point that out instead of arguing a real point. It's the easy way out, like calling someone nigger. It means you can't come up with anything better than that. I get comments about how I need to "get some", which is hilarious when you think of who we're talking about here!

Yet it doesn't deter me, and for the most part I don't complain about it. I don't bore you with details of my death threats, received on an almost weekly basis. It's really none of your concern how much time I spend talking to law enforcement, or complaining to my husband about how terribly terribly hard it is. I suck it up, and keep on blogging.

As much as I sympathize with her, it seems to me that all Kathy Sierra has succeeded in doing is making us all out to be a bunch of weak wallflowers. Everyone's talking about how horrible it all is. If you don't like blogging because it comes with side effects (like most addictive substances), then quit. But for heaven's sake, don't ruin it for the rest of us.

Am I the only one who thinks this is all leading to a book deal?

Labels: Blogging