During the Melinda Tankard Reist defamation threats against this blog (see category Defamation Threats if you’re interested) Legal Eagle wrote this excellent piece on what is known as The Streisand Effect, which she defines thus: The Streisand effect covers those situations where the threat of legal action has brought publicity to the information sought to be suppressed.
It’s arguable that much legal action intended to silence and suppress has the potential to blossom into the Streisand Effect, depending on the defendant’s attitude towards legal threats, and how much risk she or he is willing to take to protect their freedom of speech. Exactly this situation is currently unfolding once again on No Place for Sheep, where a complaint of harassment has been lodged against me, citing as an example the posts I’ve written on Infidelity and Adultery. I have, I’m informed, “Written intimate things all across the Internet” and this is harassment.
Well, I have written intimate things all over the Internet, erotic writing is a long-established genre and if it offends your sensibilities, don’t read it, has always been my position.
I use no names or any identifiers in any of these posts, neither are the people involved in the stories compelled in any way to read them, so it’s an interesting allegation. What is most interesting, however, is that in defending myself I’ve been obliged to supply my statement of events accompanied by umpteen extremely personal and intimate emails and messages sent to me, that obviously have to identify everyone involved, and will soon be on the public record. At the very least, they’re doing the rounds of various legal agencies, so already a whole swag of people know names they would never otherwise have known or probably even cared about.
On the blog, I tell the stories and it isn’t necessary to identify the actors in order to tell the stories. I actually can’t imagine me ever identifying the actors other than myself, because that would be done only out of malice. Identifying the actors in no way enriches the stories, and enrichment of the story would be the only reason to take that course.
In attempting to shut me up they’ve outed themselves, and didn’t this ever occur to anyone?
It’s also interesting from the point of view of the writer, and who owns story, and what we may and may not write about and how.
It’s also interesting from the perspective of what is defined as harassment. If it is indeed writing about events in one’s own life without naming any other participants, that’s going to silence a veritable multitude of voices.
As I did with Tankard Reist, I’ve made multiple offers to negotiate this situation with the complainants, to no avail. It has been and continues to be an emotionally charged situation for all involved, but one that could be resolved with some good will on everybody’s part, and a couple of admittedly difficult, but private conversations. What has been done cannot be undone, and the best must be made of the consequences of actions.
It seems the complainants want their very own Streisand moment. But you really do have to question the integrity of people who claim they are being harassed by being exposed, and attempt to redress this alleged offence by naming and outing themselves as a default position.
There is no way I could possibly bring them as much public attention as they will bring to themselves by this action, so one can only conclude it’s what they must want in some dark, and to my mind, twisted way.
No Place For Sheep 
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