"Well behaved women seldom make history."
Editor's Note: On April 27, SexIs columnist and sex blogger The Beautiful Kind arrived at work at her “day job”and was summarily fired on the spot. Her transgression? Writing about sex. Not at work. At home. In private, and on her own time.
It didn't matter that she was writing under an assumed name. It didn't matter that she had done everything possible to distance her personal life from her professional one. It didn't matter that she was an exemplary employee—and a low-level one at that. Thanks to the tangled Web the Internet weaves, some Google snooping and a programming glitch, The Beautiful Kind was outed as a sex columnist—and as a result, she was out on her ass.
Now, in many “at will” states, employers are not required to justify giving a worker the boot. As long as it's not a case of outright discrimination, you can be let go for any reason. The nonprofit organization TBK worked for did not want to have its reputation tarnished by association with a sex-positive blogger. Nope, they'd rather be known for canning someone who was simply exercising her First Amendment rights in a manner they found unacceptable. (Way to go, and have a nice ride down that slippery slope.)
Unlike her former employer, The Beautiful Kind had more class than to out these folks. Unlike The Beautiful Kind, her former employer does not have the courage to come forward and own its actions. But that's what Google is for, isn't it? As Shakespeare said, “The truth will out.” In the meantime, we wish her well. We will continue to publish her work and support her cause. Her story follows, straight from the source.
My story boils down to this:
I have a sex blog. I got a job. I made it a point to keep my personal and professional lives separate. (I kept my name and face off of my website and did not mention my job on there.) My boss was advised by corporate office to Google employees. When they found my site due to a social media glitch, they fired me on the spot. The reason they gave for firing me is because they took offense to me discussing my private affairs online.
As soon as I turned over my keys and was cast out of the office in disgrace, I called my webmaster and asked him to take my site down. A lot of people didn’t understand why I did that. They figured, Why lock the barn after the horse has been stolen?
First and foremost, I wanted to protect others.
Second, I needed to lock my shit down. I felt violated. Having my former employer raid" my site was like knowing someone was digging around in my underwear drawer without my permission with harmful intent. I'd rather shut the drawer than open it wide and tell them, "Here you go! Have at it! Set my underwear on fire!"
Third, I needed to hit the reset button on my online presence and mull over some very difficult choices. What was I going to do? Should I kill my website? How would I make a living?
I was very surprised when my story reached a national audience. Then again, what happened to me hit close to home for many folks. Many people wrote me afterward expressing their own fear of having something like this turn their life upside down. They also have sex blogs and social media accounts and didn’t quite realize how insidious it can be.
My stupid mistake was when I signed up for a Twitter account over a year ago. New to the whole thing, when I filled out the form and they asked for my name, I typed my real one in there, thinking it wouldn’t be displayed on my profile but was just backend info. I thought my username would be on the front end. When I finished filling out the profile and saw that BOTH my name and username were displayed, I quickly went in and changed my name to TBK.
Despite doing this, a third party search engine picked up the original name and ran with it, linking my real name to my website in the bowels of the Internet. My boss had no problem finding my website. Oddly, I had Googled my name just two weeks earlier, and that damning evidence hadn’t popped up.
It didn't matter that she was writing under an assumed name. It didn't matter that she had done everything possible to distance her personal life from her professional one. It didn't matter that she was an exemplary employee—and a low-level one at that. Thanks to the tangled Web the Internet weaves, some Google snooping and a programming glitch, The Beautiful Kind was outed as a sex columnist—and as a result, she was out on her ass.
Now, in many “at will” states, employers are not required to justify giving a worker the boot. As long as it's not a case of outright discrimination, you can be let go for any reason. The nonprofit organization TBK worked for did not want to have its reputation tarnished by association with a sex-positive blogger. Nope, they'd rather be known for canning someone who was simply exercising her First Amendment rights in a manner they found unacceptable. (Way to go, and have a nice ride down that slippery slope.)
Unlike her former employer, The Beautiful Kind had more class than to out these folks. Unlike The Beautiful Kind, her former employer does not have the courage to come forward and own its actions. But that's what Google is for, isn't it? As Shakespeare said, “The truth will out.” In the meantime, we wish her well. We will continue to publish her work and support her cause. Her story follows, straight from the source.
My story boils down to this:
I have a sex blog. I got a job. I made it a point to keep my personal and professional lives separate. (I kept my name and face off of my website and did not mention my job on there.) My boss was advised by corporate office to Google employees. When they found my site due to a social media glitch, they fired me on the spot. The reason they gave for firing me is because they took offense to me discussing my private affairs online.
As soon as I turned over my keys and was cast out of the office in disgrace, I called my webmaster and asked him to take my site down. A lot of people didn’t understand why I did that. They figured, Why lock the barn after the horse has been stolen?
First and foremost, I wanted to protect others.
Second, I needed to lock my shit down. I felt violated. Having my former employer raid" my site was like knowing someone was digging around in my underwear drawer without my permission with harmful intent. I'd rather shut the drawer than open it wide and tell them, "Here you go! Have at it! Set my underwear on fire!"
Third, I needed to hit the reset button on my online presence and mull over some very difficult choices. What was I going to do? Should I kill my website? How would I make a living?
I was very surprised when my story reached a national audience. Then again, what happened to me hit close to home for many folks. Many people wrote me afterward expressing their own fear of having something like this turn their life upside down. They also have sex blogs and social media accounts and didn’t quite realize how insidious it can be.
My stupid mistake was when I signed up for a Twitter account over a year ago. New to the whole thing, when I filled out the form and they asked for my name, I typed my real one in there, thinking it wouldn’t be displayed on my profile but was just backend info. I thought my username would be on the front end. When I finished filling out the profile and saw that BOTH my name and username were displayed, I quickly went in and changed my name to TBK.
Despite doing this, a third party search engine picked up the original name and ran with it, linking my real name to my website in the bowels of the Internet. My boss had no problem finding my website. Oddly, I had Googled my name just two weeks earlier, and that damning evidence hadn’t popped up.
Great article! I was wondering how TBK herself has been feeling about all of the buzz online. Thank you so much for sharing!
This had to have been such a crushing experience, and you're totally brave for speaking out about it! And, you're right - you've got to stay where your heart belongs. The haters will hate, but we all have to do what makes us happy.
I'm so thrilled to see you getting the recognition you deserve. I just know that this is going to work out in your favor.
I was so sad when I first found out what happened and even more so when TBK blog was down. It is a pathetically sad day when what you do in your off hours, the privacy of your own home and that does not involve or interfere with your employment causes you to be terminated. It is wrong! But that is the way things are I suppose. When you interact with anyone online, whether you twitter, facebook, blog or whatever, there are always gonna be risks of course. But losing your income due to something that truly does not reflect on the quality of your work is the utmost in unfair employment practices. I hope TBK continues to blog and hopefully an employment opportunity will present itself that will be an even better fit for her than the previous one. Hugs.
Almost the same exact thing happened to me about nine months ago, so I completely understand how this feels. But now I have found an even better job where they don't care what I write about on my own time and I am much happier. Everything happens for a reason. In the meantime, keep your head up TBK
TBK, here are your friends. Shoot me email and I'm sure we'll figure out "making a living" situation. You've got talent!
On the other note: We can help with your website (no strings attached) and advice you on how to clean up the Google, if you think doing so. Looks like it is the right thing rather than changing name.
Zukerberg (Facebook's creator) said recently: "There is no privacy on the internet" - let's see if he's right.
You not only reached a national audience, it went international. I heard about it on a Canadian sex toy store's website. Seriously, privacy leak issues sucks, I'm glad I did not give my real name on Twitter or Facebook when registering.
@Fred, you're an angel!
I often fear this happening to me, however, I am anticipating a merge between my personal persona and my pen name. It feels almost inescapable. It feels organic.
As for being fired, that should be the equivalent of sexual harassment... I would fight it!
This whole situation reminds of being a child in the late 70s, when my mother was just getting active in the "gay rights" movement. The biggest, most terrible thing that could happen to any queer was to be outed. People lived in real fear of it, because they could lose their job, their families, their children, in short: they could lose everything. It led to the most arcane lifestyles for queers, because even kissing their own "spouse" on their own front porch could end in social and economic disaster.
You haven't lost everything, but you did lose your income and now have a very negative "black mark" in your career, and all because you were "outed" as sex-positive in your private life. I really don't see the difference at all; and unfortunately, it is something that will take years and many legal battles before we have a leg to stand on, legally and culturally, just as it has taken decades for the queer rights movement to get to the point it is at now.
For me, I see this not as something that might happen, but that WILL happen. This alias is my "pro" name as an erotica writer, but my real name is associated with a lot of sex-positive content online too, and anyone who googles me will find it. But I can't live in the closet; that would be a betrayal of everything my activist forebears fought for. The terms are different, but the same issues are on the plate: the right to live our private lives as we see fit.
I hope you find a new (bettter!) job soon!
This is ridiculous at best and too Big Brother at best, but I have a story about an event that cost me a job - a very good job - the first week at Edward Jones. A new acquaintance invited me over to her computer to show me a news article. Her brother-in-law in CO had been arrested as a child molester. She was in shock, and wanted to show me the article while it was fresh, apparently.
Once I got back to a nearby computer and took a little break, I typed into the search engine:
porn in Colorado man arrested. Forgetting I was not at home - or having never done anything like that before, I was let go at the end of the week with no explanation. This is the only explanation I could find for my dismissal and it was costly!
Wow.. I live in an "At will State". At will needs to stop.
such bull.
Anyway, great article.