Not gender identity or anything but rather.. your sexual identity.

I have worked for several years on a web presence which does not, for the most part, include my sexual forays like reviewing here and my sex blog. Although most of my peers know I have a high interest in sex, it's not something I need them - or my family should they stumble upon my myspace or blog - reading the details of. Thus, I have developed something of a second identity online. It is becoming increasingly difficult to manage, though. It takes a lot to promote a site.

So I'm curious, anyone else like me? Tips to managing it? Or maybe your sexual identity is one with the rest of you online? Or maybe you only have this identity online? less

I was actually thinking about this earlier. While I am by no means "popular", I do take precautions to protect myself. I recently changed my Location to be much more broad and will be using the more broad location in the future (one of the downfalls of not being able to change post forums). My boyfriend's friend actually figured out who we were on Edens, simply because we both had our locations listed as Ohio. I list my age. My career aspirations. But the few photos I have up are very vague. I edited out a small scar on one, simply because I was afraid someone would notice it.

I know the chances of someone accidentally stumbling on my blog and putting two and two together are rare, I'm just a little paranoid. I have a few friends that know some of what I do online, but they do not know my screen name or exact toys I've tried.

I have my normal everyday identity and then "Beautiful Dreamer". I keep separate emails. I have a myspace, a facebook, but they are in no way connected to my sex toys/blog identity.

My concern lies in my future career as a RN. I don't want to risk losing my job. It's sad, but it's possible that not all hiring interviewers would be responsive to. less

This is a great post, and very timely for me, as I just started a blog under this pen name and am beginning to establish my online presence as a "sex blogger" and "sex toy reviewer" a lot more. It has always worried me a little, but it worries me more now. I wish I could stop worrying about it because then I could post better photos on my blog (photos that would give me away if my parents somehow happened to see them, for instance) and give more details about my life. I'm not especially worried about future employers, as I have a special email address just for this name, and also because I'm hoping to get a job in a sex shop, so these things would actually be resume boosters. But I know exactly what you mean... feeling like there are two sides of you. My first mostly know what I do online and that I review toys, but it kinda does suck when professors ask me "so what do you want to do after college?" and I have to say I don't know, even though I do. And I can't gush to anyone except my boyfriend, my friends, and my Twitter followers when a sex-related thing happens to me, you know? less

Not gender identity or anything but rather.. your sexual identity.

I have worked for several years on a web presence which does not, for the most part, include my sexual forays like reviewing here and my sex blog. Although most of my peers know I have a high interest in sex, it's not something I need them - or my family should they stumble upon my myspace or blog - reading the details of. Thus, I have developed something of a second identity online. It is becoming increasingly difficult to manage, though. It takes a lot to promote a site.

So I'm curious, anyone else like me? Tips to managing it? Or maybe your sexual identity is one with the rest of you online? Or maybe you only have this identity online? less

Yikes! The majority of this thread indicates a high level of innocence here. I'd say be careful with ever crossing online identities in any way. Especially if you do more than just review sex toys- any sexual kinks etc. BDSM, M/s, playing with other people, etc.

I started a blog under DevilBlueDress initially without my husband knowing. I was very careful at the time, and I had a separate gmail address. I knew enough to clear my cache regularly and not keep browser history. It grew very popular, very fast without any effort on my part. 150+ hits a day. I was finding that I was finding my name on blogs that I'd never been too. Given my husband was online I choose to tell him about the blog.

After that, I eventually realized that the kids had seen the name "Devilbluedress." Part of it was the name on the browser bar which I figured they would never notice, who knows what else. I did a search on google. My name came up everywhere with direct links to posts. I've since changed my name most places to DBD, and locked almost everything.

Another place where "identity" is at risk is web based email. Gmail has the ability to link two different email accounts. I'm not sure exactly how, but I know that it's linked people before based on email accounts. I believe that Google calendar (from any group) will link to gmail accounts. I have actually received spam in my real name under my gmail account, and I'm REALLY careful to never link those.

For protecting identity- never forward some email accounts to one that has real identifing information. less

It seems that this account linking is related to autoforwarding, a setting which you can change. It's not gmail alone, however. Most e-mail providers have this option. So, you may want t check your autoforward settings if you're experiencing this problem as it's something you probably did without thinking rather than Gmail mysteriously linking your account.

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