too dirty to link

We were on. We were hott, baby. We were incendiary as stars, close as moles, thick as cream. We were tight, Google and I. We were in love, at least I thought we were.

And then the inexplicable arctic shoulder from my virtually great love, that Google bastard. One day, like a Mayan priest, Google was laying hundreds of humans on the altar of my pretty dumb things; the next, like a freshly fucked high school boy, nothing. Not a word. Not a peep. No explanation, just a big blue blow off, fresh out of nowhere, and straight into the heart of my traffic.

This is no new tale to those of you who have been following the travails of my Google amours. It’s just like any other romance, really. Girl meets Search Engine. Girl gets Search Engine. Girl loses Search Engine. Girl and Search Engine reunite to the gossamer strains of a thousand thousand magnolia petals falling on wet grass.

I never fell into the coterie of paranoiacs who felt that Google’s sudden “disappearing” of sex-related sites had anything to do with a conservative or anti-sex-positive agenda on the part of Google. I figured it was an algorithmic glitch, a number sequence gone awry, a human mistake, and that Google would fix it, which indeed they did—and quickly—in no small part due to pressure from filmmaker Tony Comstock and all-around goddess Violet Blue.

This Google issue garnered a fair amount of digital press, or so I hear. I admit a bemused lack of knowledge of the computer world. I just overshare my personal life here on the web; I don’t pay much notice to digital goings-on, but from what I hear, attention from Boing Boing is a big deal. However my lack of digital knowledge, I would have thought that once the snafu was fixed, the issue would die the silent death of the resolved. No one really talks about U.S. female suffrage, except in a decidedly historical context, and I figured that this Google issue would go the way of suffrage, of Prohibition, of the Stamp Tax.

Not so much.

Yesterday, digital journalist Mark Glaser wrote a piece for online PBS journal Media Shifts detailing the history of the Google disappearance. Glaser asks, “So what if a few sex blogs drop down in Google search results?” and then he answers, “The problem is that with so much power concentrated in one company, Google, one small mishap has the potential to punish small independent blogs or web businesses that depend on Google-generated traffic,” a response that suggests Glaser’s basic hypothesis. Which is this: with great popularity comes great responsibility. Google is the best search engine, Glaser seems to propose, and therefore it should be accountable, even to sites like this one, like Eros Blog, like Comstock Films, like Tiny Nibbles (and countless others).

The interesting about this article is not so much that Glaser comes out waving the big foam finger for sex blogs, however much with a sideways journalistic “objectivity”; it is that PBS opts against linking said sex blogs. Glaser’s article quotes me, quotes Tony, quotes Violet Blue. The article links Boing-Boing, links the paper that Violet Blue pens a column for, links everyone, actually, who was not directly affected by the Google snafu. It fails to link those of us who were.

Which is, you have to admit, kind of ironic. In a private email, Glaser admitted to me that he wanted to link all of us, but his editor at PBS wouldn’t allow it. The editor would allow him to write about us, to quote us, and to mention our blog names, but not to provide PBS readers a direct link to our sites, thereby enacting a strange parallel to the Google disappearance.

It is, you must admit, a strange reenactment. PBS has staked its reputation on its thoughtful, intelligent, and alternative programming. But here they’re playing it safe. I understand that PBS is supported by readers like you and by the generosity of the Bristol-Meyers Squibb group, and that their dependence causes them to err on the side of the safe.  I have to wonder, however, how many people would pull their funding because PBS chose to provide hyperlinks to thoughtful, intelligent, and alternative writers writing about sex.

Are we that threatening? I guess the answer, given our asbestos glove treatment by the editor at PBS, must be yes. (Tony Comstock weighs in on his feelings here.)

This treatment, I admit, makes me feel as if I have cooties. It makes me wonder what, exactly, is so infectious about the work that I do, or that of the other people named and not linked in this article. What, exactly, is PBS afraid of? Are they afraid of being perceived as a group who supports people’s fundamental right to enjoy sex? And then I have to ask, why?

I realize that these are bigger questions than they initially appear. To answer them fully would require a long and tortuous wending walk through Puritanism and America, making stops at Feminism, the Sexual Revolution, Pornography and the Christian Right. I just have to say that in the end, I am sad that my pretty dumb things are simply too dirty for PBS to touch.

I’m glad that journalists like Mark Glaser finds this issue worthy of his attention, and that he finds my words meaningful enough to quote. I just wish his editors felt similarly.

Comments

[v.]

I for one have made out quite well from the Google snafu. Because that's how I found out about your blog. I can hardly remember where I found the story now and, no, it didn't have a real clickable link, but that's not going to stop anyone technically literate enough to cut and paste your blog name into.. errr.. a google search box.

Thanks for sharing your world!

[Tony Comstock]

Let's not forget this is the same organization that was more than happy to put Rob Black and Lizzie Borden on national television, complete with their camera crew mawkishly leaving the set of one of Black and Borden's productions because they were "too disturbed" by what was being videotaped.

[Karl Elvis]

I like that the blogging community is coming out to ask Glaser to post those links on his column. His editors need to get that message.

[Traboyk]

I can understand your argument and bewilderment. But, I believe you answered your own question in your piece. PBS is intelligent and alternative programming to corporate TV. And because of this, it plays a little safe in some of its choices (whether in trying to put either objective commentary or failing that, giving multiple sides of the argument to some of its choices in programming. I mean, how many freaking nature programs must one have?)

It is also known that the past few years, PBS has been hit by conservatives for being "too bias" (or worse "Liberal") in its reporting and has been the target for change at its highest levels to change to a more acceptable viewpoint of such dissenters. So, while I love hearing your musings on sucking your love's epic fat-bellied cock, the physical/emotional highs and lows of anal sex, and making Secretary look like a PG-13 movie, I think it's a bit understanding why they may be gun shy.

[Traboyk]

And here are some links to the appointment troubles:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Entertainment&article=UPI-1-20061222-20340500-bc-us-pbs.xml
http://www.current.org/cpb/cpb0509mess.shtml
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0509-07.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/11/28/bill-moyers-the-adminis_n_11333.html

[Stan]

And let's not forget that Frontline program about porn where they talked about cable TV and how it 'allows pornography to come into the home'. Like porn is a rat or something that crawls in all by itself. They seem to have a problem with stuff like this. But just remember, it's their problem, not yours. You aren't doing anything wrong.

[Artfuldodger]

I have to admit that I am not surprised that the PBS article failed to link back, while I personally disagree, the issue actually has several facets that need to be understood and appreciated.

Most importantly, in this instance, PBS has ZERO control over the audience they attract on-line and could be held legally liable if someone clicked a link and was led to a website that contained adult nudity and/or topics for which PBS could not be held responsible. In the Editor's mind this was a risk not worth taking. I have to agree with him in that position, he or she would be left with little choice honestly.

We live in a litigious society and companies, especially those held to the public trust, operate under rules and guidelines to which we here in the blogger world are not held to. These are important factors that cannot be ignored and the failure to adhere to them could easily be seen to cost this person their job, and or at the very least cost PBS sponsorship dollars and/or government funding.

In the end the PBS audience is a more intelligent audience, yu said so yourself, and not having links is not going to stop them from finding you, should they want to. And that, in my opinion, is the most important thing. Not leaving links makes this a choice, and not one already made by PBS.

PS: I still love ya!

[Peter]

Hey, I think the lady protests too much ! So what if you're not linked in the PBS article. You are back on Google, which was your goal. So you can have your cake and get eaten too?

Peter

[saratoga]

You make a point which I have always believed to be true, although it is rarely voiced.

Namely, if something, in this case, personal approaches to sexuality, is shunned and reviled by, as you contend, both the Christian Right, and the PBS-Liberal Left, then it's no longer a political thing. It's somehow a societal thing, and neither organized, mainstream party is better, or worse, with respect to this issue.

[learn]

Hmm. You can watch the sexually explicit content in their mentioned 'American Porn' documentary, right off their site. Surely, simply warning that the blogs contain explicit material, as they have done for the documentary, would have covered their liability enough? Maybe along with a little footnote that these sites do not necessarily reflect the views... blablabla?

I feel if they choose to mention sex blogs-- never mind use their content as meat for their article-- they can afford to do that much.

Not that I want to discourage em completely. Baby steps?

Thanks for speaking up about this.

[Mark Glaser]

Just FYI, here's what I posted in an update on the PBS MediaShift blog about this:

A number of people have asked why there aren't links to the sex blogs mentioned in this post. If Google had been blocking the blogs, then there would have been links included. But because anyone can easily find the
blogs through a search on Google, PBS.org felt it was not necessary to include the links here and risk offending some readers who might not expect to find links to explicit sites on PBS.org.

Currently, there are no hard-and-fast rules for the content we link to at MediaShift, and it's a delicate balance of being open and also being aware of the adult nature of content we sometimes link to.

I ask that you as MediaShift readers please leave comments explaining what you think the link policy should be here and elsewhere on mainstream
media sites and blogs. Should we link to explicit material and how should that be handled? Should we include a warning before the links? Which links are OK
and which are not? Your thoughts would be appreciated and I hope to return to this issue in a more in-depth way on the blog. PBS editors, who are involved in this issue, tell me they are very much open to your suggestions.

[Padoodles]

There is quite a discussion going on over there. I added my thoughts and I'm glad others have also. It's wonderful that it's open to discussion and that Mr. Glaser is actually bringing attention to this issue. It's a wonderful community that rallies around those we respect and admire.

Love you, Girl... keep it up!

[O]

PBS screwed up, that's all there is to it.

I don't think this is just about sex or adult content though, in the broadest sense. I think it's about the collision of old media with new. All these "old media" outlets are still trying to figure out how to handle the intertubes. Far less than 6 degrees seperate any given site from another with content we may or may not like.

PBS is going to have to look at their linking policies, not just for sites with "adult" content. This issue is popping up all over the place--Charles Johnson, who runs the vile political blog LGF, can show up on CNN despite the fact that there are hundreds of comments daily on his site calling for genocide.

I hope PBS will ultimately make the right decision: link everything, always, with a warning if necessary.

It absolutely sucks that you and TC and Violet Blue weren't linked in that post--and it's typical of our puritanical culture that "adult content" would be where this issue starts getting discussed--but this is a bigger issue than adult blogs ultimately.

That's what PBS needs to realise. It's about the future of information flow and it's about intellectual property. The rules for scholarship and the attribution of intellectual property can't change because of the nature of the medium.

This is not the first time old media has been flummoxed by new. Look at Deborah Howell's exceedingly brief blogging career over at the Washington Post, and how quickly the comment feature needed to be shut down.
I see this recent fuckup by PBS as of a piece with that.

[Brian]

Hi CG,

I'm sad that I can no longer read your blog at work. When I click your bookmark I get a blocked page error labelling you as Pornography.

I appreciate your good writing and your hottness. I thought you would want to be aware of this; I don't know if it could somehow be related to your Google problems (I'm thinking not; it's probably due to my surfing being monitored at work). They also recently blocked the Sun (UK) website in some other category.

Keep up the good work.

[chelsea girl]

Brian,

Get a Bloglines account. You can receive any posting with an RSS feed on it, including my posts. Your other choice is to proxify your address--just Google "free IP proxy" and pick your poison.

thanks for the devotion,
chelsea girl