Bad Decisions in Porn Bloggery

A hot pic you probably shouldn't enjoy at work.
Photo courtesy of aurore érotique.

I know I've only been at this dirty porny blogging thing for a little more than a year, but I feel qualified to comment on this bad example of naughty blogging and perhaps even offer a few protips.

Last week Desiree Henegar, the chief financial officer of a school district in Florida, was busted for having a naughty secret Tumblr called Secret Life of the MILF Next Door on which she allegedly posted the same sorts of sexy pics we all post on Tumblr. But she also posted choice little snippets about how much she hated her job, and even self-recriminations about her apparent inability to stop looking at porn and posting it while in the office or at school board meetings. While the Tampa Bay Times' article and the subsequent Jezebel piece that tipped me off don't go into details about how Ms. Henegar's naughty Tumblr was revealed (an anonymous tip), they provide enough detail about her posting habits and the kinds of pictures she liked to share for it to be abundantly clear that she was a woman with time (and I suspect a few fluids) on her hands.

Oh, Desiree. I don't fault her for her desires or her interest in keeping a naughty little blog on the side. That would be a bit pedantic and hypocritical, no? I do fault her for being stupid and careless with her activities. At a time when organizations keep ever tighter controls on their computer systems, to the point that some archive every email sent/received and website surfed, only the most clueless or careless among us would use their employer's property to surf and post porn, look up embarrassing health conditions, or send political chain emails. Whoopsie!

Now, you may be saying "hold on Liza, maybe she was using her phone or her iPad or some other personal device." Maybe she was. This is where we get into the issue of frequency and what's appropriate to do during work hours while sitting at your desk. Or at work-related meetings, such as, oh, the school board! Where, as CFO of the district, you probably have some responsibility.

According to the reports, Ms. Henegar sometimes posted as frequently as 11 times per day during work hours. I'm not a perfect little angel, and yes, I've tweeted a thing or two during the workday, as many of us have. I occasionally waste my employer's time and computer resources shopping online or taking care of routine business, or even daydreaming a potential naughty story or blog post. But I can't fathom using work resources for sexy pursuits. Or writing details about how annoying or awful my job is for public consumption (yes, Dooce, everyone else, I know). I'm strictly an off-the-clock job complainer, I guess!

I have some unsolicited advice for Ms. Henegar and anyone else who starts and maintains a blog of filth. These only apply if you have concerns about your blog world and your work/personal world colliding. If you are cool with it being all out there, I envy your situation and wonder how I can get one!

1. Keep your identity concealed. Sounds obvious, but it's harder than it might seem. Easiest tip: don't use your primary email account as the login for your blog.
2. Don't post details that pin you down on the time-space continuum. So no matter how hot your colleague looks today in that (very identifiable) outfit, or how boring that daylong seminar is, avoid posting it in the here and now.
3. If you post from your phone or other personal device, log out when you're done. It might be a little embarrassing to be sitting with colleagues at lunch and tap out your password, only to have have the screen open to a woman masturbating.
4. If you use a secret email address, log out of it from your phone so you don't accidentally wish your mom happy birthday from mysexysexblog@gmail.com. (I did this. Fortunately my fake email at the time wasn't too revealing and she just thought she got birthday themed spam.)
5. If you think you must use your work computer to post the naughties, turn on private browsing or clear your cache. But don't assume Big Brother isn't watching in other ways.
6. If you're a C-level manager with fiduciary responsibility, anticipate that someone will find out about your blog if you're fucking around with it at work, and when they do, they're going to spill it.
7. If you must secretly email your blog or twittercrush, don't go all Petraeus and think that sharing an email account and communicating by drafts can't get found out.
8. If you're posting photos of yourself, those can give you away through the exif data. Find a way to strip it out.
9. Be careful about who knows the truth. You will want to share with people in your real life. Resist the urge, but use your judgment and gut instinct to decide if you can let people in.
10. Read Brooke Magnanti's tips on this topic. Some seem excessive and over-cautious. And then you remember that her identity was discovered, despite her careful attention to keeping her anonymity intact.

Good luck out there, and don't be the next Desiree Henegar!