oops - coming out

For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook (I know, most are not because it's under your real name) you may have already seen this in my status.

As I hop, skip and jump around the internet, distracting myself from writing by engaging with social media, I share, tweet and post anything related to my books or those of my friends. When I saw the post of a review for Spank and Run, my story from Coming to Terms, I hit the FB share button. Later that night, when I went to look for it to be sure I shared on both my Renee Rose personal page and my Renee Rose Romance fan page, I didn't find it. That's where I should have paused to wonder where the post had gone. (First mistake)

No, it was not until the next morning when I received a message from FB commenting on my post from my MOTHER IN LAW that I realized the post was not on the Renee Rose pages because it had gone to my personal, real name page. Oh shit!

My mother-in-law's note was short-- Oh wow, you're an author? That's great! I've read all three 50 Shades...

I scrambled into my personal page and tore that post down so quickly I didn't get to see who else had "liked" it (2nd mistake)

I wrote my MIL back and confessed, saying that I hadn't meant to post that on my personal FB. Her response? Oh that's too bad! She'd already notified the cousins and was prepared to buy my books. There was zero judgement from her or even twittering giggles. I was absolutely filled with love by her total and complete support.


And it has me thinking about coming out. I don't know how many people in my real-life, vanilla world I've told now that I'm a spanko and write spanking fiction. Maybe a dozen? Maybe a few more. And every response has been positive. I can tell some people don't know what to do with it, so with them, I treat it like I would talking to a kid about sex-- only answer direct questions, not giving the more info than they're ready to hear. Others have lots of questions. A very few have even read my books (thank you, Kelly, Simone, Sharon, Lorie and Bonnie!). Some I have told but refused to tell them my author name, because I don't want them to read my books. But maybe it's time to get over all that.

You know what I think? I believe each person I tell is expanded in some way. Knowing that someone they respect and admire (I hope) has a shadow side-- a fetish, a kink--will make them look at kinks differently. I know accepting my own kink has expanded my view of other kinks. I used to laugh and joke about other "weird" kinks like Furries, or feet people. Now I send them my love, shrug and say, "there's just no explaining kinks".

I have yet to experience judgement, or to feel mocked. I know I have perhaps confused some friends, but I believe that when they have questions or want to know more, they'll come to me.

I know there's a LOT of shame around spanking. I experienced it myself for 40 years, wondering what was wrong with me. I've noticed most of my book sales happen late at night, and I don't think that's because they're all bought by people overseas. I think there's a lot of shame around most fetish, and around sex in general. I feel the time is ripe to start to transform that shame-- to bring the darkness into the light.

I guess this is furthering my thoughts from my spank me panties post-- that I realized that if someone sees marks on my ass and wants to know what they're about, I will tell them. It's not so horrible. I have a kink. I am not ashamed of it-- owning it has empowered me more than anything in my life. Self-acceptance is the key to empowerment, even if what you're accepting is a desire to submit.

Who have you told? Have you had any bad experiences? Is there someone you might want to tell?