As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m in a Women’s Magazines and Female Journalists class at CMC. Today KF joined our class and gave a really good, informative talk on blogs as a literary form and the creation of character through personal blogs (to name a few of her main points). At the end, in response to a student's question, KF said (and I hope, KF, that you don't mind if I share this) that she guesses that 25% of her personal blog is written for herself, with no thought of her audience. Of course, that means that about 75% of the time, she writes with her audience in mind. Perhaps this number seems high to some, but I think it's surprising low. After all, at the end of class, we talked about how personal blogs can be compared to reality TV shows: at times, somewhat scripted and perhaps representative of a false identity (though the viewer may never know if the identity is real or not). Using that same comparison, I thought that a blogger must ALWAYS be aware that she is writing for an audience. I mean, the people on MTV's Real World are certainly aware that a camera is in front of them and act accordingly, right? Similarly, I thought that personal bloggers must always be aware of a potential audience. But then I realized how my blog writing has changed over the semester; at first, I was incredibly uncomfortable writing something that would be posted to my professor, my entire class, and to anyone else who happened to stumble upon our site. However, now I’m much more at ease writing, and I don't feel as embarrassed raising points on the blog, even if they are somewhat personal.

I feel like I'm becoming an internet stalker. When I was looking up information on "Kind of Blue’s" author, Scott Rettberg, I saw that he received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati. I'm from Cincinnati, and although I don't love my city, I get oddly excited when I hear others mention it, so I decided to pursue him. I found a link to his blog, and from there the stalking began. There was a link below to a site called "Jill" and, lo and behold, it was Jill Walker's. From looking at the sites, and his intrigued me in particular, you can read how they teach at the same university and about their adventures traveling to, say, a Turkish bath. Or you can scroll through his photos, posted on Flickr. That's right, you can see pictures of his dog, his vacations, his family on Christmas. Or you can look through an album of 10 photos of Jill, which has the heading "This set is mostly for me. Sometimes I want to see my girl." That didn't stop me from looking.

Perhaps it's a bit unusual to write a blog with the purpose of asking a question about a definition, but I'm going to do it: What exactly is voyeurism? What's crucial to understanding it? I was confused in class when we talked about it, but I was too embarrassed to ask. However, looking at even recent posts on the blog that use the term make me realize that I am still confused, and I'm not sure if my definition differs from others'.

Wikipedia says voyeurism is "a practice in which an individual derives sexual pleasure from observing other people.” Other definitions I've found seem a bit unclear on how sex is involved; is it necessary in voyeurism for the viewer to derive sexual pleasure, or can he/she just watch a sexual act?