But a rule of thumb in life is that you cannot take someone farther than where you yourself have been. And towards the end of summer, I started to wonder if that was what I was trying to do with this blog. In order to write more, I first had to think more. The topics I wanted to discuss were ones just starting to draw my attention; sitting down to type out a post revealed how much I didn't really have anything to say yet. And thus the long hiatus.
But now I want to write again. I logged on and was quickly reminded of something I have been paying attention to since the beginning of Carved to Adorn - our stats and what they say. It is a thrill to watch our readership grow; Ruthie and I practically squeal when we get a new all-time high number of hits on a post or someone unknown stumbles across us.
The most fascinating and heartbreaking stat to follow, though, is the one for Ruthie's post "A Really Short Skirt." From the moment it was published, this post has had the highest number of hits. We thought it was a decent post, but surely, not a record breaker. But over the months, it has steadily increased in hits with over 50% more hits than the second highest read post.
The reason? A little more digging revealed some interesting things. The vast majority of its hits have been the result of searches with keywords like "really short skirt," "short skirt bent over," and "bent over crouch." Now, this is NOT a man-bashing blog and it never will be. Nor is this post. But I do find it highly ironic that a blog dedicated to talking about the dignity of womanhood is generating most of its traffic from men obviously out for little voyeuristic pleasure. Ironic and a reminder of a very sad reality.
And this gives me an idea. What if a male author joined in our discussion? Currently, it seems the majority of men stopping by our site are here interested only in using their eyes to take from the dignity of women. What if a man, or men, became a part of this site, using their voice to add to the dignity of women? If you are male, and read this blog, this is an open invitation for your footprint to be larger on Carved to Adorn than those behind the stats.
~Hannah
i think the psychology of sex on the internet is a quite complex subject that leads me to some striking conclusions about the toll of our generation's perceived gender roles. that said, how do you think the quirk you noticed above would be mitigated or improved by introducing a male author?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I entirely understand your question. Maybe you can clarify?
ReplyDeleteBut, for starters, I don't think it will mitigate the hits we get. I don't think having a male author will have any impact at who is looking at what, especially since these hits are the results of google (mostly image) searches. They are directed to that particular post without coming into contact with the rest of the blog. And I definitely don't intend to ask this potential male author to speak directly to those behind the hits.
The idea of a male writer is not to reduce the number of hits on "A Really Short Skirt" or to increase hits on other posts, but rather for the poetry of it. As I said in the last paragraph of my post, the dignity of womanhood is lost when subjected to internet porn. While I think preventative avenues should be pursued to mitigate such traffic, I also think there would be something good about more male writers in general contributing to building up of womanhood's dignity. It's two separate problems that aren't directly related to each other, but connected for a brief moment in my mind. One action takes from womanhood, the other gives.
At the end of all this, though, I've been thinking more about the stats behind "A Really Short Skirt" and have realized I may have erred. The truth is, we really don't know who is conducting searches and for what reasons. I think men pursuing porn is, in general, a safe-ish assumption, but the internet is an odd place and we really don't know. It dawned on me that in order to write the post and include the image attached to it, my sister herself would be googled "a really short skirt," gazing at various images before choosing one. As very amateur bloggers, and definitely in the absence of formal training in statistics and computer science, there is nothing definite about my above assumptions.
And yet, I still think it would be poetic to have a male writer join us. ;-)