"feedback"

Sometimes, albeit rarely, I get to start my day with email like this:

I dont understand why you write at all. They dont make any sense, your writing style is at best mediocre or when its bad, just plain painful. Is there a point to blogging away on Wired? try blogspot.com. You are spoiling wired for the rest of us.

And it makes me wonder. Why is this person reading my blog? Or whatever it is he's reading? With so much out there to read, why subject himself to the pain of a writer whose work he hates?

But it did get me thinking about all the email I get on a daily basis, and how the "hate mail" is such a tiny percent. I would think, given the controversial subjects I write about, that I would get a whole lot more. I've been accused of encouraging people to masturbate (well, duh) and of taking the sacredness out of sex by profaning it with technology and singlehood ... but rarely.

Maybe those people who really truly hate what I'm saying have already moved on. Or maybe – and I suspect this is the case – the majority of us have a positive interest in sex-tech and what it means both individually and socially. (Not to mention the occasional insight into new orgasmagadgets and games.)

As for why I write at all ... I confess. It's compulsive. Might as well ask why I breathe.