I’ve been saying for years that Gossip Saves Lives. I’ve already designed the t-shirt in my head—red bubbly script on a white shirt—wearing my heart on my sleeve. It’s the hyperbole that makes it funny. The words have jokingly left my lips after countless invigorating gossip sessions. The thing is that I am actually dead fucking serious. When I say gossip, you most likely conjure up negative associations. Maybe you think of your mom talking shit about her friends to her friends, or mean girls in high school spreading cruel rumors for the sake of climbing the teenage social ladder. I’m sure you heard the adage that people only talk about others when they have nothing of substance to say, which is to say that substantial conversation can only be around “important” topics like business or politics. We’re already talking about gender without talking about gender, and you can probably guess where all this is heading.
The word gossip has been around for a long ass time. Dating back to the beginning of the first century the term godsibb meant "a child’s godparent or sponsor at a baptism." Because words change, over time this became gossip and meant "a good friend, usually a woman." By the 1500s, the word was used to mean "idle chatter and rumor," as well as to describe women who worked as midwives. By the mid-1800s, gossip was used as both noun and verb, and is still used this way today. (source)
I visited the Museo della Tortura in Montepulciano last year, which is the Museum of Torture in a stone walled hilltop town in Tuscany. Hands down one of the coolest places I’ve ever been, the town of Montepulciano dates back to the 3rd century B.C. It’s a beautiful, ancient place where a glance in any direction highlights the disgusting modernity of american architecture. I thought my hundred year old house was old, ha! When you visit a proper museum of torture in a place that was quite excellent at employing such tortures, it adds to the horror. Corporal punishment in medieval Italy was apparently as normal as breathing air. I learned a lot that day and filed it away in my brain under “Fun Facts About Torture” (a large file). One of those facts is that women were criminalized and humiliated for gossiping.
Photos from my trip: Scold’s bridles, beauty, shrew’s fiddle with holes for neck and wrists
A Scold’s Bridle, or Gossip’s Bridle was a locking iron face mask that was placed over the head of the accused gossip or, a woman who was caught chatting with her friends. The torturous part of the bridle is that it has a mouth bit, sometimes sharp to cut the tongue, that kept the woman from being able to speak. Then, her husband would walk her on a leash around town (over the very same stones I stood on) so everyone would know she had the gift of gab. There were other torture methods for women’s crimes of opening their mouths and being assertive like the cucking chair (!!!) and the shrew’s fiddle. At this time gossiping was condemned as a frivolous act for idle women, and people believed it was the devil’s work. Women’s actions were heavily controlled and monitored for signs of Satan or witchcraft, which we now know was a result of men being scared of losing control. The consequence of this insecurity was forbidding women from creating support systems amongst each other, sharing wisdom for survival, thus isolating them.
This isn’t a heady history lesson, but Silvia Federici is an expert in how the control and oppression of women advanced capitalism. It’s so interesting to have the dots connected like this. She writes about gossip in her book Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women.
Then, in 1547, “a proclamation was issued forbidding women to meet together to babble and talk” and ordering husbands to “keep their wives in their houses.” Female friendships were one of the targets of the witch hunts, as in the course of the trials accused women were forced under torture to denounce each other, friends turning in friends, daughters turning in their mothers.
When I say Gossip, what I mean is the sharing of vital information. It’s intimacy. It’s vigilance. It’s love. It’s your truth. It’s a red, yellow, green flag. It’s a call for help. It’s a call in. It’s a celebration. Gossip is an important aspect of community. People can control their own narrative if they talk about themselves more— share both the good and bad stories. Tell your friends how you fucked up and how you’re being accountable. Tell your friends who hurt you and how you’re healing. However, sharing information maliciously that isn’t true is not gossip, it’s a rumor and it gives gossip a bad name.
I’m not one for privacy— as you may have noticed I share a lot (but not all) of my life on the internet. Maybe it’s because I grew up with extremely secretive parents that I didn’t know much about? I was raised in a house with lots of lies, cheating, and gaslighting, and put up with that behavior from others until I figured out how to have boundaries. I detest lying, and even when people close to me withhold information it can make me feel betrayed. I want all the information all the time and I respectfully accept “no” when I hear it. Sharing my life and being an open book is very much in line with my values— in this house we have no secrets!
It seems as though I was primed for the life I live. Because my social life and relationships revolve around both polyamory and BDSM, not talking about experiences or dates or play partners is not really an option. In a small community of gay freaks and loving perverts, if you’re badly behaved people will know about it. I don’t say this in a way where I mean people should be shunned and excommunicated, I actually mean it in a way where this should be motivation for people to get their shit together, or for people to swoop in and collect their friends. But these are the things that often do not happen, and in that case gossip serves as a warning to others.
In relationships, people should always be given all the information they need to make decisions at any given time. You lay your own truth cards out on the table and let others decide what’s best for them. I call this risk-awareness. Anything less veers into manipulation (you’re allowed to disagree with me, but not if you’re dating me).
Because it takes me a long time to trust people, I daydream about a yelp-style review website but for rating your experiences with people. You could leave good and bad reviews of a person to which they’re allowed to reply with a public apology or a public fuck you. Maybe it’s my drama-starved brain thinking this mess would be a good idea? Either way I’m thinking of it as a form of public service. Sex workers keep bad date lists to keep each other safe. Rope bottoms have a huge google doc to share experiences with riggers. I’m just saying that “What would your ex-girlfriend say about you?” doesn’t seem like such a bad first date question.
On Instagram, someone I follow was cross-posting her Tik Tok videos where she rated her exes on a scale of 1-10. I was enjoying the show and the very public display of honesty (basically my yelp idea) when my ex-girlfriend popped up. I didn’t know that they had dated! To my absolute surprise, she was rated a generous 3/10, whereas I place her no higher than a 2. We started messaging about our experiences dating her and had the exact same things to say. Imagine if I had seen this rating on her Tinder bio before our first date along with the words “pathological liar.” Maybe I still would have fucked her, but I would not have dated her.
In BDSM we have a word for this— vetting. I was having a conversation with a friend recently and we were sharing stories we’d heard about a domme who has a really bad reputation for using D/s to abuse people. The cost of secrecy here exponentially increases. When SM and power play are concerned, it’s a safe practice to vet your partners. If you’re interested in playing with someone, you should ask around and talk to people who have played with them for their feedback and recommendation. This doesn’t happen as often as it should; new people to the scene usually don’t know enough other people to ask nor do they know it is a standard safety measure. People also mistake friendships as a positive endorsement. Just because someone is friends with someone great, doesn’t mean they’re great by association. How many people openly tell their friends that they’re abusive? How many friends are invested in pushing for accountability? Just imagine if fetlife profiles had a rating to display.
The way I practice polyamory is very open, everyone is acquainted and is friendly with each other. Relationships aren’t compartmentalized. This means that in bringing in a new date, you’re not just looking out for yourself, you’re looking out for your partners as well. Dating someone who is badly behaved, with bad boundaries, or toxic in some way, etc impacts you directly but also impacts the whole polycule. The same goes for bringing in an amazing person— you level up your polycule. Guess what? This means we vet our dates too! I think this is being responsible and if someone protests a background check, it usually means they have something to hide that they should have been honest about in the first place.
If you don’t talk about your experiences, your friends, your partners, and what’s happening around the community, what’s left to discuss? Business and politics? Sharing about yourself means being knowable. Being knowable breeds intimacy. Talking about your relationships could bring some important perspective. Obviously there are ethics around things shared in confidence but even then— secrets that shield people from accountability or reinforce the shame of fucking up are not serving anyone. When I dream big and imagine my ideal community, I imagine one where everyone is an open book. Everyone shares freely (I said sharing, not oversharing) and knows what’s going on. Everyone thinks critically. Everyone is aware of how we’re all treating each other. Everyone is supportive and helps out others who are going through rough times. Everyone holds each other, without judgement, to be better. Here, gossip is a pillar, a facilitator of transformation.
In closing, I just wanted to add that my favorite perverted text, The Bible, has a lot to say about gossip. The mouth is wicked, gossiping is the devil’s work, the serpent tongue must be tamed, hot hot hot! There’s lots of wise advice for keeping one’s mouth shut or else face dire consequences like cities falling and death. One passage in Romans 1 likens gossips to homosexuals and those who are disobedient to their parents. Sign me up!!! Although these biblical warnings are directed almost exclusively at men, it’s again interesting given what we know about how gossip is gendered and how medieval punishment for gossiping was used to control women. Medieval me would no doubt be a very young widow ;) Enjoy these bible verses about gossip, I got a little carried away!
“For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” James 3:2-8
“Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent. Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.” Proverbs 11:12-13
“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.” Proverbs 6:16-19
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Romans 1:24-32
“The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.” Proverbs 18:8
“Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan.” Timothy 1:13-15
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