PCC “Professor of Porn” says Goodbye on his blog

Goodbye

Written by Hugo Schwyzer
I wrote nearly two weeks ago that I’d be taking a break from online writing. I intend to continue to do so. I want to be a bit more specific as to why.
For one, the toxicity of take-down culture is exhausting and dispiriting. The cheapest and easiest tweets and articles to compose are snarky and clever dismantlings of what someone else has worked hard to create. The defenders of this culture of fierceness call it intellectual honesty, but it is an honesty too often edged in cruelty. I’ll admit It: I’m a most imperfect man. I have an absolutely dreadful past, one for which I continue to make quiet amends. I’m also frequently a smug and sloppy writer. But despite that past and my glib prose, I don’t think I’m wrong that when it comes to a concerted effort to drive me off the internet, I’ve been more sinned against than sinning.
So I’m done. I surrender the field to the critics who wanted me gone from feminist spaces.
Secondly, my family and I have been through a very difficult time as late, the details of which are saved for close friends but which are linked to this internet business. Contrary to rumors, I have kept my sobriety but it has been a near run thing. My fragile mental health and my relationship with my wife and children must take first priority.
I’m not “flouncing.” I’m not mad. I’m sad and hurt by a culture in which what we can say online is policed by clever cynicism masquerading as progressive outrage. I’ve tried for ten years and I’ve had a little success and a lot of failure and made many wonderful friends. I wish you all well.
And perhaps, in a long time, in a different capacity, I’ll be back to a public life.
UPDATE: Perhaps ill-advisedly, I did an interview with Kat Stoeffel at New York Mag yesterday. She captured my words almost verbatim, and as self-absorbed and tone-deaf as they may come across in spots, it’s an accurate interview with which I can have no complaints. The unflattering portrayal is my doing, not Kat’s.
As a personal update and partial explanation, I am out of the hospital after a psychiatric hold and I’m on a cluster of drugs that affect my mood, my judgment, and my capacity to engage. While I stand by the interview, those drugs (including heavy doses of Lithium, Klonopin and so forth) played a part in the poor way I framed things. Nonetheless, I take full responsibility for every word I said, save for the unkind remark about XoJane publisher Jane Pratt. I’d also like to clarify that the Good Men Project has changed substantially since Tom Matlack left, and has become a more feminist-friendly site than when I was forced out.
Through all this public career, I have carefully (or not so) concealed a serious mental illness that has once again come to the fore. If nothing else, I ask for prayers for my wife Eira, my daughter Heloise, and my son David. They are innocents in this story.
And I will be doing no more interviews. I’m gone.

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