I joined the EF Review Program about two months ago. Since joining the program, and getting involved in the community, it really has replaced Facebook and Twitter for me. While I do still enjoy being on those other two forums, to me, being in the EF community is just more fun and supportive.

Don’t get me wrong, my Mr. really enjoys all the knowledge I’ve obtained since joining EF. Yet, he always laughs, or rolls his eyes, when he sees me check my email for comments, and the forums, before I check FB or anything else.  He wonders about my obsession, and frankly, it’s made me wonder as well.

Well, it did make me wonder. I stopped wondering when I realized that since joining EF, I’ve been more myself than I have been at any other point in my life. Perhaps it’s my anonymity in the community, but I don’t think that’s necessarily it. I don’t mind if people in the community know who I am in real life. I am more concerned with the people in real life figuring out who I am inside, and on the forums.

I know that I shouldn’t care what people think of me, but really, I do. If you knew me in real life, I appear to be brazen and bold. I speak my mind and am an advocate for love and justice, and treating people equally and fairly. I think I may have been a superhero in a past life, because I constantly want to fight, and speak out against the mistreatment of others. Or maybe that’s just a result of my abusive past. Who knows?

Am I the most open-minded person around? Not at all. I still have prejudices and hang ups, and the inability to wrap my mind around certain lifestyles. At the same time, I could never bring myself to tell someone that their lifestyle is wrong. But there are people out there who do. There are people who are convicted in their beliefs so much, that they swear up and down to their deity that it’s that way, or no way at all.

I’m sure that most of us know someone like that. Or even more than one person like that. We have been the target for their righteousness to the point where it has put us off of them. Honestly, I know too many of those people in my “real life.” I’m not so much a target, because I am too scared to let them know that I’m a bi-curious, married Christian woman, who loves sex to the point that I test and review sex toys… that I share the details of how something feels against my anatomy.

So why do I spend my days interacting on Eden when I could be interacting with people I actually know? Well, for one, I’m a coward. Secondly, I’m free here. Third, and probably the most important… it’s now home. I know that seems strange, especially after only two months. Here’s why. I’ve made some great friends. These are people that I never would have been able to meet in real life, because our paths are so dissimilar. But I’ve learned that we are so alike in other ways. It’s a family. We all help one another, commune together in forum meetings, we’re fiercely protective and defensive of/for one another. So, I’m home.