Expertise

I've been asked to do a sometimes-blog at Psychology Today. And it seems they are listing me as an "expert."

That looks awfully official.

My blog will cover different angles of asexuality and update irregularly, and the folks who invited me to do it specified that I can recycle content I've published elsewhere, so it does not have to be all new content. I do not receive payment for this except I do get a cut of the ad revenue. The attraction is of course the audience; Psychology Today has a pretty big following, and there's also the nice little résumé credit that makes me look well-respected and important.

But I can't help thinking that even though I've literally written a book on this subject, I'm not really an expert. What's that Groucho Marx said?

I guess maybe it's just the usual thing creative professionals do where we kick ourselves down and beat ourselves up, but when I get some kind of opportunity or am referred to as an expert on a subject, I immediately question the standards of the person who offered that designation. Like, what? Really? Me? I'm nobody. I'm just a girl who has done an awful lot of talking about herself and an awful lot of listening to other people talking about the same thing.

Though I guess in a way that's a type of expertise. It's experiential, at least. It's not academic, which is okay because my book isn't academic, and my Psychology Today blog won't be academic either (though I do have a little background in psychology; I minored in that science in college).

So, even though I don't think the blog has to be incredibly robust or be filled with mind-blowing content, I do want my first post to be decent, and relevant to the existing Psychology Today readers as well as those I bring in from my own social networks, so I got to thinking about the role of "experts" in this world and ended up gravitating toward writing about that. I have a draft that I'll be posting fairly soon, I think, discussing how we trust our medical and mental health practitioners to not only assist us with our problems but help us define our world, and how important it is for those folks to responsibly educate themselves on asexuality so they can properly treat and care for asexual clients/patients/customers. I just hope it's not too thin--that it doesn't come off as a finger-wagging "be responsible, now, people!" lecture that doesn't contain any helpful content, so I'm including a few resources at the end, but I also don't want it to be too long. (My draft is already over 200 words past the recommended cap, so. There's that.)

If anyone who reads my blog wants to throw out an idea or two about what they'd like to see in future blogs over at Psychology Today, I'm open to suggestions! (It's specifically about asexuality, so keep that in mind when suggesting.)

Thanks for reading!