Yesterday’s post–the one with the painting of the naked woman which started off with a mini-rant about Facebook feedback buttons, but ended in a pitch for feminism and nudity–got a lot of reads. It got substantially more than “usual.” For this, I’m pleased. If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know how much I appreciate both the raw statistics but also the “post a comment” bit at the end of the post. I truly enjoy hearing from folks and engaging it a little back and forth throughout the day.

Well, you readers fascinate me.

Between the blog itself and Facebook, where I link up the daily posts–I had six of you comment.

That’s roughly 5% of the readers to a heavy-trafficked blog post.

Three comments were “lengthy.” But of those three, one was my mother and one was my sister. One person said she would participate in a herself.com interview. Two men made comments: one was a “lengthy” and thoughtful comment; the other was short and, came off to me, as a bit snarky. The sixth comment was a “thanks for sharing.”

So I wonder what this tells us about “us.”

(I know: It’s probably not fair to make sweeping generalizations about human nature based on this paltry sample size, but I’m going to anyhow.)

#1. We are private. We are not about to make comments on “some blog” where our names would accompany our words, perhaps for fear that we would “expose” ourselves.

(Side note: In light of the http://www.herself.com mission I find this shockingly ironic: A website dedicated to pairing “fully-exposed women” with thoughtful insights gets a piddling response on a blog commenting on the website.)

#2. We are judgment adverse. No one likes to be judged. For the same reasons set forth above relative to privacy, we just don’t want people “thinking those things” about us.

(Side note: Same irony applies.)

#3. We perhaps took “the challenge” of exploring http://www.herself.com in private and without witnesses (who could assign judgment) and, instead of commenting publicly, spoke to a spouse/lover/friend about “this blog post” where the blogger (me) shared her thoughts about this feminist/naked website (www.herself.com).

It could very well be the case that you DID think about this, look at the website, and discuss it. But if you did, you didn’t do so here and with me.

That’s not a critique; it’s an observation. And for me, it is both fascinating (and confusing) to think about.