How I Dealt With Recent Hate Mail

I wrote an essay about being in a long-term nonmarried relationship and got two gross, misogynistic, antisemitic emails from the same man within seven minutes

Photo by Liam Truong on Unsplash

On Saturday, Business Insider published my essay on being in a 12-year, nonmarried relationship. It was also syndicated on some Yahoo! sites. The essay went live at 5:52 a.m. At 1:38 p.m. and 1:45 p.m. I received hateful, misogynistic, antisemetic emails from a man who goes by “Jerry.” I posted the emails or about the emails on all my social media platforms. Here’s a TikTok video of me reading them:

@rachelkramerbusselYou know your writing has hit a nerve when you get sexist, antisemitic hate mail. #keepwritingyourstory #keepwriting #amwriting #essay #essays

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I’m usually much more of a TikTok observer and don’t know how to do popular effects or anything, but I figured out how to add this photo as a green screen because I really wanted to get it out there and out of my head.

When I shared a screenshot of the first email on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, I include Jerry’s email address, because I don’t think someone who sends those kinds of messages deserves or expects privacy.

I got a lot of very kind reactions, from people I know IRL and from online friends and acquaintances and from strangers. That felt cathartic and freeing, like I was helping to release some of his hatred and by doing so, diffusing it, replacing it with kindness. I don’t know if that’s actually how it works, but that’s how it felt for me.

At home, Drew and I have started calling each other “FB” for “filthy bohemian,” making a joke of Jerry’s words, because ultimately, as horrific as they are, they don’t impact my daily life, except…

Knowing that I got under someone’s skin like that merely for expressing an aspect of how I live my life proved to me that a) writing about our lives is powerful and b) people are deeply invested in how strangers live their lives. I knew that, on some level, thanks to all the bigots who oppose same-sex marriage and open relationships and by those who are working to make divorce harder (here’s an illustrated primer on no-fault divorce by

Aubrey Hirsch

at

The Audacity.

) and roll back reproductive rights and all the other conservative causes that are flourishing these days.

But seeing it directly in my inbox inspired me to keep writing about all the nuances of my relationship and my life, especially where they intersect with broader cultural conversations.

Have you ever gotten hate mail? If so, how did you handle it?

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