Many
confessions touch on love and sex, matters that are otherwise
difficult to discuss openly in a male-dominated
society.
The website, set up by
Ersan Ozer, a former journalist and television producer, is now
one of the most visited in the country.
Women, fewer than 20
percent of whom are Internet-users, are as numerous as men when it
comes to connecting to this site, according to Ozer.
Using only nicknames,
people write in “speaking of love, hate, joy, sadness, regret,
everything that makes up life,” says Ozer who never expected the
success which has made his website a household name.
Some confessions lead
to heated debates.
The story of one woman
who recounted how her husband broke his foot kicking her sparked a
deluge of mail.
It encouraged hundreds
of others to talk about domestic violence, a subject that remains
otherwise taboo in a country where girls are sometimes married
off, at a young age, against their will and “honour killings”
still occur.
Surveys suggest that 58
to 71 percent of women in Turkey experience violence at
home.
Sociologist Ali Ergur,
from Galatasaray University, says the stories shared reflect an
image of “a society which has long been oppressed socially and
culturally by the hold of family and community”.
Today, society “is in
transition and has trouble coping with new problems, which stem
from people moving to cities in ever-greater numbers, and changes
in lifestyle,” says Ergur.
Some stories carried on
the website are humorous, others highlight the difficulties of
living in a country that straggles East and West.
Ozer, who receives some
1,000 messages a day and selects about 40 for his electronic agony
column, says he’s “learned a lot about the country, fellow
citizens and especially about women” since starting up the
website.
He tries to pick
stories that stand out as genuine “because that’s what people want
to read about”.
“Most stories are
probably true, but veracity isn’t the most important thing. What
counts is the fact this forum allows people to share intimate
experiences in a spirit of fellowship”, however virtual, says
Ozer.
A 29-year-old
businesswomen, who never otherwise bothers with the Internet, says
she reads the four pages of electronic confessions every
day.
“It takes me 20 minutes
in the morning. It’s a lot more fun than browsing through
newspapers and it allows me to share the experiences, adventures
and lives of others, often told in a very touching way,” she
says.
The website’s success
has encouraged newspapers to start up their own agony columns and
Ozer to publish yearly editions of “the best” web
stories.
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