If a writer has the desire to communicate by writing and be heard, then he necessarily cares about seeing it in print. I suppose it's the difference … - Edmund White

Of course I don’t expect you to have any feelings for me, since I abandoned you when you were a baby. Nor do I feel any great maternal love for you. I know that very few women would speak this way — would permit themselves to — but when you were born, it was too late for an abortion and adoption was impossible in your father’s family. It’s not as if I ever had some great mission in life. I wasn’t an actress or a scientist or a writer or even a philanthropist. I had no goal, no destiny. But I knew that, restless as I was, I could bring you nothing but misery.

So,” he said. “What’s the difference between me and a whore?” He swallowed. “Am I a whore?”
“No more than every married woman.

The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.