Yes, agree all notions of anonymity are fictional and in my head given they have my name, age, location and picture. Don’t really need anything else to figure out where I work, live, etc. Yet, there is still a mental block I have with volunteering my work info. Did you give this up? And were you ever previously uncertain about it? Wondering how you convinced yourself or if LB did the thinking
Yes, good awareness about mental block volunteering your work info, even though it doesn't make sense. The short answer is that fear works this way, because it's automatic avoidance emotional behavior that responds to dangerous risks even if highly unlikely. cause the thing you are afraid of. The logic that triggers fear is quick often wrong, not critical logic which is slow.
But the strong conflict about work or any id is this anonymous vs safety relationship flipped between monger and provider.. Mongers especially newbie mongers feel safer being anonymous. While providers are in fact much more unsafe with mongers who feel they are anonymous.
Mongers aren't that anonymous. Commonly there is a disproportionate fear in providing some key id, picture, dl, work id, etc. I now think that it's because they are taking significant risks with outing to SO, which they have blocked out, but once being asked for like your picture with todays date on piece of paper, it brings up all the unconscious previously blocked fears about id, outing risks. Intuitively a monger fears that his pic, or any new id will some how facilitate making the more serious risks come to pass, like outing to significant other, cause jeopardy with job over inappropriate sexual behavior, etc. It also I think has to do with feeling safer overall if you have control by saying no to even the smallest increment in risk. As to why, a different discussion.
Fear is not that rationale. It arises from any possible emotional association with danger even if a very low real chance. With most fears, telling someone there is no rational reason to be afraid doesn't work. The CN Tower in Toronto has a public accessible very strong glass floor that you can see 1,115 ft below the floor, and you can walk out on it. Even as an engineer, I had a hard time convincing myself that it was perfectly safe to walk on, and I'm not that afraid of heights.
Sex is very strong emotion associated with violent dominance. Invading armies would rape and pillage. A lot of guys intuitively feel sexual arousal overcomes reluctance; that is, "no" doesn't mean "no" if they go far enough with sexual advances. During rape, many woman stop objecting or fighting back for fear of violence, which the rapist incorrectly takes as consent. In fact, now days women are advised to never stop fighting when sexually assaulted since not only it might stop it, but it helps them feel less like a victim.
Consequently, providers are a lot more at risk from sex/violence crimes from anonymous mongers, because they know no one will be aware and especially with providers and POs who are reluctant to report it. But orgs, at a minimum want to be able to ban a misbehaving monger who provides a picture. But if he provides a work id, he will worry the PO will tell his employer. An implicit threat to employment is a strong disencentive not to misbehave.