General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]Ms. Toad
(34,056 posts)did allow the poster to remain for 12 days. Again, you aren't the sole host in that forum. I commented several times in the thread about the lack of response, hosts were participating in the thread (some of them attacking me), and I had conversations with at least one (perhaps more - I don't recall that detail by now) female hosts who were trying to convince the hosts who were active to take action. The active hosts knew. It was a deliberate decision (or a blocking of consensus to act) among the hosts who were active during those days to allow the poster to remain for so long.
Common decency, and safety from homophobic attacks in the LGBT group, should not depend on PMing the lead host about the egregious behavior for there to be action. And when the dust settled, at an absolute minimum, I would have expected some formal communication from the hosts letting me know - personally - the action which had been taken, and an apology (or at least acknowledgement) that it was handled poorly.
Nothing I said in the original discussion, or here, suggested beefcake threads would be the end of the world. But there is different sensibility, by and large, between lesbians and gay men about the display of sexual imagery. It isn't a blanket difference - but on average, there is a difference. That difference, in mixed LGBT company, often makes women feel excluded. In spaces which intentionally set out to be inclusive, an effort is made to have conversations and make conscious decisions about how we act in our shared space so that we aren't stomping all over everyone else's boundaries.
If you read that thread, I expressed my personal hope that the beefcake threads be kept out because they contribute to a male-focused sexually charged atmosphere which (by and large) makes many women (including me) uncomfortable (and adding female beefcake threads isn't the solution there - I don't find scantily clad pictures of women in an LGBT space any better than in straight space).
But my primary request wasn't to ban the threads, but to have a conversation about what we want in our space - which I said over, and over in that thread - so that any decision is deliberate, and not just something that happens by default, which is generally that beefcake threads show up because the men want them. Just like (a few vocal and primarily) men want SI swimsuit threads in GD. I've had this conversation - or similar ones about how the dynamics in our subgroup mimics wider society - with every LGBT group in which I have participated in real life. Frankly, the dynamics are often even more challenging because gay men and women are often even less in touch with how we come across to each other because our intimate interactions with someone of the same gender tends to accentuate the differences. They aren't always easy conversations, and in some instances finding common ground has taken years (adding Bi and Trans to the name of one group, for example).
But all I did in that conversation, initially, was to support someone else asking for a conversation. I hadn't intended to raise it on my own, but I certainly supported it taking place - which is what triggered the attack. So the reason I left isn't even whether there should be beefcake threads - but the clear message I got from that experience that we aren't even allowed to talk about it, and anyone who tries is fair game for attack. Even homophobic attacks. Even in an LGBT safe space. That is not a message I got from you, personally, but it is the the message which I got from 12 days of silence or being under attack by people who were chosen to keep our space safe from that and who knew it was going on.
As for OUT magazines (or other similar ones), I don't read any gay specific magazines. I don't really want to be bombarded with images of mostly naked people of either gender - and the news I get there isn't different enough from what I can get elsewhere to make it worth it to me to wade through the pictures.