"Straight but not narrow" is not necessarily fetish/philia related: people
saying they are straight but not narrow often means they are straight but support gay
rights. But that's just a side issue.
I have a gay userbox/category on my user profile for a few reasons: because I use it as a
litmus test of whether I want to participate in Wikipedia (if the community cannot accept
me as I am, I'll find something else to do with my time), because I try and practice a
life of openness (I edit in my real name, and take the extra risk that comes with that, so
why the fuck shouldn't I be out?) and because I hope that if there are users who are
LGBT and need support or just a kind ear from an admin who can empathise with them, they
can find me and email me.
The difference between having a "This user is gay" userbox and a "This user
is single and wants to find a girlfriend" userbox is the underlying point of mating
that declaration. The motivation for having the former on my userpage isn't to, say,
find sexual or romantic partners. (Not that having someone in my life with an encyclopedic
knowledge of something wouldn't be useful at times…)
Even though I can see a very worthwhile point in listing that I am gay on my userpage (as
listed above). I can't quite see how a userbox proudly proclaiming my sexual
activities serves any great goal in building an encyclopedia. Nobody is actually going to
get a date from a userbox, and beyond that, I can't quite see any real use for them. I
just hope that we don't throw the useful baby (things like LGBT userboxes) out with
the bathwater.
Yours,
--
Tom Morris
<http://tommorris.org/>
On Tuesday, 14 May 2013 at 16:01, Katherine Casey wrote:
I've noticed that enwp has a lot of
sexuality-related userboxen. Some of these are innocuous or positive (i.e.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/LGBTsupport), some seem to be a bit over-share-y
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/abstinence_reluctant), and some seem downright
creepy to me (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/girlfriendwish). When you put them
together (for example, as found on the - real but anonymized - userpage excerpt here
(
http://gyazo.com/fa31a70c0b5bf29600a3058ae6dc4d6e)), you can very easily end up with what
feels like a very, very sexualized userpage, which means a very, very sexualized user
experience for anyone who visits that page. Reading the userpage that screenshot came
from, for example, gave me the feeling that anyone female who speaks to that user is going
to be evaluated for their sexual usefulness to the user.
Userboxen can be a sensitive issue, historically speaking, and everyone seems to draw the
line differently between appropriate ones and inappropriate ones. I'm interested in
getting some thoughts on where the line is, and on whether the ones that cross the line
inappropriately sexualize the atmosphere on the project. My personal feeling is something
along the lines of "Speaking out about your sexual identity is good, but I don't
want to hear about what specific sexual characteristics you have or want your sexual
partners to have". I'd welcome the lists's thoughts on whether any, some, or
none of the following userboxen (not an exhaustive list of sexuality-related ones, just
some I've pulled out as good examples of the question) are appropriate to have hosted
and used on our projects:
Abstinence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/abstinence ("This user practices abstinence
but still has a healthy sex drive thank you very much.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/abstinence_sex_drive ("This user practices
abstinence but still has a healthy sex drive thank you very much.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/abstinence_not_SRT ("This user practices
abstinence for religious reasons, but disagrees with the Silver Ring Thing.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/abstinence_unsure ("This user practices
abstinence but is not sure whether through shyness or through moral choice.")
Fetishes/philias/sexual identity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/aquaphile ("This user is an aquaphile.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dark_Tichondrias/Userboxes/User_Cross-dre…
("This user enjoys cross-dressing.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ISD/Userboxes/Dominant ("This user is a
dominant." - also available in sub)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Oxguy3/myboxes/Straight_not_narrow ("This user is
straight, but not narrow.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cadwaladr/Userboxes/Pornography ("This user enjoys
pornography.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/slut ("This user is a slut.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/swinger ("This user enjoys a varied sex
life.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/yiff ("This user loves yiff, and is probably a
furry.")
Preferences for sexual partners:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bluedenim/Blondes ("This user considers blond hair
to be attractive." - also available for brunnettes, redheads)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/girlfriendwish ("This user wishes [they] had a
girlfriend")
Miscellaneous sexuality-related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/safesex ("This user supports and encourages
the practice of safe sex.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UBX/sex ("This user enjoys sex.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TBM10/Uncircumcised ("This user is proudly
uncircumcised")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sugar_Bear/Userboxes/User_varied_sex ("This user
enjoys a varied sex life. (Alternating between hands constitutes varied, right?)")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:User_Single ("This user is single")
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