I don't run around telling people I screw chicks because, well, it's just antisocial...

No thinking person would ever consider KGS homophobic. Enough said.

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I am Tartuffe from GoDiscussions.com

Maybe it's considered sexism in that it discriminates against heterosexuals and therefore is against the KGS TOS.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I'm all for equality. If KGS is going to have rooms for particular sexual preference, perhaps there should be a bondage room, and one for plushies, and another for swingers...etc. If you say no, then what makes your particular preference so privileged?

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

And, frankly, it's a go server; I don't see why anyone cares how its members have sex.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

To everyone on their high horse: I sometimes chat with players on KGS. Is it improper advertising if they mention their girlfriends, and in response, I mention my wife?

There's a lot of idle homophobic chatter from teenage boys on KGS, in addition to the "OMG, A PIX OF A GRIL!" whenever bigbadwolf plays. The moderators are pretty good at policing that kind of thing, in my experience, but I can't imagine it makes gay and lesbian go players feel especially welcome and comfortable.

That shared experience is one reason why a room seems like a fine idea.

Another is the simple desire to be around people with whom you have some commonality.

If you doubt either of those reasons, I think you may be letting a sense of oversimplified principle get in the way of sympathy.

(edits to make one sentence come out less harsh sounding)

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Occupy Babel!

I'm not exactly sure why gay and lesbian players would feel uncomfortable in this situation, especially if the person was booted by an admin. Could you elaborate?

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be immersed

It's similar to how girls may prefer to use gender-neutral usernames. If they were to proclaim their gender or idly mention things that imply it, they might get unwelcome attention, whether it's the positive puppy-dog approval-seeker, the rude 12-year old, or the full-on misogynist. If girl gamers wanted their own room, I would support it for the same reason. Any group that has to guard their casual conversation (If you can't refer to your boyfriend/partner/etc) then perhaps it is only reasonable to offer a place for them to talk freely. Waiting for moderators to police every instance still means people's feelings get hurt, especially since new (potentially prejudiced) members join KGS daily.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

ChewTerr is right on that it's someone might have a sense of having to be guarded. I was just generally thinking of feeling out of place.

But yeah, if moderation is good, that ought to help.

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Occupy Babel!

One of the most idiotic notions about homosexuality that has unfortunately persisted even into the 21st century is that being gay or lesbian is simply or primarily about sex. So in celebration of such ignorance, I would like to make the following proposal:

Any talk about one's relationship with another human being, in whatever capacity that be – student/teacher, husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, father/daughter, mother/son and so on, should be considered a TOS violation here on L19. Why? Well, you just never know, such a relationship might involve sexual relations and that stuff should be kept to ourselves and not advertised. It has nothing to do with go, and more importantly we wouldn't want to corrupt the kiddies and violate "family values," and…

Oops, that would constitute a TOS violation under my proposal, wouldn't it. Families are relational and since there are gay and lesbian families, well, we all know where that leads.

Is the above sufficient to get this thread locked? Or is it just offensive talk about homosexuals that's allowed?

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

While I agree with you that it's absurd and offensive to partition off or censor reference to homosexuality on the grounds of having sexual implications, I don't think you're helping your case by making an equally absurd (though far less offensive) analogy to any and all human relationships whatsoever.

Homosexuality is a sexuality. It may not be primarily about sex, but it is primarily about sexual attraction. Just like heterosexuality. A homosexual relationship or heterosexual relationship is ESSENTIALLY defined by the factor of sexual attraction. That's simply what those words mean. This is not the case with teacher/student relationships or friendships or blood relations.

The reason it's absurd and offensive to partition off or censor reference to homosexuality on the grounds of having sexual implications is because it's such a blatant double standard relative to the references that we don't seem to care about in a heterosexual context (such as referring to one's spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend).

I don't know that it's been shown to be genetic, though I wouldn't surprised at all if there were individuals who were genetically predisposed to it.

Either way, I think it probably also arises from psychological factors in at least some cases (just based on the fact that humans develop many other non-standard sexual attractions based on psychological factors). It just seems implausible to me that people could develop a sexual attraction to feet or shoes due to psychological factors, but no human has ever developed equivalent attractions to their own sex due to psychological factors even if such instances are rarer than cases of genetic homosexuality.

@Monadology You're right that there is an essential sexual component (excluding the rather rare case of asexual individuals interested in long-term intimate relationships). But I think deja's point is perfectly compatible: the issue is that by saying "don't talk about being gay", you're telling people not only to not talk about sex, but to not talk about arguably the most important type of relationship a person can have. It's one that involves sex, but isn't just about sex.

@Kirby The distinction you're making is absolutely irrelevant in context. That said, I'll be cautious, and just say that the scientific evidence that homosexuality is influenced by pre-birth cause is about as strong as it is for almost any behavior (as opposed to physiological traits). Note that that's not to say that there's a particular gene, or that sexuality is determined by the time of birth.

As far as evidence, there's twin studies and all that jazz.

@Monadology (again) Well, the examples you're describing mostly concern aspects of one's attraction to members of a given gender (someone likes women, and focuses on their feet). So there's a bit of a difference there. Just because of evolution, you'd expect there to normally be a biological disposition to like people of one sex, but not necessarily one to like people with a certain hair color.

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Occupy Babel!

Looks like I have been warned. I will stop discussing this topic.

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be immersed

Ah, thank you, Monadology - honestly. Whether you realized it or not you've understood half of what I posted. Now I know you can figure out the other half. Here's a hint – reductio ad absurdum. Yes, it's Latin but Google is a wonderful thing...

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

Acquired or not, homosexuality is not like a hobby. If you tell people not to talk about it, you are telling them not to talk about an essential part of who they are. Doesn't matter how they got that way.

Btw: I don't see a reason what you say wouldn't necessitate shutting up about anything heterosexual. It would just be a different sort of hobby. There's a consistent idea there: you can imagine a perfectly well run server where any discussion outside of Go is verboten. But even when the moderators are most active, that's not KGS--no one moderates the L19x19 room that way, for instance.

@deja Monadology should know that one...what's his name, after all?

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Occupy Babel!

Since my post offended somebody on the forum, I removed it and the quoted reference to it.

I do not wish to offend anyone, and my questions were sincere. I don't have many datapoints to establish a knowledgable opinion, so I could be offending people that do.

The matter is still one I'm undecided on, but I apologize if I've upset anyone.

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be immersed

I used the term in the thread on brute forcing Go just yesterday. I know very well what it means.

Since you'd prefer not to clarify how you think I misunderstood you, let me make an attempt:

As I understood your post, this was the rough form of your reductio ad absurdum in your post:

p)If we censor reference to homosexuality because such references have sexual implications/connotations, then we should do so for any and all human relationships. (If A, then B)
q)This is an unacceptable/ridiculous/absurd result, (Not B)
r)so we should reject the claim that we should censor reference to homosexuality. (Therefore, not A)

What I was calling absurd was the first premise (p). I don't think it holds at all because homosexuality is a sexuality and most human relationships are not and therefore do not carry sexual implications like homosexuality.

However, I was agreeing with you because I do think your argument works if "any human relationship" is replaced by "heterosexual relationship."

I have never really gotten what difference it would make if it were genetic or not.

If it happened to turn out that altruism does not have a genetic basis but is an acquired trait, would that make it less noble? No.

Or to use a negative example, if it turned out there was a gene that predisposed people to theft, would that make it less a crime? Of course not.

I think it's quite difficult for most to imagine one's self having the opposite orientation, so it's hard for people to put themselves in each other's shoes over this issue. Instead, (for those of us who are hetero) try to imagine living in an alternate universe where homosexual relationships were the norm, and your own relationship was just barely tolerated by a good portion of the population. That exercise makes things quite clear to me.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

I think the difference is that we do not have a taboo against 'fixing' or excluding those who have what we consider to be abnormal psychological traits. If it's psychological, it's a lot muddier of an issue whether or not these kinds of social behaviors toward it apply.

On the other hand, similar claims regarding genetically derived traits are taboo thanks to the positive reinforcement from the success of the civil rights movement (and similar progressive developments) and negative reinforcement from the horrifying results of eugenics (see: Nazi Germany).

EDIT: To be clear, I don't think either of these cases make a difference logically, but they make a difference culturally which is why people have a tendency to assume or act as if it does make a difference.