Discussioncall for opinion: is pornography an LGB issue?

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[–]boypower 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well nobody said it'd be easy. I got a lot of help with just meeting gay people for the first time online on forums. That was really the start of my self-acceptance, to have direct contact with someone who was also gay and completely open about it. It cleared my minor gender dysphoria then and there as well. In terms of sexual exploration though, and not just coming into terms with being gay, obviously porn was there, but I also read non-explicit (as well as explicit) boys love manga and while that genre obviously has some big issues, it was nice to have a story, fully-realized male characters acting out a gay love story. Anime, video games, manga and cartoons also were very near and dear to my heart, and I've had an active imagination since I was a child, and eventually the male characters from different series started to appear in my fantasies, often not explicit but rather bigger stories with my own original male characters and whichever character I fancied that time. It sounds pretty lame but I still do it to this day and I'm 26!

Overall I think cultivating creativity and imagination in gay teens and meeting other gay teens is generally the best way to include something other than just porn in ones sexual exploration. Obviously there's a lot more to it and a lot more to change (parenting, media, education...), but that's just my anecdote on how I dealt with my sexuality when I was a teen beyond looking at porn. I wouldn't say porn scarred me or anything, but I don't think it really helped me either to achieve anything except being wank material, and I do sometimes worry about my porn consumption habits to this day.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

thanks for the insight! yeah, yuri and shoujo-ai were very dear to me as a teenager too!! I always went on mangafox and read the non-explicit girls love things (the explicit stuff scared me, lol).

yeah I think cultivating online LGB communities is important for this reason... in case if teenagers can't meet or connect IRL, they have somewhere to go to talk about issues and ask questions. I think online spaces is definitely a reasonable, tangible goal for LGB organizing to accomplish. and promoting gay male fiction creators as well.

recently there was a scandal with a gay male YA author, Malulani Moreno, who wrote a book about a love story between two teenage boys, getting cancelled on twitter by the TQ for problematic tweets and thoughtcrimes, such as misgendering a "genderqueer" person and saying more male authors should write gay love stories instead of female authors. I thought that fiasco was depressing.

[–]boypower 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I used mangafox actively as well! Ah the memories!

The issue with LGB communities and spaces especially for young people is that they are going to be riddled with predators if they are not moderated well. LGB teens are often very vulnerable and that makes them targets for predators and we can see some of that happening in the current trans discourse where confused youth are being '' mentored '' and '' assisted '' by adult perverts.

I met like, 2 gay guys, 2 bisexual guys and 1 lesbian in a forum for Japanese self-published indie video games and music. From there I progressed onto tumblr and the gays wouldn't stop popping up! Also met a group of gays who were all fed up with trans stuff on tumblr as well, after like 10 years of being there, and now we have a Discord. You don't necessarily need a LGB-specific site to meet other gays, most of my acquaintances I've just met through exploring the internet and it's various messaging boards that focus on my interests!

I heard about that case, it was super fucked up how all the gendies and women ganged up on him. But Malulani should've waited until after his book was released to throw some deserved shots at gay male romance as a theme and a subject always being produced and made by women for other women. He shot himself in the foot honestly, even if his book being cancelled is absolutely ludicrous and he didn't deserve it in any way.