There have been grumblings in certain circles about OKCupid instituting or enforcing a policy for real names, instead of screen names, to be used. Facebook has taken steps to try to prevent people from using pseudonyms or screen names as their account names. This sort of thing has been an issue with other services.
These services have their reasons, such as collecting demographic information and advertising revenue, and also to try to prevent spammers, scammers, stalkers, bullies, and others with ill intent.
The problem, though, is that many people who don't fit the narrow, vanilla, cisgender, heterosexual, professing monogamist mold often rely on reaching out to others anonymously or with some level of privacy. That's because they face discrimination. Depending on where they are, they may be subject to everything from shunning and disowning by family, loss of employment, loss of housing, harassment and bulling, criminal prosecution, even violence, including to the point of death.
Gender, sexuality, and relationship diversities are harmless, but there are prejudiced people who want to do harm to people based on their gender, their sexual orientation, their relationships, their kinks, or their fetishes.
In a perfect world, everyone could be open and out about who they are and what they like, but we don't live in that world right now, so some people look to connect for networking, friendship, love, or more through these online services, while avoiding the bigoted judgment of their employer, parent, neighbor, or the threat of a stalking ex or rebuffed interest. The harder it is for people to reach out with popular services, they more they will be drawn to alternatives.
Have you had to deal with this problem? You are welcome here and you can comment anonymously below. or use a screen name. You an also private message me at Facebook and I will not share what you tell me. Fortunately, there are a forums for LGBTQ people, the ethically nonmonogamous, people with fetishes and kinks, and for the consanguinamorous.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To prevent spam, comments will have to be approved, so your comment may not appear for several hours. Feedback is welcome, including disagreement. I only delete/reject/mark as spam: spam, vulgar or hateful attacks, repeated spouting of bigotry from the same person that does not add to the discussion, and the like. I will not reject comments based on disagreement, but if you don't think consenting adults should be free to love each other, then I do not consent to have you repeatedly spout hate on my blog without adding anything to the discourse.
If you want to write to me privately, then either contact me on Facebook, email me at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com, or tell me in your comment that you do NOT want it published. Otherwise, anything you write here is fair game to be used in a subsequent entry. If you want to be anonymous, that is fine.
IT IS OK TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN YOUR COMMENTS, BUT PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY AS I WANT THIS BLOG TO BE AS "SAFE FOR WORK" AS POSSIBLE. If your comment includes graphic descriptions of activity involving minors, it's not going to get published.