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Sex and Relationship forum

  
  

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The Strobe
09:42 / 20.04.06
I like the "Body Shop" concept, because it encompasses both personal and public aspects.

I think "S&R", by contrast, is a pretty silly idea. I don't think it reflects an interest of a majority of the board, especially the proprotion of the board who don't read Policy. I am currently in a relationship, and don't really want to talk about it much on the internet, but more to the point, I know that for the several years I was on Barbelith and not in a relationship the last thing I would want to read is an S&R forum. At the time, I would have found it intimidating, and felt uncomfortable that, by and large, it was being proposed and trumpeted by people who are (by and large) either in a relationship, or if not exactly comfortable with their bodies/spirits, at least willing to share aspects of them publically.

This is similar to what people have said so far, but I'd quite like to re-iterate the points in my voice, because it's a major concern.

Similarly, I think "Body Shop" implies an aspect-based approach, much like the Temple, Headshop, and Lab before it. "Sex & Relationships" tells you how to use the forum - which, by and large, Barbelith forums don't do; they should be inclusive, not exclusive, in their nomenclature.

And it leads to confusion. The "boxer briefs" example above is a classic Art/Fashion/Design thread - and if it changed its nature, it could be moved; cf the "D&D rap" thread which moved from Games to Music when it was clear it was not a lot about D&D, and mainly about the music.

I think this sounds very closed as a concept. I think a more open, inclusive title (and concept) would be more resilient to trolling, better suited to the board, have better long-term prospects, and encourage people to come for curisoity about one topic, and stay for the you know, sex-mechanics (because they might find it less intimidating than they thought).

By contrast, I can imagine many people not even setting food in "S&R", even when they might really (deep down) enjoy it.

More later, perhaps. I think the potential is for something about more than just sex and relationships, something which roughly fits (not so well) into every other forum here (like Convo, like Headshop, like Lab) but might want a home of its own, and smoething that could grow. I think "S&R" won't really grow, I think it's too limited, and I think fixating on the topic now sets up expectations of how (if it were to become reality at all) it will be used. (CF: G&G is really coming into its own right now - the women/D&D thread is very interesting - but it's taken a long while to get there).
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
10:48 / 20.04.06
So Sex and Relationships is limited but "Games and Gaming" or "Comic Books" isn't? Not sure about the logic there.

And talking about boxer briefs in the context of Sex and Relationships is different than talking about it in relationship to Art and Fashion. I mean, maybe "What's Your Favorite Vibrator?" would end up in Fashion as well.

What troubles me about "Body Shop" is that again, it doesn't immediately connote talking about people's emotional lives. Where do we really get to do that here? Maybe Temple? But what if we're relatively settled about our spirituality but not the ways we envision our personal interactions?

There also seems to be an assumption that the board exists primarily for existing members, or that the needs of existing, long term members are paramount, just in the way that people say things like, "Well, no one here right now would feel like contributing." In which case, I guess I probably misinterpreted the aims of the board a bit, trying to be an active contributor as someone new to the board, if y'all are happy and content playing with each other in London.

I apologize if that sounds surly. It just seems to me like a number of people have expressed it as an interest and it seems to me like that should be enough, at least as a trial run.
 
 
Smoothly
13:26 / 20.04.06
I tend to agree with sibyline about how the ‘Bodyshop’ sounds a little physicalist. I don’t quite understand how “Body Shop” is more ‘aspect-based’ then “Sex & Relationships”, but ultimately, I think we could have a forum that incorporated both our attitudes to, and concerns with, our own bodies and other people’s. How we rule on mind & body, I dunno. But I agree with Paleface in that it could be about more than sex and relationships in the coitus and love sense. But I think it would be good if both those things could be discussed in a forum moderated to be conducive to it.

There also seems to be an assumption that the board exists primarily for existing members, or that the needs of existing, long term members are paramount, just in the way that people say things like, "Well, no one here right now would feel like contributing."

I don’t think that’s really fair, Sibyline, although I appreciate what you’re getting at. I don’t think it matters if particular individuals (be they new or established) wouldn’t be interested in contributing. But I do think it is important that more than 6 or 7 of us would. Part of the reason I suggested bumping this thread was that the Barbelith constituency has changed some since it was last discussed – and if you doubt that the established membership wants fresh perspectives, you should browse some of the ‘Is Barbelith Dying?’ threads from periods when the doors were closed.

As for a trial run, I don’t think we necessarily need to institute a new forum to run some test threads. I tried one here when this was first mooted. It was a qualified success – the main problems being a typically ‘Conversationish’ initial reception, but ultimately a paucity of people willing to disclose.
I’d encourage anyone to have another go though.
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
14:26 / 20.04.06
yes, i think something like this would really belong to a Sex and Relationships forum, and more than a few people posted substantial perspectives to just that one thread.

i feel marginalized though that these topics that are so central to the way i and i would venture to guess a lot of people view the world is consigned to the "off topic" forum, whereas other people have entire forums devoted to gaming or comic books, which i appreciate may be central to their lives but not to mine.

and without trying to argue for essentialist notions of gender, i do think that in my anecdotal experience, women tend to talk about their relationships more, and comic books or videogames less.

being here the past two weeks has definitely made me curious about what all the fuss is about with the videogames, but i don't feel like my own central interests are being represented. and we're not talking about rhythmic gymnastics here. we're talking about Sex and Relationships people, a topic that i would venture to guess other people might possibly be interested in.

so there you go. that's how i feel. i think threatening to leave if one's needs aren't met is an annoying way to deal with issues, and i'm not saying that. all i'm saying is that the lack of a forum such as this one significantly limits barbelith's utility for me as a general interest board, and makes me feel like it's targeting a specific group of people as members, one that i don't feel fully a part of.
 
 
matthew.
14:36 / 20.04.06
I say "aye" as well. Furthermore, can I suggest the title for the forum as

Body and Soul Shop

then we're getting the physical and the emotional, spiritual, what have you.
 
 
Smoothly
14:47 / 20.04.06
Not sure about the ‘soul’ bit. People with those have already got a forum to talk about them. I envisage this forum being more carnally oriented; the body and its appetites, basically. That of course would include the associated relationships.
 
 
matthew.
14:48 / 20.04.06
Well, I think the title "Sex and Relationship" is a bit much.
 
 
Smoothly
14:51 / 20.04.06
Yeah, I'm not completely sold on that as a title either. But a bit too much what?

And yes, sibyline, your thread is a good example of the kind of thing I’d like to see in this forum. It worked rather well in the Convo though, which does rather undermine the need maybe.
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
14:59 / 20.04.06
And yes, sibyline, your thread is a good example of the kind of thing I’d like to see in this forum. It worked rather well in the Convo though, which does rather undermine the need maybe.

i don't know why that makes me really annoyed but it does. having to post to the "off-topic" forum about an issue that i feel is quite important makes me feel marginalized, like "oh, ok. well, if you wanna post about that then go to that place where everything else that isn't covered gets posted."

i'll think about what i would propose instead of "Sex and Relationships"...
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
15:02 / 20.04.06
though i think before we propose to call it something, we should first determine if something like this forum should exist, and notify whoever needs to be notified (tom, yes?) and have that person agree that there's enough people who think it should exist, for it to exist.
 
 
Smoothly
15:07 / 20.04.06
having to post to the "off-topic" forum about an issue that i feel is quite important

Yeah, agreed. If that thread had started to go the way of Monopoly jokes early on, there was nothing Convo mods could have done to stop it. For me that’s one of the most compelling reasons for having a dedicated forum: sympathetic mods and bespoke moderation policy.

I agree that the exact name doesn’t matter a great deal at this stage – but I think the disagreements about that are basically disagreements about what the parameters of the forum should be.
 
 
Spyder Todd 2008
15:40 / 20.04.06
Personally, I think an S&R thread would be considerably more relevant to me than say, the G&G thread. Not only things like sibyline’s Poly-thread, but also possibly topics like the Purity Balls thread could concivably go there. Topics of sexual oppresion issues as well as more happy issues seem to always get stuck in places they don’t quite fit (Convo, Switchboard, et cetera), and I think they might well fit better in a new forum.
 
 
The Strobe
15:47 / 20.04.06
having to post to the "off-topic" forum about an issue that i feel is quite important makes me feel marginalized

The Conversation is "off-topic" in that it's for things that would be "off-topic" in other forums. Sometimes, things appear in Convo that probably would be fine in Headshop. They get moved. Sometimes, things appear which are there for a purpose - they truly fit no definition. Like the Mono/Poly thread.

Just because there's not a forum for a topic doesn't mean it's margainalized. Off-topic doesn't mean trivial, or unimportant, it just means off-topic. On one board I'm on, politics is off-topic because it doesn't fit the rest of the board; on Barbelith, it would go in the Switchboard. That doesn't mean it's trivial or unimportant.

So if it's not trivial or unimportant - and, indeed, Tom has frequently made cases for the Conversation being worth of "important" conversation as well as [PICS] threads - why do you feel marginalized? It would seem to be because you think that the way we recognise value here is by giving topics whole fora, rather than merely attention. It's not about value, it's about discussion. As Steve said, it did work well in the Conversation, because of the relatively few preconceptions that forum has, and also because people are generally more relaxed about posting in there.

I appreciate your "it's important to the way I live my life" point; you feel you need an area to discuss things which you believe to be of import, and, to be honest, fair enough. I give these matters a great deal of consideration, as I hope most people engaging in any form of sex, or relationship for that matter, do. I discuss them with close friends occasionally, and with my partner slightly more regularly. Unfortunately, I have some defined boundaries. And one - which I do my best to emphasise - is that Paleface is only an aspect of me, and as such, at times not best placed to offer personal opinion. A sharper-dressed aspect, sure, but Paleface is only a suit I wear, and not quite equivalent to me.

Many people here don't distinguish between their suit and the person behind it; many, by contrast, use their suits practically as alternate personalities. S&R needs to be able to accomodate both types of poster, and so far, your entire stress has been on "my login name/suit and I are one, we are interchangable, and we will hold forth on personal matters as ourselves". Whilst we no longer have multiple suits, we still have people who use their suits playfully, and I'm not sure the way S&R is being defined offers much room for that. Alex's Grandma, for instance, will not offer the same opinions as Alex, because she is a persona he often assumes for the purpose of entertainment. You're OK with a fictional 80-year-old woman offering anecdotes about sex and relationships? Would that be trolling, if they were offensive or untrue, or merely entertaining? I'm not asking these as leading or facetious questions: I'm asking them beacuse I think they're important to the nature of Barbelith, and why an S&R forum on Barbelith is not quite the same as an S&R forum on another board, perhaps.

As for "isn't G&G or Comics a bit narrow", well, the forums in "The Spectacle" as was always were focused on specific media; those in whatever the Headshop/Temple/Switchboard/Lab hub was called were always more generic. Whatever the forum we're talking about is called, it 's not a Spectacle-type forum, it's the other sort, which is why I used the phrase "aspect-based".

And finally:

In which case, I guess I probably misinterpreted the aims of the board a bit, trying to be an active contributor as someone new to the board, if y'all are happy and content playing with each other in London.

Sark doesn't help. I don't know if it was a dig at me, or at a certain group, or, to be honest, all the London-based forum members, including people such as Steve Weaving, but it wasn't very helpful or very pleasant. It makes me less inclined to continue discussion if you're so hell-bent on your viewpoint that you're just going to be rude.
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
16:10 / 20.04.06
paleface, i'm not sure if you have, but if you look back at the entire thread there were a significant number of posts arguing against this kind of forum specifically because they all know each other and they're all in London so they can talk about these issues amongst each other when they see each other. i was responding specifically to those posts. so i wasn't referring to you paleface, and i apologize if i wasn't clear. i'm unfortunately at work right now, otherwise i would try to find and link.

and while i appreciate the explanations regarding what the functions of the different forums are, it's really hard perceptively to feel like issues of central concern for me are equally treated when there are entire forums devoted to other issues but not to the ones that i (and others) are directly concerned about. i mean, how else does one value the importance of a topic on a message board? it's like giving somebody a little cubicle in a huge crowded room and then going, "well, your position is the same as that guy over there who has the big corner office with the nice view." what does one have on an online board if not space and the ability to have moderators sensitive to the topic at hand.

also, no one is requiring people to participate on the forum. once the forum is set up, then a discussion can be had about whether suits known to be fictitious can post about their "personal" experiences in the guise of those suits. what we're discussing here is whether the forum should exist in the first place, and i don't see why not given that there seems to me to be enough interest.
 
 
Smoothly
16:15 / 20.04.06
The Conversation is "off-topic" in that it's for things that would be "off-topic" in other forums.

That, but also in the way it is moderated. I certainly don’t concur with any suggestion that threads in the Conversation are marginalised (quite the opposite – it is by far the most visible, visited and vocal forum), but I do think the off-topic-tolerant nature of the Convo and the *remit of its moderators* makes it harder to have serious conversations about some subjects than it might. See the beginning of my ‘Whatever In Love Means’ thread for more details.

The fictionsuit problem is an interesting one. There’s a sense in which the anonymity they afford is a double-edged sword. I’ll have to think about it a bit more, but my first instinct is that it wouldn’t bother me if Alex’s Grandma made contributions to and S&R thread any more than it would bother me if she chimed in on a F,TV&T thread, or a Switchboard thread. It might feel a bit crass and inappropriate for her to volunteer ridiculous personal anecdotes about the benefits of National Service in a Switchboard thread about ASBOs, say, but (a) it wouldn’t be a *huge* problem (if it was on-topic), and (b) it's just unlikely to happen.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think ficsuits create a problem for an S&R forum that they don’t already cause in other forums. A degree of honestly and disclosure would be called for in certain topics, but the same goes for certain topics in the Head Shop, or Switchboard, Music or anywhere else.

But like I say, I might not have thought of some of the implications through. Either way, this issue speaks more to me for the need *for* a dedicated forum for such discussions (with a specially tailored moderatorial policy) rather than as an argument against it.
 
 
sleazenation
16:30 / 20.04.06
I have profound doubts over the wisdom of a sex and relationships forum. It strikes me that posting in such a forum will appeal most to people discussing and questioning various aspects the sex lives and relationships -and often this group will be the least well equipped to handlesome of the diverse range of responses and possible RL fallout of their discussions. For others, the forum will just provide a venue for emotional voyerism...
 
 
*
17:17 / 20.04.06
It strikes me that posting in such a forum will appeal most to people discussing and questioning various aspects the sex lives and relationships -and often this group will be the least well equipped to handlesome of the diverse range of responses and possible RL fallout of their discussions.

Sleaze— on what do you base this assertion?

I'm interested in posting in this forum, whether it's S&R or the Body Shop. Have I struck you as someone not well-equipped to deal with a diverse range of responses, or unwilling to prevent or otherwise handle possible real-life fallout? If so, I'd be interested to receive that feedback. If you think I'm somehow an exception to this general rule, I'd like to suggest that one important function of such a forum might be to help people learn ways of handling these aspects of relationships.

I'd like to suggest "Body & Connection." I think that suggests the largest range of possible topics without becoming entirely meaningless— topics of sexual health, health in general, sexual relationships, and relationships in general.

I think this is worth a try, anyway, as I thought before when the idea was first floated. I'm a type I learner, which means I learn best from exploring interactions and interconnectedness with others. A forum like the one we're discussing would engage that tendency of mine more than Games and Gameplay for example.

We could invite people to start threads they think belong in the proposed forum, once we decide what its remit would theoretically be, and label them as such in the thread title. That way we can see what kind of response there is. We could go back and mod old threads we think belong there with the same kind of labeling.
 
 
alas
17:29 / 20.04.06
I'm feeling some reservations, too, which sleazenation pretty well sums up. I am more interested in a body shop--health and physicality. Online environments are alienated from the physical environment--which is why I love conversation threads that place us in time and space, like those ones that have us describing what we're looking at right now.

My main concern, however, about adding any new fora (even the much-desired armory forum!) being the one expressed above by several people--if we get too many fora, it potentially bleeds away members, especially from some of the less-trafficked ones.

I have been finding the "Barbelith Pager" thread helpful--& I have been vaguely wondering if there is any way to institutionalize a bit more something like "wormholes" between fora? I have no idea exactly what would work--and it may be that since most of us go to Convo first, or so I suspect, maybe just having the pager as an ongoing, active thread (which one is not so obliged to read through the whole of) would do the trick.

A wee confession: I'm partly feeling a tad guilty because I urged the moderators to move this thread to Art & Design from Headshop, which I am pretty sure gets less traffic than headshop, so it's getting less attention (no replies since 4/18 now) ...and who knows if I even would have seen it if it hadn't been misplaced in the Headshop...That's the kind of thing I mean. Of course, maybe I should post this in the pager...
 
 
Spatula Clarke
17:29 / 20.04.06
Increasingly fucked off with the tendency to grab onto G&G as the forum people don't want to participate in.
 
 
Shrug
17:38 / 20.04.06
It doesn't seem to be the issue in recent postings but I had what possibly could be a REALLYGREATIDEA (although I can immediately see problems with it).

I think it's a given that while some people may feel squeamish about revealing personal information on a googleable forum or to one to which their real life friends contribute, alot of other posters may have no such issue. Regarding posting of sensitive issues to such a forum; I think that a singular suit could be set up, importantly not one to which the broad spectrum of Barbelith posters would have access to, one to which only the set of five or so carefully chosen moderators could access. Users could pm anything they deemed too sensitive to post under their own fictionsuit to it and the moderators could repost under the created suit "Dateless in Dagenham said..., Lascivious in London queried..." etc.

I know this is only a small issue, but it could be a nice little function. Thoughts anyone?
 
 
sleazenation
18:01 / 20.04.06
Sleaze— on what do you base this assertion?

I'm not sure how to best answer this without offending people - but this recent thread certainly came to mind, with participation by two people who later reconsidered revealing intimate details of their lives...
 
 
Dead Megatron
18:16 / 20.04.06
I tend to agree with sibyline about how the ‘Bodyshop’ sounds a little physicalist. I don’t quite understand how “Body Shop” is more ‘aspect-based’ then “Sex & Relationships”, but ultimately, I think we could have a forum that incorporated both our attitudes to, and concerns with, our own bodies and other people’s

Sorry for arriving to late, and I admit I have not read this entire thread - heck, I read almost none of it - but I have a suggestion.

How about "The Love Shop" for a name, and we can add "Sex and Relationships" in the Forum descritpion?

Also, if this hipothetical Forum gets added, I'll start lobbying for an actual "Armoury Forum". So, be warned.
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
18:24 / 20.04.06
sleaze, those details were actually pretty prosaic, and neither one of us were truly offended (though Q can speak for himself). it was just a case of Q being unduly sensitive to my feelings and (as i understand it) vice-versa. i don't think it invalidated or compromised the excellent points that were made in that discussion, although i guess that's something that people are free to disagree with.
 
 
*
19:40 / 20.04.06
Increasingly fucked off with the tendency to grab onto G&G as the forum people don't want to participate in.

That's not what I meant. I do participate in G&G, and I'm glad it's here, but it doesn't particularly encourage interrelationality.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
19:58 / 20.04.06
Your post was just the final trigger, id. More annoyed by the notion that G&G is "limited" (when even a cursory glance at the first page of topics demonstrates how untrue that is) and the earlier "Barbelith has a Games forum? But I come here for deep and meaningful debate" post.

Also the idea that G&G is somehow a forum that's useless to female posters. As it goes, the arguments in favour of having that forum created didn't just come from male-iding members of the board.
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
20:02 / 20.04.06
please note that all my references to not going into the games forum are specific to me and when i ventured to talk about how women have a greater tendency to talk about relationships than games, i posited that as an anecdotal theory and did not by any means advance it as being essential or fixed.

i play scrabble.
 
 
*
20:05 / 20.04.06
Well, okay, I'll start more introspective/interrelational topics there, but right now I'm discouraged by the one I do have going.
 
 
Olulabelle
20:14 / 20.04.06
* Are women in 2006 still finding it hard to achieve orgasm?

* Formalizing a relationship by changing your Friendster or MySpace profile

* Are boxer briefs the best of both worlds?

* Online dating disasters

* Do you think your partner's astrological sign really makes a difference?

Going by these, maybe a relevant name for a sex and relationships forum might be Cosmo...

I'm all for threads on poly relationships, but I don't think we need a whole new forum to discuss which pants we like best do we?
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
20:23 / 20.04.06
isn't it interesting what gets labeled trivial and what doesn't, considering how many people snicker at the mere mention of dungeons and dragons?
 
 
Unconditional Love
20:29 / 20.04.06
Would Heart shop be a relevant title?
 
 
Jack Vincennes
20:30 / 20.04.06
If this new forum were to start, I would like to see it to be a forum that encompassed topics other than sex and relationships. Body Shop almost certainly isn't the best name for it, but it sounds like a good idea -the sort of forum into which this this thread would fit, as well as ones about s&r. Paleface writes about being at least willing to share aspects of [oneself] publically and I don't think of my relationships as being entirely mine to share, so probably wouldn't post in a forum devoted entirely to that topic.

That said, I think that it could be very interesting to have more of the kind of thread linked to above, because it attracted a lot of thoughtful, serious posts but it was also possible (in fact preferable) to post anecdotally.

There are threads on underwear in AF&D here and here, mentioned because I like them both a lot.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
20:41 / 20.04.06
I suppose a lot of people on here are still in denial about their D&D pasts. As if they're right wing politicians trying to overcompensate for that adolescent same-sex fumble, and legislate against it.

And I can't say I blame them - that time in the room on a hot summer day with the twelve-sided die, when I fought off the drow and ascended two levels ... it never happened. Not to me, and not to a friend of mine either.
 
 
Unconditional Love
20:48 / 20.04.06
If the forum is created i think it should be a vivid pink, or perhaps scarlet.
 
 
alas
20:54 / 20.04.06
We could kill two birds with one stone, you know: Armoury and Amoury.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
21:57 / 20.04.06
Why any (apparent) assumption that there has to be "shop" in the title? What's on sale in this shop?
 
  

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