Test 2

Please select your preferred language.

請選擇你慣用的語言。

请选择你惯用的语言。

English
中文简体
台灣繁體
香港繁體

登入

记住我

初到 Fridae?

Fridae Mobile

Advertisement
Highlights

More About Us

新闻&特写

« 较新的 | 较旧的 »
21 Jul 2003

tackling online racism

A grassroots Internet campaign challenges gay men to examine their sexual preferences and prejudices. David Mills meets some of the men promoting the "sexual racism sux" campaign.

There's nothing so personal as one's own sexual preference. But when can an expression of that sexual preference be interpreted as prejudice?

From the left: Tim Mansfield, Andy Quan and Peretta Anggerek

This is the question which a group of Sydney gay men are posing to users of online dating services like Gaydar.com. au and Gay.com.

They conceived a campaign in May last year, titled "Sexual Racism Sux", to encourage gay men to express their sexual preferences positively rather than negatively in their online dating profiles.

One of the men behind the campaign, Tim Mansfield, says that many users of such sites "seem to feel comfortable saying generally offensive things about others, and specifically offensive racial things, excluding entire racial groups in their profiles".

The epithet "No GAMs (Gay Asian Men)" is a familiar sight on many Sydney-based Internet dating profiles, but the men behind the campaign stress that this is not just an issue about relations between Asian and Caucasian men in this city. The net is global and so too is racism.

"You can't legislate taste, and we're not seeking to legislate taste," Mansfield explains. "What we're saying is that if you're going to express your preference you can express it clearly, by simply saying, for example, I prefer Caucasian guys - it's fairly overt, it's not driving anything underground - rather than saying "no" - no GAMS, no whites, no blacks, no Italians, or whatever. The simple change in phrasing makes it a lot less confronting for other people, and vilification speech is harmful."

"We're just asking for people to be decent," says Peretta Anggerek. "We're not saying you're supposed to change your preference or your way of looking at things. It's just that common decency seems to have disappeared off the net."

Perhaps the speed with which we have taken to online dating services in the Sydney gay scene has left old-fashioned concepts like politeness and decency spinning in our wake.

"I think Gaydar is the most powerful force in gay male sexuality at the moment, in Australia and many other countries around the world," says Andy Quan, who has written about this issue on his website (www.andyquan.com). "If you look at how much Gaydar is used, and the number of men on at one time in Sydney, on a daily basis, that far outweighs any bar or the whole strip of Oxford Street. There are such a huge number of gay men here who are engaging with Gaydar on a regular basis, it's an incredible phenomenon. I arrived in Sydney in 1999 and people were still using Pinkboard. Gaydar has really come up within the last two, three years."

Mansfield points out that Pinkboard's moderator, Panther, has followed a non-racist policy for all personal ads posted on the site for the past 10 years, but Quan says that Gaydar "weren't willing to deal with the issue" of online racism when approached about the campaign.

From the left: Tim Mansfield, Andy Quan and Peretta Anggerek

"I offered a number of suggestions, and we're hoping eventually to try and work with them," he says. "They have guidelines for how people should write ads, so why not create a place that says 'State what you want, try to be friendly to each other and be polite'?"

Reactions to the campaign to date from online users have varied markedly. Mansfield reports that the responses range from the supportive to the hostile. About 70 men in Australia have linked the campaign logo (available on www.sexualracismsux.com) on their personal Internet profile, as have a number of men in England, Canada and the USA.

One respondent who left a message on the campaign website argues that "choosing a white, black, or any other colour partner is not racist, it's just personal preference".

"Whining because an ad for a romantic partner excludes someone of your race is immature," the respondent states. "It's only racist if the ad includes language stating directly or through the use of harsh adjectives – that your 'excluded' race is inferior (or that the advertiser's race is superior). Having a preference is not the same as feeling your race is superior."

Other respondents have hailed the simplicity and ingenuity of the campaign.

"About time someone made a stand against this blatant racism, it always horrifies me what people have no compunction in saying on their Gaydar pages," another message reads.

The campaign would already seem to have raised awareness of the issue, but the men behind the campaign know they have a way to go in order to change the norms which seem to govern dating sites.

"If you read 20, 30 or 40 profiles and they all rule you out based on some characteristic over which you have absolutely no control or volition, it has a deeply depressing effect," Mansfield says. "Some people don't realise that when they're saying these things on Gaydar, they're saying it in public."

The article was originally published in the Sydney Star Observer and is republished with permission.

读者回应

抢先发表第一个回应吧!

请先登入再使用此功能。

Social


This article was recently read by

请选择新闻及专栏版本

精选个人档案

Now ALL members can view unlimited profiles!

Languages

View this page in a different language:

赞好

合作伙伴

 ILGA Asia - Fridae partner for LGBT rights in Asia IGLHRC - Fridae Partner for LGBT rights in Asia

Advertisement