Thursday, October 27, 2011

Wipeout Homoerotic Artists on Facebook?

Over the past two months, several of my friends who write, photograph, and showcase male male fiction and art have been attacked or reported  by 'friends' for displaying "pornography." 

This post may be familiar to some of you, because I posted about this before, when Dan Skinner's Facebook page was reported and removed without warning. It looks as if it's happened again. Damon Suede is also gone. Who's next?


 Wipeout Homoerotic Artists on Facebook?
I suppose there could be a perfectly benign reason these two men have had their accounts removed in the last twenty-four hours. It doesn't feel that way. Not after the purge six weeks ago. It feels to me as if there is a group operating on Facebook, deliberately targeting and reporting people associated with the MM fiction and erotica industry. Consider it an evil twin to the Wipeout Homophobia on Facebook group.

If you're not familiar with WHOF, members can report Facebook pages that promote hate or violence against gays. Pages that can lead to dangerous activity, not pages that are editorial in nature. If the group administrators agree the page is in violation, members are notified and report the offensive page en masse. 

Is it possible that this small branch of the gay community has been targeted by bigots determined to keep them of Facebook?



Allow me to raise my old rant for a minute...I am sick of the double standard. For my entire life, women have been portrayed as sex objects, breasts and ass cheeks on display for entertainment purposes. Don't believe me? Turn on the football game any Sunday afternoon and checkout the boobage on display. And how does that add to the contest on the field? Oh, right. It doesn't.


Yet, a beautiful piece of art that enhances the beauty or drama of a work of fiction is deemed pornography. The glorious standard of "I'll know it when I see it," decrees that it is obscene or porn.


Here's the rule that we have agreed to abide by as users of Facebook:
You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

'Contains nudity'...a rather nebulous term, don't you think? Where do we draw the line? As we learned with GA's cover, apparently we draw the line for a male at the pubic hairline. Unless it was the man nipples or navel that offended. According to the man who reported this cover, it was the exposed penis that cause him to report this as offensive. I kid you not…he looked at this picture and saw a penis. Probably says something very unflattering about his equipment. Yeah, that was a low blow...but this is my page. I'm allowed.


 Consider a mother nursing her baby? Would that pass the nudity test? Beach volleyball for women in sports bras would be okay, but would a shirtless male torso? Of course, unless another male hand was touching the chiseled flesh.

Then...Red card violation! Damn…stepped over the line. 


Okay, how about a Sports illustrated swimsuit model whose nipples faintly show through the two inches of fabric that cover the center of each breast. Long expanse of torso, all the way down to her denuded pubic area, so that the other scrap of fabric covers the pubic bone. Sometimes this shot is shown from behind and we discover the thong cut of the bottom piece. Fabric is measured in square inches, but by golly she’s not nude. Or even better...look, she forgot her top...Bet FB would let this one stay...

On the other hand, a male draped in another man’s embrace and a bath towel? No…he’s with another man and a towel isn’t clothing, therefore he’s nude. If it was a group of men wrapped in towels, standing in the locker room, they’re not really nude- because it’s part of the sport. Hmm…I’m sensing a trend.


Dan Skinner is my friend. He creates beautiful homoerotic art. He photographs men, glorious photos that move me and others through the stories he captures with both his imagination and his lens. I have many friends who tell wonderful stories of love and romance and the main characters are both males. I write gay fiction. Say it any way you want. 

If you want to follow me on Facebook, you will see and read about manlove. Get over it or get off my page. Through my warnings and the privacy settings on my posts, I have done what I can to protect you – the rest is up to you. If you don’t like what I write about, what I talk about, what I share with my friends, please act like a responsible adult and leave.

I don't want to be in a reporting war with bigots, but I will defend my friends and I will defend my right to voice my opinion.


18 comments:

  1. I'm with you! I'm tired of this "chasse aux sorcières" FB is practising! I choose my "friends" carefully, and got deleted twice already... This must end. We don't post child pornography or zoophilia (and believe me, I saw both of them on FB, open for everybody to see!!!)

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  2. Sadly, we've been here too many times.

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  3. This has happened too much! Im sick of FB and their double standard. As Ive stated many times, they should have something like blogger where the pages have a warning. If they would come up with a disclaimer saying this might contain adult material and not make the holder of that page responsible then it solves a lot of things.

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  4. problem is, Facebook is the most "open" of all the social nets. just try posting something remotely sexual on Google+ you'll get deleted so fast your head will spin. HEre's a thought....how's a bout a social networking site ONLY for writers/artists of GLBT? I'm guessing there is one out there somewhere already but....just a thought. put it on your to do list Laura!

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  5. Okay, my two cents. I haven't even been on facebook much since my last deletion. I haven't posted hardly any pics. If I did, they were so tame you could have found them in a fan mag on a supermarket stand. No butts, no naked. My posts didn't even have sexual innuendo. My last post, two days, ago was in fact: "Making spaghetti tonight." I did only one thing on Facebook yesterday. Posted a new profile pic. Tame again. Absolutely nothing worth a warningless deletion. Got up this morning my account was deleted.. no warnings.. no nothing. just gone.
    Do i think I was targeted? ABSOLUTELY.
    Did i violate any facebook rules? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
    If it is Facebooks policy to allow people to stalk you and have you deleted for their own nefarious purposes with you having no recourse, that is.. BULLSHIT!
    I'm furious. I worked very hard to stay within their codes so i could continue to do business. If they dont have a code to thwart stalkers... then they better get one! The rules as they stand let haters have the upper hand.
    Dan Skinner

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  6. Dan, I have no other way of telling how pissed off I am that you've been targeted you this way.

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  7. I have so many things I want to say about this and yet the sad thing is that Facebook and the assholes who run it won't give a shit and change anything - they are truly bigots in every sense of the word and I am more appalled than I have ever been. I hope to God the idiot are getting an earful right now cause there's a lot more I'd like to do.

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  8. Dan, I'm back to read your comment! SICKENING! FB needs to make it possible for people who run a business with their pics to have disclaimers. Why that is so freaking hard, I dunno. I mean, why shouldn't they have a disclaimer to say, this page might be offensive, if under 18 stay away and don't make the person running the page responsible. I'm tired of the freaking double standard. I see a lot on FB go through and the pages dont get deleted.

    @Liz. I've had no issues with Google Plus so far. Just watch whos in your circle and you should be fine.

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  9. This is absolutely infuriating. I've seen so many people being deleted for NO GOOD REASON. People want to make Facebook fit their own moral standards, and they don't get that they don't run the joint!

    I wish we could report their accounts for being supercilious cow patties, but unfortunately I don't think that's one of FB's grounds for reporting...

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  10. I was deleted once as well for posting a picture of man with no shirt. From what I saw on facebook, it was tame compared to every other place that had child porn, naked women, etc.

    I am sooo sorry Dan and Damon, that narrow minded jackasses are targeting the LGBT artists and authors. Someone needs to do something because facebook sure doesn't care about it.

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  11. you know this is a topic that enrages me to no end. I have no idea what FB's agenda is, but they are so powerful at the moment, they can do what they please. Thanks for reposting. GA

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  12. We're behind you, Dan. Seeing this happen to you makes me see FB now as a Gestapo, not a social community.

    Reminds me of times, as has happened all through history and apparently flourishing even now, where people had to hide from irrational tyrants. Always in fear of being exterminated.

    Sick of it.

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  14. This incenses me so much too GA. I could have understood to a degree had Dan posted a deemed "forbidden" picture or something but as he said he's been nothing but good. I honestly do now believe that some of you are on the radar of some vigilante hate group who gets off on reporting and removing groups/people for the hell of it. I feel for you Dan and I'm saddened that one person or a group of assholes can cause so much trouble for your business. :(

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  15. I am fairly disheartened. For someone who didn't violate one rule my facebook account, a tool of my business, was at the mercy of a vindictive idiot who had to do nothing more than click a button to have me removed and go "ha ha!" That proof was not required, that a check was not made before my business medium was cut off is reprehensible.

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  16. I am appalled and disgusted and have no words to express how disappointed I am in the human animal right now

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  17. Dan, you know I am behind you 100%. Maybe everyone in the business should take on Facebook, in court, for what they are doing. It's just a suggestion, but to me, this is violation of freedom of speech, as well as discrimation against one specific group.
    It is not fair to you as artists, nor to your fans and friends. Regardless, I am behind you all!

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  18. Makes you wonder if Mark Zuckerberg were gay or a fan of GLBT if this would be happening. If people don't to see certain pictures, then click the un-friend button.

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