Many of the issues you raise have been discussed repeatedly during the quarter century that this board has been in existence (Yes, BC will celebrate its 25th anniversary near the end of this year). I myself have been posting as Sick Rose for a decade and posted under other nicks for a number of years before that (the nicks were compromised, so I don't use them anymore.) Of course society itself has been changing (largely for the worse) but you may find some of these earlier discussions relevant. I am linking earlier posts of mine not because I claim any special insight (most of what I learned about these issues came either from reading what others had posted and/or from friendships I formed here) but because I can remember titles and thus find it easy to track down the posts. You might also consider perusing the BC digest (link at the top of the page). It comes in two parts -- a few months from the mid-90s just after BC had gotten started. And a five year period between 2003 and 2007, a time when the board was probably at its height in terms of intellectual energy. BC then found itself in the sites of the Feds who were working covertly with various "antis" -- several of BC's most prominent posters were arrested, arrests that included the webmaster of the time (since then, BC has not had a publicly identified webmaster) and perhaps his most illustrious predecessor (who had made the mistake of posting under his real name. These two -- and the others -- were not arrested for posting here, but because they had been in various ways sloppy about their personal security, LEO was able to trace them and found other causes to arrest them.) Many posters understandably left, never to return. But BC survived and it remains one of the few places where issues such as the ones you raise are openly and thoughtfully discussed. (I should also mention that if you are careful -- which means not revealing any personal details that could be used to trace you IRL and being very, very careful about forming off-board relationships with other posters -- the risks of posting here are quite low. ) I'll provide a link below to the second of a pair of essays I wrote on the "gay/BL -- was it worse?" issue. If you're interested, follow the link. But before you read that essay, follow the link at the bottom of that one to the earlier essay and read that first. SR |