Lesbian is a dirty word

[The Straight Story]

Lesbian is a dirty word
by
Grace Chu

In the past couple of weeks, Sony and The New York Times have come under fire for censoring certain words, including "gay" and "lesbian" in their online communities.

Sony Home has banned the use of the words "gay," "lesbian," "bi-sexual" and "Jew" from their video games, and The New York Times banned the word "gay" from being transmitted from its mobile website. The New York Times has since removed the ban, but come on — why was the ban instituted in the first place?

Was the rationale to protect children from seeing words that will cause them extreme distress, or was the rationale to prevent people of all ages from using certain words to insult or offend one another?

I have compiled a list of words that are much more disturbing that the words "gay" and "lesbian," and I am sure all of you will agree. Please take a deep breath and sit down. It's about to get pretty heavy.

http://www.afterellen.com/blog/gracechu/lesbian-is-a-dirty-word?&comment=712041

[Ioo]

1. NYT Claims, and I read confirmed to have fixed this issue

Just saying...

[The Straight Story]

2. Indeed, but as the author pointed out, why did they do it in the first place?`

And why Jew and not Christian, etc?

[gollygee]

3. People don't try to hurt people by saying, "You dirty Christian!"

I'd assume that's the reason.

[The Straight Story]

6. Except maybe on DU

:rofl:

[kiva]

4. My guess, and only a guess,

is that this is an attempt to limit people who attempt to use these words as an insult. Given that one of the banned words is 'jew', combined with the situation in Gaza, I suspect that some people are using the words in a pejorative fashion, and that Sony and the NYT might be trying to quash the abuse. Again, just a guess.

[jobycom]

5. You should see how online gamers use the words.

Gay, lesbian, the N word, Jew, the whole range. Mix teenagers and anonymity in a competitive environment, and a lot of slurs get hurled, and even clean words can be and are used that way. I'd guess Sony is more interested in undercutting the use of these words as slurs than in suggesting they are in themselves bad.

Not saying Sony is doing it right, just describing a problem.

[madmom]

7. I find it highly ironic that one poster criticizes censorship of any thing then

uses g**dam*ed in his/her response. Self-censorship?