[ih] 40 years ago net.motss was newgroup'd

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Michael Thomas via Internet-history wrote in
 <2b956796-e606-c2ba-e934-deaf29c24a1c at gmail.com>:
 |On 8/8/23 1:43 PM, John Levine wrote:
 |> It appears that Michael Thomas via Internet-history <enervatron at gmail.co\
 |> m> said:
 |>> into soc.motss was the internet's first gay newsgroup. It was created by
 |>> Steve Dyer late of BBN. It was a purposefully cryptic name to fly under
 |>> the radar.
 |> In the 1980s I lived in Harvard Square around the corner from Steve
 |> and his partner whose name I don't remember but who was, if such a
 |> thing is possible, even nicer than he was. Everyone knew they were
 |> gay which, fortunately in that part of Cambridge, was not a big deal.
 |>
 |I was never quite clear what Steve did at BBN. Maybe somebody here 
 |remembers?
 |
 |FWIW: my domain name is a result of Steve's spdcc.com. I needed to 
 |create LLC in a hurry and this is what popped into my mind.
 |
 |But one other point is that it's funny how gay politics intersected the 
 |nascent internet. I don't have proof of it, but my suspicion is that a 
 |lot of changes especially in Silicon Valley but elsewhere as well with 
 |companies and HR policies were very facilitated by the internet. It's 
 |not like you would set up phone trees to get people to lobby HR, after 
 |all. The net really facilitated that and probably in a big way.

I do have _no_ idea, but from my German-centred point of view,
i see (now letting aside the Bible with Moses and his personal
opinion of "it is an atrocity", but the law that there may be no
"male temple prostitutes" (iirc), and, 3500 years later, people
like Benjamin Britten, etc etc ETC) a clear path from Rosa von
Praunheim's "Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die
Situation, in der er lebt" from 1971 ([1]), over the coming out of
Freddy Mercury and his famour parties in Munich, Germany, as well
as, of course, Rock Hudson's death (hm), now i skipped the big big
Bronski Beat "Age of Consent" as well as, of course, "My Beautiful
Laundrette", and, to end this, "Silverlake Life" [2].
Whoever saw the latter (here it could be seen around midnight in
german TV of public law; and i must say, in my memories they shone
even brighter, i was a bit distressed to see the film again over
twenty years later), you know.  Madonnas "SEX" was present in
Germany through Udo Kier (censored in Japan i read now ;), and now
i lost track.  So let's Divine, and "Shake it up".
All of those had nothing to do with the internet, however, so i am
off-topic.  But were omnipresent in Germany.

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Is_Not_the_Homosexual_Who_Is_Perverse,_But_the_Society_in_Which_He_Lives
  [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverlake_Life:_The_View_from_Here

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)