two unrelated things (unconnected and free)

[woozle]

Thing One
In response to a post on asexy beast, I found myself wondering if there is such a thing as a nondating/friendship site where individuals can choose what sorts of expressions-of-affection they are comfortable with (and under what circumstances

Comments

[woozle]

That's a point.

I found myself thinking that it would be difficult to say in advance what one would be comfortable with, because (a) it would depend on how one felt about the other person, and (b) it might evolve over time.

And on top of that, as you say, anything short of outright refusal might be taken as permission, by exactly the wrong people.

I think part of what I was thinking, in the back of my head, is that the site might use those comfort-preferences (things that one hypothetically *might* be comfortable with, as well as things that one currently has absolutely no interest in) for matching purposes only, and not show that information as part of one's public profile.

This would only work if people were honest about their preferences, but then what incentive would there be for lying? If you claim to be more physically shy than you are, you'll get people who want to be touched less than you'd want to touch them. I suppose that might appeal to a certain exploitative personality...

Maybe the site would have to come with a free vigilante squad to seek vengeance upon those who abuse it.

Actually... more effective than a vigilante squad (if not as viscerally satisfying) would be to have crowdsourced reputation management. (I could ramble further about this, but it's probably unnecessary.) (Do dating or friendship sites generally have reputation management? I bet they do it wrong, if they do.)

[leiacat]

There are lots of incentives for lying about what you're comfortable with. Such as for example wishful thinking - you'd like to be comfortable with something, so you try to persuade yourself that you are. Or you find that your preferences are not percieved as particularly socially acceptable, or are for whatever reason embarrassed to admit to their exact shape. Or there aren't enough checkboxes to specify which kinds of things you're up for in what kind of circumstances, so you pick the nearest, and it isn't precise enough. And so on, and so forth.

I have zero experience with dating sites, but I've found that dating within a small inbred community (such as fandom) comes with fairly good built-in reputation management.

[woozle]

I should have been clear: I was worrying more about lying in the other direction, i.e. people claiming to be less comfortable with various things than they actually are (and then causing problems for actually-less-comfortable people by violating their boundaries).

But again, you're right that there is some considerable social pressure the other direction. Perhaps the idea of keeping those preferences hidden -- using them only for automated match-generation, rather than allowing others to browse them -- would help with that too.

Fandoms certainly do seem to be good reputation filters; of the handful of decent online communities I've been involved with, all seem to revolve around fandom of some kind. I wonder if that's part of why religion is so popular -- there's a body of literature, and the tropes that go with it, that everyone is supposed to at least be familiar with and to avoid dissing. That literature sets forth at least a vague outline of the shared values of the community, which self-filters for people who find those values appealing or at least acceptable. And so on...

The problem with using that method of filtration for dating-like activities is that many people don't have access to fandoms, at least IRL/locally (where dating-like activities generally occur).

[leiacat]

Raleigh area has at least enough fandom to have hosted a NASFiC last year.

Also, in the online fandom-like-things which I have participated in, I actually managed to do pretty well with finding folks within my actual geography. (As well as, of course, folks well out of it which made relationships hard to logisticate. Sigh. Alas, that's part of the nature of the beast.)

Also, the religion-as-fandom premise is seriously clicking for me. Thank you for thinking/sharing that!

[woozle]

"Access" isn't just about distance; there was a Con right here in Durham a few years ago -- a friend came into town just to go there, even, and we freaking drove her from the Raleigh train station to the hotel hosting the con -- and we were still just too insanely busy to actually attend, plus having social phobia to deal with as far as actually deciding to go.

Hopefully things will be different now, but there's still the social phobia. We'll see, maybe.

And... those things usually cost money, right? We're having to avoid any unnecessary expenses right now (as well as some necessary ones), and especially unnecessary expenses that put us in a position of temptation with regard to more unnecessary expenses.

I've been half-heartedly trying to attend Cons for at least 25 years, and have yet to make it to one. It just seems like the kind of thing I can't really do well (as in, "with enjoyment") until I have my crap a lot more together than it's been pretty much ever. Right now, the idea of attending one kind of feels like setting myself up for some seriously negative emotional reactions. (Not sure how Harena feels about it, but I know the social phobia is a large factor for her too.)
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Religion-as-fandom: I think it was PZ Myers (can't find the post in my RSS feed, though) who drew the parallel between The Bible and Star Trek. Both are works of epic scope that many people find inspiring, and a subject worthy of intense study and deep analysis, and around which they may even organize large chunks of their lives -- and you'll always get a few fans who take things wayyyy too seriously and forget that it's a work of fiction.