Mod posted a response: https://lemmy.world/post/52564578

I have recently received some feedback about including sexuality as a topic for dad jokes. Although it was not the most constructive of feedback, some points were made. Sex as a topic is not the same as sexuality, and I apologize for not making that distinction clearer. I was basing my moderating on what was being reported and sex being a topic as understood for children closer to puberty, although sexuality such as LGBTQ+ parents/partners/people can be understood much earlier. While I stand by still keeping actual sexual themes (anatomy, sex positions, etc.) as an off-limits topic for the community, sexuality seems reasonable to include.

This community is not static; I want to do my best to maintain a place that can grow with the community while staying true as a place for humor in a world that has plenty of unpleasant things. I am not a bot, and am indeed a person that is open to having respectful discussions.

Tell me what you think should and should not be included as “off limits topics.” Should profanity be allowed, or possibly only certain words? Are there other suggestions you have? I will try to look at the common themes from any feedback and apply them over the next two weeks or so.

Equating gay/bi people with sex and therefore inappropriate for children is a tactic of bigotry. The same argument was used to say that it’s wrong for Mr. Ratburn to get married on Arthur, despite the episode being completely innocuous, or for any of the lgbtq characters in Steven Universe to exist. It’s literally an argument to exclude queer people from society.

Someone needs to tell that mod that dad jokes aren’t for the kids.

If your 5-year-old can’t understand someone being gay then you’re a shit parent.

Do we know what mod made this very homophobic decision, because I would like to know that they’ve been banned for this.

Ignoring that the avarage age of lemmy could be 25 up to 35 years

but sexuality not until closer to puberty

I’d say that a kid would understand sexuality better “look, they just love eachothers” vs “they are male but with a female body” or sum

“Of course their gonna know what intercourse is by the time they hit fourth grade, they got the discovery channel, don’t they?”. In most situations like this, pre-internet, your older cousins would say “You’ll find out when you’re older”.

so a teenager’s dad cannot crack dad jokes anymore?

One thing that everyone should learn in sex ed is the Kinsey scale 0-6, and bisexual is 1-5 on the scale, so that’s most of the scale. Most people don’t know this and if they do, most won’t admit the same gender attraction. Even in generally decent marriages to the opposite gender, they never know each other fully. Some might confuse that as choosing to be “straight” but they are still Kinsey 4 or whatever, and should not be resentful of people who chose both ways or not marriage. They should support equal rights too. It’s all good whatever number people are, be free!

Clean jokes only please. If you cannot tell this joke to a 5-year-old and they can understand, you probably shouldn’t post it here. Please post edgier jokes to: !unclejokes@lemmy.world

I suppose this is the rule the mod refers to.

And well, I feel like there is a bit of a mix up going on here because the rule implies filthy jokes as well as jokes that go over the head of a 5 year old, which are two different things, but here are treated as the same.

In this case, I completely agree that your joke more than likely would go over the head of a five year old because the concept of bisexuality might not be somethingt a five year old has been exposed to yet and even if they have, they may not understand the punchline as it is a bit high brow for their age group.

However, it’s not a flithy joke and the implications of this rule is super unfortunate.

I also think that if I had been the mod in this instance, I would’ve not given a single fuck that you made a joke that was a bit more high brow than the average dad joke. If I may pretend for a second, that was a particularly nitpicky mod, I would have made a comment mentioning this rule and started a discussion with you and the other users to find out whether or not the joke was too clever for a five year old or if other people in the comments could attest to their five year olds being able to get the joke or not. That way it becomes a productive community discussion rather than a shut down.

I think that would have been a much better approach, tbh, rather than deleting it. No matter what the subject matter is, if it is this harmless, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a mod to start deleting things. It creates a bad atmosphere and insecurity in a community when people can’t express themselves in good faith without getting punished.

Your joke should not have been deleted imo.

I’m not going to go as far as PTB. There’s no out of scale action, the removal was in good faith, and the mod has been consistent in their moderation.

This is, however, clueless mod territory. It’s bad application of a rule done in ignorance. It isn’t okay, it shouldn’t have been removed.

No power trip, just a bad decision, and there is a difference between the two

I’ve known what lesbians were for as long as I can remember, because I have an auntie who was in a civil partnership with another woman. Apparently when it was explained to me in basic terms (after I had asked what a lesbian was, as I’d overheard it), I was just like “oh, okay.” and went back to playing. Kids are better at understanding this stuff than we give them credit for

the topic of sexuality

A reasonable reason to remove it was because it’s not a dad joke. A funny joke, but not a dad joke

Times to play “check that mod’s hard drive”