Talk:Loved boy (dictionary)

Hey everybody participating in this article,

I'm a little confused by all the references to adults as loved boys. That hasn't been my experience with the word. For me and my BL friends, "loved boy" is used to refer to sexually intimate young friends. A YF could be any kind of relationship. LB pretty much always means that the relationship is one of mutual love and that it most likely includes sex.

The sentence, "So and so is a loved boy" means that so and so is a loving, sexual relationship with a man.

Or at least all the BLs I hang out with use the term that way. There is very little ambiguity.

And I must say I don't think I've ever run into examples of using LB to describe and adult.

Jimf3

We are running smack into what I see as a legal and/or security issue here. While it is all well and noble for this resource to strive for honesty, validity, truth (or even Truth with a capital T), impartiality, accuracy and all that other stuff, there comes a point where we will have to lie.

I do not know that the term loved boy is one of those points. That depends on how likely it is that someone who uses the term "loved boy" means to imply sex. If, when using the term, I am supposed to assume that it "most likely includes sex," then I'm afraid it is the responsibility of BoyWiki to lie.

The fact is, people do use that term, and if we, here at BoyWiki, set up a reasonable expectation for our observers that the term "most likely" implies sex, then we are engaging in accusations of illegal activity. If someone on another board such as BoyChat writes a post that says, "Joe is 16 now, but he was 12 when he became my loved boy," and our critics can then come here and see a definition that implies a high probability of a sexual aspect in that relationship, we have put that poster, and also BoyChat's servers, in immediate danger.

So I'm afraid accuracy and honest take a back seat to security and legality here. We need to find a way to phrase this definition that does not imply that it implies sex. (Or even imply that it implies that it implies sex.)

Types of phraseology I like in order to get around this are things like, "may (but not necessarily will) include sex," or "some people interpret it as... although this is not necessarily given" or similar weasels. Anything that makes it probable needs to be deepsixed. Dylan Thomas 22:27, 20 September 2005 (EDT)

If we want to tell the whole truth (minus the legally risky parts that Dylan wrote about), we should include all relevant definitions, even contradictory ones. The fact is, different cliques of boylovers have and always have had differing opinions on what individual words mean. (One man's SYF is another man's YF, to take another commonly debated issue.) A word rarely "always" means something or other.

Therefore, we should not delete the meaning that Hínandil put forward, unless, of course, he is the only one or one of very few that use(s) the word in that way. We have few linguists researching such issues in our little community, so in the end we may have to make a guess. In that case I suggest we choose the safer route and include both definitions. --Asch 22:40, 21 September 2005 (EDT)

OK, I just edited the article. How does that work?

Jimf3

Me? I didn't write the article.  :) It seems to me that the term "loved boy" is older than the online community and had a sexual meaning in older written works. But now that there is a large celibate boylover population online, I think the term has begun to become more generalized. Such shifts are not uncommon. I have heard it used to refer to men who had adult friends when they were younger. I'd like to see the article discuss both definitions--but I'd like someone who might have more historical knowledge join in. --Hínandil 22:50, 21 September 2005 (EDT)

Actually, melindo hínon, you did rewrite the definition. :) But your comments are interesting, and I hope that somebody will enlighten us at some point.--Asch 01:03, 22 September 2005 (EDT)

Hmm, so I must have, mellonya. I don't even remember it.  :) Well, perhaps somebody can find old NAMBLA bulletins or something. My comments are just the impressions I get, and it's much better to have some sort of source for these things. --Hínandil 01:22, 22 September 2005 (EDT)

To me, a loved boy has always meant a boy that is or has been loved by a boylover. "Love" can mean many things, but certainly does not equal, nor imply, sex (to think so would be quite single-minded in my opinion). It is possible to have young friends without loving them in the romantic sense, so in my mind the distinction is useful. But as has been pointed out, the term is used differently in different subcommunities, and even within the same community. It may also have a history predating the internet. As Asch and Jimf3 suggested, all common uses should be described, but in terms like "some boylovers blah, and others bleh." The introduction should give the most basic definition agreed upon by all (or most). Clayboy 13:07, 22 September 2005 (EDT)

Indeed, Clayboy. It's just that in my experience and perhaps my experience is too limited, the only "common" useage of the term I've ever run across is one that implies sexual activity. If one of my BL friends were to tell me that so and so is a loved boy, my understanding of his message would be that the boy in question is involved in a romantic relationship with a BL. That's just what we mean when we use the term. A hypothetical example of useage" "Tom is cute - isn't he Dan's YF? Yeah, and he's been a loved boy for a long time too."

In this case the term LB is used to specify the relationship in a way that YF could not do.

I don't know that there is any particular rationale for this useage. It's just the way the terms developed.

Jimf3