g l - a s b

[Town Council]

What is "gl-asb"?

"gl-asb" is a mailing list for discussion of B&D/D&S/S&M interests and practices involving same-sex partners.

NOTE: We redommend the following:

GL-DOMS - For Dom's only
gl-subs - for sub's only
SM - Colors - For People of Color
GL-Primitives - New School
To sign up for each of these; substitute the appropriate name
in the instructions below.

Why does this require separate space?

Many of the folks involved in the establishment of this list were subscribers to the Usenet newsgroup "alt.sex.bondage"; hence the historical "asb" in its name.

Some of us at the time felt that our presence on alt.sex.bondage was limited by some or all of the following factors:

- Some other people were uncomfortable with same-sex postings, and seemed to post back with extra ferocity and volume every time a same-sex interest was posted, attempting to drown it out

- Some people would attack our assertions that we derived some special sort of energy from same-sex interactions, saying things like "genitalia are just another sort of drag -- some day you'll mature to the point that you can get over silly hangups like the gender of your partner" and the like

- Even when neither of these were the case, some of us felt that the fair and typical distribution of volume among same-sex and different-sex interests resulted in our losing focus.

Therefore, this list was set up to provide a forum in which people could focus on specifically same-sex topics.

Who is welcome to subscribe? Who is welcome to post?

Despite the fact that the "gl" in the list name stands for "gay and lesbian," subscription and posting provileges are not restricted to people who identify as gay or lesbian. People of all genders and orientations are welcome to subscribe. The restriction on this list is one of subject matter, not membership.

People of all genders and orientations are welcome to post as well. But remember that the topic of this list is *same-sex* interactions. If you have a general point to make in a discussion of same-sex topics, fine; but remember that there are many other spaces on the Internet to discuss B&D/D&S/S&M in general, or interactions involving different-sex participants. Proclamations of your heterosexuality, dropping your opposite-sex partners into discussion or examples, and the like tend to cause the list to lose its focus. If you're not prepared to keep the discussion in a same-sex context, you might consider whether other forums, like alt.sex.bondage or the THYST-L mailing list (which has a more multi-orientational flavor, and is especially suitable for people participating in actively bisexual B&D/D&S/S&M arrangements), might not be more suitable to your tastes and needs.

If people other than gay men and lesbians are welcome here, why the "gl" in the name?

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and once a list is set up these days, information about it tends to be available in so many slow-to-change media (like books and on-line indices) that changing names is difficult. Our list management software is expected to be enhanced to allow lists to have aliases; when this is done, we will probably change the name to something more appropriate to the charter.

What formats is the list available in?

gl-asb is available as a "reflector" list, where each message posted to the list shows up as a separate message in your mailbox, or as a "digest," where separate messages are batched up into one or two mail bundles a day.

The Majordomo software we use to administer our lists actually keeps track of these as two separate mailing lists, the former called "gl-asb" and the latter "gl-asb-digest".

How do I subscribe?

You subscribe by sending a mail message to

majordomo@queernet.org

In the body of the message, you put a command, a line of specific words in a specific format. (Majordomo isn't a very bright software package, but it makes our job a lot easier; you need to be very careful about the format of the commands.)

If you wish to receive the reflector format, and have it delivered to the address you sent the request from, put the line

subscribe gl-asb

in the body of the message. For the digest format, use the command

subscribe gl-asb-digest

instead.

If you wish to specify an address other than the one that's automatically taken from your mail's "From:" or "Reply-To:" headers (because the headers are incorrect, or you're subscribing or unsubscribing an address on a specific system), put the address at the end of the command line:

subscribe gl-asb imkinky@bdsm.com

for example.

How do I unsubscribe?

To unsubscribe, you also send a command to majordomo@queernet.org; it would be

unsubscribe gl-asb

unsubscribe gl-asb-digest

depending on the list you're on. Please note that sometimes your administrator changes your address, or the routing to it, without your being aware of it, so you may need to specify the address in the command like this:

unsubscribe gl-asb imkinky@bdsm.com

The exact command you need is in your WELCOME message.

How do I switch from reflector to digest, or from digest to reflector?

Since Majordomo treats them as two separate lists, you need to unsubscribe from the old format, and subscribe to the new format. You can do this on multiple command lines in the same mail message:

To: majordomo@queernet.org
Subject: Doesn't matter

unsubscribe gl-asb
subscribe gl-asb-digest

-- Roger B.A. Klorese
gl-asb list administrator

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