how do you feel about the word 'boy'

[Dawgy]

one of my biggest pet peeves is when i see someone over the age of about 25 being called a boy on a porn site. big muscle hunks, old guys, fat guys, whatever... to me, personally, these are not boys.

ive been on a content buying spree lately for a group of sites i manage, and i got so annoyed at what content providers called boys. 25+ year old guys with muscles, hair chests, etc...

im 30, and i tend to stop calling people a boy after about 21 or 22. but in this biz, i suppose we have to look at the word's meaning as it applies to our surfers. to a 50 year old gay guy, a 30 year old hunk may be a 'boy'...

another issue is the actual word itself. some would say it implies underage. however you never see the straight market refusing to use the world 'girl'. for some reason this implication of underage only applies to the male side of this pair of words. obviously a hypocritical application of standards. but i do know a few webmasters who wont list galleries or sites with 'boy' in the description or text, presumably for this reason. however they still accept 'teen'... so that is a bit perplexing.

im curious to hear other peoples ideas on what this word means, if we should continue to use it, and any other thoughts you have.

[Ounique]

Hey Dawgy,

Thanks for the post. It is an interesting question. I can't wait to hear what everyone else here things.

For me, being in the leather scene, the term "boy" often refers to a submissive male, it has nothing to do with age at all. I know "boys" who are in their 50's and "Daddys" who are in thier 30's. It's all subjective. But I guess if you are dealing with a non-leather site then it's a totally different concept.

[Jasun]

It's kind of like that whole "Dad and Son" niche. the viewers understand that those two men aren't actually related to each other, it's all about older/younger. We in the community get that, but I think in the days that Simon Cowell gets an indecency suit for maybe or maybe not flipping Paula Abdul the bird on American Idol, better to be safe than sorry.

I never use the word "boy" by itself... I'll use SkaterBoy or FratBoy but even then, it's rare. I generally use "guy".

[Chilihost]

IMHO, boy is a quippy term that does not really refer to age any more, especially in the gay community. Its just like using the term girl to refer to a MILF.

'young boy' on the other hand implies an illegal age, stay away from that term!

cheers,
Luke

[J_K]

Originally posted by Chilihost
IMHO, boy is a quippy term that does not really refer to age any more, especially in the gay community. Its just like using the term girl to refer to a MILF.

'young boy' on the other hand implies an illegal age, stay away from that term!

cheers,
Luke

Exactly. I have no problem with the word boy unless it is preceded with young or any other dubious words. I usually make a point of letting the surfer know that they are legal teen boys.

[jIgG]

ah that word
every day there's at least 10 sites submitted with that word in the title.
nevermind some of the models are old and hairy but i guess it's a must have word to attract clicks. some would even submit hunk sites with boy in the title and put into the Twink category.

and yeah, im one of those that doesn't list sites with the word boy. if there's anything similar to "very young boys" i change the boy word to twinks and remove anything very young

[Chilihost]

here is an example, if I walk into my local gay pub and see a table of 5 or 6 male friends that I know pretty well, I will say "G'day boys" or something like that even though they are for the most part guys in their 20s and 30s. I really don't see a problem with that!

cheers,
Luke

[Ounique]

Here's a little story that's sort of off topic but then again not.

I saw Ricky Lee Jones a few years ago (she sang Chuck E's In Love), and she told these great stories in between all her songs. She was talking about this trip she took back in the 70's, and she was saying, "So I stopped in this place and there was this boy..." and someone in the audience went, "yay!!!". LOL! So she stopped her story mid-sentence and said, "yeah, yay for boys" and continued like nothing had happened. Ever since then I've always used "Yay for boys" as sort of a mantra, because you know, boys are cool. I'm happy to be one. Biological, leatherboy, adult with a youthful spririt. Yay for boys!

And no offence to the great women on our board here. Girls are groovy too.