The post in question

Ah yes, Lemmy, so popular with kids it competes with Roblox for the pervs attention
Whenever I go to the store, I see at least 4 or 5 kids begging their parents to let them have an account.
I kind of just assumed everyone on these boards was 3-6 years old. Are they not?
Scrolling through the community quickly, there were like 3 jokes mentioning a husband’s wife, one mentioning a car’s manual transmission stalling, and one that’s over a week old that includes the word "ass’ which is directly breaking the no-profanity rule, yet somehow the concept of a gay couple is too confusing for a 6 year old? Oh and also a joke about “Cherenkov radiation” which I am 1000% confident no 6 year old on earth has ever heard of.
PTB
Mods have responded in other threads. Good response and taking a look at the rules.
Maybe people should be reporting those other posts mentioning heterosexual couples to make a point.
Sexuality??? “Likes to hold hands/be married with girls and/or boys” is not “sexual” and little kids can quite easily get that.
Seriously, is a kid with straight married parents not allowed to know their parents are married/like each other??? Tf
I sometimes worry that the straight, cis folks aint right :/
These days, both the straights and the straits are not OK.
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.
As far as mod responses go, that’s pretty dang good. For as much as we complain about bad mods we should applaud the good.
Fully agree. It’s a great example of how to respond to criticism constructively. The Piefed developers should take notes, lol.
Sex as a topic is not the same as sexuality
So much willful ignorance around this by people who just want to virtue signal to their peers.
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
Ignoring that the avarage age of lemmy could be 25 up to 35 years
I think it’s actually much higher.
This is admittedly purely anecdotal and your mileage may thus vary, but in my experience as an elder millennial, most people here are around my age or older 🤷🏻
Yeah but not all people, it’s an avarage so it will naturally be lower
If most people here are my age or older, it follows that the average must be younger? 🤔
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
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.
My kid knew about gay people from the day he was born. PTB for sure.
What does that mean? Most babies have a pretty limited understanding of the world. 😅
I’m queer and he has family members that are LGBT+. He’s known of our existence forever. He has seen his grandfathers kissing since his very start. He’s seen me dating other women. It’s just normal.
Babies can’t see any shapes at all for a while:
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/baby-vision-development-first-year
I kind of get what you’re saying, but the idea that a newborn baby would even understand anything more than, “this person smells good and makes nice sounds” is probably a stretch. 😊
I was using exaggeration to make a point. You’re being pedantic.
That point is that gay and bi people are normal. My kid grew up with his mother as a queer woman. It’s normal and not something that needs to be gatekept for children.
I mean, op didn’t say they were a square or a triangle so they should be good with their baby being able to see them.
Pedantry is great for influencing people and making new friends.
PTB?
Power Tripping Bastard :)
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: [email protected]
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.
Ok this mod has gone absolutely mask-off about being a homophobic bigot despite their two-faced attempt at mollifying the backlash. Shame on you @[email protected]

If your 5-year-old can’t understand someone being gay then you’re a shit parent.
It really depends on the kid. Some 5 year olds just don’t give a fuck about any of that relationship shit and IMO it’s not so important that they need to be sat down and told all about all the attraction options. I don’t just mean the alternate ones but also man and woman.
If they ask questions or show interest in the topic, I think they should be answered honestly, but the only essential information at that age IMO is about personal space, not touching people who don’t want to be touched (at all if that’s their desire but especially in the private areas), understanding that they are the ones in charge of deciding if someone else touching them is ok (though at that age, it would be more of a “you don’t have you let anyone see or touch there unless it’s an emergency like it got hurt”), and that anyone asking them to keep secrets from their parents without it involving presents or a happy surprise isn’t their friend.
That said, there’s nothing wrong with this joke. Either it will go over the kid’s head and they ignore it or it will make them curious and prompt those questions. If you respond to those questions with deflections and/or lies, then I’d agree with the shit parent accusation. Same thing applies to not wanting certain topics visible at all for fear that kids might ask questions about them. That cowardice isn’t doing their kids any favours.
You can be honest about what sex is without giving the necessary details for them to act it out.
I don’t just mean the alternate ones but also man and woman.
oh yeah I have an unmarried aunt and uncle and it took me way longer than I’d like to admit to realise they were a couple.
Wtf? 10000% PTB.












