Smiley Ben and Sympathetic Tony?

The relation held between Smiley Ben and Sympathetic Tony (now just Tony), is reflexive, symmetric and transitive. Anyone who's done some logic will know that that makes it an equivalence relation. As Leibniz would say, every property that holds true of Smiley Ben holds true of Tony. They are identical, one and the same. Two senses of the same reference. The terms 'Smiley Ben' and 'Sympathetic Tony' are co-extensive.

Why why why?

I take it you're asking why I have two apparent identities? Well if replying to my own questions in the 2nd person isn't enough to convince you that I have multiple personalities, I'd better try to explain my reasons for creating a new identity.

Single-mindedness

One reason for Tony's existence was that I wanted to be single-minded in my approach to sexual rights and community. I felt it would be nice (and useful) to dedicate an h2g2 login to this sort of thing, allowing a consistent, sustained approach.

Uncertainty

I'm a good deal further along the road to accepting myself and the world I've carved out for myself now than I was when Tony was created. In 1999 I was just 18, at school, and in my first actual relationship with a bloke. I wasn't sane, balanced, or even especially happy with the whole area of my life that would be termed 'sexuality', and I wasn't certain I was ready to commit to this sort of thing in such a public forum.

I'm now 21, a university finalist, and much happier with myself and my place in the world, in many, many ways, not just sexually. I know I have nothing of which to be ashamed, and have enough independence (in literal as well as metaphorical senses) to be able to take actions and stand by them on my own two feet.

Gay or bi or what?

Another reason for Tony's existence was that I didn't want the head of M2M2 to put across a confused appearance as to what exactly his sexuality was - and, frankly, I was confused myself. I'm a lot clearer today, though the answer isn't a straightforward one. The confusion in myself was mostly a product of my inability to accept the very suggestion of such things as sexualities. I had mistakenly followed the line of the LBG community, often far more repressive than society as a whole, of assuming that there was an answer. The truth (that I'm now certain of) is that there isn't such a thing as sexuality. People are not gay or straight, bisexual or asexual. It's all made up.

You might well, therefore, ask what I'm doing here. Why would someone who doesn't believe in sexuality support LBG rights? The simple answer is that I don't think there is such a thing as a gay person or a lesbian, but I will fight tooth and nail for the right of every person in the world to have (consensual) sex with whoever they please, regardless of sex, race or religion. Essentially, you don't have to believe there are such things as 'sexualities' to support the rights of people to express their own particular sexual desires.

A united front

As I said, the LBG community can often be incredibly repressive. I didn't want to seem splittist by making my own particular feeling that sexuality is about the last thing that someone should arrange their lifestyle around a central point of M2M2. I wasn't compromising my principles, just leaving such thoughts to one side, rather than distracting from more important issues shared by the whole community.

M2M2

M2M2 was Tony's centre of operations - the area of h2g2 where he waged his non-violent war against injust and discrimation.

Whatever happened to M2M2?

The honest answer to the demise - or rather extended absense - is rather pathetic. When h2g2 moved to the BBC, the practice of researchers have multiple logins all but died - it was hassle to convert old IDs to BBC logins, and you now needed a different email address for every identity. It also happened that the free mail forwarding account that Tony had used to create his login ceased to exist, so I didn't think I'd be able to convert the account even if I had wanted to. I've never (if memory serves me correctly) had an account for Tony on the post-beeb-takeover h2g2, and that's the basic reason why M2M2 hasn't developed.

Of course the story, as every one always is, is more complex than that. Had people been writing for M2M2 I'd have made an effort to update it, but as it was, people rarely contributed, so there seemed little point in bothering.

And the Blacklist, what happened to that?

There has been some speculation about the M2M2 blacklist (the list of people antagonistic to the cause of gay rights). I can exclusively reveal that it was deleted by... the author... AND the moderators... sort of! Basically Peta pointed out that there were bits with which the BBC lawyers weren't happy, and that they'd had to delete it. I said I'd rewrite it, but never bothered. Sorry! Again, had there been movement or progress I would have done so, but sadly there didn't seem enough interest to warrant the effort.

So what now?

I'm encouraged by the interest there is in reviving M2M2. Cupid Stunt went to great lengths to track down Tony, and I've sadly let Cupid down somewhat by failing to jump at the chance to revive M2M2. The truth is that I'm currently a finalist at Cambridge (till summer 2002), so I can't really commit to serious effort on this area (or any other) of h2g2.

What I shall do, however, is ask Peta if she can edit the authors of the M2M2 articles by hand, so that I can edit them, update them if necessary, but just generally be credited with them, so that nobody worries about stealing my work. I'd love to help out with M2M2, and will do as much as time allows for (currently quite little), and I'll cheer it on loudly if something happens. I'd love to take the helm again, but I just don't have time, and couldn't really justify it having neglected this baby for far too long.