jwg

There is a very interesting article in Slate about the origin of soc.motss. soc.motss was a Usenet group - Usenet was one of the earliest social networking systems.

motss stands for Members Of The Same Sex, a name chosen because it was thought if gay or lesbian appeared in the name many sites wouldn't carry the group.

soc.motss is now a FaceBook group and is still alive and well. Among other things, every year we have a con somewhere where some of us get to meet others face-to-face. This year it was in Portland, ME and it was con XXVII. rsc and I have attended every one since 1991. Locations and pictures from many of the cons are here. They have usually been somewhere in the US, but Toronto, Utrecht, and Stockholm were sites. (We flew back to Boston from Stockholm on 9/10/2001!)

Getting involved with soc.motss changed our lives. Most of my friends are either people I met via soc.motss or via contra dancing - and we were introduced to contra dancing by soc.motss people.