I think that it's misrepresentative of the EC community to only have pictures of two straight-acting gay men on the welcome page of this website. We need a more realistic spread of different orientations and gender identities so that people searching for answers won't be put off by pictures that don't reflect them and the issues that concern them. Obviously, after becoming a member and using the site, they will realise how welcome everybody is in our community, but first impressions do count!!
First of all, I resent the term "straight-acting" because I don't act straight at all. Do people call metrosexuals "gay-acting straight guys"? Didn't think so. Secondly, I'm always in favor of making EC more inclusive, but I don't believe we can afford to hire models and a photographer and whatnot. And I could be wrong, but our CoC wouldn't allow us to use actual members. It's a privacy thang. I don't remember the story of how we got the pictures we have, but it seems we got them for free from a member who had a photoshoot with two dudes, and he didn't use them for something else, so he offered them to EC. Once again, I might be completely wrong. I've only been here for a year, those pictures have been here for I don't even know how long. It just seems to me that it would be an awful lot of work for something that's such a tiny part of our community. And the alternative would be buying stock pictures with money EC doesn't want to spend on something, once again, that's such a tiny part of our community.
The pictures come from a member who photographed her two friends back in 2007 for an EC picture contest. I wasn't a member at the time, but I think the contest only got a couple of entries due to EC's membership base being small and the photo quality requirements being fairly high. I'm not sure what the other entries were like, but for one reason or another the pictures on the page is the entry that won. The welcome page itself isn't going to be around for much longer, so it's not really worth messing about with something that is going to be chopped away in the near-future. All non-vBulletin pages on EC (welcome page, resources etc) are going to be removed and replaced by vbulletin operated pages, so you'll find that everything will be operating under the same system. The idea is that integrating everything together will allow people to see what the site has to offer as a whole, rather than just drawing attention to certain areas of the site. The design for the welcome page is still being drafted because it will require quite a bit of customising to get everything the way we want it. vBulletin's default homepage is quite icky and draws too much attention to articles, so the designing at this point is more focused on what changes need to be made to integrate everything. At some point the issue regarding pictures will pop up, and we've got a lot of feedback from member surveys that will help us plan what type of pictures to use and how people wish to see them featured within the design. Martin.
I'm pretty sure the story was those two dudes were actually straight themselves. xD And, OP, I hope you realize that "straight-acting" homosexual and bisexual men aren't so much a minority as you think. Many are in the closet, hence the idea of there not being many of them, hence this website to help people come out. So I don't think it's mis-representative. I honestly don't think a picture of two guys on the welcome page is going to put off people from joining the website because it doesnt show two girls instead. Technically, if we were going to be all inclusive, we should have straight couples' pictures too since we have quite a few straight people on this website as well, not to mention bisexuals on here who are dating the opposite sex. In all honesty, I think it's silly to think anyone can figure out the sexuality of two people just by looking at a picture and assuming. Let alone how unnecessary it is to show a "couple" of any orientation at all. I think it would be a lot less misleading to newcomers to have pictures of actual members that allow their photos to be used on the welcome page, to demonstrate the diversity (not just of race) of the site, rather than couples. Many people could assume EC is effectively a great place to find a boyfriend or girlfriend by thinking erratically whilst looking at the pictures on the welcome page and making the connection that they can find a boyfriend here. So yeah. I think the problem is entirely different than what the OP mentioned. But EC's getting that overhaul soon, so it won't be a problem anymore. I am serious about the whole Pictures of ECer's with permission of the members themselves thing though. I think it would be an interesting idea.
There is some discussion about the photos from back when they were added here http://emptyclosets.com/forum/chit-chat/8364-ec-homepage.html
