Gaysir is a Norwegian website, aimed mainly at gay,

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

and trans people. Gaysir was one of Norway's first web communities, and, in 2007, had approximately 50 000 unique visitors per week. The website is owned and run by the private aksjeselskap Gaysir AS. Among the board of directors are the Oslo-politician Håkon Haugli (Oslo bystyre), who is the leader of the Norwegian Gay and Lesbian Social Democrats (GALSD) in Arbeiderpartiet. Gaysir was given the Æresprisen (

en. En or EN may refer to: Businesses * Bouygues (stock symbol EN) * Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway (reporting mark EN, but now known as Southern Railway of Vancouver Island) * Euronews, a news television and internet channel Language and writing * E ...

Award of Honor) from Oslo LLH during the annual event Skeive dager in central Oslo in 2006. The reason given was that the website had made a safe and inclusive network for gays and lesbians, and contributed to gay identity building. The website is highly moderated, strict rules on what kind of pictures are allowed as profile pictures and gallery pictures are enforced by constantly monitoring the uploaded pictures. Although the definition of allowed pictures is often vague and subject to personal opinion of the moderator. The website also deletes the accounts of the users who make agreements for paid sex when reported without warning. The website also has been the subject of several controversies.

History

The first version of Gaysir was launched on September 22, 2000. Version nine was launched in late winter 2007. Gaysir became Norway's dominating website for gays after the web community Radiator, run by Helseutvalget for homofile, was shut down in 2002. While Radiator's active users were mainly women, the main group of Gaysir's active users were men.

Power elite selection (Makttoppen)

On January 12 and 13, 2006 the Gaysir the redaction in Gaysir selected the

power elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...

among openly gays and lesbians in Norway. The winner was the chairman of the city council of Oslo, Erling Lae and the

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

player Gro Hammerseng. The power elite ( no. Makttoppen) was also selected by the website in 2007, also then with Erling Lae topping the selection – this time accompanied by the then newly employed chief editor of Dagbladet, Anne Aasheim.

Controversies

Prayer and Action Against the Selected Power Elite (2006): The power elite selection in 2006 received a lot of attention.

Jan-Aage Torp Jan-Aage Torp (born 26 June 1957) is a Norwegian pastor and evangelist. He has developed an extensive international network, and currently hosts the show ''Hovedstaden med Pastor Torp'' on the Christian television station Visjon Norge. Biography ...

, a Norwegian pastor in the Pentecostal congregation Oslokirken, said to the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

newspaper Norge IDAG that he recommended Christians to use the selections (Makttoppen) as a target for prayer to get the people in the selection removed from their professions. This call for a prayer campaign received attention from a number of media sources, including Dagbladet. Trondheim municipality's webportal (2007): In July 2007 there was a conflict with Trondheim municipality's external links policy and Gaysir's pornographic ads. It was questioned whether the municipality's website was to link to the website for a local gay arrangement, HomoUKA. This website again linked to Gaysir and Blikk (monthly newspaper for gays, lesbians and bisexuals). Trondheim municipality said they did not want to expose a link that lead to pages that could be offensive. The

deputy mayor The deputy mayor (also known as vice mayor, assistant mayor, or mayor ''pro tem'') is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official that is present in many, but not all, local governments. Duties and functions Many elected dep ...

of Trondheim,

Knut Fagerbakke Knut Fagerbakke (born 4 April 1952) is a Norwegian politician for the Socialist Left Party. Since 2003 he is the deputy mayor of Trondheim, Norway's third largest city. Before becoming a full-time politician he worked as a consultant A cons ...

( SV), arranged it so that the link was put back up. He said it was the website administrator who had removed the link in the first place, no politicians were involved, but when people were offended by the removal of the link, and HomoUKA requested the link back up, they put it back up. About recommendations to the National Agency for Education (2007): Oslo Town Council adopted an action plan in 2006, against discrimination of gays, lesbians and bisexuals, with a recommendation that Gaysir and Blikk should be available for Gymnasium students. Karita Bekkemellem, who was the minister of Children and Equality Affairs on November 10, 2007, sent a letter to 13 big municipalities, where they were encouraged to make similar action plans as Oslo. In the letter, she mentioned Blikk Nett and Gaysir as current resource pages. The recommendation came after the conflict with the pornographic ads had been an issue in Trondheim. The letter started a chain of protests, first from the organisation Nordisk nettverk for ekteskapet (

Nordic network for marriage), and politicians from FrP and KrF distanced themselves from the recommendation. Gaysir, at that point, still had advertisers with webshops that showed hard core pornography pictures on film covers that were for sale on DVD and VHS. These film covers were visible with no censorship or login restrictions, and were described by ''Nordisk nettverk for ekteskapet'' and in a number of newspapers ( Dagen,

Magazinet ''Dagen'' is a Norwegian Christian newspaper established in 1919, and published in Bergen. The average circulation in 2004 was 5,307 copies. The ideological goal of the newspaper was "to influence society from a revival Christian point of view". O ...

, Norge idag, Vårt Land, Nettavisen) in various detail. It was also referred to several examples from the advertiser's websites, such as somewhat rude titles on some of the films that were offered for sale, and a sex club where one could read messages with very direct descriptions. On October 18, 2007, Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen replaced Bekkemellem as the minister of Children and Equality Affairs, and FrP expressed that Ramin-Osmundsen should retract the recommendation if the ads were not removed from the website. While ads show hardcore pornographic pictures, the users are not allowed to upload pictures with sexual content as profile pictures and pictures showing hardcore sexual activity in the picture gallery. From November 22, 2007, Gaysir adjusted the display rules of the ads, so they would only be visible for registered members.

Services

Gaysir has, since the start, taken aim on offering daily updated news. The website has per November 2007, over 6000 articles in their archive.

Gaysir Interactive

Gaysir Interaktiv (

Interactive) is the web community part of Gaysir. The users creates profiles and can send messages, pictures and

emoticons An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, m ...

to other users. The members can also write

blogs A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

and create photo galleries. The age limit for being a member is the same as the

age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is unable to legally claim ...

in Norway, 16 years old. With its 35 000 medlemmer per November 2007, Gaysir Interaktiv is a central meeting ground for the Norwegian gay community. The gender division among the users is 30% women and 70% men. Paid plus memberships were introduced to the users of Gaysir Interaktiv in 2002. Gaysir Interaktiv is available for non-paying members of the web community, but the free version does not have access to WAP, no access to other user's photo galleries, and instead of some features, they get ads for the paid plus membership.

Calendar and nightlife guide

Gaysir has an activity calendar with information about activities for gays across the nation, where party arrangers, drinking establishments and volunteer organizations are listed. There is also a nightlife guide with all the regular meeting places for gays across the nation.

References

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