I doubt they're *consciously* motivated by homophobia and sexism. But I think it underlies their reaction--the kind of reaction that looks at a sexualized young male body and goes "eww, perverted," but wouldn't think twice about a sexualized young female body. Of all the porn out there on LJ, they could've easily found het examples, but they went after the slash. Why? Do they actively hate gay people? I doubt it. But did the gay porn just "seem" more egregious? Probably.

(As for the Dawn thing, well, this horrid movie was in mainstream theaters everywhere and was treated as completely normal. Swap Trachtenberg for Radcliffe in this photo and you'd probably be accused of kiddie porn.)

I also highly doubt they deleted anything out of concern for the *law*. They were concerned about losing advertiser money (and maybe about selling the company).

I agree that Six Apart has the legal right to delete anything they want off of their servers--and I have the right to think they're assholes and to take my business elsewhere. (Especially considering their failure to clarify their policies, communicate with their users, and allow the accused to defend themselves or even to save a copy of their deleted content.)

They want us to come in here, pour out our hearts, build lifelong friendships, and buy paid accounts ... and they want to be able to randomly and arbitrarily delete any of us at any time. Legally, sure, they can do that... and I can point out how stupid it is, and leave.