[Nasrudith]

They are the Johnny come lates - look at the various zines and very small newspapers published way back when homosexuality was actively illegal for one and would have been called obscene material but regulation thankfully couldn't be meaningful. Although niche they certainly had a role in growing networks of allies.

On the other end of the contact Internet contact is a later one and although nothing concrete it seems very non-coincidental that generations where straight people could watch gay or lesbian porn, and fanfics being ubiquitous enough that Draco and Harry ships were well known even among people who never read a single one due to lack of interestm

The "balance" is a golden mean fallacy. Best illustrated by a rhetorical question that sounds like a death threat: Is there a balance to be struck between you being alive and unharmed and stone dead?

[chipotle_coyote]

I'm not sure we're using "balance" in the same way, precisely; I don't mean "balance" in the "present both sides of every issue as if they're equal," I mean that there's a continuum of regulatory options in a given field and that "less regulation" is not always the correct direction. (Not that regulation is really a spectrum, for that matter, as you could conceivably have high levels regulation in a given field that's still regulating badly.)

So, to answer that last rhetorical question with the way I'm intending "balance" to be used: I'm not at all opposed to regulations in food safety, wiring standards, water treatment, etc., that shift the balance of likely outcomes for me toward "alive and unharmed" and away from "stone dead." :)