Comment 1 for bug 262958

Appearance preferences is not the right place to choose which Desktop icons are visible. It has nothing to do with themes.

Maybe it should be more like the "Add to panel" tool, where you would right-click on the Desktop and select "Add icons to desktop"?

Then they could be removed by right-clicking and selecting "Remove from desktop", which is in the place where "Move to trash" would normally be.