Obviously, there are some people much better qualified to answer this than me. However, my impression is that there's a preponderance of really pleasant, respectful people, and then a few major assholes who go around ruining things for everyone else.
Certainly my friend who runs the feminist sex toy shop is extraordinarily wholesome, despite being fairly kinky. Her FB status updates are probably 85% about her young son and his various cutenesses. And she's super-interested in building community and treating people respectfully and fairly. Really, one of the best and nicest small business owners I've ever met.
...imaginative, and willing to go whole-hog into the realm of imagination. What nerds.
Kinksters are overrepresented among the SCA/RPG crowd. I wonder if they are actually present at the same level as in the general population, but the role playing activities just make them more comfortable acting on their desires. Or not. On the veldt there were no safewords.
Kinksters are overrepresented among the SCA/RPG crowd.
[shudder] Dude. Too early in the morning for that.
It's Friday, Apo. Let your freak flag fly.
4 gets it right. The stories I've heard of after-hours orgies at Ren Faires will never leave me.
Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!
Kinksters are overrepresented among the SCA/RPG crowd.
Also among the haxor crowd that is on the internet all the time. We know this from our own experience of Ham-Love and Lunar Rocketter. (Right?)
It's Friday, Apo.
Unleashing the atomic boner-slayer before the weekend even starts is an explicit violation of Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
+5 atomic boner-slayer of limpening.
So apo's links have been posted in disapproval?
12: Fuck me gently with a big furry dick, "hi ton" s/b "hit on."
Is the penis itself supposed to be furry? I wouldn't have expected that.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26475391@N00/381069206/
I'd pwn your (reputedly great) ass.
17: Apparently Heebie is not among the 40%.
19 -> 16.
17: Depends. Don't go locking me into your anthropomorphic box.
8: But look at MBlume now, you've made an honest woman out of him.
I'd pwn your (reputedly great) ass.
Stormcrow is a proud member of the Society for Creative BabyGotBackronism.
18: his choice of footwear is fascinating.
23: That one barely even made sense, but we're here for you in your hour of need. Point to where on the doll in the lexicon the language hurt you.
Back to the original post, is it possible that what's going on in terms of wholesomeness is not so much being kinky as being out about whatever your proclivities are? I'm secretive as all get out about all sorts of pointless things, but I do tend to think that people who aren't are better people. If you're not deep in a kinky subculture yourself, the kinky people you know about are going to be the ones who are open about it on some level.
But the people who call in to Dan Savage aren't necessarily out. I don't know why people feel like it's secretive to call into talk shows, but they definitely do.
None of this RPG Renn-faire stuff is dissuading me from my hypothesis.
They're not necessarily out, but they're calling Dan Savage, which anyone who knows about the show enough to call him knows is going to involve pressure to be wholesome about everything.
I remember reading a funny piece (well, funny to me. I think don't think it was intended to be humorous) a few years back by some leather daddy complaining about how wholesome the whole scene had gotten; he would go to a beer bust at a leather bar and they'd be running a fundraiser to buy teddy bears for sick children or something. He called for a return to the scene's roots: sordid, scary things happening in seedy darkness.
None of this RPG Renn-faire stuff is dissuading me from my hypothesis.
Well, it's also just snobby. I don't particularly want to have kinky sex with SCA types, but being grossed out by the fact that it happens seems uncouth to me.
29: Yeah, if what you're turned on by on some level is genuine fear and disgust, finding a safe, wholesome way to simulate that has to be somewhere between tricky and impossible.
Still, I stand by my claim. "Devious" is a different bag of sexual kicks than "kinky". Devious means you want the hijinks to be real, not imagined. Kinky is more wholesome.
being grossed out by the fact that it happens
I would hope everybody knows me well enough to realize that *actually* grossing me out would take a much more concerted effort than Ren Faire orgies.
I don't particularly want to have kinky sex with SCA types, but being grossed out by the fact that it happens seems uncouth to me.
I was co-dictator of my high school's strategic games club and I own swords so I feel qualified to pass judgment.
+5 atomic boner-slayer of limpening.
This is the post where we should adopt other commenters psueds and reveal their kinky side.
34: You get grossed out by calling yourself a feminist. That's way sicker and twisted than a Renn Faire daisy chain.
Somewhat related: a friend was in a training where the trainer was some FBIish guy talking about various deviant activity.
Then, he started discussing spanking, and she felt suddenly umcomfortable.
"How did he know that I liked to be spanked!?!??! How embarassing!"
In some respects, the alt-sex scene seems dorkier than the SCA/RPG scene.
My roommate's ex-roommate (the guy who lived in my room before me) was a dedicated spanker, who met people on fetish websites who wanted a good spanking. He taught spanking seminars and owned different kinds of paddles. He apparently broke up with a girlfriend who was not as devoted to spanking as he was.
Going to the occasional Renaissance Faire strikes me as much more of a reasonable hobby.
The woman who wrote Time Travelers wife, a FOAF in HS, moved into the apartment I grew up in a couple of years after my mom moved out of it.
In the age of Oprah, I don't see where admitting that you like some kind of dressing up is a display of vulnerability.
alt-sex scene seems dorkier than the SCA/RPG scene
Until this guy shows up.
Kinksters are overrepresented among the SCA/RPG crowd and in SF fandom.
I went to a kink-fest type thing where I saw the North American Boot Blacking Champion. Apparently this is a thing. He had a studded leather codpiece on (and not much else) and was polishing some dudes boot by placing it in his codpiece and performing a vigorous wipe. It was about as underwhelming as something supposedly kinky could be.
Suddenly, Ren Faires seem impossibly suave and debonair by comparison.
It was about as underwhelming as something supposedly kinky could be.
You have to figure that most kinky stuff is going to be pretty underwhelming if it's not your thing.
Was Jack Ryan kinky, or deviant?
48: Near as I can tell, any kink one isn't into is at best amusing. Most of the time it's boring.
I don't particularly want to have kinky sex with SCA types, but being grossed out by the fact that it happens seems uncouth to me.
I don't particularly want to have kinky sex with SCA types under that description, but it has not always been false of me that I wanted to have kinky sex with SCA types kata sumbebekos.
Maybe I can find someone whose kink is sitting in middle seats on planes to trade with me. I haven't sat in a middle seat in years. And the US Airways check-in person was so rude when I asked if I could change. Grumble.
It's the troilism of passenger aviation!
being kinky is incredibly wholesome
This is a whatchamacallit, right? Like jumbo shrimp or military intelligence?
If you're not deep in a kinky subculture yourself, the kinky people you know about are going to be the ones who are open about it on some level.
I think this is quite true. I'd say the number of people who are actually going to hotel orgy parties and bondage conventions or whatever are a tiny tiny subset of the kinky population, and most in-practice kinksters are deeply closeted about it and would be horrified if, say, someone at work or a friend found out they liked [whatever]. Like almost every dude I've had sex with has been into some pretty weird shit, but they weren't like freak-flag-flying BDSM queers.
In some respects, the alt-sex scene seems dorkier than the SCA/RPG scene.
This is true, based on my limited experience with one of the two scenes in question.
What does alt-sex scene mean? Something that goes back to a Usenet group?
56 has to be totally right. Also, generally, it's not too unsurprising that the folks who would be more openly out as kinky (and therefore, per the OP, more "trustworthy"/willing to embarass themselves) would be the dorkier ones.
Also, 8 is truly something to behold.
I'd like to know what percentage of dudes own a collection of sex toys, whether standard issue or just earmarked for sex-usage, in the case of, say, a ball of twine. Of my female friends, I'd say probably half (?) definitely own and talk about owning sex toys, but that's not too queer these days. Dudes owning sex toys, for solo or partnered use, is still pretty queer I think, but common enough.
I think I meant "not too surprising" and "the kinky folks," but who knows what I may mean or not mean.
ust earmarked for sex-usage, in the case of, say, a ball of twine
??????
62: Yeah, this conversation is complicated by the fact that I'm not sure at all what counts as kinky. Owning a vibrator for a woman? Probably not. Using one with a partner? Maybe?
Is twine vanilla? Sorry. I can't keep up with these kids today.
Dudes owning sex toys, for solo or partnered use
I'm going to say roughly 35%, where "dudes" is defined as "youngish, single or serial dating, sexually active hetro guys."
Twine doesn't seem very hypoallergenic.
62: What if it's used only for masturbation; does that count? I'm fairly certain my brother has a fleshlight, but I don't think (admittedly, I haven't asked) he deploys it except on himself.
I like to think of myself as a man of the world, but I am not coming up with a way in which the twine comes into play. Seems uncomfortable for bondage.
64: Bondage, I'm assuming, although I wouldn't have thought twine. But what do I know?
More of 65: The thing is, I usually don't talk about sweaty details of my sex life, and most people I know don't either. Which means that once you get past missionary, I'm really unsure if there's any kind of clear line between vanilla and kinky, and if so, where it is. I sort of figure that anything requiring costumes, the assumption of personas, or significant investment in equipment counts as kinky, but other than that, who knows?
I have no idea what "queer" is being used to mean here. I knew a dude who owned a sybian and hosted orgies and advertised himself as a guru in swingers magazines, but I definitely do not understand a meaning of the term "queer" that applies to him.
Is bondage supposed to be comfortable now? Jesus Christ.
I usually don't talk about sweaty details of my sex life,
This sounded snide about people who overshare, and I didn't mean it that way. I meant more that while I'll talk about who and when and under what circumstances generally, I don't usually talk body-parts in detail, and I don't hear a lot of communication on that level.
Why are you guys othering people with hay baling kinks?
Is bondage supposed to be comfortable now? Jesus Christ.
Discomfort multipliciter loquitur, AWB. Perhaps you like your limbs to be restrained in certain positions but don't like rope burn. Surely it would be unduly narrow-minded to insist otherwise.
72: I'm hearing it as meaning, sort of, having an aspect of your sexuality that makes straight-and-narrow people uncomfortable enough that it's an issue having it be publicly known: that it means something to be 'out' about it.
Yeah, I dunno what counts as kinky. I like to think it's all in the attitude.
Which would include your swinger guru.
75: It's really a straw-man argument.
78: Mmm. I don't think of myself as kinky, which makes me assume that if I've done something, it's fairly vanilla. I have no idea if I'm right about that in any sociologically objective sense.
I really get off on using the schema "x multipliciter loquitur".
79: oh hell no. I stayed away from that narc.
"under that description" s/b "kath' auto"
I knew a dude who owned a sybian
I love how the first line of the Wikipedia article is: Not to be confused with Symbian. Yeah, I don't think the two are often confused.
(For those, like me, who didn't know what a Sybian is, it's "a masturbation device designed for use by females, developed by dance instructor Dave Lampert in the 1980s. It consists of a saddle-like seat containing an electric motor connected to a rod that protrudes from a hole in the center." Now you know!)
Merganser is totally correct, of course, and I am ashamed.
Kinky = blood, urine, feces, significant pain, or animals. Everything else has been downgraded to banalities in this fallen age.
There was another mistake in that comment which is now corrected.
Does "x multipliciter loquitur" mean that X's definition is set by its use by the multitude (rather than the overly prescriptive definition used by whomever one is responding to), or am I missing something?
89: Role playing still counts. Not the lame-ass just dressing up stuff, the full on adoption of a different persona and playing out a script.
I think moresomes still count as long as there are at least two men involved. I could be wrong on that.
We never talk about hay anymore.
Moby hasn't been around much lately. I hope he's okay.
I think moresomes still count as long as there are at least two men involved. I could be wrong on that.
What about lesssomes?
ha ha I made another mistake; the more common formula is "x multipliciter dicitur".
That makes much more sense, since loqui is deponent, so "x multipliciter loquitur" would mean "x speaks in many ways", whereas the intended translation (and the correct translation, with the correct verb) is "x is said in many ways". The classical substituend for "x" being, of course, "ens": being is said in many ways.
95: Thank you, I like to think of myself as lithesome.
There's a lot to be said for a stable relationship.
Owning a vibrator for a woman? Probably not. Using one with a partner? Maybe?
No way. That is mainstream.
89 has it correct.
Are three-ways even deemed kinky now? Adventurous maybe. Kinky? I dont think so.
Spanking someone or wanting to be spanking during sex = not so kinky. Unless it is the main attraction like the "guy" who gives seminars that Jackmormon mentioned. (Of course we all know that she was describing herself.)
Same goes for hair pulling/hands in the hair.
(For those, like me, who didn't know what a Sybian is, it's "a masturbation device designed for use by females, developed by dance instructor Dave Lampert in the 1980s. It consists of a saddle-like seat containing an electric motor connected to a rod that protrudes from a hole in the center." Now you know!)
The fucking archives, let me show you them.
(Of course we all know that she was describing herself.)
I do not own multiple paddles. That's just throwing money away.
I find it amusing to go from noting that the LessWrong forum (from Sifu's 8, "How I hacked myself into being poly") is hosted by Oxford's Institute for the Future of Humanity, to imagining the denizens of that forum as, in fact, the Future of Humanity. A little scary, a little charming. Such earnestness!
Role playing still counts.
Not kinky. Unless one of you is role-playing an animal.
Anything where it's difficult enough to find a partner that you would seek out a website of like-minded folks (for finding a partner, not looking at porn) counts as kink.
Like ChristianSingles or JDate.
108: That's got to depend on the nature of the roleplay. Babies (even if the excretory part of it is left out)? Rape? Holding character for extended periods of time rather than just the duration of the act? Some of that has to count as kinky.
103: Fantasizing about three-ways is mainstream, actually doing them is still kinky.
Baby rape does seem kind of out there.
There can't possibly be one standard for kink. That's silly. It depends on your internalized societal norms.
This topic comes up in custody cases sometimes when one party asserts that the other is a freak bc of some sexual practice.
Recent claim - he is a freak who likes a finger in his butt.
Ive also seen lots of claims that one parent shouldnt get custody bc they are a sex addict or that the parent likes three-ways.
I'm happy to report that the sex-addict thing is waning. (Difficult to define how much is too much!)
Ive had many frustrating arguments with other lawyers about sex lives being not relevant to custody cases.
There can't possibly be one standard for kink
And if there is it can't possibly be apo's.
Just as there's a Kinsey Scale for orientation, there could well be an Apostropher Scale for kink.
It depends on your internalized societal norms.
So, what's your standard by this metric? A practice is kinky if you wouldn't spring it on a partner without prescreening them for interest in it?
Kinky is defined as bizarre and deviant. So, of course, it is based on some standard.
So, I am guessing that three-ways wouldnt be bizarre or deviant in the Unfogged crowd.
With a theoretical limit of 1.00 Apokink, but most of us score around .22-.24.
So, what's your standard by this metric?
.4 Apokinks.
A practice is kinky if you wouldn't spring it on a partner without prescreening them for interest in it?
More seriously, right. It has something to do with how weird it would seem in your dating pool. I mean, Bettie Page only walked on all fours with a leash around her neck, and it was scandalous.
I'm seriously curious. You have a clear enough concept of 'kinky people' that you posted about their wholesomeness. Do you mean 'people who openly identify as kinky', or what were you thinking?
115: Ive had many frustrating arguments with other lawyers about sex lives being not relevant to custody cases.
It's okay, you can still talk about sex lives with us.
I never wore a leash. Perhaps I am vanilla after all!
LB:
Just go ahead and ask the Mineshaft about your thing. We will be gentle.
122: This I don't get. By the relevant and contemporary community standards, wasn't pretty much everything Bettie Page did pretty scandalous?
129: I think Heebie's point was that BP was terribly kinky then, but looks totally vanilla these days. I don't have an opinion myself: I know who she is, and have seen some pictures, but not enough to get a sense of how her body of work looked as a whole.
Oh, sure. I'm just trying to say that old people might set the bar super low, without offending any old vanilla fogeys who might consider themselves kinky, but actually just like oral sex.
Anything you have to do seriously set-up for beforehand, I would consider a kink. That includes: trolling for just the right person for sex-act A, testing or setting up complex equipment, getting into character, rearranging furniture, laying out plastic tarps...
(My net-nanny has totally failed to notice this thread. I do not understand it.)
...sneaking around to avoid your parents or small children...
I think the prescreen test in 118 and the rarity test of 109 ought to be part of the scale. Also it's logarithmic and open at the upper end, like the Richter scale. No matter how kinky you think something is it's possible to add some twist to make it more so. 1.0 should be the median kinkiness measured planetwide, so pretty damn vanilla. The prescreening threshhold is 2.0. 10.0 should be the point at which finding a partner is a significant task on the order of buying a car. 20.0 is poop eaters.
120-121: Incipit a bold new era in science!
127: Unless of course you don't want us to be.
TBH, my actual and fantasy life could only be described as very tame and vanilla. I'm sufficiently interested in what motivates other people that I've witnessed an awful lot of high weirdness, but it isn't personally titillating at all.
Yeah, I still feel like when I admit to having had sex with more than one person (even not two dudes) on more than one occasion, it's still not something that most people I talk to consider standard vanilla ho-hum sex. I am regularly surprised by how little it takes to scandalize straight women of my own age group. But if you've just about always been monogamous with only a couple of people, and aren't particularly driven to try new things, lots of things are going to seem kinky.
130: She doesn't really look that vanilla these days. At least not the bondage and spanking stuff, though it's found a semi-respectable niche.
your internalized societal norms
So only sleep with similar people? Same-sex partners for conservative people, and being into say long nails or an elaborate weave for people here would both qualify for 109.
You should come back to Brooklyn, AWB!
Heh. Funny moment in the mediation training: the trainers were talking about hot buttons -- behaviors or characteristics of a participant that would make it hard for you as a mediator to be fair to them. And the trainer brought up earlobe-plugs. And most of the roomful of New York lawyers were mystified: "You mean ear-buds? Like headphones?" We had to stop for a long explanation.
142: You mean that paradise where everyone is so sex-positive and open-minded? Ha.
Oh! Hey! I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet. I think it's so fascinating.
There's a kid in Hawaiian Punch's class who has three daddies. And they are open and friendly and just go about their (extremely wealthy) public lives, in the middle of Texas.
When I finally got the scoop from a mutual friend, I was so interested in how they are so out about this. I think it's great! But still, wow.
But the mutual friend kept responding to me like I was judging them, and I couldn't convince her that I thought it was great, just middle of Texas, wow. (Not Austin.) So I didn't get any interesting details.
143: And most of the roomful of New York lawyers were mystified
No provincialism as provincial as that of the cosmopolitan.
OK, how's this: TV, hip-hop, and the internet have quickly broadened what people hear about (and see with even a little curiosity). The effect on personal habits is a lot narrower. So the spread between thought and action is wider than it had been, maybe the between public and private identity also.
The people who will see the dichotomy most clearly are going to be people who get around in socially conservative settings.
I'm just trying to say that old people might set the bar super low
Does this mean "elderly people" or "previous generations"? Either way, I'm guessing they could teach young, uhhh, whippersnappers a thing or two.
it's still not something that most people I talk to consider standard vanilla ho-hum sex
But there's quite a bit of space between thinking a threesome is vanilla ho-hum and being scandalized, right? When I've been party to similar conversations, the serial monogamy types have been been way more rabidly curious than scandalized.
Well, there is always some freak in every crowd who loudly professes that anything other than monagamous sex in the missionary position is freaky.
"The guy being behind is sooo demeaning!"
It's certainly not standard vanilla ho-hum for me! These days if a stranger makes significant eye-contact it's a shocking and invasive experience.
I hope whoever ends up organizing the Unfoggedecagon is bookmarking this thread.
151: Right, I didn't mean to imply that! Just to say that I've not encountered that many people on the opposite (scandalized) end of the spectrum either.
That's how I feel about the three daddies! I'm not scandalized, but I'm rabidly curious.
Yeah, it's not that it's necessarily scandalous, just kinky. Although different types are regarded in different ways, e.g. it seems commonplace among both guys and girls to regard the woman in a threesome with two guys as being something of a slattern. (If I remember my TFA correctly, this norm is what gave us Unfogged's original and most infamous reportage of the phrase "because I'm a feminist.")
I dunno, to me I don't feel a huge difference between rabidly curious and otheringly scandalized in practice. Like the women I mentioned a few weeks ago who responded to a conversation I was having with a prominent queer author to jump in with "The queerest thing I've ever done is have a baby!" there's a push-pull there of (a) I'm jealous because it sounds like your experiences of sexuality are far more socially interesting to people than mine are, and (b) you're a fucking freak and obviously you only mention your sex life because you don't know this is a heterosexual-only safe space. Expressions of rabid interest in queer sex from straight people, I find, are really about publicly asserting one's own heteronormativity while trying to soak up the aura of queer cool.
I have a good friend here who is the one of our gang of three who is pretty straight, and it's really hard for her to know what to say if queerness comes up other than to nervously start talking about how weird her friends back home would think we are.
I think Heebie's point was that BP was terribly kinky then
Scrolling from bottom up, I did not read this at first as "Bettie Page". But then I remembered it is called "DP"
Today, a friend sent me a Rammstein youtube video link for Bück Dich (uncensored), which seems particularly timely given this thread. Note: the video is NSFW, and starts up mid-way through the video, conveniently at the kinky bits. I find it shockingly amazing that this is happening in the midst of a big stadium concert. Also, I had no idea how to insert a link into a comment, but internet helped! I realize that figuring this out is not very clever, but I feel accomplished since I had no clue until a few moments ago how to do it.
157 is exactly why I always remember to wipe the foam from my mouth when I ask my queer friends about sex.
(More seriously, it occurs to me reading that that I actually never, ever ask my queer friends about sex; if the subject comes up, it's only ever because they've brought it up. And that's something that in all these years I actually hadn't really noticed that I wasn't doing.)
159: She meant BP Oil, Bob. After all, oil is kinky.
148: Yeah. This thread is giving me the giggles.
Somewhat related, I left one clip out of my review of Cinefamily's 100 Most Outrageous Fucks, mostly because I didn't want to google the string "newborn [pr0n]" while I was logged into Google. At the showing, they stopped the proceedings to mass gasps and said, "It is called the most outrageous fucks, people."
The clip is from A Serbian Film and shows two men watching a movie in which a man delivers a baby and then has sex with it. (You could say that the camera angle leaves things up to the imagination, but it's probably more correct to say it press-gangs the imagination into the service of the effect.) It struck me at the time that this was so horrible a concept, even satirically, that it had to be depicted as a film within a film. Anyway, here's Wikipedia--seems pretty interesting as shock cinema goes (slightly moreso than, say, Human Centipede).
I recognize that this is outside the bounds of what you can properly call "kink", but it seemed germane enough to spare me a pause-play. Also I'm probably a bad person even for telling you that exists.
163: Ha. My Serbian then-roommate and I were wandering into some artsy-fartsy movie when we saw that on the marquee--oh, A Serbian Film, cool!--and later realized how glad we were that we didn't just wander into that instead. She of course knows better, with a greater familiarity of the range of Serbian cinema.
148: Yeah. This thread is giving me the giggles.
I'm sure everything has been done in every generation. Go back to your Centaur-play, dear.
152: Not all threesomes involve significant eye contact with a stranger.
But I guess by your bohemian standards that kind doesn't even count.
And FFS don't ask me about Japanese (or HK, which is even worse) Sex Movies or Culture
I watch art-movies, romances, family movies, samurai movies in that order and avoid pinku like the plague. I even avoid yakuza so far.
OTOH, rape and r-culture and violent sex, which I define extremely broadly, is unavoidable in an extended study of Japan. Daughters were sold up til WWII. I am not interested in discussing my tentative impressions of it in detail, or stuff like Kawabata, Junchiro, or Mishima in mixed company, which means Americans and UMC Westerners.
The Japanese have separate train cars for women who don't like being groped, and train-car bars for women who like to get groped.
Oh come on, Bob - regale us with tales of tentacle porn and the land that gave us bukake!
oh, A Serbian Film, cool!
Legendary. I know of it.
Watched Sonezaki Shinjo (Masumura, 1976) last night, which may have been the most faithful representation of the kabuki aesthetic I have yet seen. Brutally intense, as in violent (emotionally or physically) every fucking second, it was hard to take from first to last. Exactly what I might expect a 1680 audience, all saked up, to want.
Keiko MacDonald in her book did not find it interesting, because it didn't "modernize" or play with kabuki much.
Masumura did Blind Beast, if you remember that one.
I like how bob considers himself talking to other white people "mixed company." But presumably feels completely comfortable talking about this stuff with Japanese people.
If an admin wants to change the f-words in 163 to f@$#-words so LB will be able to get back into this thread, I would endorse such bowdlerization. I don't want to be the man who got between LB and kink.
Grrrr. I am so angry about these anti-choice measures popping up all over in state legislatures! So angry!
There will come a reaping.
170:I don't talk about this with anyone.
I read about it and pay attention to theorists, usually Western, who write in English, who are post-structuralist and/or radical Lacanian feminists and understand that rape-culture is ubiquitous and the totality we live in, inescapable as capitalism and consumerism, in every man's every daily action, and only more honestly portrayed in Japan.
173: s/b Immanent. Immanence. That's better
173: You only have to watch a few minutes of My Neighbor Totoro to realize bob's right.
137 to 127.
97: You wouldn't have these problems if you just said ousia pollachôs legetai, the way God intended.
I like how bob considers himself talking to other white people "mixed company."
Take an example from our own day. I know that you are fond of Japanese things. Now, do you really imagine that the Japanese people, as they are presented to us in art, have any existence? If you do, you have never understood Japanese art at all. The Japanese people are the deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual artists. If you set a picture by Hokusai, or Hokkei, or any of the great native painters, beside a real Japanese gentleman or lady, you will see that there is not the slightest resemblance between them. The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them. In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people. One of our most charming painters went recently to the Land of the Chrysanthemum in the foolish hope of seeing the Japanese. All he saw, all he had the chance of painting, were a few lanterns and some fans. He was quite unable to discover the inhabitants, as his delightful exhibition at Messrs. Dowdeswell's Gallery showed only too well. He did not know that the Japanese people are, as I have said, simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art. And so, if you desire to see a Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and go to Tokio. On the contrary, you will stay at home and steep yourself in the work of certain Japanese artists, and then, when you have absorbed the spirit of their style, and caught their imaginative manner of vision, you will go some afternoon and sit in the Park or stroll down Piccadilly, and if you cannot see an absolutely Japanese effect there, you will not see it anywhere.
I've gotten the impression from people my parent's generation that oral and group sex were about equally out there - at about the level of multiple partner sex these days, i.e. something that some people do regularly many people have tried, and most people see as somewhat titillatingly transgressive.
read about it and pay attention to theorists, usually Western, who write in English, who are post-structuralist and/or radical Lacanian feminists and understand that rape-culture is ubiquitous and the totality we live in, inescapable as capitalism and consumerism, in every man's every daily action, and only more honestly portrayed in Japan.
What astonishing rubbish.
Relevant (NSFW, not the article itself, probably, but the URL and what not. It's nothing but smut!)
180: Yowzer. Paging will. will to the white courtesy phone.
179: A Thread I Didn't Comment In, Preferring to Learn and Not Thinking I Had That Much To Teach
I can probably confess this low down in the thread that I am a massive hypocrite here - I did once make a clumsy pass at a woman at a Bank of England offsite training course
Just once, bankster? C'mon.
Since I am a massive sceptic about the possibility of widespread social change
I remain, if not optimistic, at least committed. The start, not the finish, only the necessary start and foundation, is that the Patriarchy is not something "out there"
If you read the whole comment it appears that "just once" was definitely not the case. Apparently it's been the scandal of the last two decades.
183:k-sky, are you actually joining in with:
"I _____ her, but it was okay, because we got married after."
That is as old as the Patriarchy.
Aww, I got to get back to Carol Gilligan. The rest of you go be gallants at CT.
I'm just saying that without the last line, a knock-knock joke sounds like a visit from the secret police.
I thought 183 was a "troll down! troll down!" moment, but 184 proves once again the indomitable trolling powers of Bob.
I can't quite make out where we are on the question of what counts as kinky these days: anal and oral sex, obviously not. Using a dildo with a partner, no. Mild bondage, group sex, no. Spanking doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but whatever.
Ah, 132 seems to get it right.
Anal's still a little kinky. Unless you're Hasidic.
It's pretty sad to find I have nothing to say in this thread.
I agree with those who say that this is something that can only be assessed in the context of what other people do. I seem to recall that good data on individuated sexual practices--more individuated than the survey that gave us that "omg the kids are all having anal sex" result that got Sal/et/an so hot and bothered--just isn't there. I recall reading a few years back, for example, that the really big survey done by NO/RC in Chicago doesn't get much into the detail we're looking for here. Nor do I think any large-scale surveys attempt to capture the element that's arguably most relevance to "deviance"--something like, "would you feel embarrassed/ashamed [or perhaps the even-more-meta, 'do you think most of those who engage in this would feel e./a.'] if the fact that you engage in this were widely known?" Or maybe just "do you think [sexual practice X] is mainstream, unusual but unremarkable, or deviant?"--anyway, if I'm wrong and large-scale surveys do try to get at this, I'd be interested in seeing the results.
188: Are you fooling with me? You must be. k-sky, I am quite vulnerable and gullible at the moment, what with all the discussion in my newfound homeownership life of septic tanks and leechfields and evaporation and tearing down stone walls and how it was probably a mistake to put down all that patio brick and flagstone (evaporation, you know).
What does anal sex have to do with septic tanks?
192: Nothing, nothing. I've just been dealing with a septic tank situation that's driving me nuts.
Carry on.
Two things that haven't been in my kitchen.
What exactly is the problem with the septic tank?
Parismon, not fooling with you, although the Hasidic thing is a hyperbolic reference to legalistic modes of virginity preservation.
Remember my cousin who sent the forward about the blind girl whose boyfriend donated his eyeballs to her, so she ditched him? She sent me the following (surprisingly on topic) one just now (but otherwise unremarkably stupid). Hang on.
WHY ETHEL CHANGED MOTELS
Last week, Ethel checked into a motel on her
70th birthday and she was a bit lonely. She thought, "I'll call one of
Those men you see advertised in phone books for escorts and sensual
Massages." She looked through the phone book, found a full page ad for a
Guy calling himself Tender Tony - a very handsome man with assorted
Physical skills flexing in the photo. He had all the right muscles in
All the right places, thick wavy hair, long powerful legs, dazzling
Smile, six pack abs and she felt quite certain she could bounce a
Sixpence off his well oiled bum....
She figured, what the heck, nobody will ever
Know. I'll give him a call.
"Good evening, ma'am, how may I help you? . . Oh
My, he sounded sooo sexy!
Afraid she would lose her nerve if she
Hesitated, she rushed right in, "Hi, I hear you give a great massage.
I'd like you to come to my motel room and give me one. No, wait, I
Should be straight with you. I'm in town all alone and what I really
Want is sex. I want it hot, and I want it now. Bring implements, toys,
Rubber, leather, whips, everything you've got in your bag of tricks.
We'll go hot and heavy all night - tie me up, cover me in chocolate
Syrup and whipped cream, anything and everything, I' m ready!! Now how
Does that sound?"
He said, "That sounds absolutely fantastic, but
You need to press 9 for an outside line."
I think I just love that it's a poem, even if that was just accidental illiteracy.
195: Never mind, teo. And you sound like Eliza (?) the computerized helpy program!
196: I am surprised at this.
Anal's still a little kinky
Anal's still kinky because it potentially involves feces. I stand by my 89.
And you sound like Eliza (?) the computerized helpy program!
How does that make you feel?
It makes me laugh.
201: Okay, I think I see. Er, does having vaginal sex while the woman has her period count as kinky?
Tell me more about having vaginal sex while the woman has her period.
There's a rumor is that it's one of the best remedies for menstrual cramps.
Er, does having vaginal sex while the woman has her period count as kinky?
I imagine you might want to put down a towel in the event, which, per 132, might make it kinky. Otherwise, it would be something a person might do with a loved one. It seems.
Potentially on topic, although I doubt it.
Jesus getting-a-wide-stance-blowjob-in-a-toilet-stall-at the-Sideling-Hill-Service Plaza, what in the hell is this thing? It folded down from the side of the stall and appeared to be "sponsored" by Toyota trucks and some fishing equipment supplier (so I'm guessing some implement needed in conjunction with manly men/truck driver paraphernalia). My wife suggested that there are sometimes small fold down shelves for handbags, but this was low and far away and sloped (not too steeply, but noticeably) away from the partition, so probably not for resting your man bag on.
If it turns out to be some extremely common item that is embarrassing not to know about, I posted this ironically.
212: Or the rhythm method taken to its logical conclusion.
214: Spittoon:oral sex::Septic tank:anal sex?
.. did you look at the picture?
212:Saw it in a Movie
Willem Defoe and (spouse) Giada Colagrande (who directed)
In one, he buries his face between her legs, and she tells him she's on her period. He says, "I don't mind." She then asks, "How's it taste?", and he replies, "It's fine." Then, when he comes up, they kiss on the mouth, and as they begin to have sex, there is a shot of the bed as they roll over, that reveals a massive blood stain.
I think I do remember a towel.
Colagrande has directed two other movies, better appreciated that this one. I thought this was ok, but not recommending.
it's kind of blurry.
I've been working on my in-the-moment cellphone photography, but I still kind of suck at it.
220: I thought of that--maybe for polishing your cowboy boots. And now that seems most plausible.
I've seen fold down shelves that look almost exactly like that, but at chest height, not floor-level. There are a couple of libraries I used to go to that had them, probably for people carrying books. I used to hang my backpack from one since there were no hooks on the door.
Based on the position, which part of the body seems most logical to interact with it?
212: Putting a towel down either makes it kinky or it reduces the need for washing a mattress pad, take your pick.
For most people, their feet. For some ...
213: Huh. To put your iPhone on? Your wallet (which was presumably in your back pocket)? Your keys? The sloping nature makes that seem unlikely.
so probably not for resting your man bag on
I confess I initially read this as: not for resting your, um, man bag, your, uh, balls on. Which ... uh? You guys do what? On some kind of platform? (Hey, ever since it was revealed here that men dribble into their pants pretty much every time after they pee, I have understood that I don't know anything about what goes on.)
Anyway, I've never seen anything like it, but then I've spent very little time in bathroom stalls at highway rest stops.
230.last: Kids are so sheltered these days.
What does the sticker/label say?
I'm with the boot-polishing footrest explanation. Good work!
Could you use it to brace yourself? For extra leverage?
232: It was pretty worn, but mentioned Toyota trucks and what looked to be something about fishing equipment. Ads.
233: Well, I actually got to see the real thing and have a fell for its size etc.
Incidentally...
I did once perform oral sex on a menstruating older woman but I was so inexperienced I barely knew one end from another or what anything was supposed to be like so when I asked what and she said Tampon I just went on ok having there a while anyway but she got just really impressed and excited and so I got way overexcited and stayed up for two days without getting off and eventually she got tired then bored then pissed off. And talked about this defrocked priest she once knew.
And then I found five dollars.
Movie tonight was Yukio Mishima's Patriotism
Sex and suicide. To Wagner's "Liebestod." That could be kinky. Sweet dreams
I do not understand bob's story at all.
I don't understand bob's story either. Is it supposed to be profound?
I just watched The Wind That Shakes The Barley again. Man, that Ken Loach! Hard core! With the torture and the fratricide and the whole bit. Denouement is kinda pointless though.
If I'm not a radical, what am I? Currently on hiatus from the scene, for undisclosable reasons. But if I'm just going to be a vaguely bohemian arts guy who acts like a nice progressive, what the hell is the point? It's not like Mpls. needs more of those, you can't throw a rock, etc. etc.
Everything would make sense if I thought there was anything at all I could do to change anything about anything. But there isn't, really. Just lie here rotting.
diaper change shelf?
That was my guess. I've seen similar spring-loaded shelves designated for this purpose. Maybe it was installed lower than the design called for.
Now I can't stop seeing the post title as "'fro licking." Kinky.
242 not to anything in particular. Just something that suddenly popped into my head.
Everything would make sense if I thought there was anything at all I could do to change anything about anything.
You could start a book club!
Less flippantly, even if you don't have the energy for the scene right now, or to move forward with projects that embody values you endorse, you can still do your part to support folks who are doing those things, or just be there for friends generally. I find that it's sometimes easier to recognize the value in others' lives, and hence the derivative value of helping out with those lives--even where "helping out with" just means being a friend to--than to see it in one's own.
On the other hand, I got nothing done for the nth week in a row, and just finished off a not-quite-pint of ice cream, so I'm actually feeling more in the "I could just lie here rotting" camp. But one has to ignore those thoughts.
244: Yeah, I need to write to prisoners more. I've been intending to do that for awhile, with very limited success.
I just wish there could be more of an opportunity to effect real change.
Now I can't stop seeing the post title as "'fro licking."
*ahem*
Should any laydeez wish to experiment with this, I would be happy to oblige.
It looks to me like a shelf for a purse,* or laptop bag. Raised so people outside the stall can't see and steal the purse/laptop.
* I presume these are in stalls in both restrooms.
Should any laydeez wish to experiment with this, I would be happy to oblige.
neb is kinkier than I would have thought.
I loved reading x. trapnel's helpful suggestion to Everything would make sense if I thought there was anything at all I could do to change anything about anything,
a book club, just as I was going to go with "you could start a union!" Everyone pitch in, we'll have a great Do Something PSA by dawn.
Everyone pitch in, we'll have a great Do Something PSA by dawn.
We'll need some orange post titles.
250: Let's put on a show! We can use the old barn! We'll make a curtain out of some old curtains! Then we'll have enough money to save the orphanage from mean old Banker Meany!
I *did* acknowledge that the book club suggestion was flippant, and followed it up with something more serious aimed at someone who might not feel up to starting a union right this moment.
Banker Meany
Bugs has grown up.
I love that JP was taking pictures in the bathroom stall
253:Unions are impossible, elections and parties are useless and pointless. The next Revolution will *not* be mediated or represented.
Louis Proyect on two books about Wisconsin
"The 99%" cannot have a vanguard, cannot be represented by a party or leaders. That is as absurd as saying that, for instance, the 1% is the whole of capitalism.
Capitalism has won, the bad guys have won and created a totality. What that means is that capitalism, sexism, racism, imperialism are now inside us, not outside us, and we cannot have "social relations" meaning opposition or resistance to the totality that is us. Our social relations our private and public selves have become the hegemonic Other. The Patriarchy, for instance, survives at this point if and only as an imaginary relation, something out there we relate to. We are creating and sustaining it in our opposition.
So what shall we do? Well communism is not a set of social relations, structured, categorical, analyzable, hierarchical. It is a sharing, a union, a commune, a being.
239, 240: I think the point is that she thought he was kinky, but he didn't know enough to realize it was unusual at all.
The surplus is no longer being derived from relations of production but from social relations. It is debt, politics, entertainment, social networking, IP, arbitrage between underpaid Chinese labor and unemployed, underemployed, or overemployed American consumers...it is superstructure that is being exploited.
Sorry, but union coffee and breast cancer foundations, feminist activism and anti-racism and #stopkony are now the primary profit centers of late capitalism.
259: The primary profit centers? Do you have numbers to back that up?
255: taking pictures in the bathroom stall
From outside the stall you couldn't see it, plus potential aggressive disapproval from the other patrons.
260: Anti-racism is a profit center of late capitalism. If you can't see the reality, you're probably not really a squirrel. Think about that.
In their wisdom our forefathers gave us racism so we'd have something to react against to keep the economy churn in our time of post-industrial need.
213: OK, the thing is almost certainly this item, Cubicle Folding Purse/Utility shelf. Does not answer the question of what intended utility it was to provide in its position. I'm still thinking boot polishing given the advertising logos.
