Re: The Poor Dears

1

Do cultures without romantic kissing just go straight to shtuping?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 5:38 PM
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2

Japery.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 5:46 PM
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3

You're right that I wasn't serious.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 5:49 PM
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4

Anyone have access to the full article? I want to know who the non-kissers are. Has it just not occurred to them to kiss? Surely they would begin kissing as soon as they encountered the idea.

There are many cultures that have no indigenous number words. But as soon as they encounter number words, the import them into their own language, because they are so useful and fun. Kissing must be the same way.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 6:15 PM
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5

You cannot be serious. Teeth and tongues and spit; it seems like the kind of thing you'd naturally find revolting unless you were socialized to do it.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 6:22 PM
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6

I have like 40 words for kissing, because I'm advanced.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 6:26 PM
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7

5 gets it exactly right. I'm also dubious about some of the assertions in 4.2, in addition to its flagrant violation of the analogy ban.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 6:38 PM
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8

You're a fastidious man, Ogged.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 6:42 PM
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9

If bodily fluids are going to bother you, I don't think kissing would be the only part of sex to raise a flag. You might posit direct evolutionary pressure, but that only works for PIV and anyway a general lessening of a squick response seems as likely to evolve as one that accepts genitals and rejects tongues.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 6:49 PM
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10

I wouldn't expect kissing to predate modern dental hygiene.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 7:19 PM
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11

Before modern sugar consumption, I don't think dental hygiene was so bad even without dentistry.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 7:22 PM
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12

A boy and a girl are born on a spacecraft headed on a mission to a faraway galaxy. Until the age of 13, they're raised in separate pods, trained in math and philosophy by benevolent robots, but left completely ignorant of carnal pursuits. Finally, when they reach bar/batmitzvah age, their robot parents make the introduction and leave them to their own devices. How long until they figure out what sex is, and that it's fun?


Posted by: torque | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 7:26 PM
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13

I watched a documentary about that, except it was a fruitful island instead of robots. Brook Shields was pregnant very young.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 7:31 PM
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14

How long until they figure out what sex is, and that it's fun?

What it is? Probably pretty quickly. That it's fun? Maybe another 20 years?


Posted by: dk | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 7:40 PM
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15

10: Doesn't seem to bother bonobos.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 7:52 PM
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16

gswift gets mad bonobo action despite his poor dentition.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 8:22 PM
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17

I like to think 16 was the original title of the letter to the editor before the killjoys at the student paper changed it.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 8:26 PM
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18

12: There's a fable about a boy and girl who are aroused but can't figure out what sex is, and a modern literary work that references, and I cannot remember the names of either one.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 8:31 PM
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19

I skimmed the paper. The methods are not totally perfect, since it relies on ethnographers' reports of kissing (there's always a chance people do it in private, and lie about whether they do it, and a more oblivious ethnographer may not pick up on it).

We did not code for frequency, as little data on this are present. Therefore, we coded kissing as "1 = present" or "2 = not present" within a culture. "Not present" coding was determined two ways: (1) the ethnographer specifically stated they never witnessed romantic kissing or that kissing was taboo or "disgusting" to that culture or (2) the ethnographer discussed the presence of other types of kissing (e.g., parent-child kissing or adult greetings) but then did not discuss or mention couples kissing. The Oceanic kiss (sometimes referred to as a Malay kiss or face rubbing) is more associated with smelling, and therefore we only included this as romantic-sexual kissing if it was also specifically noted that lovers did this.

To roughly sum up the findings, kissing is mostly present in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, and less present in Oceania, South & Central America, Africa, and present in about half of the groups in N America.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 07- 9-15 8:57 PM
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20

19 It seems like they should have split #1 into 2 different categories: never witnessed and taboo (or disgusting).

The "Oceanic kiss" fails to live up to its name.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 07-10-15 12:25 AM
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21

So this is really a study of PDA?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 07-10-15 1:10 AM
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22

12 sounds a lot like Pohl's Beyond the Blue Event Horizon


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 07-10-15 9:27 AM
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23

19, 20.1: If we code "never witnessed by ethnographers" along with "called taboo or disgusting by native informants" as "not present", I dare say Western societies would've gone down as having neither oral nor anal sex until sometime after 1960. Pace
Larkin (1974), I am skeptical.


Posted by: not feeling very nymous | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 7:34 PM
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24

Pre-'60s ethnographers were notoriously prudish.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 7:47 PM
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25

They kind of were, actually. Some of the early collections of Native American folktales were published with the dirty parts translated into Latin.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 8:05 PM
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26

(Admittedly, that's more "nineteenth-century" than "pre-'60s.")


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 8:06 PM
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27

The one about the coyote with the huge penis?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 8:09 PM
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28

That sort of thing, yes.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 8:33 PM
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29

Here's an example:

Now Raven thought of the people, how they died one at a time now and then, and that no children were born. They did not know how children originated. He thought that by and by there would be no people. He came to a village of Woodchuck people, et coepit cum virgine ludere. Cum pudenda ejus prehendit, ea fugit. She was afraid, for no one had ever done this before.

Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 8:36 PM
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30

Source; the quoted part is on page 206.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-11-15 8:37 PM
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31

Not surprising they put the sexual harassment in Latin! e=Ea fugit I hope to report it to HR.

I had the sublime pleasure yesterday of asking a professional Christian -- "tell me, how come you're not on the sex offenders' register when you are a convicted sex offender?" -- which may be one of the high notes of my journalistic career. The resulting explanation was not entirely convincing,


Posted by: Professor R-ch-rd D-- | Link to this comment | 07-12-15 12:21 AM
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32

Is the professional Christian running for office, or holding a public sinecure?


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 07-12-15 10:01 AM
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