I don't buy it. Sounds like more of the same "your fantasies represent what you secretly really want to do, even if you don't know it" crap that I hate.

Put down the lobster, Teo.

I agree with teo.

Also, I suspect that this was only posted so that this post title could be used.

3 - I didn't think of the title until the last minute. But awesome, no?

A friend of mine enncountered this dilemma in the case of Dorothy Stratton, and especially lovely playmate whose husband blew her head off with a shotgun.

If I ever run into him again I'll ask him how he resolved the dilemma.

Ugh. Let's not go there.

I agree with teo, too. It's crap. It feels bad, I would think, because the horror show that has been her death makes it appear that much of the trouble in her life was connected her near-pornographic sexual image, which the masturbater participated in. Savage should have told him to try masturbating to a picture of Britteny Spears, just to check the theory.

I have to confess when I saw the title, I sort of hope this would be an Ogged-and-the-lifeguard post. Does that make me a bad person?

(Rhetorical question.)

No one beats off to Ogged without feeling a little creepy, a little hopeless, and a little closer to the grave himself. Knock it off.

Has the site been timing out like crazy for anyone else?

Wait - my Madame du Barry fetish is wrong?

also, the best part about the title is that the strikethrough doesn't show up in my RSS reader - so I almost didn't catch it when I went to the site...

Read all of that column for the great last line "...and the tranny website I linked to was freerepublic.com."

Hmm. I'm not sure I completely agree with Dan's logic, but certainly whacking off to the recently dead is creepy, even if for different reasons.

The only way to resist the objectification is to recognize and appropriate is objectification. I do not masturbate to a representation that approximates an actual person or a fantasy that has any relation to a real person but to a fucking photograph. It is narcissism and solipsism, duh, and accepted as such. It may or may not be disgusting and contemptible, but somehow seems marginally better than imagining I actually know or can know or have a relationship with Anna Nicole Smith. I have not a clue what ANS would have been like in bed, and can't seem to make it up.

In fact most times pictures are memory aids for the Proustian recollection of past sexual activities.

Shit. First line:"appropriate it as objectification"

So do people agree that masturbating to the dead is creepy, for whatever reason?

Dorothy Stratton

As a fellow oldster, John, of course I know exactly who you mean; her story is told in the movie Star 80.

masturbating to the dead

A Persian funeral tradition?

17:

People agree.

Masturbating to images of unknown persons is also creepy, but I suspect is gender-related.

20 -- it's no worse than having sex with strangers, which I understand is all the rage with the youngsters these days.

17: Only if you killed them.

I actually think masturbating to images at all is a little creepy, but I'm sure that's not a mainstream opinion.

Iconoclast.

22 should also apply to 21, not just to 17

Idolatress.

no one beats off to [...] Mary Todd Lincoln

This is just crazy talk.

26 -- are you saying LB beats off to graven images?

26, 27 timestamps: Apo, WTF do you do all day?

27 isn't a response to 26.

An Idolatress (Idulatoress) might be someone who cheats on her husband with a graven image.

Mostly beat off to Mary Todd Lincoln.

28: I'm not saying she does, but she was awfully quick with that accusation, wasn't she?

The Who have this subject covered:

And then one day things weren't quite so fine
I fell in love with Lily
I asked my dad where Lily I could find
He said, 'Son, now don't be silly'

'She's been dead since 1929'
Oh, how I cried that night
If only I'd been born in Lily's time
It would have been alright

4 - best post title EVAR

it's no worse than having sex with strangers, which I understand is all the rage with the youngsters these days.

I don't see this at all. Not the same at all.

Leave aside whether Generation Awesome is really having sex with strangers (which suggests something akin to sleeping with a prostitute, just met); masturbating to an *image* is entirely disaffected.

I really like the way Abe's ghost is putting the mack on Mary with the skeevy neck massage.

(And yes, I've always had an erotic attraction to golden calves. I'm almost uncontrollable around suntanned men in shorts.)

masturbating to an *image* is entirely disaffected.

No more than masturbating to a mental image.

So if we're agreed that masturbating to the dead is creepy, why is it creepy, if not for the reasons Savage offers?

Hey this thread is reminding me of an idea I had a number of years ago, which was to write a version of Plato's cave allegory in which the images displayed on the cave's back wall were pornographic, and the cave's denizens masturbating -- sort of a metaphysical Mineshaft.

I thought there was a ban on allegories that were analogies to other allegories.

and the cave's denizens masturbating -- sort of a metaphysical Mineshaft.

I don't know how to tell you this, Clownae, but the rest of us aren't actually masturbating.

So much the worse for you, then.

In so many ways.

41: Just crying, mostly.

I'd find it flattering if I could invoke boners from beyond the grave. I hope long after I'm dead, folks are rubbin' one out in my memory.

So if we're agreed

We aren't.

38: Maybe because it's disrespectful, a possibility that Savage raises and discounts in the first sentence of his response?

I'm not willing to concede it's necessarily creepy, though.

41: Speak for yourself.

I'd find it flattering if I could invoke boners from beyond the grave.

Levitra!

No more than masturbating to a mental image.

Disagree, if the mental image is of someone known. A friend, acquaintance who has some known human dimension. In which case it marks a sort of dream, a spinning of possibility, but not some ridiculous dream (??) about a porn star.

This topic has been around the block here, hasn't it? (Though before my time, so I've only seen or heard references.)

I don't necessarily want to get into differences between male and female fantasties, given that it's been discussed and I haven't read what was said, but in my experience, anonymous sexual fantasies for women involve faceless men. I've never in my life fantasized about a celebrity.

In which case it marks a sort of dream, a spinning of possibility, but not some ridiculous dream (??) about a porn star.

Argh.

So can I invoke the Chopper Effect and ask everyone for some positive vibes to be sent my way, tomorrow afternoon 3-5 PM CST? I'm interviewing for a new job that'd be a big step up--I'm psyched but feeling a little overwhelmed at how fast it's happening.

Interesting that you would use the masturbation thread to ask for positive vibes, Chopper.

Here you go, Chop-man.

anonymous sexual fantasies for women involve faceless men

This is supposed to be *less* disaffected than masturbating about a celebrity?

54: It seemed to match my idiom.

Good luck, Chopper!

Masturbating to images of the dead if one doesn't know that the image is of a dead person? Not creepy.

But if one of your mental associations with their image is of death, then it's creepy. People who just happen to be dead? Not creepy. So if you were masturbating to old porn from the early 20th C or something, that wouldn't be creepy, because you don't look at it and think "dead ladies", you think "those are some sweet-ass vintage corsets" or "man they were hot back then" or whatever.

But masturbating to an image of someone who's famous for dying, like, say Anna Nicole Smith, or Princess Diana, or Sharon Tate or whoever? That's the creepy zone, because the death association is there, and you're still getting off.

Go Chopper go!

What about masturbating to really hot pictures of a young actress who you know has since grown old and fat? Creepy?

You are not allowed to masturbate to any pictures of women who ever have been, are, or ever will become fat, duh.

59: But ANS and Princess Di aren't exactly famous for dying; they were already famous when their deaths became media spectacles.

And, good luck Chopper. Will the job you are interviewing for have any smoked meat tie-in?

63: Well, sure, but that doesn't change the point that there is a death association with their images.

So what you're saying, leblanc, is that Mama Cass is doubly verboten?

65: What about Marilyn Monroe?

66: She's trying to stomp on my Mary Todd Lincoln fantasies.

I usually hate this criticism, but all this is way overthinking. If you aren't bothered by jerking off to pictures of someone you don't know, there's no real reason that the fact they've aged or died should bother you. It might remind you of aging or mortality so as to not make it fun anymore, but there's nothing that makes it wrong if it's not bothering you.

"all this is way overthinking" s/b "you're reading too much into it"

Will the job you are interviewing for have any smoked meat tie-in?

Well, it's for a company that makes external neurostimulators, so only if things go really wrong with one of the products.

Good luck, Chopper. I assume it was the picture of you with the motorcycle that got you in the door.

This is supposed to be *less* disaffected than masturbating about a celebrity?

No, no, the operative term there was "anonymous:" when one fantasizes about anonymous encounters, they tend to involve generic composites. Of who is desired; often incorporating features of past objects of desire.

Okay, I may concede.

Still, though, I cannot imagine being constrained by the image of some celebrity. Surely when masturbating to that, one is doing .. something .. that's a little odd. Lacking in imagination, if nothing else.

Maybe we should only masturbate to images of the now dead. They're dead, so any injury that comes from the fantasy seems likely to be minimal when compared to the same type of injury to living people.

i'm with apo. porn i've seen is mostly people i've never seen or heard of, who could well be dead (i reckon porn stars don't have the longest life expectancy around) or alive but bearing no relation to the image you're finding entertaining.

would it be less creepy to be aroused by pics of a 25-yr old liz taylor than present day liz taylor? if an image is appealing, i don't see how that necessarily changes based on non-image circumstances.

crap. pwned while typing.
however, i do think doing it to pictures of corpses is creepy. but to each their own.

74 -- Maybe we should only masturbate to images of the impoverished -- their marginal loss of utility in being masturbated to will be less than that of wealthy people.

Kissed is maybe the best movie about necrophilia ever made. Laura might not be too bad an example.

I don't get most of these conversations. The stories of the woman who says:"I have been sleeping with the guy for twenty years and never knew he was a Soviet agent with two other families." just make me accept that objectification and delusion are the world we live in.

We have not got a fucking clue about each other, and everything we think we know is all made up. I am not a member of the reality-based community.

I'm mostly with LB on this one. If you're masturbating to images of celebrities, it's probably not all that likely that you're doing so because you've got a personal connection with that celebrity, so dead or alive, they're just pictures to you. It may say something that it isn't at all off-putting to masturbate to the picture of someone who you know recently died, but that something is probably "doesn't care all that much about celebrities."

76: But is that how the injury works? And shouldn't there be some sort of floor below which people can't be masturbated to? You wouldn't want to permanently injure the very poor through pointed masturbation.

not agreeing with ogged. masturbating to pictures of people now dead, mental images of fictional characters, all good. I agree with leblack that when someone is famous for dying hideously there might be an issue if it's the gruesome death that you're getting off on, but otherwise, wtf. I cracked someone up pretty bad when in a fit of youthful honesty I allowed as how I had sexual fantasies about sherlock holmes.

masturbate to the picture of someone you know

I reckon you meant "someone you know intimately" but somehow I read that as "masturbate to the picture of an acquaintance", and I thought, that's way creepier than using celebrity photos or pornography.

77: We have not got a fucking clue about each other, and everything we think we know is all made up. I am not a member of the reality-based community.

Bob, on the contrary, we know much about each other but are terrified to admit it most of the time.

I meant "some celebrity, when you know that celebrity recently died." But yeah.

I don't understand the masturbating to pictures thing, guys. Is it a fantasy? or just looking at pretty women?

Is it a fantasy? or just looking at pretty women?

Yes, both of those, and also a placeholder as McManus says in 15.

Has a consensus been reached about acceptable masturbation practices?

I guess now is a bad time to mention that I like the name "Cala."

I kid. I kid.

some sort of floor below which people can't be masturbated to

If you're masturbating about somebody while in their crawlspace, then that's creepy, yes.

83:I told ya, for me it is mostly a memory aid, a means of re-experiencing sexual arousal. I am looking at a naked woman, I am remembering a girlfriend or hookup. With a name and personality and all the limitations of my actual experience. Having never been into bondage, I cannot imagine bondage.

I am perhaps dysfunctional. I somehow cannot imagine Scarlett Johansson swooning at my feet. Whoever swooned at my feet would be essentially faceless, and thereby not erotic.

I think that we should have a masturbation ethics conference.

Will there be a roundtable discussion?

Are there different ethical standards for men than women?

I don't understand the masturbating to pictures thing, guys. Is it a fantasy? or just looking at pretty women?

I don't understand this--what do women do when they masturbate? Aren't you imagining someone, even if only a composite?

WTF 90, women masturbate?

what do women do when they masturbate?

They close their eyes and think of England.

Will there be a roundtable discussion?

"Conference Attendees are reminded that the Ookie Cookie Symposium begins at 3 o'clock sharp, and that late attendees will not be allowed additional time to complete their portion of the group project."

91: I don't understand it either. I thought everyone did this, male or female.

Aren't you imagining someone, even if only a composite?

I believe I said.

Perhaps we should have separate conferences for women and men.... and all the other categories.... and then have a conference committee prepare the final report.

I was wondering more about the role of the specific images in the fantasy. Is the guy masturbating to ANS thinking about boning her, or just boning?

once every 7 seconds, we think about sexing her.

They close their eyes and think of England.

England Dan, that is.

98: Probably varies from person to person.

No way 'Po, Coley is by far the hotter of the two.

thinking about boning her, or just boning

There is another alternative, namely that he could be thinking about masturbating while looking at a picture of Anna Nicole Smith. Not saying this is any part of my experience, just saying.

91: Maybe they're not masturbating, only faking it so we won't feel bad. They're most likely thinking about being oppressed.

Of course, it varies, but in a way it is as simple as:

"Puppies & Kittens!"

"Sucking chest wounds in rainy doughboy trenches, with barbed wire and flashes & sounds of artillery"

"Stepped waterfalls with ferns and age-smoothed rocks."

"Tits!"

So if we're agreed that masturbating to the dead is creepy, why is it creepy, if not for the reasons Savage offers?

Because at that moment, more than any other time, the deceased deserves a little alone time. And also what m. lebanc says at #59.

What's most embarassing about Savage's explanation is his appeal to "authenticity." The idea that a masturbatory fantasy must be something which might possibly--somehow--be consumated is imaginatively impoverished. It's like believing that all novels are roman à clefs.

No woman has stepped forward to provide information. So sad that we are left with apostropher as the expert.

England? As a whole? What about Wales?

What about Wales

More likely dolphins, I should think.

The Three Dolphin Technique?

what do women do when they masturbate?

I think about ponies and princesses, and yeah, dolphins.

Lest apostropher be left as the expert, and assuming this is a real question, I don't purport to speak for other women, but it's pretty simple: I think about having sex. Either with someone I know (and am either lusting after or having the privilege of actually fucking in my non-masturbatory time) or sometimes imaginary people. Then sometimes I look at porn. Pretty much the same as dudes, from what I understand.

106 -- come on, if you're going to put the accent grave in, form the plural correctly.

"I was wondering more about the role of the specific images in the fantasy. Is the guy masturbating to ANS thinking about boning her, or just boning?"

i don't think i understand what you're asking

are you positing that if the scientists switched out, midjerk, the pic of ANS for a pic of jessica biel, and the changed them back before you finished, you wouldn't actually remember ms beil?

I mentioned in an earlier thread that fantasizing about mermaids is ultimately unsatisfying.

OT, but I have here verification of B's earlier claim (denied by Apo, from the vantage of N.C.) that in parts of Canada "regular coffee" means "coffee with sugar and cream": Canadian termss

To tie this in with our previous discussion about hearing voices/music vs. enjoying intimacy precisely because the inner monologue has shut down, I always imagined that some people used imagery and others found that summoning up images took more concentration than they could sustain, and that part of the pleasure of the activity was in not focusing visually.

I would be really, really surprised if the images/no images issue was a pure male/female split. Not surprised if the bell curves for each gender were different, though.

There is another alternative, namely that he could be thinking about masturbating while looking at a picture of Anna Nicole Smith.

Or he could actually be having sex with Anna Nicole Smith, but be fantasizing about masturbation.

116 --Yeah but how likely is that?
113 -- Would the scientist apply electric current to the subject's testicles if he became aroused while looking at Biel?

If he has sex with ANS, but fantasizes about Biel during that time, is he masturbating with ANS?

118: He's in contempt of court, is what he is.

Sorry for the vague questions; I was trying to understand Savage's reaction, because it seemed to me that if it's not a fantasy about anything specific to a picture of ANS, or whomever, then Savage's reaction really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

One of Jean Genet's fictional convicts masturbated to a photo of a heroic dead Nazi paratrooper. Around 1968 when Genet expressed his support for the heroic Black Panthers, I wanted to tell the Panthers that this might not be the kind of support they really wanted.

Kudos to #86, that's some fine work.

Also, I am astonished to say that in #87 Bob McManus has put into words what I was unable to express. I'm ashamed to admit that I've masturbated to the pictures here, but not while imagining having sex with the subject of the pictures - rather they provided visual stimulation which enhanced the power and majesty of my boner and thus enhanced the masturbatory experience.

More likely dolphins, I should think.

Or bears if your name is George Washington.

(Hm. I never realized that Andy Sullivan and the Father of Our Country had so much in common.)

111: Ok, ok: "roman à clef." (I'm a sloppy drunk.)

120 -- but obviously for the letter writer, it was something specific about the image of Smith.

then Savage's reaction really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It doesn't. Savage is an ass.

John Emerson:
You just brought back Gravity's Rainbow nightmares. Slothrop, is that you?

s/b "romans à clef." (See.)

That site in #122 is a monument of stalkerlike diligence.

Suppose that someone only masturbates to classic nudes, all of whom can now be assumed to be dead to the extent that they were ever alive. Does it make any difference whether they are fictional or mythical (not dead) nudes rather than historical (dead) ones? Also, does anyone ever do that?

Suppose that someone only masturbates to classic nudes

You talkin' to me?

This is like the opposite of beating a dead horse.

http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2007/02/zoo_poster.html

John, I think the real dividing line would be whether the actual woman visible in the painting was a real now-dead model (possibly creepy) or a composite-type woman who never actually existed (not creepy). The masturbational ethics of the situation are not affected by whether the model is supposedly Galatea or supposedly Cleopatra.

Suppose that someone only masturbates to classic nudes

Like Kotsko.

What about masturbating to the long-since dead?

Oh, god. I had a furtive but passionate relationship with Cleopatra, and it saw me into adolescence.

So we'd have to do research into the painter's methods before giving green-lighting a given painting for use as a masturbation aid. I can see that in some cases the research might be inconclusive. Is the default green or red?

I imagine the sculpter just took a big block and started whacking off.

134: This predates the Rachel Weisz Mummy movies, right? If so: weird.

What was the appeal, anyway? The fact that she seemed likely to be up for it if you could meet a minimum set of imperial requirements?

128:

Le Comtesse

The Artist

The Girlfriend

The Daughter

The Mother ...oh, lots and lots of Renoir. Early Renoir is lots of Women. Late Renoir, well I think his world became Woman like Monet's world became Waterlilies

I gotta have faces, and sometimes all I need is faces.

I had a furtive but passionate relationship with Cleopatra

The Liz Taylor version, or the historical Cleopatra?

#137. I can't speak for 'Smasher, of course, but Cleopatra's appeal to me always seemed to be that she was the Queen of Egypt, baby! And those cool snake bracelets on her delicate brown arm. That and she had violet eyes to die for.

Leblanc gets it exactly right in 59.

I always forget there's going to be 50 new comments by the time I actually post.

I came to late. Everyone's left the thread to masturbate.

So we'd have to do research into the painter's methods

Roos' method.

139:Lindsay Marshall is more my size.

But Liz Taylor was, between Father of the Bride and the early 70s, well, umm.

Someone of unearthly beauty who would drink a beer with me and make me laugh. Who was noble and kind. Who was smart and talented and honest.
Who could sashay with dignity and grace. A lady and a tramp.

Indeed, what I see here is cry, cry, masturbate, cry.

Seek thee the delicate, unearthly, dream-worthy. We all do it, male and female alike, I suppose.

114: But your evidence shows that Canadians can't decide whether it means black or with cream and sugar. Anyhow, Candians are a tiny minority compared to Americans, and lord knows I've heard "regular or decaf?" all across this great land of ours.

Yep. Blue eyes, olive skin, snake bracelet--and an army of mummies! And, you know, to the Queen of the Nile, you were disposable.

59 and 141 get it exactly right. Masturbating to people whose death is a major association with their image is creepy, because you think not only "hot" but also "dead."

147: I didn't say the Canadians weren't wrong. They clearly are. I just said that's what they call it, because they're wrong.

Cleopatra, you lunatics.

Milk and sugar would be the default coffee here, too. Or at least it was until US coffee nonsense* was imported and people began to talk of lattés and the like.

* not entirely a bad thing, of course. It is possible to get adequate coffee in a lot more places these days ...

114: I'm afraid the good people at the venerable Geist are pulling your leg. I've yet to meet anyone in Toronto who uses "regular" to refer to "coffee with cream and sugar," and I doubt that happens in Cape Breton either. Unless there's some weird secret society that uses this as a code.

Canada has, however, put an end to the ages-old search for the perfect orgasm. Predictably, Seattle is having none of it.

No more masturbating to Arthur Schlesinger, it seems.

I have a friend who won't lech after dead people or old-people-when-they-were-young, because of the lack of possibility Savage talks about. This came up in a discussion of who was hotter, Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid, and she said that Paul Newman's 80 odd and if she can't fancy him now, she can never fancy him ever. Seemed a bit crazy to me, not to mention a waste.

#45: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

(sorry it's late but I couldn't pass up that feed line)

80: Hey, Laurie R. King got a whole series of novels out of that.

114 is also correct with respect to Boston, or parts of it (as far as I can tell). There's a certain Dunkin Donuts in Medford where 'regular coffee' means normal (non-de-caffeinated) coffee loaded up with milk and sugar. It's also the same at the DD in South Station, and several other coffee-stands downtown that I've had the misfortune to visit. Also, the in-house coffee place in Charles MGH. If you want a pure, unadulterated coffee, the thing that seems to work is 'black coffee'.

I've heard others complain about this too, so it's not just me. But if there are some native Bostonians who are lurking and want to weigh in...

The one place that seems immune to this is Starbucks, who really do serve coffee as if there were out-of-town aliens.

I feel like I've talked about this here before, but when I worked at a coffee-serving establishment in Providence, people were all over the chart with what they meant by "coffee, regular." The result was that I always double checked by asking, "cream and sugar?" which worked, but seemed to piss almost everyone off. "What?! NO!" or "Duhh, obviously. Christ!"

If everybody would just behave rationally and accept my terminology, this wouldn't be a problem.

153: This really needs to become the default idiom for announcing someone's death.

157, 158: See, I've heard this to be true, but never witnessed it. Maybe I just don't drink enough coffee.

I looked at the Geist list: our family usages were closer to Cape Breton than Toronto, although we grew up in Ottawa and were exposed to the Valley as the lower-class country person's English. Had some resemblance, oddly enough, to the midland dialect, from Appalachia, which surrounded me in South-Central Ohio. Warshrooms, etc.

Asilon's posts always seem very sexy to me; maybe it's the terminology. Old man that I am, I think of Carol Cleveland leading Michael Palin as the milkman upstairs, only for him to find she's adding him to her collection.

160: the worst spot is, I've been told on good authority, the place in Charles MGH hospital where all the employees get their morning cup. Apparently, 'regular coffee' means cream with a little coffee in it, and even if you order 'black coffee', they still put almost as much in. If you want actual black coffee, you have to negotiate with them (and sometimes even threaten them).

Or so I've heard.

114: I'm afraid the good people at the venerable Geist are pulling your leg. I've yet to meet anyone in Toronto who uses "regular" to refer to "coffee with cream and sugar,"

This is bizarre. Are you sure you're Canadian? I grew up in Hamilton, lived in Toronto for years and have spent a lot of time and money in Tim Horton's in my lifetime, so I have some claim to expertise in this matter. "Regular" is with one cream, one sugar. "Double-double" is double cream, double sugar. "Black" is no cream or sugar (if you want sugar, you have to specify that). Some people also order "triple-triple," but they're nuts.

Three words: Fantasy time travel.

I looked over the whole chart, and a lot of the Canadian usage crosses the border into the adjaent US, so that Vancouver BC is like Portland OR. Where I live now they don't mix your coffee for you (no take out), so the question never comes up, but I think that they always bring cream and sugar with.

Perhaps there should be a line in wills for people to indicate whether they'd want to be masturbated to after death. Some might regard it as a touching tribute. I just looked at the first decade of Playmates on the web (1954-64) and they have to be in their seventies by now. Their hairdoes is what makes them hard to wank to, but Stella Stevens' photo is still pretty good. (She's 71 and still kicking.)

Perhaps DS is a jetset transprog metrosexual who never associates with Toronto's overwhelmingly predominant Trailer Park Boy demographic.

161 - aw thanks, IDP. I'd love my own collection of tradesmen.

(I'll leave it to someone else (apo?) to make a joke about tradesmen's entrances.)

165: Janet Pilgrim was very good, I remember.

alif will remember I'm a Canadian time capsule, but Tim Horton's is a phenomenon after my time, and I've never had any of their gravy on my fries.

I've heard 'regular' as meaning 'cream and sugar' in the NY region, but it's obsolete to the point of uselessness now -- like, it was still a reliable assumption when I was first ordering coffee in delis in the mid-80's, but people would misunderstand occasionally, and now everyone reacts like redfox, by asking what it means.

Perhaps there should be a line in wills for people to indicate whether they'd want to be masturbated to after death. Some might regard it as a touching tribute.

Oh, I love that idea! You should get to be able to specify which era of your life would be available for wanking over too.

You northeners are complicated. Down here, there's not even the possibility of a server adding cream & sugar to your coffee, even if you ask. Some places you can get an au lait, so you can get the cream, but you're still on your own for gettin the sugar in. Self-reliance - that's what we believe in.

Also, coffee with actual cream (I'm assuming 'cream' isn't being as an alternative term for milk) is rank. Foul. Disgusting.

People can fall either side of the with-milk/black divide. People have a personal preference, neither is freaky disgusting.

However, high-fat content cream or creamers or any other dairy product other than bog standard milk (or semi-skimmed milk) is just wrong. This may be all lactonormative, but fuck it. Sometimes one has to take a stand.

Also, coffee with actual cream (I'm assuming 'cream' isn't being as an alternative term for milk) is rank.

IME, 'cream' in the coffee context usually does mean milk. At least if I have anything to do with it.

I used to work in a place where one of our regular clients was a rep for Nestle. He insisted that the only way to drink coffee was with a high-fat content dairy product -- like cream.

My boss, who'd been converted by him, used to make coffee with condensed milk. Which was just sick.

any other dairy product other than bog standard milk (or semi-skimmed milk) is just wrong

This is crazy talk. Half and half is what goes in coffee, with whole milk being an acceptable replacement. Anything below whole milk starts turning coffee gray instead of brown, and that is an abomination in the eyes of the lord.

175 is correct. I am unable to detect a difference between coffee with 2% milk added to it and coffee with water added to it. Skim milk, of course, is indistinguishable from cloudy water even on its own, so the idea of adding that to coffee is ridiculous.

Everyone's wrong, wrong wrong! So wrong that when that terrible day arrives, I will refuse to wank to your images.

Half-and-half is OK, but whole cream is the real stuff. Non-fat milk is worse than nothing, it tastes chalky. Non-dairy creamer is only suitable for killing pests and stepping on heroin.

This has been a message of the Minnesota Dairy Council.

true dat, emerson.

My boss, who'd been converted by him, used to make coffee with condensed milk. Which was just sick.

Actually, this is really good. My normal coffee routine is whole milk, no sugar, which avoids both the wateryness of skim, and the wrongness of cream, while allowing the flavor of the coffee not to be masked by sweetness. But every so often, condensed milk in the coffee is really good -- it's like a dessert, or hot chocolate, or something. Not as a regular thing, but occasionally.

175 nails it. No, not to dead people. About the coffee, I mean.

After reading this thread, I'm sure I'm permanently dysfunctional. An au lait is coffee with steamed milk served in a huge mug. Condensed milk is often added to Vietnamese coffee. In all other circumstances, coffee should be served black, as the Lord intended it. And milk should be as skim as Rachel Wacholder's ass, preferably served in a giant, frosty glass with dessert.

179 sounds a bit like vietnamese iced coffee --- a dessert, as LB said.

With that caveat though, dairy products in coffee are an abomination.

Armsmasher has it correct, except for the final sentence. 1 or 2% is the only true dessert milk.

God, now I want Vietnamese coffee.

And milk should be as skim as Rachel Wacholder's ass

Guys, really? The nickname for this milk is "gray milk".

Also, I have it on good authority that today is someone's birthday.

Skim milk as a beverage is for members of death cults and the terminally ill.

163: Huh. Maybe Emerson has me pegged in 166. I'm atypically Canadian in that I haven't ordered coffee at Tim's all that much (don't like having something marketed to me as a "Canadian" institution that's owned by Wendy's -- though "double-double" does make sense to me), and less so in Toronto or Halifax. I guess I have to retract my besmirching of Geist.

Rachel Wacholder's ass, preferably served in a giant, frosty glass with dessert

Armsmasher nails it.

I have it on good authority that today is someone's birthday.

It's the Cat in the Hat's 50th birthday.

Armsmasher nails it.

Rachel Wacholder's ass?

I don't want milk that Armsmasher has nailed either. Send them away, both of them.

I guess I have to retract my besmirching of Geist.

Except, since that usage is specific to Tim's it's a bit misleading to say that people generally use "regular" coffee to mean "cream and sugar." That's a little like saying people use "tall" to mean "small" because Starbuck's does so.

Smasher is right about skim milk, though it's an acquired taste. I used to disdain anything more skim than 2%, now anything richer than skim tastes like (I imagine) the breast milk of a goat.

"anything richer than skim" s/b "milk"

But...but... goat milk is good! And less fatty than cow milk!

Pigeons, penguins, and fllamingos secrete milk for their young, but it's proven impractical to collect it for human consumption.

Say, did you guys know it takes a month to get an expedited passport?

The milk of human kindness? Skim milk.

Although it seems you can go to one of these places and get one quicker. By appointment only, though.

Teo, you can get it much more quickly than that. Once I retrieved a passport on the day before I was supposed to fly to Italy, after learning late that a grant had come through for the trip.

The people at the Teoville post office seem to be unaware of that option though.

They're still giving out passports?!?!?!? Why on earth would you want to leave America? What do you have to hide?

Also, I dispute Armsmasher's cynical and diluted view of human kindness.

197: I would greatly appreciate it if you could specify how you did that.

198: In fact, I went to the passport agency in Houston. Nothing close to Teoville?

The passport to leave is easy. Getting back into the country is the hard part.

Nothing is close to Teoville. Not just in this respect, but generally.

157: Whaaat? If different branches of a chain get their own ideas about how to serve things, that undermines the witless conformity that made America great. Communists.

Peet's has up to FIVE different cream and creamesque options here: half and half, whole, lowfat, nonfat and soy.

Also, anyone have any knowledge about how the new regulations about travel to Canada work?

That's a little like saying people use "tall" to mean "small" because Starbuck's does so.

Ohhh, I HATE Starbucks' made-up coffee terminology. No, I don't want a goddamn "grande," I want a MEDIUM.

165,168:You are talking my passions here. I have all the Playmates to 1976 on my harddrive, with the outtakes which are classier than what was printed.

Jan 58 Elizabeth Ann Roberts was 17, and got Hef in such big trouble he tended towards 25 yr olds for a decade.

Linda Gamble, Susie Scott, Kathy Douglas
Karen Thompson
Pamela Ann Gordon 1962 was wonderful, zaftig with a massive set of freckles
Marya Carter, Merissa Mathes slim brunettes
Jan Roberts wow platinum blonde with a flying-nun hairdo..just so sweet
Avis Kimble...still in 1962
1963 was a little weak
but I think 1964 & 1965 were the start of peak years.
1965:Sue Williams. Maria McBane, Alison Parks, and Dinah Willis were as beautiful women beautifully photographed as I have ever seen. And 65 had a half dozen other classics.

You have to have the outtakes, where it was just the photographer, his 35mm and the model in comfortable surroundings, playing with poses so the amateurs would get relaxed for the centerfold day. There is art there.

All the centerfolds suck.

Call your congressman, teo, they can get stuff through in a jiffy.

And what is all this about how your coffee is served? I thought all places gave you black coffee, and let you add cream and sugar yourself. You'd entrust this duty to someone else?

Q: Serious question: I have always had a thing for Anna Nicole Smith and frequently masturbated to her Playboy photos. I've always felt some guilt about masturbation to begin with, since I typically put my man milk in my coffee. Do you think I should drink my coffee black now that she has passed away?

My congresswoman's too busy pressuring US Attorneys.

2% milk is the one true milk. Whole milk is OK (but a bit 'heavy' for me).

Skimmed milk is indeed pointless grey water.

There's a passport agency in Denver. I could go during Spring Break. Do I know anyone in Denver?

206: There was some Times article a while back about people's small rebellions in their day, and one person mentioned that they refuse to call Starbucks drinks by the Starbucks size terminology. At first I thought this was asinine, but I've done it pretty much every time I've been to a Starbucks since then.

re: 213

Yeah, I understand that impulse. But I never go to Starbucks. Not for 'lefty anti-corporate' reasons -- I patronise other multinational chains. But because their coffee is rank. Of the four other 'chain' coffee shops in Oxford, all of them are massively better than Starbucks.

Hey ttaM, question for the UK. Is it your opinion (as a citizen thereof) that photographers are harassed by the police for snapping in public?

Bob: How can you get past the hairdos? I question your sanity.

Tamm also. Half and half is just barely permissible for the frail and annoyingly fastidious.

206 -- Just order it with normal words ("I want a medium coffee"), and everything'll be fine. Refuse to use their made-up words! If they repeat your order back to you in translated Starbuckese ("one grand-ay coffee, anything else?"), just repeat it again but with hand-gestures ("no, just a medium," [indicates the stack of cups]). The passive-aggressive pleasure of refusing to speak their language, and instead treating them as if they were speaking a 12-year-old's idea of Italian, will sustain you throughout the rest of your day.

At least, that's what I do.

On preview, I see that I'm half-pwned by 213.

I know we have a lot of Canadian-Americans here. Hasn't anyone gone between the two since January 23?

re: 215

There have been quite a few articles about it in the photographic press. My impression is it's largely confined to bits of London although over-zealous cops do it elsewhere too.

Also paedophilophobia is rampant here. Anyone with a camera pointed anywhere where there might be the smallest chance of kids runs the risk of being accused.

I have been stopped by the police taking photographs once, but it was on a 'secret' nuclear research site. Once I showed them my ID (I was temping there and just wanted to take some pictures because the buildings were cool on a 50s retro-futuristic way) they left me to it.

When they stopped you, did they give you a stop-and-search slip? Or present one to you? I read about S&Ss in a photography article, but it didn't explain what that process is. Fuck the police!

I totally order Starbuck's by small, medium, and large. When I eat fast food (rarely, these days, but much more frequently in the past), I order food by the names that other chains use--ordering a Filet o' Fish at Burger King, etc.

I guess that's a little dickish.

I do feel bad for the Starbuck's staff, a lot of whom are obviously well aware how nails-on-chalkboard pretentious the term "venti" sounds. It's like the poor guys at the now-defunct Blimpie's subs who were obviously required by policy to say "join us on the Blimpie way" instead of "what do you want on your sandwich?" My heart went out.

re: 220

No, they didn't search me. They just asked for ID and had a quick look at my camera -- it was an old film camera, not a digital. Then when they saw my security pass they drove off.

So I wasn't issued a stop and search.

A friend of mine, who is of Indian descent, gets stopped and searched a lot on public transport in London -- as a terrorist suspect. He has a nice collection of Stop and Search slips. Basically, if they stop and search you they have to give you a slip saying why, and with the date, time and who they were. So if you want to complain later or make a case for systematic harrassment, you can.

teo: I have not. I was close to the Soo this summer, and all the Canadians I met had horror stories.

Dinah 1 heres some Dinah Willis ...check out 6 in top row, in the cane chair. The bottom row is all good.

'smasher:

Incidentally, one of the reasons photographers are harassed in certain places is because the people in charge of those places want to exploit all the photographic revenue from images of those sites. So they will allow 'non-professional' cameras but not pro-level gear.

Also paedophilophobia is rampant here. Anyone with a camera pointed anywhere where there might be the smallest chance of kids runs the risk of being accused.

Oh dear lord, this happened to me once. You'd think that having a camera at a graduation ceremony would be uncontroversial. This ridiculous woman's interference actually prevented me from getting any shots of my sister as she got her diploma, not that they would have been good pictures from 200 feet away with no zoom lens anyway.

Once I was standing in line behind a guy in Starbucks who seemed really nervous. When it came his turn to order, it was clear why: he was relishing his opportunity to subvert the Starbucks paradigm by ordering a medium and staring intently at the barista, begging for a fight. This poor counterwoman obviously wasn't being paid enough to listen to this guy's harangue, and she mustered more personal strength than most people have and refused to roll her eyes. Do not appoint yourself to defend the grace notes of civilization against the horrid tin of vulgarify if you can't start the day without your Caramacchiato.

re: 227

Yeah. It's a ludicrous over-reaction. I've had odd looks -- and I am very careful not take photos of kids. Which is a shame, because sometimes there are just great street scenes that'd make great photos.

Also, anyone have any knowledge about how the new regulations about travel to Canada work?

By air or sea, a passport is required. By land, until 2008, you can still get through with the driver's license and birth certificate combination. After that, it's either passports or an automobile pass (they're still working out how they're doing this. It isn't popular for reasons of commerce.)

Shivbunny hasn't flown here since the 23rd, but they needed the passport for him to return on the 12th of Jan.

I went to Canada early last year. It was all routine but I almost had to postpone the trip because of the passport requirement.

226, that makes sense--it's that way at lots of tourist destinations. I was surprised that photographers would be singled out for any sort of treatment, especially in the name of security, given how many people carry around digital cameras. Don't you have graffiti artists to bother?

What if you fly there and drive back?

You'd think that having a camera at a graduation ceremony would be uncontroversial. This ridiculous woman's interference actually prevented me from getting any shots of my sister as she got her diploma, not that they would have been good pictures from 200 feet away with no zoom lens anyway.

This tends to happen when you walk around with no trousers, Ned.

You'll need the passport to enter Canada (so you can prove that you can leave), but you could technically return with your BC and driver's license.

re: 232

It's just the combination of paranoia, the paedophilophobia thing, wierd terrorist fears and commercial issues.

I suspect if you are a teenage japanese girl you won't get harrassed in the way that you would if you were a beardy middle aged guy carrying a dSLR with a 300mm lens.

I take photos a lot, in London and here, and I've never been stopped [except that one time on the nuclear site].

235: Hm, so that's out. I guess I'll have to get one if I'm going to go at all.

1) If you are a chocolate freak, like me, try putting chocolate whipped cream in your coffee, along with whatever else you normally use. I also like chocolate milk (even chocolate flavored soy milk). None of these gives coffee the appropriate color, however, so I still have to add my half-n-half. Chocolate+coffee=better than masturbation.

2) Isn't it a given that masturbation is more about the masturbator than the masturbatee? And therefore, unless you're a stalker/collector/obsessive, you may jerk off with impunity? When I fantasize for masturbatory purposes, I am the subject of the fantasy (is this because I'm a woman? and as such more accustomed to being sexually objectified?). I am sexier and prettier and more alluring in fantasy than in person, and it is that change that makes the sexual experience better/more exciting/possible. The masturbatee is only a prop, like a vibrator or dildo. Even less so, as they aren't even present. (Unless you have a blow-up doll of Anna Nicole, in which case, see "stalker" clause above.)

Do you guys imagine that you are studlier/more charming/more massively hung while masturbating to Cleopatra? Because if so, I'd say you're both subject and object of the masturbatory session, and everything else Cleopatra is just window dressing. With snake bracelets.

My parents have in the family photo album a polaroid picture of me that was almost certainly taken by a skeevy paedophiliac dude. He approached me at the playground, asked me whether he could take a picture, and then gave me the print. It's a weird picture (I'm posed with my hands crossed over my chest and I don't look comfortable), and it's pretty hilarious that my parents have kept it in with all the others.

the poor guys at the now-defunct Blimpie's subs who were obviously required by policy to say "join us on the Blimpie way"

The staff at Moe's are required to shout "Welcome to Moe's!" whenever someone walks in. How anyone could possibly think that humiliating your employees and irritating your customers makes good business sense is beyond me.

Why does he keep saying "MAN" in all caps like that?

Wait, are we not supposed to be beating off to Mary Todd Lincoln any more? I don't think I got the memo.

240: It drives me batshit crazy when they do that. Sometimes, it even drives me out the door.

It stands for "Missing Anna Nicole."

244: Ah yes, that's the convention for advice columns. Thanks -- I thought maybe the writer was some kind of ex-hippie or something.

He's responding to "Missing Anna Nicole": M.A.N.

237: It's probably worth it anyway. It's a lot easier to keep track of. Also, keep your nose clean. The U.S. has started banning Canadians with criminal offenses, and while it's technically nothing new, it's only recently that we've been able to enforce it, so now Canada is acting in kind.

This has lead to a lot of weird situations. So someone has travelled back and forth through Canada for years and years, and one day finds he's inadmissible for a drunk driving conviction 25 years previously. You can get a waiver, but it's a pain in the ass.

JM: At least he was heterosexual, and not a pervert. Little boys get molested by pervs and not by normal men.

I often make a powdered cocoa / coffee mix (strong coffee plus enough cocoa poweder to make a full cup of cocoa. I suppose that this means I've got a problem.

247: Yeah, I need to get one anyway, but I was wondering if I could just get it the regular way and do something else for this particular trip. The only non-passport option at this point would be to cancel my flight, fly into Teoville or someplace nearby, and drive to Canada. That would work, but the ticket's non-refundable and that's a lot of money to just give up on.

The best option seems to be to get an appointment at the Denver passport agency and spend a couple days driving up there for it. There are some cheap motels nearby, so it wouldn't be that expensive, but I'm a little upset about having to take time out of my Spring Break to do it.

There's not anything in Teo Homeville?

Nope. There aren't very many passport agencies.

Bummer.

Maybe you can get a cheap Southwest flight instead of driving.

248.--It's a great relief, isn't it?

Southwest apparently doesn't fly between Albuquerque and Denver. The cheapest flight I can find is $278 roundtrip on Frontier, which isn't bad but isn't worth it for one day.

2% milk is the one true milk. Whole milk is OK (but a bit 'heavy' for me).

Skimmed milk is indeed pointless grey water.

Preach it. Although whole isn't even close to too heavy for me. I could drink cream right from the carton.

Maria McBane also 1965

row 2 #4; row 3, #3 are nice.

I don't know, why, but I like the hairdos. What do I like about this stuff, this era, which is almost lost in American pinup photography but is still done in the East. There is a innocence, a special kind of self-conciousness that is not Betty Page's false bravado and wink-wink flirtiness, or the current in-your-face sluttiness and aggressive glamour.

Natural light, outdoor photography, and use of background; I read a movie review that said the director and cinematographer lacked "texture", the use of shadow, chiascuro, implication.

Lack of glamour, the attempt to at least project an illusion of the "girl-next-door" with tan-marks and minimal makeup. I think Playboy at its peak told their models to not try to be "sexy". It is all phony and fake, like vacumning nude, but it is different.

I would like this stuff without the nudity. It is like the Milton Greene photos of Marilyn...they just don't do it like that anymore

re: 257

I think there's something 'lost' in a lot of modern photography that was present in the 50s, 60s and early 70s. I don't mean that in some 'luddite' sense but just that there was an aesthetic present then that's largely gone now -- tastes have moved on. Art directors, magazine photo buyers, and advertisers seem to want something different.

That's not to say that there wasn't a lot of crap shot then or that there isn't a lot of good stuff being shot now, though. Just that the mainstream photo aesthetic is often different in ways that I don't (personally) like.

255: If you book two round trips on Southwest -- one ABQ-PHX, one PHX-DEN -- and you're booking far enough in advance to get the Internet-only fare, you can knock another $50 off that.

Still too much of a hassle, I think. Flying short distances like that always seems strange to me.

258: There is also of course the bodies, which are neither anorexic or toned yet healthy. Genetics I suppose can be unfair.

Emerson, as someone into about a thousand years of portrait art, 60s flips, beehives, and bouffants aren't going to bother me as someone who tries see the beauy in the renaissance style of shaving the eyebrows and front half of the head. Or bustles.

Just last night I was wondering whatever happened to the late 19th C fake kimono for casual house wear, which looks really comfortable and attractive. It looked like a upper middle class fashion, after the Lafcadio Hearn days, were they really silk? I also wonder about taffeta.

I think anything you would need to take more than one day to drive is not too short to fly.

One day up, one day back. It would take just as long to fly, especially with a layover.

Well, one day up, one day to wait around for your passport, one day back.

I had a silk kimono for casual house wear. It disintegrated, and I'd really like to get my hands on another one, this time in something a little less authentic and more washable.

I think bob should end every comment with "I also wonder about taffeta".

Wait, how long does it take? I may have to reconsider.

Though if it does take a while, driving would leave me with more flexibility.

Who doesn't wonder about taffeta?

Teo, this is the masturbation thread. Do you plan to masturbate in Canada, or on your way to Canada? Are you aware of the Canadian masturbation laws and the local masturbation customs? Is this trip masturbation tourism?

I'm not prying, I'm just giving you a chance to validate your presence on this thread. Off-topic posters can be banned, above all when the topic is masturbation.

"Though if it does take a while, driving would leave me with more flexibility."

Probably answers my question. As someone or another recently said, "One hand on the steering wheel, and the other somewhere else".

I will deal with the masturbation-related aspects of my trip once I figure out if I can even get into Canada.

Plus when driving you can pull off at any isolated roadside shoulder and masturbate, instead of being limited to the cramped airplane bathroom.

Téo, they'll probably mail you your passport; check, but usually you either bring a self-addressed priority mail thingy or they just charge you for it there. So if you can get an early AM flight into Denver, have an appointment at 1 or so, and fly home that evening, that's probably your cheapest option.

It would still be roughly twice the cost of gas and a motel room for one night, I think.

Teo, back in 2003, I was at a party where we all drunkenly decided to go to Bloomsday in Ireland, which was the next week, and I didn't have a passport. I used this passport expediter and got my passport in three days (overnighted my paperwork there and they same-day shipped it back in two days). You have to pay for rush shipping and an expediter fee, but it's probably still cheaper than traveling to one of the passport offices.

(Also, I found the name of the company I used thanks to my obsessive email retention habits. Woo OCD!)

Hmmm... That looks like just the ticket. Thanks, Becks.

When I got a replacement passport in DC with but 18 hours of notice, they actually made it that very day. They took my application, fed it to the passport gnomes in the back, and produced the passport while I had lunch and read a book.

I'm atypically Canadian in that I haven't ordered coffee at Tim's all that much (don't like having something marketed to me as a "Canadian" institution that's owned by Wendy's

No, it's typically Canadian to be bitchy about American-owned businesses operating in Canada.

On the milk/cream/coffee thing, you people are crazy. Skim milk is good for drinking (I admit it took me a little bit to get used to it, but hey, higher calcium and no cholesterol, sounds good to me). Whole milk is for kids. Half and half is good for coffee; cream is extra-specially good. Regular milk is for when you run out of half and half so you use the kids' milk. Skim milk is for when you're truly desperate and really, you'd be better off drinking it black or just stopping by the coffee joint on the way to the grocery store to get more half and half. "Creamer" is repulsive, being something like adding melted crisco to your coffee, and "non-dairy creamer," as Emerson says, is for cutting heroin with and nothing else.

Black coffee is good for them that like it, and Vietnamese or Thai coffee is yummy with spicy food. But other than that sweetened coffee is also for children. And flavored coffee is even more gross than non-dairy creamer, unless you can use it to cut heroin as well, which I wouldn't know.

And having other people add stuff to your coffee is gross; they usually get it wrong.

Skim milk is good for drinking

If you mean easier to drink than molasses or grain alcohol, then sure. But if you mean good by virtue of taste and texture, then I can only assume this is a side effect of whatever medications you are taking. Or perhaps you think Coors Light is good, too.

No, Coors Light is foul. But I find that as I get older, I tend to like my beverages to be beverage-like, which is to say, liquid. Obviously exceptions are made for things like milkshakes and cafe sua da, but I honestly have taught myself to prefer skim milk. The other stuff tastes too rich to me now.

My dad insists on having whole milk around "for the kids. Kids need the milkfat." That his youngest is a legal adult seems to escape him.

Right, I see myself trying to talk PK out of whole milk once he hits puberty, on cholesterol grounds.

Coors Light is foul

Yes, and for the same reason that skim milk is foul.

I don't mind 2%.

Yeah, I used to drink 2%, like I said, I trained myself to drink skim. I'm not requiring anyone else to do it.

Yes, and for the same reason that skim milk is foul.

Are we comparing lower alcohol content to lower fat content here? That can't be right; Sol has a lower alcohol content than Coors and manages to not taste like its secret ingredient was piped in from a public urinal.

I trained myself to drink skim

And look what happened! Now you don't even have a job!

Wait, you actually drink milk? As in, "mm, I'm going to drink a cold glass of milk now"?

Ew.

If PK had been raised on 2% he probably wouldn't want the whole milk. Also, he'd get more frequent haircuts.

"I honestly have taught myself to prefer skim milk."

The spurs of harsh disciplines have left their marks everywhere on B's docile body.

I go through a pint of whole milk in about a week, week and a half. I also usually keep a pint of heavy cream around the house---for cooking with, mostly, although I'm not above using the odd teaspoon in my coffee when I run out of milk.

"Cruel discipline" sounds better.

I go through about a half gallon of milk a week, coffee and cereal, mostly. In college I'd drink about two glasses of skim milk a day (it tastes like water.)

Why not simply drink water then?

That's what I do now. At the time I thought I needed the calcium.

289: I do, actually, blogging for SG and being abused by their commenters. So fun. Plus technically I'm still employed by the university. SO THERE.

290: JM, how much calcium do you get? Do you want to be a humpbacked little old lady who breaks a hip? Drink your milk, woman.

I have WAY above average bone density (I got a full-body scan at about 22 as part of a longitudinal women's health study), and all of my relatives were completely straight-backed into their eighties. I also eat lots of cheese and butter and cream.

The one elderly woman I know with severe, crippling osteoporosis actually grew up on a dairy farm: due to some genetic condition, she couldn't process the calcium. Weird the way that works out.

300!

I go through a pint of whole milk in about a week, week and a half.

That's crazy. I'll occasionally go through a gallon in a day or two.

Doesn't your cow get sore?

Who said anything about a cow?

A cow produces about two gallons a day. Generally the problem for city folk is finding some way to get rid of it all.

Might as well come clean, Matt. That crafty Standpipe is onto us.

a gallon in a day or two

Are you washing your car with the stuff or what?

Matt F's Cow

Liar! I'm giving it to him for free.

And

MOO!

Maybe Matt's just pregnant. I drank a gallon a day when I was gestating PK.

Ogged's just jealous because his brown tummy can't handle all of this milk talk.

309 - My mom drank a gallon of milk a day when she was gestating my brothers. Both are allergic to milk.

I'm giving it to him for free.

But at the end of the day, he keeps on coming home to me! Get your own milker, you... you cow!

Are you washing your car with the stuff or what?

Is ogged so compulsive that he washes his car every day?

311: That sucks. No apparently harmful effects on PK, though, except for his being the fattest baby evah.

I'm Scandinavian. We like our milk. We're also the only people in the world who can really drink the stuff.

By the miracle of lactose-free milk, I can have all the milk I want (I do wish Whole Foods would carry the full-fat version, however). But I go through a half-gallon every two weeks or so. And probably a gallon of soy milk every week.

Soy milk is okay in coffee and cereal, but it is not, as I have recently discovered, a good substitute for milk when one is making macaroni and cheese. Especially not vanilla soy milk.

Coors Light is foul

Yes, and for the same reason that skim milk is foul.

because of adolph and pete skim milk? damn, the fascists really are everywhere.

Soy milk would be better if it didn't taste like it was trying to be milk and failing.

I forgot how much I like lactose free milk until, for a few months last year, I went back to eating cold cereal for breakfast. I can't drink regular milk without getting sick, even if I take a bunch of pills for it.

I've always liked (sweetened, mainly) Chinese soy milks; other kinds of soy milk, not so much.

I weep unironic tears for the lactose intolerant. Milk is delicious.

I weep unironic tears for the lactose intolerant. Milk is delicious.

Thank you, sir. Pizza and ice-cream are (were) my favorite things to eat. No longer! I'm like eb, the stuff just kills me; I've even given up yummy breads that are made with milk.

Lactose tolerance is how we know God loves whitey best.

I can still manage pizza and ice cream with pills, though I don't have either all that often anymore. It's drinking milk straight that I can't handle. My sister is more tolerant than I am; somehow she must have gotten more of the Swiss genes.

This makes me wonder whether my honey, who drinks about as much milk as I do, might not also be somewhat lactose intolerant.

324: So chocolate milk is OK for brown people?

I can't remember the last time I drank milk. It's been years.

Soy milk (and other soy-based faux dairy products) are a big part of the reason I never went vegan. Soy lattes are a crime against nature.

326 -- milk and honey, always a popular combination.

I think soy milk is perfectly tasty. It's just that the word "milk" sets up false expectations; people shouldn't go in with an assumption that's going to be anything like dairy.

might not also be somewhat lactose intolerant

Many Iranians adopt the position I took with the Ex, lo those many years ago.

Me: Man, my stomach hurts all the time.
Ex: Maybe you're lactose intolerant.
Me: What?! I eat dairy all the time!

Lur logic is not the same as Western logic, but we should not conclude that it is simply wrong. It's just different. like non-Euclidean geometry.

Okay, I just submitted an order with the place Becks linked to and will try again at the post office tomorrow.

Some of my best friends are lactose.

"Skimmed milk is indeed pointless grey water."

Skimmed milk is awesome becasue of this. You can drink it as a water replacement. Whole milk is like drinking butter. And butter is alright on some potatoes or toast or something, but its just not drinkable in significant quantities.

Since skimmed is whats in my fridge, its what i use for tea. I can't imagine putting it in regular coffee, its so weak to begin with. Cappuccinos from time to time though are nice.

Oh and i drink like 1/3 gallon of skim a day. I drink it after meals; it cools after all the chile heat.

It also has more protein than water.

Soy milk is a ridiculous abomination. It's some kind of fake food made with soy and god only knows what--carregeenan? Corn syrup? "Food-derived stabilizers"? I'm sorry, but any food that has to be made in a factory should not be eaten.

"2) Isn't it a given that masturbation is more about the masturbator than the masturbatee? And therefore, unless you're a stalker/collector/obsessive, you may jerk off with impunity? When I fantasize for masturbatory purposes, I am the subject of the fantasy (is this because I'm a woman? and as such more accustomed to being sexually objectified?). I am sexier and prettier and more alluring in fantasy than in person, and it is that change that makes the sexual experience better/more exciting/possible. The masturbatee is only a prop, like a vibrator or dildo. Even less so, as they aren't even present. (Unless you have a blow-up doll of Anna Nicole, in which case, see "stalker" clause above.)

Do you guys imagine that you are studlier/more charming/more massively hung while masturbating to Cleopatra? Because if so, I'd say you're both subject and object of the masturbatory session, and everything else Cleopatra is just window dressing. With snake bracelets. "

This is like all so bizarre, to me. I don't exist in my fantasies. I might as well be a ghost.

This just really trips me out. Arousal is all about thinking abotu another person. Meditating on one'self is depressing; thinking abotu another person is social and connexion and joy.

And maybe they are just a prop, of sorts, but i always think fondly of things thath bring me pleasure, be them hot women or good ski runs or spiritualized lps.

I had a discussion once about lesbian porn once where the other guy said it didn't work for him because he couldn't place himself in a female body so he didn't like it. I just preferred seeing sex that involved bodies of the sort i like seeing.

Many people make soy milk at home, in fact. My friend says that her (Taiwanese) mother's homemade soy milk is delicious.

Huh, okay. Does it have carregeenan in it?

Doubtful. I bet you can get fresh soy milk in LA pretty easily, though, come to think of it.

Yes... but why?

Anyway, I stand corrected. I guess soy milk isn't actually an abomination. It's just weird.

339: Aren't most juices from concentrate made in a factory?

OTOH, soy makes kids gay. So there's that.

345 before 341

There are a lot of types of soy milk. Not that I left a comment in this thread suggesting that possibility or anything. Also.

345: But just is not *necessarily* made in a factory; one knows what it is. It's juice. From some kind of fruit or other.

But all right, fine. I now realize that soy "milk" is basically soy juice of some kind or other, I guess. I just thought it was one of those weirdo fake foods made for vegans and vegetarians, like soy "cheese" and "gardenburgers" and the like.

And obviously, fresh squeezed is better.

How are we defining factory, tho?

Whiskey or soy sauce takes a certain amount of technical skill, even if its sorta possible to do in the back shed. But you can make an auto in your back shed too.

I do get where B is coming from on the "fake foods" tip, though. I felt the same way until recently, when someone pointed out to me that the various mockmeats and their cousin products could be good for weaning carnivores away from the meat industry and all its horrors. Which seems like a pretty good argument.

Nevertheless, there's an all-mockmeat restaurant in my town where I still have to suppress the urge to scream "Soylent green is people!" at the top of my lungs.

You know what I mean. Food that has ingredients that have no known origin on the label, or that's an imitation of some other food: eggbeaters, "cheese product," koolaid, fat free cookies. Tofurkey. Crap like that. I mean, if you can't eat X, then eat something else. Fake X just bugs me.

We have a fabulous grocery store with amazing soy, tofu, and other vegetarian food. Who knew the eating healthy could be so delicious?

Right, yeah, mock meat. Ick. There's nothing wrong with tofu; eat that instead.

352: So, how much does viral marketing really pay, anyway?

B is pro-tofu but anti-soy milk? Aren't they both examples of the same sort of thing?

I find it hard to believe both tofu and soybean milk could come from the same plant. Maybe some magicalplant.

Soy milk is only "fake food for vegetarians" in a particular context. If you make or buy soy milk and do not treat it as a substitute for dairy milk but as a food of its own right, it is a good thing. This goes for most traditional forms of soy protein as well. (The sludgy sweet soy milk that is sold in boxes on the shelves of health food stores is not a traditional form of soy protein; neither is bac-o-bits.)

Soy milk is indeed an abomination. Mock meat is as well, for the most part. There's a little vegan restaurant in Salt Lake, Evergreen House, that does vegan Chinese food. I have to admit, it's pretty good.

Tofu is made out of soymilk + coagulant, in fact.

356 -- why is that hard to imagine? Tofu is basically the curd of soy milk -- like farmer cheese to milk. I have made tofu from soy milk and it doesn't seem that different to me. Tempeh on the other hand is more like gorgonzola than like farmer cheese, and I have a hard time imagining its production.

A magical food plant.

It may help to imagine 356 being said by a vegan Homer Simpson. Not that that's easy to imagine.

I have a limited imagination.

D'oh!

Tofu and soy milk are "foods in their own right", all right. They're the kind of stuff the guy eats out of a can marked "Food" in "Repo Man". Along with gruel they are the generic food-substances.

This plus hot soybean milk is good for/with breakfast. Even some white people have been known to like it.

Hell, if it's not clear to B. by now, she should stop the hating on the soy milk. It's fucking delicious. Not to be used as a substitute for milk in, say, coffee (should be you be a coffee-with-dairy drinker).

Soy milk smoothies are teh gOd. And you need the protein, right?

Truth, though, I minimize drinking soy milk because a) I could drink a lot of it; b) it's pretty high-fat; and c) I should get my soy protein in other forms anyway.

See, it's the "coagulant" part that I'm unconvinced about.

I don't find soy milk pleasant, but I really like tofu.

368: Rennet's a coagulant, too.

369: I find a glass of plain milk vile, but I love cheese -- seems fair enough.

Tofu is great. I'm with B on the rest of the fake meat stuff; there are so many excellent vegetarian dishes that I can't imagine going vegetarian and eating soy dogs.

365: Hey. No hating on the gruel. You trying to tell me this doesn't look delicious?

370.1: Okay, okay, uncle already.

Though vegetarian cheese is quite delicious when you can get it.

B, are you trying to sound ignorant?

372: Is that gruel, or poi?

There's a Hawaiian bbq here that just opened. I'm definitely planning on dragging the family at some point.

374: No, I'm being opinionated. But I'm quite willing to admit ignorance about soy milk, again, dear.

Ignorantly opinionated, dammit. Soy milk and tofu have been around for as long as there have been slanty-eyed people. "Made in a factory?" Nervous about "coagulants?" Oy effin vey.

If god had meant for us to drink soy milk, plants would have nipples.

375: Could be, but I think poi has a different consistency.

Do you plan to masturbate in Canada?

Hello, the Great White North, eh?

377: Tofu I knew about. Soy milk I didn't. And "coagulant" often means "artificial something or other."

Anyway, you're only picking on me because I'm a girl. Gswift hates soy milk too.

378: You don't say.

Those are poisonous.

Aren't they all.

Poisonous, yet addictive.

That really should be the candidate for the official fruit of Unfogged. If the fruit is native to Sweden, it's a go. Titties, but poisonous.

"Apple of Sodom"

"Large velvety leaves have purple veins and furry hair"

I think you're right, Cala.

379: Also a different color.

And "coagulant" often means "artificial something or other."

Be that as it may, it's tofu rather than soy milk that contains a coagulant.

Hey, B, have I mentioned you were wrong about soymilk? I think more of us should point out you were wrong about soymilk. Because you were wrong. You know. About the soymilk. I just think that needs pointing out.

Apparently I was wrong about soymilk.

Good thing it doesn't happen very often, otherwise the whole site would grind to a halt.

I wouldn't mind seeing that point reinforced.

And poi. Can't forget the poi.

I wouldn't mind having crullers plus soymilk breakfasts more readily available in my corner of town. Making that stuff myself is too much of a commitment.

I'm picturing 394 sung by Ray Davies.

BitchPhd: wrong about soymilk and poi, wrong for America.

I'm just not thinking the heartland cares about soymilk and poi. Well, they care about soy production, but not drinking the stuff.

398: Nope, sorry, it's Canada for the lot of you. No more koi pond. But it's March already, so only three more months of winter.

DS, for best results you have to link.

Hey kids, bitchphd is wrong about soy milk. She tells lies about soy milk. Lies, lies, lies.

Soy: not just a conjugation of a verb.

Now, estoy milk, that stuff spoils fast.

402 -- rather like a thread after conjugations-of-"to be" puns have been introduced.

399: Don't even say that. We're still waiting on a security clearance; without it, I'm the only one with a job.

Soy milk and tofu have been around for as long as there have been slanty-eyed people.

Actually, this is news to me. I had assumed that tofu had been around forever, but soy milk has always seemed like an intermediary step on its way to tofu rather than something voluntarily drunk for itself. I'm willing to be told I'm full of it, though.

403 -- Clownaesthesiolog IST ein spoilsport!

Now let's just see if everyone makes fun of Jackmormon.

404: Consider it unsaid. But the clearance should be pretty straightforward, shouldn't it? Time-consuming and anxiety-producing, but he must have had one before.

for best results you have to link.

Check. BitchPhd claims to have invented the soy bean, and also ice cream! Also, is stiff, robotic and out of touch with Real America!

I see you've been enjoying my trials and tribulations, Slack.

408: Yeeeah, but them was different times. A couple of the old guys at his job recently lost theirs, and I've had a few overdrafts while we were getting settled.

405: Supposedly, they were developed together. And they're not quite that old.

Wikipedia.

Soybean or "vegetable" milk is reputed to have been discovered and developed by Liu An of the Han Dynasty in China about 164 B.C. Liu An is also credited with the development of "Doufu" (soybean curd) in China which 900 years later spread to Japan where it is known as "tofu".

Next week, we can talk about coconut milk factories.

405 -- Hot soy milk and crullers is, as eb noted above, a popular dish in Teh East and I don't think it is a newfangled invention. I don't know of any other traditional uses for soy milk but I assume they must exist.

Liu An s/b abominable soy man

Good luck.

412: You had to look it up?!?!? Poser.

415: Thank you. I'll die if we have to go back.

You had to look it up?!?!?

What? I was politely answering JM's polite 405.

Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins.

Liu An is the Taoist philosopher Huai Nan Tzu. His head was cut off by his cousin, uncle or nephew, The Emperor of China.

And a good thing too.

B. is right about soy milk, though by now even she doesn't believe it.

I am rather happy to read that soy milk has traditionally been used more as an ingredient.

419 reminds me that I have another speech synthesis project due Monday that I haven't started yet.

421: Where did you read that?

Uh, Wikipedia?

[424 should be read with horror and trepidation, as though a professor were about to impugn the speaker's ancestry.]

I'm no literature scholar, but wikipedia doesn't make that claim. At least not explicitly that I could find. It does say this:

"Sweet" and "salty" soy milk are both traditional Chinese breakfast foods

I withdraw the "literature scholar" remark. I get the feeling no one else here grew up on this stuff.

B, you totally could have scored lefty points if you'd said that you disliked soy milk just when it's ripped from its cultural context, boxed up in industrial aseptic packaging, adulterated with "vanilla" flavor and used by vegans as a clumsy substitute for dairy products, because stupid whitey can't hear "milk" without thinking cow juice. But you didn't, so I will.

When I was vegetarian, I'd occasionally have the fake meat -- every once in a while I'd get a craving for sesame chicken or a hot dog, and without the fake meat there really is no vegetarian equivalent that scratches the itch. But by and large, my attitude was that if I wanted meat, I'd just go ahead and eat real meat rather than a carefully-crafted fake. So I did.

because stupid whitey can't hear "milk" without thinking cow juice.

Let us consider the wisdom of Lewis Black.

"There's no such thing as soy milk. It's soy juice. But they couldn't sell soy juice, so they called it soy milk. Because anytime you say soy juice, you actually...start to gag. Know how come I know there's no such thing as soy milk? Because there's no soy titty, is there?"

428

Is eminently sensible. And is still making me snort with amusement.

All one has to do is get off the idea of tofu, tempeh, soymilk and all the rest as *substitute* foods, and one can proceed to deal with them (or not, as you wish) in their own right.

Own the food in the same way that you own the language. Appropriate, and reject hijacking attempts.

I like kale, too.

Tempeh on the other hand is more like gorgonzola than like farmer cheese, and I have a hard time imagining its production.

Hmm. I think the appropriate soy analogy to gorgonzola is natto (of Iron Chef fame) — it's got a distinctly gorgonzola-y aroma (with just a hint of nail polish remover). I think tempeh is best compared to head cheese, in that it's a mashed-together abomination that's not at all appealing.

Tempeh can sorta suck, it's true, but you have to know how to treat it. In my view, it needs liquid, marinade. Diced/canned tomatoes with apppropriate herbs, garlic, onions, peppers, simmer on low. This can be quite delicious.

I wouldn't eat tempeh if I weren't vegetarian and seeking the protein.

There is a cookbook, The Book of Tempeh.

"Ripped from its cultural context, boxed up in industrial aseptic packaging, adulterated...."

That IS its cultural context, though. Those little cartoonish boxes with the straws coming out of them just scream "Taiwan!" to me.

Tempeh is fermented, which makes it less an abstract food product than tofu, soy milk, congee, gruel, etc. Tempeh. I found from *WIKI*, is Indonesian and not Chinese. (Miso is fermented too).

Fermentation ("spoilage") aften improves foods.

428 and 430 are right on all counts. The trouble is that there's a small but annoying minority of vegans who actually just don't like food, and therefore tolerate and get ripped for the fake stuff because they haven't the interest or imagination to make anything better.

Some meat eating friends once moved into a vegetarian household on the understanding that they would eat the same as everybody else. After a couple of weeks they called a house meeting and said, "We don't mind being vegetarian, but could we sometimes have some vegetables?"

Kale is awesome, like all brassicas.

What's even scarier than 434b is I used to know a vegan who pretty much only ate vegetables when eating out. What did she eat the rest of the time? I have no earthly idea.

What did she eat the rest of the time

Nutrients.

Kale is fantastic. I don't think I've tasted any dark greens that I haven't liked, though, so I'm probably a poor judge.

"the appropriate soy analogy to gorgonzola is natto (of Iron Chef Steve, Don't Eat It! fame)"

Know what's good? Gorgonzola and chocolate. I had these two foodstuffs as dessert at lunchtime today and I found them to be most pleasing.

436: Actually, "souls" is a more likely answer. We're never letting that particular friend date a vegan again.

428: Lately I'm going for "honest" rather than "lefty cred."

All one has to do is get off the idea of tofu, tempeh, soymilk and all the rest as *substitute* foods, and one can proceed to deal with them

This, however, exactly. I'm cool with that. Knowledge is power, dude.

"Ripped from its cultural context, boxed up in industrial aseptic packaging, adulterated...."

That IS its cultural context, though.

Also true. In the States, its cultural context is "irritating vegan fake food," unless you're familiar with Asian markets, in which case it's presumably "the food of home" or else "interesting and surprisingly palatable weird foreign thing."

"Ripped from its cultural context, boxed up in industrial aseptic packaging, adulterated...."

That IS its cultural context, though. Those little cartoonish boxes with the straws coming out of them just scream "Taiwan!" to me.

Oh, don't go ruin a good rant by pointing that out.

I'm going to go eat my TV dinner now. You know, the one that claims to be "infused with indigenous cultures." Also, "hope" and "the golden rule."

442b should be italicized.

Then it would be 442b.

No more masturbating to Jean Baudrillard.

No more masturbating to Pak Yong-sok.

No more masturbating to Luther Ingram.