The normalization of kink

[Gospel]

I usually just return the cart and carry my bags to the car. I'm sure there is a reason for it but coming from a house of 5 and never needing to buy more than I can carry in one visit it puzzles me to see some people with carts filled to the gills. I don't even understand the cases of water bottles (which makes sense to use the cart-to-car method) but in my house, we use two 5 gallon water dispensers where we replace the bottles after 30ish refiles at a local dispenser.

Edit: Well my house kinda cheats because we have two shoppers, my wife and myself.

We are still using this as a metaphor for waiting to beat off until we get home into a private place where our messes won't be bothersome, ya?

lol. sorry I derailed. My opinion is Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place.

 

[repoman]

I think that this is also partly an age thing or maybe male bonding or thrill seeking. Seeing how much discussion of crazy sex stuff can be talked about even if it not what you personally do or what you watch that you don't ever want to try. Talking about stuff from shock sites, like Two girls one cup, One Man One Jar, Hai2U, Lemon Party (referenced on 30 Rock), Arabian Goggles (Jon Stewart on Daily Show), Mr Hands, BME Pain Olympics, Meatspin and Tubgirl.

Maybe also goes with conversations about intense topics and references and not about more mundane things. Sort of like the coworker who only talks about what they heard about on MSNBC or Fox News the night before and you know nothing about them and they nothing about you. I am fairly guilty of this.

 

[Jarhyn]

I usually just return the cart and carry my bags to the car. I'm sure there is a reason for it but coming from a house of 5 and never needing to buy more than I can carry in one visit it puzzles me to see some people with carts filled to the gills. I don't even understand the cases of water bottles (which makes sense to use the cart-to-car method) but in my house, we use two 5 gallon water dispensers where we replace the bottles after 30ish refiles at a local dispenser.

Edit: Well my house kinda cheats because we have two shoppers, my wife and myself.

We are still using this as a metaphor for waiting to beat off until we get home into a private place where our messes won't be bothersome, ya?

lol. sorry I derailed. My opinion is Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place.

For me it's more... Dress as you like, be social as you will, but mind the "volume".

In a tangential fashion, I have a staff I carry around with me everywhere. It HAD until recently been decorated with a shiny metal chain and a fabulous, fluffy, shimmering turkey body feather, with various gems dangling off smaller chains. It was, in it's gentle and quiet rustling very loud.

I realized this the other day; It had been seen enough. The result was that I replaced the metal chain with a silk ribbon, rich and fine in its own way. The turkey feather is now a much smaller pair of parakeet feathers and some cat whiskers. All the gems are there, but jumped immediately to the ribbon without leads. It bespeaks much more richness and poshness now, but it is far less loud.

Even with a pretty stick, too much ostentatiousness is not really appreciated.

There are a lot of good reasons I guess, for even the more liberal among us to lend social pressure to keeping ones life from crescendoing into something others will find noxiously disruptive. This does not require sheltering the young from knowledge of themselves nor does it require suppression of the "abnormal". It just requires keeping our lives to be lived at respectable volumes.

 

[Keith&Co.]

This juxtaposition leads to a reality where actually doing it in front of others, given the personal and social complications surrounding it, is just rude in general and well deserving of taboo, at least in human societies.

Taken to a non-adult extreme, I have seen incel posters claiming that it should be illegal for couples to kiss in public, or hold hands. This is taken as a direct assault on incels, an attack based on 'we have a relationship and you never will,' to poke them in the eye.
Beyond extreme, i have seen a demand that men do not buy either diapers in public, or tampons, or condoms, as all are direct taunts for something they will never do.

Gotta admit, when i hold hands with my wife or my girlfriend in public, the militantly misogynistic manlets are probably the furthest thing from my mind. If they're not, they're close behind the core temperature of Pluto, but it's certainly not aimed at them.

 

[prideandfall]

Alrighty. On a serious note...

not directed at me, but been following this thread and find the topic interesting so just engaging for the sake of it.

Do you allow for any distinction between:
1) Not shaming people for having kinks
and
2) Not approving of sexual practices being a public topic
and
3) Not approving of kinks and uncommon sexual practices being taught to children as normal?

personally i do not, due to what you could call social equivalence.

basically my position is that there are a ton of utterly morally reprehensible things going on in society all the time that i have to put up with, and thus i have no issue at all with other people having things going on that they don't like.
if i had spawned, the prevalence of faith, organized religion, simpering idiocy, sexual and moral prudishness, and consumerism worship that goes on in every facet of american life would be as upsetting and abhorrent to me as 'sexual deviance' is to the cabal of pearl clutchers out there.
even absent having shat out a bowl full of crotch fruit, i'm bombarded with that filth every second of every day - i see no difference between someone having their dick out at work and my having to see people's desks covered in christian paraphernalia.

now of course there's the issue of social normalcy vs. subcultural deviance, so i acknowledge that the majority of people support these reprehensible ideas and so you could make an argument about the cultural validity of the mainstream.
however that's a practical difference, from a philosophical stance i find it rank hypocrisy for people to decry sexuality while rubbing their jesus bullshit in my face all the time.

I don't care if people have kinks, provided they're consenting adults. But I don't think they should be a part of public life, no more than I think a discussion of my favorite positions and the dildo I like best should be a part of public life. Furthermore, I don't think that any of that should be framed as 'normal' for children.

i would actually argue the opposite: sex and sexuality are both real and a constant and vibrant part of human life and so they SHOULD be normalized and children SHOULD be exposed to it regularly from an early age.
religion, however, is a farce that should be kept strictly in private and never spoken of or displayed in any way in civilized society.

I mean, do you really truly think that having an adult person in a costume that involves a large dildo is appropriate for an event aimed at young children?

i consider it more appropriate than for an adult person in a costume that teaches the fantasy that an all powerful sky fairy got mad because a mud man and his rib woman ate some fruit so we had to nail a cosmic space jew to a tree in order to pay off our sin mortgage.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I usually just return the cart and carry my bags to the car. I'm sure there is a reason for it but coming from a house of 5 and never needing to buy more than I can carry in one visit it puzzles me to see some people with carts filled to the gills. I don't even understand the cases of water bottles (which makes sense to use the cart-to-car method) but in my house, we use two 5 gallon water dispensers where we replace the bottles after 30ish refiles at a local dispenser.

Edit: Well my house kinda cheats because we have two shoppers, my wife and myself.

We are still using this as a metaphor for waiting to beat off until we get home into a private place where our messes won't be bothersome, ya?

lol. sorry I derailed. My opinion is Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place.

I guess i draw a distinction.

ACTING on a kink should be private. Or acting on a fetish. Or acting on vanilla sexual interests.

DISCUSSION of the kink, or the fetish, shouldn't automatically be a shameful thing. If we're going to educate kids, this is enjoyable, this may not be, this has risks, this has consequences, this is a traffic hazard in the parking lot, we should at least discuss the fact of fetishes, kinks. I mean, it's the same thing, they're going to feel urges and interests, and I feel we would be wrong to imply or directly state that there's something wrong with them for liking leather, seeking latex, getting turned on by a particular scene in a movie...

For example, unsuspecting ballooning fetishists coming across the scene in Willie Wonka when Violet Beauregarde inflates. Maybe a short unit on kinks in general would help them adjust to their reactions to the scenes without fearing they've gone crazy because short orange men sang a song about a purple girl.... Not saying they don't need SOME therapy, but maybe they could get better tailored help sooner.

 

[Gospel]

lol. sorry I derailed. My opinion is Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place.

For me it's more... Dress as you like, be social as you will, but mind the "volume".

In a tangential fashion, I have a staff I carry around with me everywhere. It HAD until recently been decorated with a shiny metal chain and a fabulous, fluffy, shimmering turkey body feather, with various gems dangling off smaller chains. It was, in it's gentle and quiet rustling very loud.

I realized this the other day; It had been seen enough. The result was that I replaced the metal chain with a silk ribbon, rich and fine in its own way. The turkey feather is now a much smaller pair of parakeet feathers and some cat whiskers. All the gems are there, but jumped immediately to the ribbon without leads. It bespeaks much more richness and poshness now, but it is far less loud.

Even with a pretty stick, too much ostentatiousness is not really appreciated.

There are a lot of good reasons I guess, for even the more liberal among us to lend social pressure to keeping ones life from crescendoing into something others will find noxiously disruptive. This does not require sheltering the young from knowledge of themselves nor does it require suppression of the "abnormal". It just requires keeping our lives to be lived at respectable volumes.

There may be more to it for you but the law as it stands essentially says Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place. Obscenity (verbal or otherwise) is protected speech depending on whether it's the appropriate time/place. Basically, it's at the discretion of all parties involved, from the perpetrator to the complainer, to law enforcement to the lawyers, judges, and so on. You and I have different opinions on what is the appropriate time and place as well as what is obscene and what isn't. If something crosses acceptable levels the options are to go through whatever channels are available by law. The line between obscene and not obscene is always on the move. Some obscenities like masturbating in public have had a president set through said channels and since the majority of us agree with it being outlawed it wasn't challenged. Public nudity has its time/place as well. Me going to a nude beach long dick style is acceptable while walking down Wallstreet buck naked is not. Private establishments have certain dress codes so if I go there dressed in a bunny outfit I'd better have been hired to do so or expect to get kicked out/if that outfit has a cutout showing my buttocks I should expect to be arrested. City, Counties, and so on have local laws that the locals have agreed on as well (if not local city or county official heads should float downstream). For example, if I want to have a topless parade in New Orleans I can for a modest buck depending on when/where but I'll be damned if Orange county Florida will ever let me have that Parade.

 

[Jarhyn]

This juxtaposition leads to a reality where actually doing it in front of others, given the personal and social complications surrounding it, is just rude in general and well deserving of taboo, at least in human societies.

Taken to a non-adult extreme, I have seen incel posters claiming that it should be illegal for couples to kiss in public, or hold hands. This is taken as a direct assault on incels, an attack based on 'we have a relationship and you never will,' to poke them in the eye.
Beyond extreme, i have seen a demand that men do not buy either diapers in public, or tampons, or condoms, as all are direct taunts for something they will never do.

Gotta admit, when i hold hands with my wife or my girlfriend in public, the militantly misogynistic manlets are probably the furthest thing from my mind. If they're not, they're close behind the core temperature of Pluto, but it's certainly not aimed at them.

Indeed. It's not that who I wish to protect, and we are all entitled to some basic level of loudness. This is one of those relative levels which we as a society need to figure out together, and how to keep people between the ditches, there.

Occasionally, I have been made aware of the fact others have had sex. Occasionally I have done this myself, though not often. It is OK to be loud on occasion, after all.

There is, however, a point which I will object to noxious loudness of such things, especially if done for the seeming express sake of being loud, and excessively so; or done out of ignorance which may be addressed usefully.

Say someone stands on a sidewalk and yells "I just got LAID!"

The first time, you cheer with him.

The second time, you cheer a little less strongly.

The third time, and you wonder if he should have gotten laid, perhaps jeer a bit.

The fourth time, you start pity whoever he got laid by, and tell him to shut up already.

After a half hour, you call a social worker.

If I see a couple making out on the train, I smile.

If I see the same couple making out on the train every time I commute, it gets tiring.

I am all for being permissive of all tunes, but the volume needs to be managed, ya?

 

[Trausti]

 

[Keith&Co.]

I am all for being permissive of all tunes, but the volume needs to be managed, ya?

Can't agree. Their loudness comes from their point of view. If he's that excited about getting laid, he's that excited. He shouldn't feel that he has to hide his joy because YOU have had enough of it.
But, you know, free speech is for goose AND gander. If you're tired of it, you're free to tell him. he can then decide if your opinion matters to him and his moment.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There may be more to it for you but the law as it stands essentially says Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place.

That's not even possible.
My kinks are internal reactions.

There's a News Radio episode where Dave reveals that he has a kink where he gets excited when his girlfriend is mad at him. So he teases Lisa until she's angry. She's having a fight. Anyone in the vicinity thinks they're having a fight. He's enjoying a kink. you can't possibly police that sort of thing.

You're conflating kinks with obscenity and while they may overlap, they're not the same.
Or kinks and porn. A lot of my porn isn't even PG or NSFW.

 

[TomC]

In my area, a place called Save a Lot has it so you have to use 25cents to get a kart and if you want your money back you must return the cart. When someone doesn't return it there is always some homeless person that does it to retrieve that quarter for their work.

Around here, the only place that does that is Aldi grocery store. I love it.

One of the cool things about that "put a quarter in" system is the ability to do a little favor for some total stranger. As someone walks up to rack of carts, as you're returning one, you can just hand it to them. Say "Have a nice day" or "pay it forward" or something. I regularly get them and give them that way.
It's one of my favorite things about Aldi's. Cheap smiles.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

I'm constantly informed that knowledge of sex harms children, but find the idea difficult to meaningfully credit. Especially since those who complain about it the loudest usually have an obvious axe to grind with sexual expresssions they find "deviant", while happily propagandizing heterosexual marriage and turning a merry blind eye to the "traditional" but exploitative heterosexual romances that have dominated popular culture since the invention of the novella. If I had a child, I'd be more worried about them reading and enjoying The Three Musketeers (for instance) than encountering a furry on the street. The furry is probably just standing there, and there'd be nothing to really say about them other than, "look at the funny person in the costume"; Dumas by contrast describes multiple rapes and murders, many by his protagonists. These, I would want to sit down and have a serious conversation with the kid about. Which is a more dangerous, dressing up like a fox every so often, or actually hurting other human beings?

I'm reminded of an elderly church friend of my mother's, who was absolutely convinced that my sister and I were doomed to a life of deviancy and cheap excess because my mother let my sis watch MTV videos back in the 80s. I later learned that she was repeatedly raped (my words, decidely not hers) by her husband throughout her long marriage, and thought that this was perfectly acceptable because you "owe" it to your husband even if you aren't willing, and/or he is drunk and getting violent. She was obviously traumatized by this and had a short and miserable life following his death, but never once admitted that he might have done anything wrong, only that she herself had failed to be a proper wife to him. Incidentally, she was also convinced that "God is the third partner in every Christian marriage" which sounds pretty damn kinky to me at the outset.

 

[Gospel]

There may be more to it for you but the law as it stands essentially says Kink should be kept private and if public it must be at the appropriate time/place.

That's not even possible.
My kinks are internal reactions.

There's a News Radio episode where Dave reveals that he has a kink where he gets excited when his girlfriend is mad at him. So he teases Lisa until she's angry. She's having a fight. Anyone in the vicinity thinks they're having a fight. He's enjoying a kink. you can't possibly police that sort of thing.

You're conflating kinks with obscenity and while they may overlap, they're not the same.
Or kinks and porn. A lot of my porn isn't even PG or NSFW.

Bruh, I don't consider porn a kink. By default, the law doesn't give a crap about what people do in private (granted it's not against the law). Kinks (whatever that may be for you) is only addressed by the law when it's brought to the attention of the law. As such, by default kinks (whatever that is to you) according to the law should be kept private and if in public be at the appropriate time and place. It's just the nature of how it all works.

Edit: Kink or Obseinity doesn't matter. The law may interpret one as the other for all we know it all depends on the case.

 

[Toni]

I find this whole thread abjectly insulting from at least one particular angle. Then, for she perfect and eternal oracle of the knowledge of Lake, the Lady of Lake, I suppose concessions must be made.

The fact is, people have a right to know how to operate their bodies sexually, and to do so as they see fit.

Interestingly, it is possible that we live in a world where animals can give consent. I don't think the reality has ever sufficiently happened, or been recognized, nor been operated properly so as to be truly acceptable even once in history. It is not something that is, at any rate, impossible.

It is still stupid, and probably emotionally reckless. If we don't teach that, how and why it is emotionally reckless, then we will see as many young folks fucking dogs. If we teach this perhaps we will see less.

People deserve to know how to safely stick things in their butts. Safe instruction on this must be universal, so that it is not determinable through who seeks information that information is sought.

People deserve to know that masturbation at a young-ish age IS normal, that most everyone does it, and that some.do not do it, and that is fine too.

Privacy of interest, the right to privacy is only possible through uniform public education.

Age Play, and related communities, are based around the idea that only adults may give consent, so they do live out their fantasies with adults. As Kieth points out, they do that while pretending otherwise.

Some cursory education in such things would prevent embarrassment, ensure privacy, and probably protect a lot of younger folks from grooming and predators in the space.

I would recommend such topics for college-level health and human development, though, for things like age-play.

Education on middle aged predators would be pretty useful at 17-18, however.

Education on the fact that masturbation is normal, and good sexual education in general, delays onset of sexual activity.

I think I'm going to watch this for a while though to see how apoplectic Emily gets over people liking things she doesn't like, and not them not accepting her stinky "but" in the middle of an otherwise pretty alright-thus-far OP.

You're either really naive or really fortunate if you think that no one needs education about predators until 17-18---or that predators are limited to middle age.

Or that masturbation is limited to the young??????

You took some liberties with that. And you lot accuse me of smoking too much?

You want to hear "we need to teach this by 17-18" and think "oh, they only want the entire subject taught then". It's not uncharitable it's dyscharitable.

There's a thing that happens with young gay folks, especially of disapproving parents, and it's really something that only needs to be in the "just before graduation" phase because it addresses that moment of opportunity. There are other lessons that could certainly be taught earlier: Namely that some adults and younger folks will not see their ability to manipulate or outright force a result as exactly the reason they shouldn't contemplate even trying for it, or finding an appropriate and consenting partner for whatever game they play at, namely one they don't have leverage over.

And yes, the need to teach the normalcy of masturbation is generally confined to the young, as that's when people start to feel shame over it, and if they don't have that issue when they are young, they won't have it when they are older. When they are older, they have their peers generally to discuss it with and beliefs that will not generally be swayed.

But, I guess here we are, the stinky "but" of things.

Yeah, that's not what I was saying. Sorry if I got you wrong, too.

Unfortunately, lots of kids discover there are pervs out there who are not middle aged, who don't look 'funny' or 'off' but who are perfectly nice looking, nice seeming people who want some really not nice things from kids too young to understand or consent. Sometimes they are kids who are only a few years older than the kids they want to 'teach.' I know you know this and I'm sorry if I conveyed it wrongly or in a way that seemed as though I really disagreed with you.

It's been a couple of days for me, here.

 

[Emily Lake]

So is sex-ed really the problem here or is the super-saturation of pornography that is available the problem? Sex-ed should cover the normal stuff. STDs, intercourse, safe sex. Then cover a few other things.

1) Don't be pressured, over any aspect of it. Girls, the testicles are extraordinarily sensitive to pain. If you need an out, they are literally just hanging there waiting to "get the message".
2) Porn... it is as realistic portrayal about sex as action movies are about real life. As an FYI, the woman... she's getting paid... to both have sex like that... and pretend she's having the best sex ever!
3) Anal sex. Girls, it is okay to say to the boys, 'you first'.
4) Spitting? WTF?! How in the hell did that become a thing?!

That's a pretty good summary of my position overall. Cover the anatomy of reproduction, the risks of STDs and pregnancy, safe sex practices (including, actually, how to safely do anal sex if that's your thing, and masturbation as an alternative).

Your item 2 is something I think is missing right now, at least as I've heard from my younger relatives and friends. I think there really needs to be some discussion about porn not being real life, not being realistic, and definitely not being a "how to" guide or a "what to expect" pamphlet.

 

[Emily Lake]

Education on middle aged predators would be pretty useful at 17-18, however.

I think that kids need to be taught about predators at a younger age, and be given the skills to recognize and disengage with them - especially online. Most predators aren't targeting the 17-18 range, they're targeting the 12-14 age. There's a lot of variety, some target younger than that. But the most common age range is at the advent of puberty, that's when kids are most malleable and most susceptible to predatory sexual grooming.

 

[Emily Lake]

You would hate San Francisco. Peeing, pooping, spitting up, masturbating and doing drugs on the sidewalks in downtown is all part of the culture. Shopping carts are the least of the problem.

Exactly why I don't live there, yes.

I've only sat in mystery liquids on the bus here in Minneapolis once. I still don't know if it was whisky or pissky. San Francisco, you make it sound like I'd be dodging jizz rain. You can keep it.

I'm generally not a fan of cities to begin with, I'm solidly suburban. Actually, if I could do my job from the middle of nowhere Montana, I totally would. I don't like crowds, I don't like strangers, and I don't like feeling hemmed in by tons of buildings. It creeps me out.

I went to San Francisco once for a professional conference. I'd always heard so much about the culture and the awesomeness... and I was severely let down. I was in downtown, and the entire place smelled of urine. I took a guided walking tour of the area, including some of Chinatown... and the number of half-clothed filthy drug-using people doing things in public that you shouldn't oughtta be doing in public was astonishing. The way our guide just blithely passed by as if that were no big deal was so weird to me.

 

[Emily Lake]

I can't help but laugh at the idea that most American's after accepting a 30% loss in investment just driving off the dealer's lot are concerned about shopping carts.

It's not about money for most of us, it's about having a nice thing despoiled, or making more unnecessary work for others and making common spaces less useful.

Easy there Governor. I get it. I wonder why every market (that uses carts) doesn't have a coin system. In my area, a place called Save a Lot has it so you have to use 25cents to get a kart and if you want your money back you must return the cart. When someone doesn't return it there is always some homeless person that does it to retrieve that quarter for their work.

This is a hell of a diversion from the OP here... but this is a brilliant idea.

 

[Emily Lake]

I guess the point is, I wouldn't care about public masturbation if it didn't leave sticky, biologically active messes behind, and assuming it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Creepy, threatening behavior isn't OK though no matter what someone is doing. There's nothing obscene, after all, about hands and necks and mouths and fingers, but you draw one across the other, followed by again the next across the next... At least to me, the exposure of a penis isn't the problem here.

I can't speak for everyone, but I suspect you'd get different responses to this from females than from males. It sucks for guys, but at the end of the day flashers and peeping toms are almost always men, and their victims are almost always women or girls. And given the difference in physical ability (not to mention risk of rape and pregnancy), what seems like not a big deal to you is likely to be viewed as a clear signal of danger by a lot of women.

Really, the wish I have to keep genitals private in public spaces owes to my desire for it to be socially unacceptable to apply any manner of leverage to see my own genitals in any public space. I do not want to be expected to do it "since it's not a big deal". It will always be a big deal to me. I wish to be afforded an expectation of respectful privacy, and so others must similarly be expected to play this game. This may be selfish of me, but it is a selfishness I may today revel in and so I shall.

Regarding the highlighted bit, that brings me back around to the OP. That's the sentiment I've heard from many younger people regarding sex, and particularly with respect to things that get addressed in sex-ad as 'no big deal'. That's why I end up stuck on the fence. On the one hand, I don't have any objection to most kinks when done between consenting adults, and I certainly don't think kids should be taught to feel ashamed or disgusted by most of them. But on the other hand, the way they seem to be approached more recently has led to a lot of young people feeling that they're expected to engage in anal sex and breath play and similar... because 'it's no big deal'.