Thank you Olives, - my sentiments exactly. My group of friends is very much sharing in this way - tasting each others drinks, having a bite of what they’re eating etc. Unless one of us is sick - in which case it’s polite not to parttake, there’s no ewww factor for me there.
In the case of people not as close as the above, use the individual serving plates, or just spoon it across the food to be dipped.
Double-dipping–ugh! Yeah, I kiss my hubby on the mouth a-plenty, that does not mean that I want his spit and chewed particles in my FOOD. I’m even worse about drinks–even the slightest chance of backwash makes me gag. And I wouldn’t want to kiss DH right after he eats, either–yerk. I want him to brush that stuff out first. I also prefer to kiss after my own mouth is (reasonably) clean as well.
After all, if a woman gives a guy a BJ and is a swallower, it doesn’t necessarily follow that she wouldn’t mind this same man jacking off into her guacamole.
I’m in the camp of those who don’t mind it, but I don’t do it out of regard for others’ ick-factor. I share drinks, forks, even a toothbrush now and then with my husband or my kids, and it doesn’t bother me. But I do acknowledge that others are more squicked out than I am, so I try to respect that.
Now that you mention it, it occurs to me that one reason some people may object to double dipping (or sharing drinks, or sharing silverware), whether they realize it or not, is that it presumes an unwarranted degree of intimacy, kind of like touching a person in an overly familiar way. In other words, you react to that stranger or casual acquaintance sharing his mouth germs with you as if he’d put his arm around your waist.
By the way, I just posted a GQ thread in the hope that somebody might be able to provide the straight dope about any possibl health risks involved.
That’s interesting. I might note at this point that my friends and I are also the type of people who do theatre and RHPS and are thus completely comfortable with random invasions of other people’s boundaries. It’s practically a form of both communication and art for us. We have no real personal bubble with each other most of the time. You probably have it exactly there.
To my way of thinking, kissing, and other…hmmmmm… “sharing activities” are consensual. Double dipping is like being forced to share someone’s saliva, in my opinion.
To some, this peeve may seem childish, and of course, I am not likely to die as a result. I guess I just thought that in this day and age with a hyper-consciousness about cleanliness people would be a bit more considerate.
I do agree, however, that it does depend on the level of intimacy one shares with another whether or not one would be comfy with the double dipping.
I would bet that should any one here be asked to sit opposite a total stranger who had poor health, had poor hygiene, to share a meal, complete with required double dipping, it would not be something one would want to do. :eek:
Thanks for all the great responses! Glad to know I was not alone!
I’ll double-dip with family, but don’t do it with anyone else. I agree that the practice is harmless if no one is ill, but it is about aesthetics as much as anything else. A lot of manners (such as don’t chew with your mouth open) are like that.
Sometimes argument by logical extension (ie, you’d kiss someone, so why not double dip with them) is valid, sometimes not. I hope this doesn’t constitute a small hijack, but I am reminded of fruit bat consumption in Micronesia. (WARNING: READ NO FURTHER IF YOU ARE EASILY GROSSED OUT.) People would consume the entire fruit bat without gutting it first, the theory being “fruit bats live in the trees and only eat fruit, so you can eat the whole thing.”
My response to that failed attempt at logic was “my husband doesn’t eat anything I wouldn’t eat, but I still wouldn’t want to consume him, period, and I certainly wouldn’t want to eat the contents of his intestines.”
Oh, I’m sorry. That was really gross and nasty, wasn’t it?
Well, of course. If you construct a specific scenario that’s really horrible, then it’d be really horrible. But in an ordinary average typical situation, what most people are "ewww"ing to seems to be a baseless and hypocritical fear of their own making.
You people are going to get us all killed when the pandemic starts to spread (I’m only partially kidding). Thanks to my childish germophobe ways, I get hardly any colds and extremely few flues.
(I should clarify that I’m not just talking about the double-dipping, but the cavalier attitude a lot of people in this thread have to preventing the spread of contagious disease, of which we have plenty in our modern society.)
ETA: CairoCarol, I think I saw a show in which they were preparing fruit bats stew - it was the vilest thing I’ve ever seen on tv.
Damn I hate catching flues - it hurts if you get it wrong :smack:
You are so wrong. The survivors will be those of us who preloaded their immune systems by exposing it to any and everything going. The ultra-hygenic will succumb first due to underdeveloped immune systems. 
Si
Ah, I found this old thread. May be an interesting read for those interested in this current thread.
** Warning, zombie **
ETA: why are all these ads questioning my sexual preference?