I searched on “the aristocats!” with & without quotes and all I saw was about the 1970 Disney movie. What am I missing?
It’s The Aristocrats! with an R
Thanks!
Oh come on. 
Really, “projecting”? As an argument, that’s just sad.
I’m simply crediting them with having the teeniest bit of foresight. That if, maybe, one wanted to get ‘positive attention’, one wouldn’t, perhaps, engage in ‘doggie play’ in a public mall, but at a club specializing in such matters.
Ah yes, the “this is just like gays holding hands” argument. No, it isn’t. “Gays holding hands” are asserting their rights to behave exactly like others do in public. Walking someone on a leash isn’t in the same thing at all.
You are right, I can’t. You can’t know anything for sure about anyone’s motivations.
But I’d bet money on it.
Strange, we also have people in this very thread totally denying this doggie-walking thing is really “BDSM”. Why are you so sure it is? Haven’t you just finished saying that you can’t know for sure about what motivates them?
Why are you making assumptions here? If you are “allowed” to assume this is motivated by BDSM, why am I not “allowed” to assume that doing it in a public mall is motivated by a desire to seek attention? 
Because to my mind at least, both look quite obvious - that this is, in fact, BDSM, and that doing it in a public mall (rather than at a club, say) is done in order to attract public-type attention. Which, by its nature, they must know is going to be negative.
No one doubts that getting attention is a side-effect of their action, but that doesn’t make it their intention, which is what the term “attention-seeking” implies. (Not that there’s anything wrong with attention-seeking.)
One can make a reasonable inference from their choice of venue - that is, the most public place possible (a public mall).
If you had to actually bet money on it, what would you bet? (1) They actively wanted attention; or (2) they were playing walk-the-dog in a public mall for ‘some other intention’?
Remember, this isn’t a court of law - I care nothing for ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’, or for convicting them of anything.
It just amazes me that so many here are so invested in denying the obvious - namely, that a pair acting out a doggie fantasy in a public mall are quite clearly seeking attention.
I’m not shocked by the dog walker and his pooch, but I am shocked by some of the ambivalent attitudes many of you have toward people doing that sort of thing in public. I’d like to explore that attitude more, because I’m not sure whether you welcome the behavior with open arms, or don’t really care to see it in public, but accept it because you figure if we live a free society you’ve got to take the good with the bad.
Certainly this guy walking his mate is not a big concern calling for immediate laws to prevent it. But, as a hypothetical, let’s say a good percentage of fetishists decide to go public. Would you have a problem with that? I would, even as just an annoyance factor—I wouldn’t want to be stumbling backward over people who are heeled behind me at Sears.
Do you consider what the couple did to be a sexual fetish? I do. Sure, you can say it may be other things besides a sexual fetish, and it’s possible this couple doesn’t consider it to be (longshot), but still, it’s a sexual fetish in the eyes of most people—a type of BDMS. If I go to Toys R Us, put a tiny hat on my penis and put on a puppet show for the kids, and a cop tells me he’s going to arrest me for being obscene, I don’t think my argument, “no, officer, my intent was not to be obscene, It’s performance art” will convince him to uncuff me.
There is a large spectrum of expressions of affection, from holding hands, to intercourse. As a society we’ve accepted public displays to the left of the spectrum to be ok, and public displays to the right to be illegal. The question is, where do you place the mark with public sexual fetishism? I put it to the right of center and believe it should be illegal.
I agree classifying some fetishes would be difficult and making them all illegal would be difficult. So for this hypothetical let’s just say if it’s something that pops up on most of the top Porn sites, it’s sexual. Let’s also say, for the sake of this argument that sexual fetishes could easily be made illegal without further threatening your freedoms.
So, if walking people on leashes threatened to become common in public arenas, and we could easily make it illegal, would you want to do so? Why, or why not?
That was my first reaction. Seriously, mall floors are filthy.
That was my second reaction.
I do think that the “we’re not doing it for the attention” claim is dubious, and that the whole point of doing it in public is for the frisson of, well, doing it in public. Which doesn’t change my view on the second point above but does perhaps affect the opinion I have of them.
Of course not, as long as the individuals involved were appropriately clothed - obviously if the issue was about walking a naked person on a leash that’s a different issue.
But what’s your objection here? That the people involved get off on it? What if they get off on being dressed like a nurse - do we make nurse costumes illegal? What if they get excited by walking around encased head to toe in a squirrel costume? Can we make that illegal? What about people sitting quietly on benches in the mall watching attractive people of their preferred gender go by? Should we stop that? Where do we draw the line? How do we get into people’s heads and - most importantly - why would we want to?
Your example of penis puppetry in a toy store is not really germane here, since there is an obvious nudity element involved (something which is already illegal). But who is being harmed by these people acting like dogs? It’s not like they’re biting people, and bear in mind that “having to have an awkward conversation with my child” does not actually constitute a harm.
ETA; I forgot to address this:
Isn’t what you’re proposing already a threat to my “freedoms”? Just because it’s not a freedom I exercise doesn’t mean it’s one I want removed.
“Exactly like others do” in what way? At some level of abstraction, what they were doing could be the equivalent of holding hands.
“For the attention” seems a bit overloaded. I’m certainly on board with the idea that the prospect of attracting attention was not merely not a negative, but was a positive. I’m not as certain as some seem to be that they decided “let’s go to the mall with you on a leash to freak the mundanes!”
I agree with this. Anyone with values that are shared by a minority of the community – and often, people with values that are shared by a plurality or majority of the community, such as “not literally treating one’s partner as a dog” – will encounter things they have to expain to their children, including things that are directly contrary to their values. Is my girlfriend allowed to walk through Boro Park – or Monsey – in shorts and a sleeveless shirt?
I’m simply soliciting people’s opinion on where they draw the line as to what should be acceptable in public. You’ve alluded to where you draw the line and I’ve done the same. I think sexual fetishes should be considered obscene in public; you don’t.
As I said in my last post, it’s difficult to classify or quantify different fetishes and you give examples of someone dressing up like a nurse or a squirrel. Those are obviously on the mild side of the fetish spectrum and should not be classified as obscene in my opinion. I don’t think those fetishes show up on the top porn sites in and of themselves (maybe squirrels having sex with nurses are on those sites, I don’t know), so would be excluded in my hypothetical anyway.
But, since you go to the mild side of the fetish spectrum, I should be able to go to the harder core side. If walking a human is an accepted fetish to engage in in public, how about extending it a bit beyond that—while still staying legal with the current law? Is it ok to have the dog walker go more into the SM side of the equation—maybe tightening the choker till she nearly passes out, or smacking her on the nose hard with a newspaper till she bleeds? Regardless of whether the girl enjoys it, is that still something you’re ok seeing in public? And, what about the other fetishes I mentioned before, like spit or vomit—I don’t think they’re illegal either, but do you draw the line before or after them?
I don’t want to look at sexual fetishes in public for the same reason I don’t want to look at people having sex in public, or even looking at nude people in the mall. Do you think nudity should be allowed in the mall? I like nudity, but not in public and the law agrees. How is that more obscene than the harder core fetishes? Maybe you think public nudity should not be illegal, but how about public intercourse? Do you agree that that should be illegal? Using your same argument, how does looking at people in public having sex really hurt you? How does anything obscene really harm you? It doesn’t, but I still assume most people want obscene things to remain illegal. I don’t know why. Maybe at its core, we instinctually feel public obscenity is simply base and course and something we as a society should rise above.
You ask “where do we draw the line?” Yes, that’s the question I’m asking. Where? We already have lines, so it’s not like they’re impossible to draw. Right now we draw it somewhere after kissing in public and before nudity and sex, the line can be drawn anywhere in between that society chooses to draw it. Right now, there appears to be no law that includes public fetishes, but maybe that’s because it’s never been something people have done much in public before. And, they still don’t, which is why I said it’s not an immediate concern. My hypothetical merely extends it to being something more common, to learn where you draw the line, if anywhere at all.
I’m really not okay seeing people do that with actual dogs.
In a way this question is the flipside of the idea that it’s difficult to not dress sexy in public because almost any way of presenting oneself to the world is sexy to someone. So “no one should dress sexy in public” is unenforceably (and impractically) broad.
I don’t really care. What they’re doing has zero impact on me, and I’d look at them and be a little bemused, and continue on with my life. There’s nothing inherently sexual in what they’re doing so that doesn’t bother me at all. Unless they were doing something else that’s actually a disturbance or actually explicit like yelling, barking loudly, arguing loudly, rubbing themselves sexually, stripping, moaning, hitting each other, etc, I really don’t give a shit. They can do what they want.
Oh, come on. There were surely lots of places they could have done their leash bit in a public setting, but would have encountered way fewer people than at a shopping mall.
So I have to infer that getting attention was part of what they were seeking.
“At some level of abstraction” a human head is like a bowling ball is like the Moon.
In this particular case, the whole point of using the “gays holding hands” analogy is to invoke the reason gays held hands in a time or place that such was disapproved of in public: that they were pointing out the hypocrisy of the disaprovers - who were only ‘shocked, shocked I say’ because of their own homophobia (concious or not); they would not express similar disapproval of hetero couples holding hands.
The gays holding hands were making an argument for normalicy and inclusion - you (straight folks) hold hands; so we should be allowed to, in peace and without tuttery. It’s a ‘we are just like you’ claim.
Now, I find it very hard to see a reasonable argument that being walked like a dog on a leash can possibly be a ‘we are just like you’ sorta claim.
On the contrary, I simply cannot see how anyone possessing any awareness of public sentiment whatsoever could possibly for even a second think that a man walking a woman like a dog on a spiked collar in public would be at all likely to generate positive attention.
In what universe does that happen?
I myself do not think such behaviour ought to be illegal. I do think it is tacky and tasteless to walk one’s partner on a leash in a public setting, though, with this caveat: there may be specific venues in which it is appropriate.
Yes, that seems to be the consensus and I can’t argue with that.
But, just out of curiosity, since no one has replied to it yet, is there anywhere along the sexual fetish spectrum that you would care? You’re aware of the more extreme fetishes some people have, I’m sure. Are there any that you would want to be banned if people started doing them in public? What if it did have an impact on you or someone you cared about, yet, under current law, isn’t specifically illegal?
Let’s take the common, but not overly over-the-top spit fetish. Like walking a human on a leash, I don’t believe there is anything illegal about spitting in someone else’s mouth for gratification, but if that became something done commonly in public, I’d want a law enacted to make it illegal. That’s an act that can reasonably be expected to make a non-zero percentage of the population sick to their stomachs just to view. Why should we accept giving someone the right to make fellow citizens nauseous by their actions?
Sure, but if the point was to do what they want to do, and they wanted to go to the mall and window-shop that day, why would they go anywhere else or change their plans?
Seriously, if the mindset is truly “I don’t care what someone else will think of me” then there would be no thought to going somewhere that will have less people. That doesn’t enter the equation if the mindset is true. So going to the mall because you feel like going to the mall is exactly what would result from that mindset. Or going to the dog park. Or going for ice cream. Whatever you felt like is what you would do. So you can’t infer 100% that because they were out in public and went someplace with people, they must have wanted a specific type of attention.
I realize this is unlikely, but I am not a fan of talking like you absolutely know what someone else was thinking or feeling unless you asked them and they told you.
I can’t tell what is sexual and what isn’t unless we’ve got moaning or rubbing or whatever else involved. If someone wants to sit and vigorously lick the inside of their partner’s nose in public, so long as they’re not visibly or audibly showing signs of sexual excitement I don’t care. To me the line is pretty clear. You got a boner? Nope. You rubbing erogenous zones? Nope. You gasping or moaning in obviously sexual ways? Nope. Anything else? Yeah, whatever. If you have a problem, use your voice and talk to the person. Private property can enforce what they want unless it’s a protected class, obviously. But nobody has a defined freedom against being grossed out. And if my grandma’s grossed out by something that isn’t illegal, well, grandma can avert her eyes like an adult and then write her representative about it.
So you’re okay looking at nudity (and porn, I presume) in private. A practice commonly associate with the exchange of various bodily fluids between strangers. I presume that doesn’t make you nauseous. But you’re not okay with viewing something far more benign when you know everyone else sees you looking?
Who are you trying to protect then when you want to establish these laws? Just the children?
What if you see this kind of behaviour in an average bar/club where everyone is an adult but not necessarily there to engage in that kind of activity?
Because “Ew, GROSS!” is quite literally the single stupidest standard to use when determining the legality of a given action?