And as you’ve been told many times- people openly admitted they were making joke responses to the poll. Not all the answers are valid and you have no idea how many of them were. No-one does.
Of course the responses are self selected, that’s my point, every post to every thread on this board is voluntary (therefore, self-selected). Who has said any opinion was representative of anything? I’ve just noted that your poll attracted more overall negative attention than other polls with a similar theme.
this might be a GQ question but when we were kids our sister said the old english standards of length were based on the length of the king’s arm, his nose, his hand, and possibly his penis.
I never really saw the creepy aspect of the Nipple Poll myself, though I’m not surprised that some did. I can see what may have motivated Fear Itself, if I may be so bold as to speculate.
I’ve seen a few people mention the not-so-surprising fact that men are very visual. And other people (maybe the same people) have mentioned that men may find themselves thinking “I wonder what she looks like naked”, or just fantasizing about boobs in general. This is all considered normal and expected.
Well, to visualize something, you’ve got to paint the picture using real parameters. You visualize a certain size, color, shape, etc. When imagined from scratch, these parameters are just created out of the ether, or from a collection of memories. But FI was likely trying to see how that sort of mental imagery matches up with the “average”, or perhaps how it captured the range of the subject.
Clinical, and oddly precise? Sure. But how else do you gather that data? Asking for pictures should be considered even more creepy, though now I’m not so sure it would have been perceived that way on this board. The request for absolute measurements that would require calipers and Pantone swatches might come off as strange, but it’s the only way to ensure everyone’s answering uniformly. If you left the choices as “large, medium, or small”, it leaves a lot of room for subjectivity. One person’s “large” is another person’s “Oh, that’s nothing!”
Look, it’s not my style. I just use a long history of looking at porn to inform my ideas of what’s typical, and how things may range. I’m personally not interested in forming a set of nipple parameter bell curves. But if you are the type who is inclined to ask for objective descriptions of things that you can’t see…being explicit and precise isn’t a sin. It’s what a good scientist would do.
If there’s one certainty in life, it’s that anything you can name is found erotic by someone. So maybe “playing doctor” has morphed into “playing medical researcher” for a handful of people. It’s not that big a stretch, especially when you consider when the world also contains furries and folks who get off on scat play.
Saying “it’s a matter of opinion” is a tautology. It’s merely pointing out the obvious. It’s says nothing. It adds nothing. It supports no argument or conclusion. Everything about sexuality, attractiveness, etc., is a matter of opinion. And the same goes for social norms or whether something is “creepy” or not.
When someone says, “That is creepy,” what he means is “It is my opinion that that is creepy.” And you reply with “That’s a matter of opinion”?
But you made an absolute statement on something that you say “obviously” is a matter of opinion. It seemed you needed to have that fact brought to your attention.
Maybe you were speaking about your own preferences, and not making a blanket statement that should apply to Fear Itself. But if that’s the case, then your opinion isn’t really pertinent to the discussion.
If you think the debate is over whether there is an objective, scientific definition of “creepy” and whether the nipple poll meets that definition under such rigorous criteria, then you’ve completely missed the point.
If you think the debate is over whether there is a non-opinion-based definition of “normal sexuality” and whether the nipple poll meets that definition, then you’ve completely missed the point.
I think that people objected to the poll for one of 2 reasons (as stated by the objectors):
The poll was not appropriate for the SDMB - it crossed the boundaries of “normal”
The poll represents a pattern of thinking about sex that is not “normal”
I disagreed with #1 based on examples of other threads - and based on the results of the current poll in IMHO, it would appear that there is not nearly the consensus as some were claiming - it’s almost even
I disagreed with #2 based on my own experiences with my brain, others males talking about sex, others internet viewing habits and the internet in general. My opinion is that within the wide variety of sexual interests and manifestations of those interests, the poll fell within “normal”.
These were the points I was debating with other posters, and they seemed to be engaging in the debate. Did I miss “the” point?
It’s not the pattern of thinking that’s not “normal” it’s the reveal of that thought pattern that is not “normal”.
Look, if I’m riding a bus, and see some hot babe sit down nearby, I may think to myself “Mother of God, that ass his HOT!”. That’s normal.
Nudging the guy sitting next to me and asking “Excuse me, do you think that chick’s ass is hot? I’m trying to assess my personal preferences to that of society as a whole. One second, let me get my notebook out to properly log your responses. On a scale of 1-10, what do you think of the overall shape of her ass?” Not normal. Even if he was thinking “Daaaaaamn!” when she sat down, he’s now thinking “What’s this dude’s problem?”
Understood, that’s the “boundary” part of this. Some people think it’s just the context, the fact that it’s on the SDMB that’s a problem, not the fact that the thoughts exist.
Others think that even the thought patterns are not “normal”, regardless of whether the social situation allows them or not (like maybe in an “innermost sex-thoughts” forum).
There is definitely more than 1 camp for the objectors.
At this point, I’m over the original thread, because while it came across as odd it wasn’t that big a deal and it fizzled out quickly, with as far as I can tell no serious responses. It’s the sort of thing that could have and should have just died a quick death and been forgotten.
I’m now actually more puzzled by the small cadre of people (including the author of the first thread) who are so intent on trying to argue everyone else into agreeing that there was nothing odd or creepy about the thread in the first place. It’s like they’re convinced that they can use their immense powers of what I assume they imagine to be rationality to “disprove” people’s emotional responses. I’m starting to picture neckbeards being stroked as their owners nod in satisfaction at being above the “mundanes” and their “social norms”.
Read more carefully and you’ll note that the person you’re replying to thought that discretely admiring a shapely ass was normal, which I don’t think anyone here, of any gender, would disagree with.
They said that conducting such a survey was out of line; they didn’t specify whether or not they thought it was normal for someone to want to conduct such a survey. I maintain that that, in itself, is not typical for how men think about sex.
To the contrary, I have, from the beginning, agreed that there are some people who found my poll offensive, and that they are entitled to their opinion.
However, there is much smaller number of people for whom that is not acceptable, and are insisting that I submit to their judgement that the poll is evidence that I am a bad person, that I am a creepy pervert who masturbates to the Dope, and may possibly be a serial killer. Unless I perform some sort of public act of contrition and submit to their chastening while saying, “Thank you sir, may I have another!”, I must be a social misfit with deep seated mental issues.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. and I have never tried to talk anyone out of their position if they just have a gut feeling about the poll. But I am also entitled to my opinion, even if it differs from yours. To some, that is apparently offensive in and of itself; opinions that contradict theirs must not be left unchallenged, and there is no depth of personal abuse they will not plumb in order to blot out any dissent to their rigid view of social norms. That is what I reject, and that is the only reason I have continued to post here. I have no illusion that those people will change their minds. My only purpose is to allow them to reveal their intolerance of any opinion that threatens their fragile mindset.
God damn are you whiny. Quit exaggerating, no one demanded anything of the sort from you, but you’re making it more and more clear that there is something wrong with you in that you can’t just let it go and accept that your poll wasn’t a good idea.
Your poll got, as far as I can tell, zero serious responses. Over 70% of the respondents clicked the “I’m a man” choice, and looking at the other numbers, it’s not possible for your poll questions to have been answered honestly; obviously, most of the “data” were just random clicks from people who were men or clicked the “I’m a man” box as a joke. (As most of the people who indicated they had responded said.) Really, based on the responses in your thread, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything closer to consensus on the internet.
“Personal abuse”? Accept it, neckbeard. People didn’t like your poll. You could have just let the issue drop rather than throwing this continuing tantrum. Much less the even more pathetic part where you tried, in the face of every bit of evidence, to pretend like there was some possibility that a lot of women had read your poll and responded seriously.
And this is pretty much openly confirming my speculations about neckbeards preening in delight at being too “smart” for social norms.