Male.
Reach out and take it? Not Rude. At least not if you don’t snatch it out of their hands or continue the attempt if they move it away from you (a sign that they don’t want to give it to you).
OTOH, if you hold out your hand and ask for it and the other party continues to describe it while refusing to let you see it, THAT would be rude. (As in, why are you continuing to describe it instead of just letting me see it?)
What she said. 
Sometimes I have a whole presentation in mind when sharing something with someone and would be disappointed if they interrupt it to take the DVD before i’m done. But that’s my problem.
So no, I don’t consider it rude. And I’m female.
Yes, your poll was rude.
Not rude.
Female.
Not rude. Might be a pattern of their personality, but not really rude.
I’m female.
Not rude. Female.
Not rude. Chick.
I’d like to change my answer. I originally said I’d consider it kind of rude. Let’s just drop the ‘kind of’ and consider it rude. I’m standing there with the DVD case in my hand, my eyes are on the case, and I’m describing it to you (probably reading a line or two from the back). While I’m in mid sentence, you take the case out of my hand. To me, that’s rude.
On the other hand, if I’m looking you in the eye and talking about the DVD, while holding it more or less in front of me, and you vaguely reach out, indicating you want to see the thing, and I put the case in your hand, and then you glance it at while I continue talking about the movie, well, yeah, sure. No problem.
Male
FTR, my answers are
In fact, in the case I described, I was the “offending party”, i.e. I was the one who reached out to indicate that I’d like to take a look at the DVD while the person was talking.
The DVD was about some exercise program, and the person describing it was not reading from the DVD case, she was just talking about the exercise program.
Her point of view is that while she was talking I should have devoted 100.0% of my attention to what she was saying.
My point of view is that I can do some other tasks (like looking at the DVD case) and still pay attention to what she is saying.
Another vote for what Trunk said. I lean pretty heavily towards it not being rude, though. If the box was literally snatched, and there was no joking intended, then that would be rude, but in just about any other way I can interpret the OP, I don’t see a problem.
Male, btw.
Not rude. Female, here.
Is she a friend or a girlfriend or what? This whole story screams “high maintainence” to me. I need ALL of your attention, ALL of the time. And I still dont’ think you were rude.
Not rude. Female.
What’s with your girl friend/girlfriend? Does she speak so softly that you need to watch her lips move in order to understand what she is saying? Geez.
That’s what it sounds like to me, too. You might want to consider having a chat with her, and mentioning how you still listen to her when you are looking at something else, and make sure you make little noises of attention if you aren’t looking right at her. My husband and I had to have a discussion like that when we started dating, because I sing or hum all the time, and he didn’t realize that I was still paying attention to him while I was humming.
If she’s that much of a low talker, be sure to pay close attention. Otherwise you’ll end up in a puffy shirt.
Most people are amazingly bad at reading out loud. They speak in a monotone, overemphasize or emphasize the wrong stuff. And if they run into an unfamiliar word, oh. My. God.
From Polerius’ last post I see he ran into one of those single-tasking, “look at me while I’m talking to you, youngster!” women. Yuck! You know, the whole stereotype about women being multitasking and men singletasking can be a shortcut (I’m guilty of saying “hey, I’m a chick, I can do several things at the same time”) but also a pain in the ass… men don’t take offense at it, but if you “accuse” a woman of not being able to do two things at the same time you better have a good lawyer.
That’s certainly a large part of it, yes. But there’s also the business of wanting to skip over certain bits, or pause to consider others, and so on. I usually read very quickly, but sometimes stop and think, or go back a bit - you can’t do that when someone’s reading to you, because they’re dictating the pace.
not rude.
female.
sounds like you’re dealing with an incredibly self-absorbed personage. good luck with that.