In the “Things you can’t believe some people don’t know” thread, a High School teacher recounted the time when he told his class that semen is mostly sugar, and a female student asked “Then why doesn’t it taste sweet.”
Then, another poster posted a Snopes link and said something to the effect of, “Are you sure you didn’t just read that somewhere?”
He’s probably sure considering it actually happened to him. Just because Snopes calls something an “Urban Legend” does not necessarily preclude it having happened. Snopes is a good reference for debunking lame e-mail forwards and “friend of a friend of a friend” stories, but it is not the infallible inspired word of God. This teacher did not say “I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge one day, and the math teacher told me about his wife’s dentist who once talked to this guy on the bus who was a health teacher, who was talking about semen and…” He actually experienced it. I doubt that he just heard the story and incorporate it into his own memory. That seems much more farfetched than a student asking a logical question.
And while I’m at it, Snopes citing possible psychological reasons for an Urban Legend is not the same as disproving it having occurred.
For example, the Snopes account of this Urban Legend includes this explanation:
Just because a story could be conceived to have negative implications for women does not mean that it never happened. In fact, we at the SDMB have a personal account of a teacher who witnessed it.
Oh, and I should also point out the this UL was classified with a white bullet, defined on the Snopes site as such:
This makes it even more inappropriate for someone to use a Snopes link to suggest that someone who personally witnessed the event may be in error, since the site itself says that it “could have happened to someone, somewhere, at some time.”
Well, I know the person who wrote the email shown here. She actually wrote to Snopes and told them this, but they haven’t changed the info at the site. http://www.snopes2.com/sex/aphrodis/altoids.htm
Because that doesn’t sound like a post from the high school teacher, it sounds like a post from a student. Just a minor point, doesn’t make it untrue, but slightly hurts the credibility.
Ah, I see. Interestingly enough, in the past 15 minutes or so, I’ve been reading the thread linked to above, which contains a lot of discussion about false memories. Seems I’m a victim myself.
I don’t think you should get upset if the story isn’t updated right away. Do you realize the sheer volume of stories they go through? And the whole site is updated almost daily, or at least twice a week. Also, snopes and Barbara moderate their board, and participate on the board quite a bit, w/o any help.
Without commenting on the specific incident mentioned here, I have been accused of lifting a memory from Snopes here on the boards. So it does happen. In fact, I hadn’t heard of the UL until after I had experienced it. I remember reading Snopes and thinking, “Hey! That happened to me!”
Amen. A while back, I had a (very) minor email ado with Ms. Mikkelson on this very issue.
Related to this issue, I find some of these psychological reasons stuck in a bit of a time warp. One example sticks in my mind – the various legends about supernatural events occurring if a woman graduates from a college a virgin. Snopes gave, as usual, a misanthropic interpretation of the legend. I tried and failed to point out that, while the legends may have begun as female-bashing, at many schools of which I am aware, it has been co-opted by the female students themselves, a la “Queer” and homosexuals. The larger point I was trying to make is that the reasons and meanings of legends is mutable, something I don’t see Snopes often acknowledging.
