I'm with Jessica. My favorite moment had to be: Sekou telling Stephannie she had to side with the guys because the team needed his experience so they could survive and have fire." "We don't have fire." she pointed out. Take that, Mr. Blowhard.

What is kink, and how does it differ from fetish? And how do both differ from preference? I might prefer to be tied up because it's comfortable, but consider it only a kink if the idea of tying up is what makes me hot; and then it's only a fetish if I can't get hot without the tying up.

for some reason I'd assumed that the reason homely men can succeed in straight porn is because male consumers are likely to have a hangup about watching pretty (and therefore drawing attention to themselves) men onscreen.

Well, if you watch porn, you may find (as I have) that the men might as well not have heads for all their beauty matters. I mean, they do tend to have shaved, toned chests and pretty faces, but, you can only tell in the three or four glimpses you get. The working theory is that the more you see of the guy's face, the less the (presumably male) viewer can imagine himself in the guy's place. I'm not sure I buy that theory, but.

(The men also almost never make noise, while their female counterparts bellow as if they were cattle stuck in mud.)

though "pathology" itself is culturally defined

The more common dictionary definition is "the study of the cause of diseases." (And even the "deviant from the norm" definition, which you seem to be using, is a derived from the medical usage -- it's a deviation from normal health.) All of which adds up to equating kinkiness with mental illness, which is more judgmental than I'm really willing to be.

My window just got pelted with birds.

Robin, that was great! I mean, seriously, what a dumb thing to say -- if you haven't made fire yet, then no, your team doesn't need you for fire-making.

To take JZ out of the question, if someone has a completely relaxed attitude to the Princess Leia thing, like a Swede would, then they're not kinky, right? But if it's because of a trauma they had while watching the original SW movies, and they're maybe a bit ashamed and driven, then they're kinky...it's the person, not the activity?

So basically, your hypothetical wife could engage in all the spinach spanking she wanted, if she's Swedish about it, it's perfectly wholesome?

I suppose we should be grateful for small favors. @@

Gov. Kaine (D) in VA is opposed to a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions. [link] Why? Because it "puts thousands of unmarried couples at risk of losing a slew of benefits."

Kaine said he expects to spend considerable time talking to voters about the issue to counteract claims that the amendment merely bans same-sex marriage. "I suspect I won't be talking to just one or two people, but in a way a lot of Virginians will hear," Kaine said.

Trust me, I understand political expediency, but treating same-sex unions (whether they're marriages or not) as an afterthought while he vigorously defends Jane Doe and John Smith's right to essentially have the same rights as married couples just smacks of fence-straddling and avoiding the primary issue the amendment raises. Way to not take a stand for basic human rights.

Two polls conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. for Virginia newspapers have found that a majority of voters support the amendment, though one poll showed that Northern Virginians opposed it.

One of these days, Northern Virginia will seriously contemplate becoming its own state. The political beliefs and issues facing this region are completely opposite from the rest of the commonwealth, and have already caused serious strife in Richmond.

Re: Survivor: I loved loved loved CaoBoi. "You have a bad wind. Let me give you a hickey with my fingers and it'll go away."

Survivor:

At least it worked.

So basically, your hypothetical wife could engage in all the spinach spanking she wanted, if she's Swedish about it, it's perfectly wholesome?

Um, yeah, that sounds like a good taxonomy of the weirdness of sex-practices. If it's not weird to either partner, but just part of the ordinary repertoire, it loses the "kink" designation. If it's a special "I can only do this on Tuesdays/I have to do this when the moon is full/I have to do it this way because I saw a red car today" type of practice, where the practice becomes an expression of an unresolved emotional issue, it becomes kink.

Here's a question. Are there any fetishes (read: psychological pathologies about sex) which in mild cases can not be called kinks? I mean, excepting kiddie porn. Is there such a thing as a shoe kink which does not rise to the level of fetish?