Did they know before then that they were going to be divided by ethnic groups?

It looked like they did, yes -- it began with them jumping off the boat and onto their rafts, so Jeff must have already divided them up.

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It looked like they did, yes -- it began with them jumping off the boat and onto their rafts, so Jeff must have already divided them up.

Yes, but I don't think they knew going in. It seemed like some of them just figured it out when they were divided up.

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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.

Damn, I have a feeling that Hec has probably taken off to go write and won't be around to clarify, and I feel extremely peculiar about trying to clarify any of this myself since it's really a completely foreign language and alien culture to me, but... I think it's more complex than that. The handful of people I know who self-identify as kinky/fetishistic, even when they're in happy, committed relationships with people who share their kinks and for whom the kinky stuff is an unremarkable happy norm, still self-identify as kinky and describe the sex they have as normal-for-them-but-still-firmly-outside-most-people's-norm. Within the context of a committed relationship there's not much in the way of unresolved issues going on, it's playful and joyful for them, but they don't have much interest in calling it normal.

At least, that's my very weak and flawed interpretation of what I've gotten from my confused understanding of my sample size of three couples.

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I have ice cream.

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I have ice cream.

and here I was trying to decide what to have for lunch.

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there are plenty of people who will self-identify as oddballs, fringe and wahtnot cause they like thinking of themselves as that, even if no one else does or if in the circle of people they associate with they are the same as everyone else.

As someone who uses common as a derogatory in many instances, I guess I get it, but as one might expected wrt to sex and one's sexlife, I just have no concept of why people want to discuss it at all, much less work out the specifics of a vocabulary.

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people who will self-identify as oddballs, fringe and what not cause they like thinking of themselves as that

I am totally unique! Just like everybody else!

I think "kinky" is one of those words that keeps getting less and less meaningful the more people use it. Because, big shiny high-heeled stacked hip-boots? Not kinky by themselves. And yet.

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"oddball" and "fringe" to me, are distinctly separate from "pathological."

"Pathological" doesn't just mean "weird," it means "medically wrong." Maybe that's not the way Hec meant to use it, but that is the dictionary definition, and how the word pings me when I see it.

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Any recommendations?

Without knowing specifics.... maybe something by Paul Thomas or Candida Royale. Places like Good Vibrations usuallly identify movies that are "for couples" and/or directed by women, which are generally less, um, clinical in their focus.

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Maybe that's not the way Hec meant to use it, but that is the dictionary definition, and how the word pings me when I see it.

That's probably too strong for my distinction. Which I am belatedly realizing is just the mufaletta kerfuffle in disguise.

To sum: muffalletta minus olives equals cheeseburger minus cheese. A cheeseburger without cheese is by definition a hamburger. A muffaletta without olives is by definition a hoagie. (Not to restart the whole argument, I'm just summarizing what my argument was then.)

So I'm arguing that "kink" by definition requires an element of "bentness" to it. That it has something to do with the individual's relationship to their own sexuality, and that happens within a larger cultural notion of what's normative. Something which is "kinked" or "bent" is not broken, however, so it may often fall short of pathology.

It is less arguable that all sexual practices which deviate from cultural norms require a core fucked-upedness. Though I tend to think that is probably true in most instances.

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