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.

I have ice cream.

I have ice cream.

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

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

On a completely different topic, and belatedly Ann Richards awesome Democratic Convention Keynote speech in 1988. Both transcript and Quicktime audio.

I’m a grandmother now. And I have one nearly perfect granddaughter named Lily. And when I hold that grandbaby, I feel the continuity of life that unites us, that binds generation to generation, that ties us with each other. And sometimes I spread that Baptist pallet out on the floor, and Lily and I roll a ball back and forth. And I think of all the families like mine, like the one in Lorena, Texas, like the ones that nurture children all across America. And as I look at Lily, I know that it is within families that we learn both the need to respect individual human dignity and to work together for our common good. Within our families, within our nation, it is the same.

And as I sit there, I wonder if she’ll ever grasp the changes I’ve seen in my life -- if she’ll ever believe that there was a time when blacks could not drink from public water fountains, when Hispanic children were punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools, and women couldn’t vote.

I think of all the political fights I’ve fought, and all the compromises I’ve had to accept as part payment. And I think of all the small victories that have added up to national triumphs and all the things that would never have happened and all the people who would’ve been left behind if we had not reasoned and fought and won those battles together. And I will tell Lily that those triumphs were Democratic Party triumphs.

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.

Really? I mean, oral sex was considered quite outside of cultural norms, say, four decades ago, but NSM now. I think most people who engaged in oral sex 40 years ago were not fucked-up, just more... open minded. Or do you think your above statement is more true now than then?