As "different from the norm"?

Yes, if you feel the need to handcuff my words. But I wish that people would bear in mind that in most cases, I don't give a fuck about "the norm".

Okay, how do you define it, in a way that isn't "handcuffing your words"? Definitions are, by their nature, restrictive. I can't define something without it being in some way restrictive.

Maybe if you define it yourself, I'll get what you mean, instead of trying to define what I think you mean and getting it wrong.

Although the pop-culture representation of handcuffs is "Ooh! Kinky!"

See, that's where I went. But I'm thinking I made too big of an assumption.

But is something really kinky when it's a joke on the Golden Girls?

You are, as ever, eminently wise.

But I do think my own wiring has a kink in it, and not just as it relates to the baseline.

Can you explain that a little bit more? Because I think there has to be a "norm" to compare against to define "kinky." Which is not to say that the norms can't change, which would then change the definition of "kinky."

Like the handcuffs example -- in the past, people would probably have definitely lumped them in with other crazy shit (electric play, ass hooks, crucifixion [gah]). But now, it seems, though they're still used as cheap pop-culture shorthand for deviance, in actual sexual practice, they're not so deviant any more.

t edit Okay, and I should say, on the "wiring having a kink in it," I am *totally* wired wrong. I don't doubt that for one second, and I've known it for a very long time. But my "wrong" comes from having something to compare my desires against (i.e., the "norm," such as it is).

Definitions are, by their nature, restrictive. I can't define something without it being in some way restrictive.

And, arguments about descriptivism aside, definitions of words aren't generally open to opinion, and accuracy aids communication.

Kinky something always defined by its deviance from societal norms?

I tilt there, though I use "kink" as "adventurous/french vanilla" as well, and hence, on the societal norms (maybe at their very edges, but still, there).

Hell, mostly I use "kink" to mock friends' when they're trying to apologize for choosing something that they think is dangerous or edgy, while trying to point out that it's up to them to define what is kink and what is not.

So maybe kink has lost any real meaning to me. Maybe that's why I'm saying that the kink is in your head.

If someone tells me something that's shocking me, I'd go with "OK... if that what makes you happy!" (as long as they're not hurting anyone else, all consensual, yada yada).

Maybe because I'm trying so hard not to be judgmental towards others, it comes this way. Oops.

Because I think there has to be a "norm" to compare against to define "kinky." Which is not to say that the norms can't change, which would then change the definition of "kinky."

It's a pretty common SF trope that IN THE FUTURE, heterosexual PiV sex will become kinky and exotic (usually with some handwavy explanation about overpopulation but mostly it's an excuse to write your characters as being kinky and exotic while only writing about the kind of sex the writer is personally familiar with).

[eta: or else it's an excuse to write about bondage while keeping your characters vanilla.]

But is something really kinky when it's a joke on the Golden Girls?

Exactly what I was thinking.

Isn't kinky defined as "outside the sexual norm, but not into the realm of dangerous or crazy"? And since we cannot define the sexual norm except personally, because that way lies madness and indignation, kinky is totally subjective.

Me, as I'm thinking about it now, I seem to define "kinky" entirely in terms of what other people think, because I don't think anything I do is kinky. Perverse, maybe. (I knew a guy who thought putting whipped cream on his girlfriend was so kinky he couldn't stop whispering and giggling about it. I tried to be supportive.) For me, the area of the sexual norm is so broad that it doesn't hit a boundary until it crosses the border into potentially dangerous and bangs up against noncon pain. It does cross the boundary; lots of people do things on a regular basis - thus "normal" - that I consider potentially dangerous. I don't consider those things kinky. Just dangerous.

Kinky seems to be, in the mainstream at least, something that people giggle over and blush and hesitate to talk about openly. It's the breaking of a little, not-real-important taboo. Like having sex outside. For me, I don't seem to have internalized the concept of anything being taboo. ("Forbidden" by whom? Even when I was a kid, when somoene "forbade" me to do something, I'd just look at them funny. I probably wouldn't do it, but because I decided it was a bad idea, not because it was "wrong".) Lacking that sense of the forbidden, nothing really seems kinky, either.

But I do think my own wiring has a kink in it, and not just as it relates to the baseline.

I think I'm a little warped, essentially. I know where I'm bent and I know when I should stop following the curve, so I don't worry about me. I do worry about other bent people sometimes, because sex itself is such a taboo, they might not ever have the chance to learn where their particular bent leads and what to do about it, until it's too late and they've gotten hurt or hurt someone else because they didn't know where the boundaries were.

Hey, can someone tell me what "Lovely Lady Humps" are?

Isn't kinky defined as "outside the sexual norm, but not into the realm of dangerous or crazy"?

Heh. "Crazy" is so subjective, though. (Again, crucifixion. Attaching electrodes to one's gonads. ASS HOOKS.)

I'm with you on dangerous, although even that, I think, is more of a thing where the individual decides how much danger he/she is willing to risk. Where they recognize that its level of potential danger, and do it anyway.

But I wish that people would bear in mind that in most cases, I don't give a fuck about "the norm".

Neither do most of us, I suspect, but it helps the discussion if we're all on the same page linguistically. It's very confusing if you and I are using the same word to mean different things.

"Crazy" is so subjective, though.

My point exactly, although I'm typing this while on a conference call from hell, so I may not be at my clearest...

Kinky, crazy, and even dangerous are all subjective ideas. I consider skydiving dangerous, skydivers probably don't. Skydivers probably consider fucking while in freefall kinky, I really don't.