I'm taking a psychometrics class with a man who is a prominent social psychologist. Bear with me now... There is a kind of psychological test known as a domain reference test. With this kind of test, the psychologist is more interested in the items on the test and how they were answered (in other words, the domain) than in comparing the subject's score to the norm distribution (basically, other people's scores and the patterns they make). So. My professor and two other psychologists who specialize in emotion decided to create a test that measures the domain of disgust, or just what it is that people consider disgusting. They examined tons of people of all ages at the University of Pennsylvania over several years, and they found that the objects of disgust fall into about 7 categories. Things like food (like drinking milk mixed with orange juice), animals (maggots, roaches), something they called (hilariously...or maybe it was just a slow class) "violations of the bodily envelope" (things like severed limbs and teeth growing out of someone's forehead).....things like this. Okay, my point: they found that people consider all bodily fluids disgusting except tears. Isn't that interesting? What's more, tears are the only fluids that are unique to humans (if you don't count the simple saline solutions that animals use to wet their eyes...we're talking free-flowing tears). Then... There's a part in Milan Kundera's "Book of Laughter and Forgetting": "Edwige did not accept traditions that burdened mankind. She refused to acknowledge that a naked face is innocent and a naked behind shameless. She did not understand why the salty fluid that trickles from our eyes is sublimely poetic and the fluid we emit below our bellies is disgusting. It all seemed stupid, artificial, and unreasonable to her, and she treated such conventions the way a rebellious girl treats the rules of a Catholic boarding school." I agree with the findings of the test, not Edwige. How about you all?

well, whenether or not we agree with the test is irrelavent........the findings are the findings...i suppose we could raw our own conclusions, however i find it interesting. I am surprised people found come to be "disgusting"...crap, piss and everything else is understandable...i think this article from The Nerve might help understand Edwige's position, or better yet solidify a reason of why she might be alittle out of touch. http://nerve.com/editors/september99/

some art lady in ukraine told me about some dumb work that involved a bottle of people's tears, and I thought that was just fucking foul.

I'm with Edwige. We only find certain bodily fluids disgusting because we're Taught that that's what they are. Not that I'm any different. I find certain bodily fluids to be gross, and certain others to be very welcome - but I can see how silly and hypocritical that is.

How can cum be disgusting,it,s where life comes from?It doesn,t stink,you could spread it on bread and pretend it,s Mayo.

WOW! WOW!

I see I am in the minority. I am sure, however, that if any of you came upon a puddle of unidentified bodily fluid that didn't come from anybody you knew, you wouldn't be so accepting of its presence. I'm sure I'd hear a few "eewwww"s from the lot of you. The thing with tears vs. other bodily fluids, I think, really is about the quality of sublimity, like Kundera said. (For the record, if you read the whole book, you can see that Kundera himself disagrees with Edwige.) If you consider tears to be no different than saliva, semen, gall, or blood, you don't consider humans to be more than animals. Which is one valid point of view. And -- to go back to Kundera -- that you possibly also think that modesty is an artifice...that there is nothing useful in shielding parts of your body from the public's view. Is this true?

What I mean by that is not that you think the human body is beautiful and that you think there should be no shame in showing it. I mean that you (possibly) think, like Edwige that there is *no difference* between, say, a woman's chin and her breast and that there should be *no reason* for her to show one and not the other. Got that?

actually Rhiannon, I didsagreed with Edwige in the sense that she did seem out of touch, her view, based on that quote...seemed unrealistic.....tears are often appreciated because they are attached to emotion, come is appreciated because it is derived out of love, lust, desire, pleasure.....blood is seens as...well....."LIFE BLOOD".....it can be seen as our essence......feces, urine and vomit can be viewed as a rejection, something our body can do without, we demonize it because our body does. However, as the editior in that Nerve article i posted mentioned, sometimes it is so rewarding to have a good dump..or something along those lines....but at the same time we are appalled something so rank can come from ourselves.....it can be a private pleasure though and there si nothing wrong with keeping it private. Sheliding one's body from view is an example of our societies mores....we only show what has been established.....recall we are just now accepting breat feeding in public.....in fact i read that in Oregon, they are now issueing cards to mothers that states they have the right to breast feed in public...certified breast feeeder....how silly is that, but i understand some folks still find it offensive.......what is so offensive i am not sure, but those people are crusty left overs from mores of yesteryear...(I always wanted to use that psuedo dick clark/casey casum term) and also, yes you are right, if we came upon some bodily fluid from someone else, the "ewwwwww's" would be present, however, possibly that has to do with the fact that we can't associate the fluid with anything, we can 't connect it. The thought of come on a hotel bed spread is only revolting in the sense that it came from someone you do not identify with or associate with, better yet even know what they look like, so we assume the worst....some big fat burly hairy creep jizing all over the bed spread with a finger up his ass...... or so i do anyway...

i almost posted about this yesterday, but for some reason i resisted. the only reason people are ashamed of their bodies is because we're taught to be. we're taught to cover ourselves to be modest. some cultures teach women to cover their faces. to them that's normal; to others it isn't. i think nudity shouldn't be seen as simply sexual. it's natural. of course, i'm not saying i'm perfect, i'm certainly not. i'm still shy about my body at times like everyone else. but, it helps that i grew up on a swim team where i became accustomed to all the girls walking around naked in the locker room unashamed. Anyway, i say, everybody on this message board should go out skinny dipping today with some friends. or strangers, it's your call.

I think there is something to be said about keeping certain things (or parts of yourself) from just anybody's eyes. Because it attaches a value to those things, elevating them and elevating you above the animals and nature. It's interesting to me that people equate "naturalness" with "the way things should be." As though we live "unnaturally" now and that's a bad thing.

Keeping on the disgusting topic,this site is the most putrid thing I,v ever seen,sure to give any normal man nightmares,check out splitcock,oh God help those sick bastards. http://bme.freeq.com/people/bme-pepl.html

God, please tell me a double anal fisting isn't what I think it is.... That is some sick sick shit there. J, how do you FIND these things?

I got it off that same joke list,the one that hooked me up to you all.

why do we need to be elevated above nature? i think there's a lot to be said for a biocentric view of the world where man isn't central , nature is central. we are part of the natural world. sorry, there's a green peace activist inside me itching to get out. wait, why am i apologizing for that? and, oh, those *crazy* breastfeeders. back in like the late 1970's when it was believed that formula goo was better for babies than their own mother's breastmilk, me mum had her first baby. (my older brother) she went around the country with all these other *radical* breastfeeders to conventions and the like. we have some funny pictures of the babies crawling around in the hotel rooms and halls.

Well, um, we have the ability to create art and music and literature, study astronomy, contemplate eternity, worship a deity...and our fuzzy/scaly/slimy friends don't. Last I checked, my dog likes to spend her day sleeping and scratching her ears. Funny, though, how the same species that's capable of coming up with space stations and "Hamlet" can also come up with urethral torture and Zyklon-B.

i wasn't denying our intelligence. and your dog doesn't have to fend for himself or hunt for his own food. he just sits there and scratches his ears because you put his food in a bowl on the floor for him. (that's not at all my point though) my point is, yes we can create art, music, literature, etc. but we also shouldn't believe we are something apart from nature. our intelligence doesn't put up this barrier between us and say, okay now you have to cover your breasts.

I have a feeling if people went around naked on the streets,there would be lot,s of trouble.

i agree with Rhiannon about leaving mystery, adding value......frankly, i like it when i see a sexy girl walking down the street and i can barely, just barely see her nipples, it would ruin it if i saw he completly bare chested, the titilation would be stronger, but shortlasted, whereas i have time to allow my imagination work, i have to wonder, what she really looks like behind that blowse...........ironically, i heard that in Albany NY, women there marched for the right to go topless.....they won, and now, no one ever goes topless........back to the same ole same ole.......i think most people wouldn't want to go around naked.....we are insecure creatures, our society breeds it.....and frankly there are too many people ai would care NOT to see naked or even more exposed than they already are.......

you're looking at it sexually. i was saying that i don't think nudity should be thought of as merely sexual.

this reminds me of an incident in the beginning of the summer. after school let out, a lot of girls from my class slept over at a beach house. one of my best girl friends and i showered together to save water and time. a few girls found that just plain strange, but others figured since we shower together we must be sexually involved as well. when we told them, no we're just friends, they couldn't believe it. they figured since we're comfortable being naked together it must be a sexual thing.

i see it as a work of art and yes that can be very sexual. I am not sure how else you would want to look at it. Perhaps the way we have been taught makes us see it as purely sexual. I would agree with that. But would a society without those mores, would we be as sexual if there was no mystery, would we appreciate the body as much if we saw it bare all the time..???I don't know.....

I'm sorry...I'm still hung up on that website... Does that mean that "split cock" guy...you know...like...SPLIT his own...oh my god........All compassion and tolerance aside, that is just fucked up. Like J said, what a sick bastard. And why is this site on the same list as that site????

And why am I writing like Waffles?

Cause when I saw it,I thought it should have been called the Domain of Disgust,don,t you think?

They just throw strange mixes of stuff,it,s a joke list called Able to Laugh.

yeah i foreshadow weird and bizarre dreams about split jimmys and fisting your foreskin......not sure about the double anal fisting, but i will say that would be quite impressive. Which reminds me of the photo my friend once sent to Apple....he took a picture of this woman fisting another in the ass, and this huge cock in the top of the screen showering both of them......he put the apple logo on it and the "think different" logo and emailed it to them.........I wish i still had it...it was too god damned funny. it's out of affection Rhiannon, I am flattered :->

"big fat burly hairy creep jizing all over the bed spread with a finger up his ass......" GODDAMMIT WAFFLEBOY I told you if you're gonna watch me you can't tell anyone!!!

uh.........errrr....... hummmmm...... (tap tap tap)...... uh ss sss ssss sorry................

I read in my Sociology book the other day about clitoral circumcision, popular in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. The woman has her clit removed with usualy broken glass and no anesthesia, and her hole partially sewn up, what is with this?? Women chanting loud enough so when the girl screams it's masked? And women perform this on the girl. I've read about it before but ugh, with glass? I just don't understand, a clit should be a girls' best friend, not her enemy. Not only does it decrease stimulation, it has a lot of bad side effects, still born, birth defects, infection.. Horrible and groady.

From what I understand, it's because they figure girls are really really into sex, and if they cut off the pleasure source, she won't try to lose her virginity before she's married and she'll remain faithful After she's married.

Well it,s not going to be any fun for them after their married,it,s just a power trip and it,s a disgrace.

there is a whole thread on this subject somewhere around here. It was the on of the first times i started posting here.....lemme dig it up...and then Jina all your answers will be revealed.

here ya go kids http://bbs.sorabji.com/messages/57/2653.html?ThursdayJune1019990323pm you will not emy introductory post...i was using my bands name at the time..."accustat"

All my answers are revealed. I think I'm a Womanist. I've heard about Alice Walker before. She sounds very cool, like crawling inside and finding the stranger within you, maybe Maya Angelou-ish? I never got around to reading much of a book of hers I got from the library so it's hard for me to say. Just reminded me of the dream I had last night. I dreamt I was reading Shrodinger's Cat by Robert Anton Wilson. I haven't even read the book yet, but I was planning on it. Hoo boy you'd think my mind would wait for me first. Maybe someday I'll manage to finish Ulysses by James Joyce as well, that sucker is huge and euphorically complicated and makes weird references to guys' dicks.

i finished Camus's The Stranger yesterday. I need to read it again and possibly a third time. It's an easy read. I have never read his material before and I kinda of expected difficult readin like Nitche or Sartre....but that wasn't the case. My initial impression is...I like it....I like how he walks through life, unaffected by all that happens....he brushes off questions about religion and government that most of us have serious convictions about. He leads a nonchalant life and i kinda like it. Unfortuantely, I am a typical scorpio, a little too passionate about life and things that don't really matter in the long run, but seem to matter NOW......

I'm only telling you this for your own good. Really. This is how I express my affection (besides writing like you)....I care that you know the truth. It's spelled "Nietzsche." Just so you know. Aaagghh! Don't hate me!

thanks you....may i please have another

thank

Naaah, I'll wait till you deserve it. ;)

I lent the magazine with the article in it to my dad, but the latest isue of Fortean times (the greatest magazine on earth) had an article on an elephant that apparently died of grief after a companion elephant died (in childbirth, I believe). This elephant become listless and stopped eating, and what's relevent to the thread is that she was crying tears the whole time, up to her death. the point being, so-called "human" emotions don't seem to be confined to humanity, and that appears to apply to physical expressions of emotions as well. coincidently, somewhere on here recently I had posted something about coming across the split dick guy while searching for the bay area punk band subinciscion. I didn't go look at the link above because once is enough, and someimages become burned into your memory. of all the things to take to your grave...

My husband just got done reading East of Eden,when he tells me it was good,I,ll read it.I,ve learned so much from him.

So many people involved in mutilating themselves. Carving? Branding? Amputation? If I live to be 7,000 years old I will still think that it is fucking stupidity.

my tattoos are beautiful. I need more. considering other piercings, but not before more tattooing.

I got my first tattoo in 1982, down on Hollywood Blvd. Little shop with an oriental man who had a sign up that said "No talking" He was in the middle of tattooing my foot when I asked him a question. He pointed at the sign a said, "You shut you mouth! No talk, you talk, I no finish!" His sister walked through the room and rolled her eyes at him. I still find it amusing.

I like toying with the idea of getting a tattoo, like on my toe next to my big toe on my left foot, maybe a black inked Celtic knot, or ivy, or something on the inside of my hip, in that little concave area you know? Maybe a tattoo can hide and seek there.

I had a friend who had one of two pigs fucking,that said maken bacon,saw a guy hithing once,no shirt on,his arm raised straight up,A full womans leg the lenghth of his arm,his hairy armpit,then down the side of his torso another leg.Think about it,I almost died.A man my husband works with brother in law has a homemade one on the inside of the bottom lip,makes x-mas dinner wierd he says.I never wanted one,what sex,drugs,rock and roll on my ass,same reason I never would want implants.I can just picture me being on the slab and everyone at the mortuary joking.

I'd say that's about as gross as that What are you eating? title.

I pierced my nose with needle-nose pliers and a half bottle of Cuervo. Something to be said for doing it yourself, makes it worth it. It got so infected though. I let it heal and did 'er again. Success! No liquor on the second attempt--probably a good thing. I did my eyebrow. Didn't look good on me...no one ever saw it. More tattoos, anyway! Just like self-piercing, I find enjoyment from designing my own. tat tat for now...

the real question is what up with that wandering pink eye???? i was at a jazz show a few weeks ago and a buddy and I spied this really hottie of a red head and being the sucker for red heads I am a gave her a look over as we strolled by, and then I made it up to her eyes and low and behold she a lazy eye lookin right up at the moon............we both were traumatized & terrified.........

jinafishes -advice i got from my tattoo artist buddy and his wife, who is one of my best friends- tattoos on your feet really hurt. Also lower back. I wil personally attest to that last one as my first tattoo is on my lower back, a large celtic design. 2 1/2 hours, hurt quite a bit but not so bad I wanted him to stop. I spent a gooddeal of time in a staring contest with a four foot iguana while it was applied. My scond tattoo is another celtic design, on my left upper arm. 1 and 1/2 hours, lot less pain, still hurt. really want another. Thinking about a stylized hummingbird design for the other arm, with the message "one World Not Three" or "Rhythm of Life" or something similar. My friend's wife (mentioned her earlier) got a small stick figure dragon tattoo on her foot and said it hurt like crazy. go for it. I'm going to take polaroids of my tats,just realized I have no photos of them.

I have tattoos on my leg, ankles, arm and foot. The foot hurt the worst. The less subcutaneous tissue the more pain.

mmmm, tattoos. yum yum yum. Sem - what does your little tattoo buddy say about wayuphigh on your back? Like right at the base of your neck. Or...and I know this sounds stupid, but...behind your ear? If I ever got a tattoo, I'd want it to be somewhere really subtle. Like a nice surprise for someone special. But you know...not somewhere I couldn't show to children. (if you catch my drift)

Damn, I guess I should have figured feet would hurt, the thin skin and stuff. I knew the lower back hurt, the least is the tissue under the shoulder on the back, right? I guess one wouldn't be bad there either. It's testy though, I don't know if I really want one, I still think it'd be sexy having a small one. Celtic knots are great though, I know this kid who got one around the top of his lower arm, and it was a big lower arm, so it looked good. What about the top of the shoulder, painful too?

I personally think tattoos are silly, BUT if I ever HAD to get one, like I was dying and only a tattoo would save my life...I'd get one of the sacred heart on my back behind my own heart. Yep.

How about one above your ass that says.... WRONG WAY! DO NOT ENTER! SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE!

you told me that Jim had that tattooed on his arse

sssshh!

I,m thinking Waffles and the Beav should have their own t.v.show,you could call it Too Much For T.V.,or maybe a stand-up act you could go on the road.

Ya wanna be our agent?

that would be immoral

Me immoral?So?

we have so much to work on J and so little time

If we go on the road, J could be our drunken roadie :o)

No,I wanna be your agent,but maybe,that,s just a maybe,I,d go on the road and be your groupie.

Well you know what we expect from our groupies...

.....the same thing that you get from an agent...FUCKED

i have humbly stepped down from this

Just give me the job,I,ll do the rest.

.........and thensome

like mah man said above, the less meat between bone and the needle, the more it hurts. Just get one, it's going to hurt and if it's one you have thought about for along time and really like, it will be worth it. I thought about my tattoos for about a year and a half collectively before they went on. The reason I don't have piercings beyond my ears is that I am convinced it would look dumb on me.

It would. No offense, but I've never seen a boy with peircings on places other than his ears who looked cool. Girls can get away with that bellybutton and nose ring crap, but a guy with a bellybutton ring would look like a goober. Now, two tiny diamond studs in your right ear on the other hand....that would be magical.

diamond studs????? god damn!! THAT IS SO GAY!!!

My son has pierced eyebrows,ears,and nipples.Amee,and Ryan have lot,s of tatoos.I had my ears pierced,but they closed up.

i just got two rings in each ear with mismatched stone beads. WHen I can drive whereever I want again, I may go up to Minneapolis and get thicker rings put in, or I may have it done when I go to Seattle next, as my tattoo buddy could probable get someone to do it for free if supply the jewelry.

Maybe you should get some studs put in your forehead like that punk from the Young Ones.

tattoos and piercings have become, like everything else that is pop culture, all form and no content. nothing unique about any of it anymore. the only thing that skeeves me out still is the piercing that goes through bone at the top of the nose and i hope that everyone with that gets a skull infection and dies of headrot.

Right on, Friendly I don't respect piercings or tattoos. Not because I think people with piercings, etc are dangerous or subversive, but because I know they're NOT dangerous OR subversive and they're just posturing. Do you all know what's going on? It's like this: there's a circle of 10 friends. One person is truly messed up. So they destroy themselves in all sorts of ways -- drugs, self-mutilation, and more. The other 9 are very priviledged and have no real problems. But they see the one messed up person doing their thing, and they decide (wowee zowee!) it's really hip to do all those things and so they start with the drugs and the self-mutilation themselves. So then, it starts spreading to the 9 people's other 9 friends. And on and on. What started as a way of acting out aggression and pain becomes a fashion trend. And pretty soon the halo gets big enough that the whole bloody country is involved and at the end of the day, you have a whole bunch of carved-up junkies with no excuses.

That's EXACTLY how I got hooked on killing hitch-hikers and eating them. Now nine of my friends are doing it which cuts down on my supply of fresh meat.

Same deal

Or maybe you get tattoos and piercings because you like how they look and fuck any other reason. Who gives a shit if it has the same rebellion content as dying your hair does?

it's not even about rebellion anymore, which is my point. it's about conformity. you gotta get your tattoo, your eyebrow and maybe your nipples pierced and you gotta get the tommy hilfiger fat pants and that stupid strap thing. then the chicks will pay attention!

I was thinking that it used to be that those things meant something.....but now I'm thinking they never did. Things with meaning always get co-opted. Tattoos in the 1990s, fencing scars in the 1890s, it's the same story. But wait a minute. Here's another example: sadomasochism. Now, back in the day, you'd find the rare person who came up with that kind of stuff on his/her own. Like, they were naturally unhealthy, if you can say that. You still do find that today, But now also, you see sadomasochistic activities touted in magazines as aids to spice up a stagnant marriage and things like that. And this may be beside the point, but specific to this example, sadism and masochism are conditioned responses, so you can become a masochist, even if you are healthy, if continuously engage in those kinds of activities. I'm not trying to say that like "old school" masochists are the truly hip or something ridiculous like that. I'm not saying this right. It's like the line between healthy and unhealthy (for lack of better categorization) is blurred because you have a lot of healthy people adopting unhealthy behaviors for the hell of it. Like in the movie "Heathers." Do you know what I'm saying? I probably shouldn't complain until that body modification shit hits the mainstream, anyway.

I don't think I'd feel like I was all cool and tough if I had a tattoo. peircings are different. I didn't get my ears peirced till I was twenty years old and as soon as I was alloawed to take them out I realized I didn't want them anymore. I think they're pretty and wotnot, but they're way more trouble than they're worth.

To clarify: you can become a masochist if you *start out* healthy...etc.

"fencing scars in the 1890's" LMAO :o)

It's true, you know. Young men would fence in the universities (mainly in Germany), and the scars on their faces were seen as status symbols...so some silly young men would slash their own faces with razors to create their own scars.

SSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!! They'll all be doing it next week if you keep talking about it.

Oh, yeah! Now if we could only get all the poor misunderstood artistes to cut off their left ears...

i like my tattoos. i don't care about everyone else in the world, whether or not they have tattoos or piercings or brandings or whatnot. my mother told me that i would regret them thirteen years ago when i got my first one, and she was wrong. i totally forgot about commander salamander. what a blast from the past. i used to think that was the coolest catalog on earth.

I don't really think all the fuss about body modification being "mainstream" or "underground" makes a whole lot of sense. I mean, if you look back at any culture at any point in history, you'll find some form of body modification. Even shaving is body modification, or getting a new haircut. it seems kind of silly to even debate its status in society when its evident that body mod has always been around, and probably always will be. I'm waiting to seethe day people can change their skin color. Watch shows like Farscape and you'll notice how attractive that shit is. At least, i find women with blue, red or gray skins attractive. And before someone goes "that's really weird" how different is it from prefering bruntettes over blondes? Another thing that's also body mod that will happen is the integration of the human body with machines. "jacking in" cyberpunk style will be quite the experience. anyway, until you start seeing folks in Forbes 500 with nose rings and spiky green hair, I don't think body mod as we normally define it will be mainstream.

How about woad? People do dye their skins...