X-From-Line: nobody Mon May 17 11:25:10 1999 Newsgroups: uk.people.bdsm Subject: Re: Vanilla (was Normal!?!?!) References: <373e6c96.3849965@news.cableinet.net> <373f4a11.60557749@news.cableinet.net> <373F5571.3E5F57F6@informedconsent.Xco.uk> From: Paul Crowley Date: 17 May 1999 11:25:10 +0100 Message-ID: <87k8u8q9h5.fsf@hedonism.demon.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Lines: 26 Xref: hedonism.demon.co.uk misc-news:683 X-Gnus-Article-Number: 683 Mon May 17 11:25:10 1999 Tanos - remove X writes: > I use the term "vanilla" to mean people who enjoy only those sort > of commonly accepted sexual activities. > > I believe this is different to the way Pat Califia originally used it: > which was more about _boring_ commonly accepted sex, not commonly > accepted sex in general. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to ask her about this when she spoke in London at Skin Two's "Aural Sex" day. It seems to me that the term is used to conflate the two: non-BDSMers and non-BDSM sex at one end of the scale, and "Daily Mail" Ann Widdicombe Middle England at the other. I don't think it's polite to tell the shaved, pierced bisexual guy who helps out at the local fetish club that because he's not himself into BDSM, he's vanilla, and therefore he's Ann Widdicombe. In general, I'm not at all convinced that it's a good idea to have a name for the group of people who aren't you, just because some of those people have a bad attitude about you, and that's true whether the word is vanilla, goyim, or mundane. -- __ \/ o\ paul@hedonism.demon.co.uk http://www.hedonism.demon.co.uk/paul/ \ / /\__/ Paul Crowley Upgrade your legacy NT machines to Linux /~\