what are we insisting on when we say that we're "normal"?

[jrtom]

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/04/sexdrive_0427?currentPage=1

(Not really _not_ safe for work, but the title does prominently include the word "SEX" in large friendly letters.)

An interesting commentary on the psychology and sociology of sexual behavior.

A possibly revealing pair of questions:
(1) Would you describe yourself as "normal" to your friends?
(2) Would you describe yourself as such in a personals ad?

Update: I wasn't really trying to get people to answer the above questions, but the nature of the responses is interesting. I'm completely unsurprised that some of my friends would happily self-identify as "not normal"--hell, I would.

But that just comes back to the original question from a different direction: what is it that people are trying to convey when they say "normal"? Why do the people writing those ads feel a need to reassure their possible respondents that aside from their kink, they're "normal"? Why do some of my friends and I think that it's cool to _not_ be normal?

Comments

A possibly not-so-revealing pair of answers:

[nordic-thora.livejournal.com]

(1) Hell no.
(2) Hell no.

I'm not "normal," in terms of this culture, but that's perfectly fine with me. I prefer partners who appreciate the ways I deviate from the so-called norm.

Re: A possibly not-so-revealing pair of answers:

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

A giant surprise, truly. :)

But see the edited post for more thoughts on this...

[lightning-rose.livejournal.com]

1) It's too late for that. (ask your big sista) :)

2) I think my ad would speak for itself.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

(1) I assume you mean red_frog as opposed to my other big sister. (Both of whom are considerably smaller than I am, neener neener. *ahem*) Probably true of both of them, though. :)

(2) Well, that might be kind of annoying. I mean, if I were a personal ad, I'd want the ad to speak for _me_.

(I'm now envisioning a personal ad speaking for itself: "24 words worth of Helvetica 7-point text with occasional gratuitous bolding seeks cheap ad rates and constant readers. No fish wrapping or dog training.")

[pjack.livejournal.com]

I think that "normal", in an online personal ad context, is code for "I am not a shut-in". It's a way to tell prospective partners that yes, you do have hobbies and friends outside the internet.

In other words, they're less worried that their readers will think that they're perverts, and more worried that their readers will think that they're internet geeks.

That's my interpretation, anyway.

[judovitch.livejournal.com]

I agree more with pjack - my interpretation is that "normal" in this case means "I am not a stalker/rapist/serial killer/killer cereal - I'm just a regular guy/gal, so you don't have to worry." Of course that's false reasurrance because nothing is stopping psychos from saying "hey I'm normal too" and there's really no independent way of verifying that claim.

In terms of the sexuality debate, I think it's more useful to frame the question in a different manner. One of my exes had some overlap with the polyamoury scene, and the categorizations that she preferred were:
"traditional vs. non-traditional"
"vanilla vs. kink"

That is, it's quite possible to be in (for example) a three-way (non-traditional) relationship which is sexually relatively straightforward and boring (vanilla).

-J