Firdt!

Thanks for that last letter. I have fears of doing something similar.

There is an X-rated Cinderella, which has higher production values and is (IMHO) more fun and less didactic. Also, I have seen ads for an X-rated Pinocchio (it isn't his nose that grows) but I never saw it.

You got into a Lyft and your phone automatically connected to their bluetooth? What magical car stereo or dongle is this that requires no pairing? Because I want it! Unless you were a repeat customer of this driver and had paired your phone previously, which seems quite unlikely due to the story here... I am confused.

@4: It's possible that her phone just went on speaker or was simply loud. I've had that exact thing happen.

There's a fabulous musical porno from the 90s called Romeo & Julian - including lots of denim shorts, a random gang bang in a leather bar, blond tips, tube socks and more. The gem song - Take a Chance. You can find it online easy enough. Highly encourage watching over a daiquiri.

I'm with Jack @4. Bluetooth devices have to be paired. But as nocute said @5, maybe SIT's phone was just cranked up loud, and SIT accidentally sat on it and butt-played the Lovecast.

I must say, given the dearth of new content here in these hallowed SLOG pages, I've been enjoying the Lovecast (Magnum edition) more than ever. Dan is alive and kicking ass.

@5, 7 - The letter writer was pretty specific about how it was playing over the car stereo, how surprised they were the driver was listening to it, etc.. Then they specifically mentioned bluetooth. Seems a pretty integral part of the tale here. Also you're usually looking at your phone right before you get in a Lyft, so I feel like you'd notice if it was playing it on speaker. We must get to the bottom of this!!

@8 No, we really don't.

I remember very much enjoying watching Fritz the Cat when I was in college (late 1980s), though I don't know how well it holds up.

Wiki: "Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American adult animated black comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi, based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and starring Skip Hinnant. The film focuses on Fritz (Hinnant), a glib, womanizing and fraudulent cat in an anthropomorphic animal version of New York City during the mid-to-late 1960s. Fritz decides on a whim to drop out of college, interacts with inner city African American crows, unintentionally starts a race riot, and becomes a leftist revolutionary."

For LABEL, I think you'll confuse people by calling yourself bi or pan.

I'd say instead "I don't generally date women, whether cis or trans," assuming that's the situation.

(It's a little unclear, since you talk about being attracted to cis men and non-binary humans, and don't mention trans women at all, after saying you're not into cis women.)

@jack chandelier

I think you're about 90% right here. BUT, it's entirely possible that they're so technologically illiterate that they would confuse their phone butt-playing something with the phone playing it over bluetooth. My parents, for example, could make such a mistake, but they're almost 80 and have no idea who Dan Savage is. Anyway, I definitely don't buy the exact narrative, but there is a small chance that some technologically illiterate person could misinterpret the situation in that manner.

@1 fubar: WA-HOOOOOOO!!!! Major congratulations on scoring this week's Savage Love: Quickies FIRDT! Award and leading the comment thread. Bask in the highly sought after glory found only here in Savage Love Land. :)
@2 nocutename: WA-HOOOOOOOO!!!! Congrats on scoring this week's SECNOD honors, and being among the first to post. Savor the glory. :)

Not sure I'd recommend Caligula for the purposes described. It's got a ton of nudity but very little eroticism to show for it, except for a couple of (generally bad) scenes inserted later by the director. It's certainly interesting as history though.

Seconding Fritz the Cat on principle, although it's not super porny.

How about Flesh Gordon?

@15 I used to ‘watch’ the trailer for Flesh Gordon 2 repeatedly as a teen. Different times indeed. To this day I’ve still never seen the films.

It might be a stretch to call it pron, but Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon!!
The hunger 1983

Behind the Green Door (1972)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_the_Green_Door

This is where SA was so helpful. He’d number the questions and bring some order.

LABEL: If I had to pick something I'd probably say queer, or maybe even straight given your "cis men and non-binary humans" description, which means not women. "Bisexual" isn't a good label for a woman who isn't attracted to women.
You're specific about cis men (yes) and cis women (no), so what about trans men and trans women?

She specifies she likes vagina havers as long as they aren't women. Probably best to refer to the Human Rights Campaign definitions as Dan so wisely suggests.

Jack @4/Nocute @5, I was wondering the same thing too. I've had enough trouble pairing Bluetooth speakers to my devices on purpose! Wouldn't the phone need to grant permission to the external speaker? Phone volume turned up sounds a more likely explanation, unless SIT made up the story to amuse us. I really am scared if Lyfts can spy on what we're listening to on our phones.

Andros @9 wins the least helpful comment award. Hello, if you're not interested in discussing a thing don't discuss the thing?

EricaP @11, agreed. If she's not into her own gender, if she's only into people who present as masculine regardless of their genitalia, she wouldn't be pan and I would find it difficult to accept an identity of bi. Perhaps she could call herself a heteroflexible (due to the enbies with vaginas) androphile? She doesn't mention trans men either. If she doesn't like trans men or trans women, she's definitely not pan. Heteroflexible sounds closest, to my ears.

Crazy @17, that film has the best five-minute intro! I call it goth porn. :) It's not literally pornographic though. Seconding Behind The Green Door. It was the first porno I watched and I think it set the bar far too high.

Ankyl @20, queer could cover it, good call. I guess it would depend on whether she's occasionally drawn to an AFAB enby as an exception to a general preference for men (in which case heteroflexible), or whether her preference is for enbies and she tends towards androgynous looking cis men (in which case queer).

For FILLED, I would say, of course you can use the term size queen. While it's usually used by gay men, it certainly still seems apt in your case. As for the main question, I would expand on the "taking it slow" advice. The consideration is to not rush the stretching process. As your vag gets used to it over time, the faster you'll be able to stretch things without hurting yourself. As for more vagina-specific advice, the material composition of the toy and the lube are going to have some different considerations than when playing with your ass. A google search should turn up good suggestions about that. And I would think the other consideration is depth. My understanding is that vaginas don't have nearly the same potential for depth as asses do.

For LABEL, while "bisexual" may technically be correct, it's likelier to be confusing than helpful to label yourself as that. I would just explain what your'e looking for when you're looking for someone, and otherwise, as other commenters have suggested, maybe use the term queer? It's a pretty catch-all term for people who don't fit the usual molds, and basically tells others that they'll have to ask about the specifics if they really want to know them.

Default assumption: older men with Southern accents are " so different" from we the sexually progressive. The ghosts of Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote weep.

I think I'm going to disagree with PANDEMIC. “Life is short, and this pandemic is going to be long” is not incompatible with attention to safety measures. COVET was considering a "Dutch fuckbuddy" proposal to a coworker, not a gangbang. People need to wrap their heads around "this pandemic is going to be long" and learn to live with it as safely as possible.

Ok I totally LOLed SIT, thanks.

PANDEMIC is right though, Americans are showing that we are very weak. When presented with the stark knowledge that we have to deprive ourselves a little bit for a while, we are finding excuses and arguing semantics and generally whining like teens who have had their phone taken away for half an hour. While I like to blame the right wing response to the pandemic as much as anyone else, they really have been utter fools, everyone across the political spectrum here has been finding loopholes and cutting corners, which is one reason we are still under heavy quarantine when we could have moved on by now. Freedom is great, but right now the instinct to tell people to follow their bliss is fucking us all.

Dan wrote "while it’s true that some people are into age play are also into diapers, WETONES, it’s not true that everyone into diapers is into age play. For most people who get off on diapers it’s the humiliation of being a diapered adult that turns them on, not the fantasy of being a child."

Hmmm.

Enjoying age play is not the same thing as being a pedophile or engaging in "pedo-lite" behavior either. People who get off on the fantasy of being a child are getting fucked by people who are getting off on fucking an actual, consenting, grown-ass adult.

I feel like if you're going to recommend "Caligula" to someone asking for examples of 70s porn, you should provide a stronger warning about the vomiting, disembowelments, decapitation and Malcolm McDowell's acting.

1975 "The Story of O"
I didn't know I was kinky until I watched this movie.

Flared bases aren't really required for vaginally-inserted toys, eh? The cervix pretty much stops you losing things up there. Not like the ass.

Or else I'm really confused; always a possibility.

@31 (ciods): Flared bases aren't required for vaginally-inserted toys, it's true, but maybe they make it easier to remove the toy? I always say, "the vagina is a cul-de-sac, but the anus is a throughway."

@28 (fubar): I also thought Dan's response to the adult-diaper question was inadequate. Here's the part of the original that is most interesting (to me):

"A group of people seem to think that enjoying this kink is the same thing as being a pedophile or engaging in "pedo-lite" behavior. Another group—myself included—believes that it is simply an expression of a kink between two consenting adults, and therefore isn’t the same as pedophilia at all."

And then Dan took it and spun it into transgression and how disapproval is playing into the kinksters' hands. He also said this: "For most people who get off on diapers it’s the humiliation of being a diapered adult that turns them on, not the fantasy of being a child."

Hmm. I would love to hear from a bunch of diaper-wearers or adult babies and get their take on this. To the question that the lw asked, I'd say, of course adult babies aren't doing anything remotely pedo-lite-like. For one thing, they're ADULTS. I don't believe that they or the people who interact with them as "adults" are sexually attracted to actual infants. But from everything I've read about the fetish (or is it a kink? The two words are blending these days. Maybe I should say, "the paraphilia"), it's not about humiliation, so much as as wanting to create that sense of being nurtured and supported and wrapped up and cared-for. I remember hearing an AB talking about that feeling of snugness and being cared for in that unconditional way that only babies and pets really get to have.

I guess it depends on the individual dynamic of each adult baby and his/her "caregiver": if the AB gets punished for soiling the diaper, that would shift the paraphilia's emphasis to humiliation, whereas if the dynamic is more of a snuggling one, I would think that humiliation has nothing to do with the paraphilia.

I confess to not understanding this particular paraphilia, myself. I mean, I understand the desire to be cared for and nurtured, but I wouldn't want to have to wear a diaper and pretend to be a baby to achieve that. And I think that pretending my adult sexual partner was an infant, complete with being asked to diaper him would result in a possibly-permanent libido extinction for him in me. But to each their own.

And I second your obviously-needs-to-be-constantly-repeated point that "Enjoying age play is not the same thing as being a pedophile or engaging in "pedo-lite" behavior either. People who get off on the fantasy of being a child are getting fucked by people who are getting off on fucking an actual, consenting, grown-ass adult." Just as people who have incest fantasies are almost never interested in actually having sex with a member of their own family, and people who have ravishment fantasies are (probably, or at least I hope) almost never interested in actual rape.

I get that these were quickies, but I think Dan really dropped the ball on this letter.

I seem to remember hearing or reading that the vast majority of adult babies are male. Which makes a sort of sense to me: they see it as a refuge from having to be in charge and "be a MAN"--and maybe as having been the only time in their lives when they were allowed to be vulnerable and taken care of. Which I find sad. Another crappy effect of the patriarchy (waiting for Hunter to flip out).

EP @ 10
I attempted re-watching “Fritz” last year but didn’t last long.
Funny, witty, and daring in the 80’s, turned out sexist, racist, and flat, offensive “jokes” in 2019.

I have fond memories though of another animated parody done around that time, “Tarzoon Shame of the Jungle.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzoon:Shameof_the_Jungle

It starts with a morning sex scene in which Tarzoon can’t perform and dumped on the post. Jane goes on to have an army of giant penises extracted from human bodies, they keep shooting their loads like cannons and she’s off to conquer Hollywood.
A Belgian-French production, maybe Ricardo knows more.

ccd@ 17
Yes, that scene was indeed memorable, though probably a straight man perspective of lesbian sex. BDF @ 22 was right to point to the stylistic tone.
from what I recall there’s also a moment in “Rocky Horror…” when Sarandon is about to kiss a woman in a swimming pool and a cut ends it right before, at least in the version I’ve seen.

Everyone: Whatever you do, refrain from ever watching Pasolini’s, “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal%C3%B2,orthe_120_Days_of_Sodom

I was pleased to read the expression 'recovering top', though it cast a light of innuendo on 'Magnum subscriber'.

I'd say the woman attracted to cismen and NB people (to some NB people with penises, and some without) is 'straight'. The NB vagina-havers she's drawn to, surely, are inclining away from femininity and towards masculinity in their presentation ... yes? Or one could say she was 'queer'. But I see no good in eschewing the label 'straight', because it's taken as synonymous in some quarters like negatively-valenced terms like 'Republican', 'conformist', 'vanilla', etc. Straights are ~95% of us all collectively; and we won't get anywhere progressive as a society, in our living arrangements, our forms of redistributing goods, our laws, without a sizable portion of them, the straights, being part of 'us'.

Bluetooth-equipped cars are a little too friendly, if you ask me…

@20. Ankyl. Yes--I thought along the same lines as you.

Apropos the size queen, not only is it reasonable to call herself a 'size queen', it would be reasonable, always assuming clear communication, for her only to date splendidly-endowed men. Again, there's no need for someone to trip themselves up with a wonky idea of what's right.

I think 'loss of control' and 'freedom to revert to being carefree' can be important elements in the paraphilia of ABDLs.

It's true, I think, there's a mismatch between the number of Adult Babies and the number of people erotically engaged (rather than just being GGG) in playing with them.

Where is Enfant when you need him?

Harriet @35, had LABEL said she was attracted to cis and trans men, I'd say she was straight. But she is attracted both to people who present as masculine and people who present as non-gendered, and is not constrained by genitalia, so I don't think that straight is the correct label, not unless she has only discovered certain people she is attracted to have vaginas after presuming the opposite. She's attracted to more than one gender, but not all genders, and not her own gender. She might claim to be "mostly straight" but I reckon all that pussy disqualifies her from claiming she's straight.

Yeah "bi" isn't useful here, even if a definition fits. "Bi" came from where there were two genders possible, so being into two = into both = into all. So today people often understand "bi" as "into any gender."

Since there are more than two categories (and the number varies), saying you're attracted to exactly two is just not serving a purpose. I mean the LW could instead be attracted to women and non-binary people and be "bi" too.

So, she likes pussy just not if it’s attached to a cis woman? Only if that person calls themselves non binary.
Must be a label for this, and if there isn’t it’s time to create one. Or go for queer, LW.

“The Devil In Miss Jones part 2” was fairly witty. I also second “The Hunger”. It’s far from porn but has some super hot scenes. Plus David Bowie!

nocute @33: It appears that Hunter's banishment was permanent.

I once had a Republican, Christian, Iowan "friend" on Facebook. I would read his posts with revulsion, but I could not look away. It was fascinating to read the machinations of his mind. I had to unfriend him eventually, but I do miss the insight into how it is that Trump remains electable. Hunter was similarly interesting.

@crazy cat dude @17: You mentioned Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon but not David Bowie?!

Thank you @In2ishn2 @42 for fixing this.
I shall go download it now.

nocute @ 33
While no denying of the patriarchy or the joy of witnessing he-who-should-not-be-mentioned flipping out, I would be a little reluctant to assume motives for kink of any kind.
Yes, social construct plays a big role, and part of it is also the fact that you are very likely to find way more practicing male kinksters than females in almost any kink category if not all.

The “refuge from having to be in charge and "be a MAN" can be attributed to many other kinks and I’ll gladly and proudly admit it. I’m sure you’re fully aware kinks may also allow women to “lose” or “gain” control in different situations.

Age play comes with different shades and preferences, just like any other kink. While some may enjoy the safety aspect of it, others may thrive on being punished. I doubt it will be fair to categorize them as “reliving their childhood trauma.”
Sometimes kinks could be traced, or so we think, sometimes they pop out of nowhere.

David Bowie; why did he have to go so young. Beautiful man.

Ciods @ 45
One of my favorite moments in the Hunger is aging vampire Bowie walking through an underpass, about to bite into a young dancing skater, in a futile attempt to revive their youth.
When I first watched it, I thought the skater is a woman. Few years later and another view I thought it was a man.

If the label LW is attracted to cock and pussy, strictly speaking she is Bi. That she has dealbreakers.. ie no cis women.. how is that different to anyone else, who might exclude a whole group? Like Trump supporters. Gender is only one defining aspect of a person.

Maybe CMD, a nappy/ diaper kink can pop out of nowhere.
An issue is happening with my four year old grandson. He’s toilet trained yet has reverted to shitting in his pants again. Of course his parents are not too pleased, though I remind them how recently he could just let it rip when the urge took him.
He’s a bright kid, he knows what he’s doing. He enjoys it. Though here’s the rub, he wants his mum’s approval, and of course she’s not happy with his regression.
Wherever this kink comes from it’s nothing to do with kiddy fiddlers. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Seems like there are an awful lot of people calling perfectly normal consenting behavior between adults "pedo" these days.

e.g. 18 yr old with much older (maybe creepy but hello, sometimes the young hot person has the power!)

Diaper play. sheesh! what about solo omorashi diaper play, is that bad too?

Or consenting power differences outside the workplace, like that hot 30-something out progressive Holyoke mayor Alex Morse who lived in a college town and hooked up on Grindr with adults who were not his students.

which turned out to be an attempt by mainstream Democrats of all people, to block Morse's bid for Congress - Morse is a progressive and the Dems wanted a big-corporate "centrist" democrat to get the nomination. omfg.

Dan should have educated people on the omorashi diaper angle. Sometimes it has nothing to do with age or adult baby play at all. And for the love of the sky diety - diaper lovers who are into #1 are usually NOT into #2. Label your porn well, kinks are very specific.

FILLED - remember if you still have sex with penis-havers, they could wear a cock sheath, strap-on, etc. if they are smaller than an actual eggplant!

@52 myself - Dan was way wrong about diaper play "For most people who get off on diapers it’s the humiliation of being a diapered adult that turns them on, not the fantasy of being a child." I can list so many DLs I've read about back when I was studying kink for a term paper type assignment: piss / wetting, humiliation, #2 kink (eek yuck omg can I ever unsee those websites or will they haunt me till I die?), "little" / age play, blah blah. Even if it is age play, that doesn't mean it's pedo-adjacent. And the "slices" of kink can be so specific - every kink is a snowflake, beautiful and special. (Well, maybe not beautiful, that's in the eye of the beholder.)

If women want to take our negative terms with problematic conceptions, then they are welcome to them. It would have been nice had LW1 known it's an insult when used about one of us, but one can't have everything. Were I re-creating the world, I'd gladly let Team DSW have that term.
xxx
I'd like to see more distinction between Consenting and Indulging.
xxx
Romeo and Julian is also a serious play. I knew someone once who had a role in a small local production.
xxx
Again, we run into the question of whether we want terms with relatively precise meanings even if that means having a lot of terms or whether we wants terms that cover large quantities, even if that makes such a term more a conversation starter than a conversation finisher.

If we're going to exponentially expand the possibilities, I think it would help to have at least one term that explicitly includes (at least) women and men both. But of course I'll defer to the experts.
xxx
I could say that even thinking Recovering Top is a Thing plays right into the hands of those who pathologize SQs, but I won't.
xxx
What kind of patients does the avid reader have? That was a jarring start.
xxx
Being technologically deficient, again I defer to the experts.

Alice in Wonderland! I'd forgotten all about that little 70's gem! Seeing that movie (at the drive-in!) was one of my first dates with my late first husband. Oh, we had some fun back then!

BG @3 mentioned the X-rated Cinderella which came out in '77 - I think that was the one where "Fairy Godmother" gives Cindy a Snapping Pussy! I also recall a "Through the Looking Glass," which was a little more arty and a bit dark, not as funny. I remember a bathtub pissing scene that I found kind of off-putting, and a girl-spanks-girl scene that, um....I didn't find off-putting at all.

@42 in2ishn2 & @47 LavaGirl: Agreed and seconded. Rest in peace, David Bowie. You indeed went too soon.

Griz Update: I just had a wonderful two week follow up appointment today with my gynecologist. Everything is healing beautifully. The pathology test results came back benign (although I am glad to be rid of my nastiest female body parts!). The only thing I sadly cannot do until further notice is play my flutes because of my abdominal stitches and diaphragm. My second follow up post op appointment will be in mid-September.
Because I have not taken painkillers since Monday evening, my amazing OB-GYN has given Griz the all clear for driving, and also red, red wiiiine. When my DVD copy of The Exorcist comes in at my local video / record store, let the Regan / Carrie party celebrations begin! :)

Who's hungry for this week's Lucky @69 Award? Tick...tick...tick...

@46:CMD, I can't tell whether you read my post at all. For example, I don't know what this has to do with anything I wrote: "Age play comes with different shades and preferences, just like any other kink. While some may enjoy the safety aspect of it, others may thrive on being punished. I doubt it will be fair to categorize them as “reliving their childhood trauma.”"

I never once mentioned reliving childhood trauma.

I also never suggested or meant to suggest that the only kink that allows men to step away from the pressures of having to "be a man" was an adult-baby/diaper-wearing kink. The point I was trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to make was to counter Dan's statement that the appeal of AB was in the humiliation. Maybe that is true or true for some people. But since the lw was asking Dan what that kink meant or whether it differed from a pedophilia interest, and Dan's explanation for it was about humiliation, I thought it was worth bringing up that there are other buttons that paraphilia pushes. I certainly didn't intend to imply that there is only one paraphilia that allows men that respite from macho-ness.

Good to hear Grizelda! Well done on healing so well this fast. My latest watch was the last season of Shitt’s Creek. Now I want to watch the rest. Funny family.

Beaver @40, yes, the idea of more than two genders does make the concept of "bi"-sexual a bit strange. I think that however many genders one recognises, one must at least be attracted to one's own plus others to identify as bi. I think that's the currently recognised definition - one's own gender and other genders, but possibly not all genders. Personally, I think the only difference between "bi" and "pan" is what year one was born.

Lava @41, indeed, non-binary is an identity which may or may not be apparent upon looking at someone. Let's say LABEL encounters a person who clearly has a biologically female body but is not presenting any obvious gender signifiers. This person might be an enby, or she might be a butch cis woman, or he might be a trans man. From LABEL's account, she would not find this person attractive just by looking at them, but only when she learned they were non-binary. And that makes no sense. I too am attracted to androgynous people but if I learn they identify a different way to what I had presumed at first glance, that does not stop me from being attracted to them. Is LABEL straight, but with an enby fetish -- in a similar way that some straight men fetishise trans women? LABEL, I think you're safest going with the catch-all queer.

Ciods @45, proof that some people are indeed 100% straight. ;)

Hunger fans: Check out the video for Written In Blood by the band She Wants Revenge, it's a super sexy homage to this classic film with a twist.

CMD @46, I agree that there are just more male kinksters than female ones in every category, and I don't think this necessarily says anything about how the patriarchy influences an adult-baby kink. I know there are lot of "little girls" which I see as quite similar.

Lava @49, perhaps she meant "I only like women who are androgynous looking," in which case she does indeed like (some) cis women and is therefore bi. (Not all enbies look androgynous, and not all androgynous people identify as non-binary.) Is there a difference between being attracted to certain genders versus certain gender -presentations-? As someone who is attracted to feminine-to-androgynous people who have spanned most gender identities, this is something I've thought about. Unsurprisingly, a great many people I've found myself attracted to have turned out to be non-binary, but that knowledge has followed the attraction rather than determining it.

Lava @50, with all the trauma of the pandemic and lockdown I'm not surprised your grandson is reverting to his infancy. I think we all would revert to our four-years-ago lives if we could.

Nocute @57, surely you're aware that a person may use one sentence in a fellow commenter's post as a stepping-off point for a post of their own which also includes other thoughts not directly related to that post, or which replies to thoughts in several posts but does not directly cite/footnote all of them? CMD is not, in my view, a person who replies to posts they have not read, but is a person who has experience with certain perspectives on kink and likes sharing those with us.

CAFE FLESH is a must-see. Okay, it's more early 80s than 70s, and it's pretty hardcore, but it's worth it for the aesthetics, kinkiness, weirdness, and especially for the amazing soundtrack.

@34 120 Days of Sodom isn't porn, soft or otherwise. It's an incredible film. Not for the faint of heart, I agree.

@Bi @59: I am hardly the expert, but I've run into one person, mid-40s, who explained to me that she uses "pansexual" rather than "bisexual" because in her crowd, bi means attracted to cis-men and cis-women, and pan means attracted to (potentially) anyone. That made some sense to me, although it seems the terms are hardly well-defined. I agree that for this woman to call herself bi, with no attraction to cis-females, would be super confusing to most folks.

Apologies for the split infinitive; it was, as usual, due to a word change - I was originally going to say "ad infinitum" at the end of the phrase, switched to "exponentially" and just clicked before instead of after, probably because it seemed to flow better.
xxx
Ms Ods - I see quite a bit of that debate, and tend to mark it on whether it's someone applying a label to oneself or to others. I tend to agree that age may have much to do with it, as those of us who got used to bi's being a label of considerably greater inclusivity than the alternatives seem less ready than the panbies to think of bi as an excluding label.
xxx
Ms Fan - That's very interesting. I have come across some perhaps forward-thinking people who draw a distinction among other genders between different and similar in what might be an attempt to solve the sudden imbalance between hetero and homo when the number of choices goes from essentially two to a great many. To use the die example I evoked when Mr Hunter wondered why I went from OS/G to DS/G, it was easy to expand the general consciousness of hetero attraction as the number of genders expanded. Someone hetero of gender 1 could be attracted to not just gender 6 but 5, 4, 3 and 2 as well because they were "other" genders, while someone homo of gender 1 was originally considered still stuck with gender 1. Thinking of other genders as different or similar seems a try to restore the original balance - 6, 5 and maybe 4 on one side; 1, 2 and maybe 3 on the other. Bi then on that reckoning would be at least one different gender and at least one similar (or the same) gender.

One concept I've been considering in musing over my active days is the idea of "preattraction". It was a sort of category where I put men who didn't seem either distinctly DS or distinctly SS, and proved rather useful as a way of avoiding becoming attracted to anyone straight.

Mr. Ven: No need to apologize; split your infinitives with impunity: it's a totally correct thing to do. The "rule" comes from Henry Watson Fowler's exceedingly prescriptive book, "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" (1926), although others had been saying the same thing since roughly 1804. Fowler and those before him modeled their usage on Latinate rules, but in the case of Latin, it is simply not possible to split an infinitive, as the infinitive form of a verb is indicated through Latin's case structure.

But English doesn't follow Latin's rules and isn't an inflected language, and it's perfectly correct and often a good deal less strained to split your infinitives. You can also end sentences with prepositions--also makes for less awkward and strained constructions--and start them with coordinators (though some coordinators are more awkward to start a sentence with than others).

Venn: Personally, I find the prohibition against split infinitives unnecessary to begin with, originating, as it does, with the problematic assumption that English grammar should follow the Latin.

I'll object instead to your use of the word "exponentially" in the same sentence, as exponential is an adjective applied to quantities exhibiting a particular type of continuing growth, rather than one- or two-time increases. Presumably we're upping our number of sexual-attraction descriptors from two or three to some other, larger number, and then we're stopping. The increase may be dramatic, but it won't be exponential.

Ah, nocute, I didn't see your post until mine went through! Sorry to be repetitive.

I almost mentioned prepositions, too! And then I thought we might get into the sort of discussions up with which the assembled company might prefer not to put...

Ciods @63, I'm willing to bet "her crowd" is mostly millennials. ;) Back in my day the word for attraction to people of any or all genders, or attraction to people regardless of gender, was "bisexual." Those of us who would describe ourselves as attracted to people of any and all genders, or with whom gender was not a factor, did not feel we were at a loss for a word to describe ourselves. We had one: bisexual. Only later did people start to think that the prefix "bi" implied that there were only two genders and that perhaps a new word was needed in order to be inclusive of non-binary people. Some of us bisexuals adopted the new term pansexual while others, like me, felt "bisexual" may be slightly problematic but "pansexual" is as well -- it supports the stereotype that bisexuals are attracted to "anything that moves," and it does not accurately describe those of us who are attracted to multiple genders but not every gender. But the term "bisexual" did not mean attraction only to cis people then and it does not mean that now. In other words her crowd has got it wrong. They are of course welcome to use whatever label they like best for themselves, but they should not maintain an inaccurate definition of bisexuals as people who are only attracted to cis folks.

Venn @64: "Bi then on that reckoning would be at least one different gender and at least one similar (or the same) gender." I'm happy to go with that definition. Because even if you reduce it to genitalia, which seems quite useful in getting the idea of a "both" across, if you are attracted to trans women and cis women but no one who presents along the male spectrum, you are not bi.

Please tell me mid-40s isn't millennials.
I thought that was pretty solidly Gen-X.

So...okay...just to clarify: what the hell does pansexual mean, then?

A big win for you, ciods. Congrats.
Fan @ 59, where we live, so far, we are COVID ok. We don’t wear masks and except for the lockdown months ago, life is sort of normalish. I don’t think my grandson’s regression has anything to do with the pandemic. It’s him enjoying for a little longer the pleasures of his body being
free of cultural demands.
I mentioned it because toilet training can be an area with lots of judgement and parental/ child conflict. Much room for parents to humiliate the child. My daughter and her partner are not harsh with the boy, though they let him know that it’s not on anymore and he really has to grow up.

nocute @ 57
I took yours @ 33 a la carte, as it was presented. If it was a reaction to Dan’s or anyone else’s assessment, or maybe a sequel to a previous post, it could have been helpful to state it.
Disclaimer: I tend to skip or just scan SL epic posts in general, nothing personal, hence indeed missed the connection to your previous comment.
In any case, I pointed out to what I view as some commonalities and believe they still add to the discussion.

BDF @ 59
I think the patriarchy allows men in most societies more leeway in terms of sexual activity in general, as well as deviation from the norm.
As nocute rightfully pointed out, “a refuge from having to be in charge and "be a MAN" is certainly one of the motives coming from that particular social construct.

MartyVega @ 62
Yes, “120 days” is indeed a masterpiece, and sadly still very much resonates with nowadays politics all over the world. I watched it recently on a big screen and assumed some members of the audience were there in hope of getting inspired by the acts depicted.
As someone who is still traumatized months later, I wanted to warn anyone who may have that perception.

Another sexy/sexualized parody coming to mind is “Flesh Gordon.” It thought it was somewhat revolutionary for its time as it also suggested the hero is willingly engaged in homosexual act, though certainly far fewer images than all other sexual acts depicted in that film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh_Gordon

There is also an early Jane Fonda, “Barbarella,” made by Roger Vadim whom she dated at the time, the guy who sold the world Brigitte Bardot as the ultimate sexy French woman few years earlier.
The film starts with Ms. Fonda taking off her astronaut suit during a journey to another planet in a gravity-free spaceship. I got to see it as a teenager some 10 years after it came out, hence the memorable scene. Sex on earth is done by taking pills and hold hands, a guy she meets at some point insists on experiencing sex “the old-fashioned way.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella_(film)

Confusing to others ciod @63, if she calls herself Bi? This whole obsession with gender definitions is already confusing, the LW would fit right in.

My vote is she’s Bi: with qualifications specific to certain cultural groups.
To me, outside that cultural group, she likes people who have a penis and people who have a vagina. In the strictly old word meanings of those words. Androgynous chicks, in the old parlance. Some people with vaginas she doesn’t take to, no different to how I operate too. I don’t find attractive or desirable every penis haver I meet.

@39. Bi. I think it's morally important to say that the genitalia does not maketh the man or women. Some of the people she's attracted to are NB in presentation--so not transmen--but have their original female genitals. It would seem plausible to me that, given she's attracted to some cismen, she's likely attracted to some people living as transmen yet to have bottom surgery. These people are men, so her attraction to them would be heterosexual, pure and simple. I don't see the value of getting oneself into contortions queering heterosexuality--or, rather, if I do see it ;) , I'd think its value less here than affirming the common or garden-ish straightness of a cis female and trans male bond.

I did say, eventually, that 'queer' would probably be my favored term, too.

Re @70. Of course the pandemic has effected all economically, many are suffering with our border closures, army helping at the borders. For my mob,
we are going ok. Normalish, for some.

There is no pure and simple Harriet. I’ve been attracted fully to other women, not to their pussies. Is attraction only about genitals rubbing? There are degrees of attraction, it’s fluid. Needing to define oneself so specifically about gender, having to know each others labels seems very laboured to me.
I’ll go with queer too. Bi / Queer .

Caligula, gratuitously bloody with mostly boring, show-nothing sex as I recall. A better bet would be another Marilyn Chambers film, “Insatiable”...
https://porndune.com/en/watch/insatiable-porn-movie-free?v=xemYfCe9QF

@Dadddy: Well, hell, I've been sitting here with a copy of Suetonius's Twelve Caesars, and I haven't yet bothered to read past Caesar. But now I really want to know if the giant lawn mower thingie was a real thingie. I mean, I knew Caligula was a bastard, but that I had not heard.

Russ Meyer (And Roger Ebert)'s "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" from 1979. Hilarious. Amazing. Just read the wikipedia summary. Then you will definitely want to see it. And his other movies.

Ms Ods - You may be right, but it feels exponential to me. Then again, I am extremely depressed.

Truly sorry to hear you're depressed, Mr. Venn @81. These are difficult times on many fronts. You're welcome to join the Covid-19/Savage Love support email group if that might help. The conversations have been wonderful.

Another Bowie’s movie, this one with subtle homosexual undertones and very unique back then electronic music by Riuichi Sakamoto comes to mind: “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.”

I was reminded of it after reading Dadddy’s @ 78. Once Bowie, a WWII special forces POW captured in Indonesia is kissing the Japanese camp commander, he’s buried up to his neck and left to die. No lawn mowers involved, though we learn towards the end that the commander cut some of Bowie’s blond hair one night with the intention of building a shrine in his memory once back home.
Ashes to ashes.

@58 LavaGirl: Many thanks. My beloved Love Beetle and I are still taking things slowly, but we're both on the road to good healing. It's rainy and stormy now, but we hope to get a few road trips in next week. :)
@69 ciods: WA-HOOOOOOO!!!!! Major congrats on scoring this week's Savage Love: Quickies Lucky @69 Award! Bask in the much envied glory and savor the delicious honors. To the victor goes the spoils. :)
@71 CMDwannabe: I remember Jane Fonda in Barbarella (1968?).
My vote for best porn flick (although probably considered tame nowadays for many, though) is Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). I LOVE Susan Sarandon, and Tim Curry is just too damned cute.
'I can see you're all just tingling with antici....................................PATION!' :)

Who's salivating over hitting this week's Big Hunsky? Tick...tick..tick....

@65 read Fowler again, he's not nearly as prescriptive as you're remembering him! And he would never subscribe to the "because Latin" thing. On split infinitives he basically said, opinion is against them so you try to avoid them, but they're perfectly grammatical and sometimes the best option.

"Examples abound of most of the categories of split infinitives that Visser found in works of earlier centuries. As can quickly be seen, to recast any of the following to avoid splitting would often make them stilted and pedantic..."

"The prejudice against the split infinitive, though relatively recent in the broader context of the history of English, has a considerable weight of opinion behind it. The split infinitive is, therefore, best avoided, especially when it is stylistically awkward. But it is not a major error nor a grammatical blunder; it is acceptable, even necessary, when considerations of rhythm and clarity require it."

I'm not certain in what universe the Rocky Horror Picture Show can be considered porn. Or even porn-adjacent.

Ciods @69, mid 40s is GenX, but you referred to "her crowd" suggesting the possibility that she is hanging out with people younger than she is. It is possible that these younger friends pressured her to change her label because they don't believe "bisexual" can be inclusive of all genders, which it can. Or perhaps she came out later in life, or isn't sufficiently sure of herself to tell these youngsters they're wrong. Pansexual means bisexual, just as Caucasian means white, it's just a matter of preference. But preferring the term pansexual does not mean that bisexuals only like cis people. Hell, this particular bisexual -prefers- those who are gender bent, so there goes their theory.

If this crowd isn't young, the other possibility is that they're painfully woke. I guess the upshot is that if someone uses a label you find confusing, just ask them about it.

And now that I've simplified things to where they should be, I'll unsimplify them. If one, in fact, does have certain genders they're attracted to and certain genders they aren't, they can't call themself pansexual. But if someone is attracted to any and all genders, they can call themself bisexual or pansexual according to their preference. Ergo this woman would not be pansexual, as she excludes roughly half the population based on their gender.

Harriet @74, I said later in the thread that if she were attracted only to cis men and trans men she would be straight. She is also attracted to enbies of both biological sexes, leading me to favour the term heteroflexible or indeed queer. So we do not disagree.

Griz @84, I don't think many people would consider Rocky Horror porn. As I recall the only thing that would rile censors was a brief glimpse of female nipple. Then again I suppose this raises the question of what is the definition of porn? I am sure that someone, somewhere has masturbated to the RHPS. Is porn anything people masturbate to, can non-explicit but sexy material be retroactively designated porn if it turns people on enough? (On a completely unrelated, ahem, tangent, anyone watch that video for Written In Blood yet?)

To put it a different way, pansexual is the virtue-signalling term for bisexual.

@88, as a Gen X person who spends time in a crowd comprised of lots of people both older and younger than me, I don't note a great deal of distinction between bi and pan, period, myself included. The inclination to use pan doesn't seem particularly millennial to me, at least. The commenter's expanded definition sounds more like one of those idiosyncratic local usages that pop up and dissipate again, in a particular city or scene.

@Mtn. Beaver @86: Thanks for the correction; I must be getting all my stylists, grammarians, and lexicographers mixed up. I don't feel like putting in the time to sort through all of them, but the original point still stands, regardless of who popularized the conceit, that an infinitive should never be split, especially by an adverb. And that that "rule" is a result of trying to make English follow Latinate grammar. Most of what we've been taught was "correct" or "the rule" are just individual stylistic preferences (as is the one I just "broke" by starting the previous sentence with a coordinating conjunction). The "rule" is still incorrect and unnecessary and infinitives can be joyfully split.

I would guess that 95% of all native English speakers don't even know what we're talking about and don't notice a split infinitive or take offense to it. I'm much more in favor of descriptive, rather than prescriptive style & grammar guides and dictionaries.

Ms Cute - I shall just hope you don't take descriptivism all that far, as it quickly becomes the tail wagging the dog. I had to write off Ms Muse's favourite descriptivist almost at once when in one YouTube presentation she gave an account of her teenage daughter's using a rather ugly construction that happened to be a bit of local vernacular at the time (and still may) and insisted on trying to turn it from a rather obvious teen verbal version of a middle finger into an "Invitation to Intimacy" - LMB not just in spades, but in no-trumps. (I remind the assembled company that anyone who sees a license plate reading NOTRUMP with or without a space should take the owner to be a bridge player, likely a serious one, and not a Blue No Matter Who voter.)

Mr Bar - I suspect the group would not thank you, but I shall relieve them all by stating that it's just the standard response to Mr Biden's not having had to drop out yet, combined with the effect of my reviving an old bridge partnership online and having to play with many kibitzers, which makes me extremely nervous and upsets me for hours afterwards. To try to make it understandable for non-players, it's a little like dating someone extremely popular and having to go to all those parties Mr Miller lets Mr Savage avoid.

Re: Pandemic
This persons rationale for forgoing interpersonal relations reminded me of a debate FDR had in a cabinet meeting during the Great Depression. The debate was between one party who wanted to counter hunger through programs designed to help people grow more of their own food, the other party wanted to simply send surplus food directly to the hungry.
Both sides presented their arguments. When they summed up the party in favor of the grow-your own told the President that this was the better solution "In the long run". The other party reminded FDR that ..."People don't eat in the long run".

If I'm remembering Caligula correctly and not some other movie, the actors all had scars from their small pox vaccinations on their upper left arms. Whoever did make-up care enough about the anachronism to bother putting some concealer over the spot.

Dan makes what may be his understatement of the year in describing Caligula as “probably isn’t as lighthearted as the version Alice in Wonderland you stumbled over.” Indeed, they’re probably as different as two 70’s “porno”films can be. For a fun read, go to:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caligula-1980

It would seem to me that to be considered pornographic, a film should not only have explicit sex scenes, but should also be considered erotic. The only person I can think of who would be erotically aroused by Caligula is psychopath.

I prefer "ambisexual."

I'd like to recommend the films of Yann Gonzales. Knife+Heart is a murder mystery set in a 70s porno studio (can get a bit gory at times, but is also incredibly camp and funny), and You and the Night is an 80s-style film about 7 strangers who meet for an orgy and tell their stories one by one. They're not really porn, but they are fantastic films with sex in them.

@87 MartyVega and @88 BiDanFan: Not even the lusciously in-drag foursome-in-the-pool scene with Tim Curry himself? ('Don't dream it.....be it...' ?). I guess I haven't really viewed a lot of what would be considered porn, or porn-themed, other than Barbarella (1968) and more recently, Boogie Nights (1997).

And this week's lucky Big Hunsky winner IS......

@95: Thank you, subhubby, for the link to that Roger Ebert review. That might have been the funniest thing I'e read all week.

Let's give a hearty WA-HOOOOOOOO for hitting @100.............

@99 nocutename: WA-HOOOOOOO!!!! Major congratulations! Griz did not intend to hit this Big Hunsky Award. I was setting it up. So Griz bequeaths the big prize to you, nocutename. Savor the riches, honor, and envied glory. :)

Griz @98, I don't think either of those other two movies you mentioned would count as porn either. And certainly not the pool scene. I think to qualify as porn, at minimum there must be explicit genital contact.
And there were five in that pool -- Frank N Furter, Brad, Janet, Columbia and Rocky :) Risqué for sure, but not porn.