h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Since we're all friends here...
What constitutes a pervert, then?
Puzzling about this. A headline in the dreaded Local Paper stated that a 'vicious pervert' had indecently assaulted a woman. Since this is fairly unspecialised behaviour, I wouldn't class him as a pervert. (Wrong, yes; in need of help, certainly, probably disturbed.) If he'd tied her up with lukewarm blue string and forced a rubber chicken into her mouth, that would be perverted.
And is it always a negative term? Properly applied (that is: outside of what is considered 'normal' sexual etc. behaviour), I'd see it as a compliment. There are those of us who go so far as to say we are Perves, as a type of social grouping.
Thoughts please. (Keep it pleasant.)

I heard a definition once. If you use a feather you are kinky, but if you use the whole chicken you´re a pervert.

Dude, I'm a student at nottingham university as well. I've been stuck in Broadgate for the last year but now I'm moving out into the big wide ..um... Lenton.

Hopefully you might be able to help me. I installed Novell on my computer at the start of the year. Now I've come home and discovered that because I've got novell installed, my comp' won't let me use ICQ or play counter-strike online. I have bt anytime as my isp.

Any thoughts on how to help 'cos I'm totally computer illiterate.

Cheers

TDiD

Are you sure you're in the right thread?

Back to subject, for Xanatic-
Heard that one. Also heard this: I am erotic, You are kinky, They are perverted.

Did somebody call me?

Like with women and men. Women are passionate, guys are just horny.

Women watch erotica, men watch porn.

It's a relative term. In my book a prurient interest in sex between consenting adults is normal, a prurient interest in sex with chickens (or any other barnyard fowl) is not. Now I know that leaves some loopholes open. Oxen, for example.

Then there's the fact that in certain cultures and times, zoophilia was considered 'normal'...
I am very suspicious of 'normal' behaviour, especially when people start to think that anything outside of it is wrong or dangerous. Maybe that's because I'm innormal.

How about old men who chase after young girls? I think most people would find that perverted.

Innormal, that's a good one. My young man and I tend to call each other pervert as a term of affection. I'd be very upset if he stopped being a pervert.
That said, the definition of pervert in the dictionary isn't as bad as the way some people use it. Or is that just me reading it wrong?

Hey there, Mina. You are one serious person when it comes to perversion.

You're not reading the dictionary wrong, but tabloids - or in this case local rags which have decided adopting a tabloid style is the way to boost circulation - seem to have their own dictionary. Has anyone considered writing a guide entry on tabloid-speak?

What is perversion? Remember, you can pervert the course of justice - meaning turn it away from its rightful course. And what is rightful - or normal - is what we in society decide. We then make it law by process of democracy, and everybody has to live with it. As time goes by, society changes the way it lives - and we all find ourselves, generally, perverting the old ways - and it becomes time to make new laws, and new ways, and define new perversions. Basically then what is perverted is going to change all the time and everywhere! So, no answer there then, sorry.

No, that's a good answer.

In Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita', the anti-hero Humbert Humbert refers to himself as a pervert, on account of his preference for sexual interaction with certain twelve year-old girls. However, technically, surely the likes of Jeffrey Archer must also come under this definition if he is indeed found guilty of 'perverting the course of justice'...

I think the dictionary simply says it means a diversion from the norm. Which to most people is also a terrible thing.

I think most people are even more perverse than that: they want to fit in whilst standing out from the crowd.

Often, the best way to understand a word is to compare it with other words based on the same root.
Divert.
Invert.
Revert.

Another example is seduce.
Induce.
Reduce.
Produce.

Once we have a better understanding of the wide range of meaning or applications a root word may be subjected to, we can begin to discriminate on the way words like 'seduce' and 'pervert' are misused generally.
Helpful tip: By a conscious effort to rely mainly on Anglo-saxon monosyllabic grunts, one can usually avoid the convoluted and perverse tendencies found in the obfuscations of Greco-Roman rhetoric.

peace
~jwf~