Some of you (OK so like... three of you) may remember the last time I ran a survey on political values; I was really happy with the responses everybody gave me at TheMotte, and now a few other people I know who post on Substack are wanting to use the results to answer some questions of their own. So long story short, here's another poll:
Don't worry if you think you're unusual and might skew the results - in fact we'd very much appreciate your perspective, whatever it is.
Thanks guys!
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
So you're into at least one of these (scat, grandparent/child incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, executions, bestiality, brutality, mother/daughter incest)?
Mother/daughter is a smidgen below 4. I checked at max size.
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Yes.
On another note, am I the only one who thinks scat and the two incests seem out of place compared to the others? In particular mother/daughter seems outright tame to me.
Scat is there because poo contains coliforms and if those wind up in your mouth you are reasonably likely to get sick.
"Mother/daughter" is a smidgen below 4, actually, and I believe that's a misstatement of general "parent/child" (there are no categories listed for "mother/son", "father/son", or "father/daughter").
And yes, necrophilia/paedophilia/executions/bestiality score higher than the rest.
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It's not that clear to me what they mean with "mother/daughter". Looking at a daughter and a mother having sex (incest porn)? Or for a daughter to want to have sex with her own mother? Or for a mother to have desires for her daughter? Because incest porn is quite widespread, but it's not the same as being excited by your own daughter.
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At least in the survey, incest has an escalating rate of expected disapproval as age gaps and reproductive risks start getting involved, starting with sister-sister as the least taboo (presumably het guys with twin threesome fantasies?), with an exception for brother-brother and father-son incest being considered more taboo (... presumably because there's a lot of het guys in the sample).
There's also a lot of items that weren't included in the final v3 graph or v3 taboo survey which were in the v2 taboo survey, and were probably more heavily focused on disgust or norm violations than such severe norm violations that they were clear violations of law. Not sure if they were dropped do to low interest or expected overlap with other statements, or just to streamline the survey.
That said, the survey asked about what you expected social ramifications would be, were you revealed to be interested in the topic to family or strangers, which is probably going to different results than whether something is tame or weird. The central case of parental incest in the real world and especially real-world awareness is incredibly abusive, and that's likely to drive how people expect social response to be, even if a lot of the people who fantasize usually have a wildly different focus.
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The thought that a person could be sexually aroused by any item on this list fills me with a profound, disquieting horror. There are differences in degree (scat horrifies me less than paedophilia), but none of them fail to horrify me.
If it's any consolation, I'm about as vanilla as it gets irl. I'm lucky insofar as I don't have an obligate fetish; I get off on perfectly normal sex with my wife just fine. But the fact remains, we don't have control over what turns us on, and for some people that includes some fucked up things.
Oh wild.
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