Bingowings said:

TV's Frink said:

Bingowings said:

Warbler said:

TV's Frink said:

Bingowings said:

Why would people take their pants off at the beach?

Because they want to go in the sea.

What else is the beach for?

You can't go home in wet knickers.

have you heard of bathing suits?

Which you have to change into and out of.

So you've never heard of wearing your suit to the beach?  And then drying off, siting on a towel, etc?

Wear bathing trunks to the beach and back?

Are you nuts?

You clearly haven't experienced a British summer.

I went to a beach in California once when it was kind of cool.  If a British summer is like that, I would just skip the beach. :p

Yeah, I guess I wouldn't wear my trunks back home there either.  But you certainly could wear them to the beach with some pants over them.

JEDIT: It amuses me to see where this thread has gone after the OP, and that it's reached 7 pages with very little discussion of the actual topic.

Bingowings said:

I think you overestimate the vulnerability of people sitting in a locked toilet cubicle.

Plenty of people are uncomfortable with public bathrooms, even if someone isn't pounding the door down or sticking their head underneath. They're simply not the "height of privacy."

I would hate to lose variety and complexity.

Having limited options means I'm more prone to be a victim of fate rather than a creature of action capable of making choices.

The idea that there would only be one flavour of desire with only one outcome (procreation) turns the human race into little less than a plague.

Only diversity adds poetry and surprises.

A world without sex would be interesting. Probably a much better world. Not a world I would want. I enjoy diversity, as it exists.

My homosexuality isn't the whole of me but it is a large part of me which I have had to adjust to as have the people around me.

Me without it would not be me regardless of what I do with it in terms of sticking my genitals into things.

And in a world where there was need need for adjusting, you would have been different yet. While playing a big role, I do think you would have many essential qualities that would shine through whether you born a woman, straight, or any other way.  Though I do believe in souls. And speaking of which, did you see that terrible story of a man in Sweden with a hornet nest? Fortunately, turned out to be a hoax.

Children hate clowns. Clowns are ambiguity personified. The gender and age cues are mixed up they have false faces, the body signature is confused, they have squeaky feet.

Over time you come to realise that clowns aren't scary, they are EVIL!!!!

As a child, I wanted to be a clown. I have matured, however, and now also agree that they are in fact evil.

A world without sex... go together like a horse and carriage :-D

TV's Frink said:

Yeah, I guess I wouldn't wear my trunks back home there either.  But you certainly could wear them to the beach with some pants over them.

 

JEDIT: It amuses me to see where this thread has gone after the OP, and that it's reached 7 pages with very little discussion of the actual topic.

Yes I could wear trunks under my trousers but I would then need to remove them before going home because they would be wet and cold.

The OP was about preconceptions to a degree.

The restaurant failed to provide facilities for fathers to change baby clothes because the assumed women would do that.

This ties in with the who gender identity/ gender segregation undercurrent of the piece as does the general theme of dressing/undressing.

It would be more weird if someone, apropos of nothing, posted a picture of an ice-cream van in the Death Zone on Gallifrey.

Not saying we're off topic, just interesting how we've meandered.

We're still vaguely on topic, considering we're in the off topic section. But we are dealing with some important issues, like where to pee and whether Gaffer and I should wear a skirt.

Oh, I don't need anyone here to tell me that.  I've been wearing skirts in public for 7 years now.  :D

But no lingerie

Not in space...

Why not?

Warbler said:

Gaffer Tape said:

 I've been wearing skirts in public for 7 years now.  :D

why?

why not?

Oh my gosh! We both posted that at the exact same time! We're twins!!

Warbler said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Why not?

*sigh*

But what about my question?

Ugh. Double standards.

Warbler said:

Gaffer Tape said:

 I've been wearing skirts in public for 7 years now.  :D

why?

why should he have to explain it to you, is the question. why is it any of your business? why is chocolate pudding good? why do some people like tapioca instead?

Warbler said:

Gaffer Tape said:  But I can't for the life of me figure out how the bottom one looks at all silly or even feminine in the slightest

he is wearing a dress.

Well so are these guys, but they don't look silly in the slightest ;)

Warbler said:

He doesn't have to explain to me,  but that doesn't mean I can't ask him.

Sigh.  Another sigh from you.  That wasn't a rhetorical question.  I genuinely wanted you to tell me why not.

But, no, I do intend to answer you, with a fun anecdote, no less.

Picture it.  Sicily, 1908...

Oh, no, wait.  Let me try again.

Back in St. Olaf...

Oh, crap.  Okay, wait, for reals this time.

I've always been "weird" and sought to go against societal norms ever since I was a kid.  And as a little kid, I do remember being occasionally jealous that the girls got to wear cute dresses, and I wasn't allowed to.  But as every other child, I was indoctrinated into the "right" way of thinking, and I can remember, from a very early age, repressing, repressing, repressing.  It even got to the point where I remember being about 6 or 7 or so and always muting the TV or running out of the room whenever a "girl" commercial was on because I didn't want the Barbie jingle stuck in my head because that shit's not for boys.

But it was May of 2006 (so about a year after I joined this forum) when I had an epiphany.  It was one of the last days of finals of my sophomore year of college.  I came into sophomore acting studio for our final in that, and I was chatting with classmates before our professors came in.  One of them in particular was a female classmate, and she happened to be wearing a long, flowing, floral print skirt, and I complimented it.  In return, she joked, "I'll have to let you borrow it some time, Lance."  And we both laughed at the obvious humor in such a ridiculous concept and then went about our lives.

But suddenly it was like a switch flipped in my brain, and I was suddenly capable of thinking in an entirely new way.  The question popped into my head:  "What if I'd said yes?"  And I realized that there are so many things we take for granted.  We're told as children what's right and what's wrong.  What's proper and what's not.  And we're children, so we take it at face value and take it as solid, immutable fact.  Men can't wear skirts.  Why?  Because they can't.  It wasn't solid, immutable fact.  It was just something somebody came up with, and people generally haven't questioned it.  And I decided right then and there that that's not really any good reason for doing anything, not on its own.

And so I started wearing skirts, and it's been an amazing means of expression as well as a fascinating social experiment.  I have so many interesting stories I could tell about my adventures living outside of the social norms.  I have had wonderful conversations with dozens, if not hundreds, of interested people.  But it's affected my entire perception of the world.  It makes me think more.  It makes me not take things at face value but to always ask WHY we do anything that we do.  And if I can't figure out any good reason for not doing something, then I'll do it.  And I want to, for an instant, shake other people out of their comfort zones and cause them to have to think for a second.  Sure, many will just laugh at the freak and never stop to consider it, but I hope others will manage to have a moment like mine where they suddenly find themselves thinking in new ways.  I'm not trying to "convert" a bunch of gender nonconformist disciples, but I just want people to see something out of the ordinary and consider for just a moment that things can or even should be out of the ordinary.