It seems that we are perfectly normal.

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MacRobin
Posts: 65
Joined: October 16th, 2017, 4:37 pm

It seems that we are perfectly normal.

Post by MacRobin »

I have been continuing my researches into how people like us, totally harmless humans with attractive tastes, have been treated by the so-called experts - psychologists and psychiatrists - ever since they found out we exist.

I will get to the core of this post in a moment, it is based on a paper I stumbled across. The so-called scientific paper carrying the title "Personal attributes of the average rubber fetishist", which was presented at a psychology conference in Swansea in 1976. The conference went under the banner of "Love and Attraction." A broadsheet newspaper sent a reporter and he wrote it up with loads of nudge, nudge, wink, wank, smirking.

Let me get out of the way, that although this paper and my general (actually total) leaning is firmly towards the rubber end of the spectrum, I recognise, acknowledge and salute those whose preference is PVC. We are essentially one and the same. Although never a smoker, I perceive the similarities. The same level of addiction, bordering upon compulsion. In terms of tobacco, far more harmful than rubber or PVC, provided you do not work in the industry, it is perfectly safe. Some people like cigarettes, some cigars. Some like it tipped, some like it in pipes.

If there is one thing that really gets up my nose when I read some of these psychology experts, it is their language and pre-conceived bias. They say "Patient X was diagnosed as a serious rubber fetishist." To which I could write a paper of my own in reply. First of all, it would be courteous to refer to the subject as Mr X or even Mrs or Miss X, and not as a patient. WE are NOT ILL. Secondly, the word "diagnosed" when uttered in our context is offensive. A far better form of speech would be to say that "Miss X was noted to possess a predilection for wearing tightly belted yellow satin rubber lined raincoats, having perceived that her sexual partner liked it and by his liking, she liked it even more, whereby the two of them exploited their passion to have far better sex than the average non rubber fetishist." Is that an illness? We could respond with the retort "During my voluntary session with the local council's duty psychologist, who had been tipped off to enquire into possible child abuse, because I had been observed by a Mary Whitehouse clone, as I walked alone in the town centre during a torrential downpour, wearing what appeared to be an SBR raincoat over, and what appeared to be a hydroglove retro dry-suit under, I immediately diagnosed my interrogator to be a psychologist."

Having read all about the neurological responses, I find that there is common ground between a love of rubber/latex/PVC/PU/etc and a) smoking b) drinking alcohol c) drugs and d) driving a car at three times the speed limit. Once you are into it, there is no getting out of it, except by aversion therapy. And yet if you look at the annual death tolls, we fade into oblivion compared to the thousands killed every year by smoking, cars and drugs. In addition, we are deliriously happy, an emotion often lacking in the other groups. We don't kill, we thrill.

I am woffling. I shall summarise the paper about the personal attributes of people like us. Wait for it. All extant metrics were used to measure our psychology. There are parameters apparently to make the measurement with.

Here are the metrics and how we measure up.

• Extroversion (we are normal)
• Neuroticism (we are normal)
• Desire for acceptance (we are normal)
• Impersonaility (we are normal)
• Sexual neuroticism (we are so fucking normal we are psychologically boring)
• Shyness (we are slightly shyer than normal but this was 1976, so why not?)
• Prudishness (we are 1976, twice as prude as "normal" and this must be a faulty prude-meter)
• Sexual excitability (we are so normal that any differences were too small to warrant further analysis)
• Masculinity (all men analysed were found to be perfectly normal men)
• Sex thought frequency (we think about sex pretty well all of the time, just like normal people)
• Physical excitement accompanying sex thought (because we incorporate rubber/latex/PVC/PU into our sex thoughts), Wait for it, this is what we have been waiting for! We wipe the floor with normal people.)

Now I turn to the most interesting part of the paper. They don't explain how they fell upon the reason to ask the question, but they asked the (men) they sampled
"When did it all start? First memory?" They presented a graph, a histogram. I cant draw it here but I'll do my best to explain. They presented the number of people who told them the age.

Here are the results. In their discussion, the authors of the paper totally missed the important bits -- the young end

Age 0 to 12 months: 0
Age 1 to 2: 4
Age 2 to 3: 6
Age 3 to 4: 11
Age 4 to 5: 5
dont worry about fluctuations, its a "small" sample"
e.g.
Age 9 to 10: 9
whereafter there is a slow, steady decline to about
Age 20 to 21: 1

There are a few what Germans call "Auslaufers".
There was 1 person age 25 to 26, another age 28 to 29, then wow, 3 age 33 to 35 and a gentle soul who eventually found peace at age 46 to 47.

I have thought about where I fit into this. I reckon 3 or 4. I have distinct memories.
But once the beast seized me, it never let go and I am sooooooo happy. I have a controversial alternative theory. Our earliest memories are vague and some people can remember 3, or 2 or even earlier. Some cant remember further back than 10. I therefore assert that these data support my hypothesis that you are born with it. We only have to hear/see/smell/read about/ stumble upon our passion and we cannot resist.
rubberdee
Posts: 303
Joined: December 17th, 2017, 1:19 pm
Location: Notts
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Re: It seems that we are perfectly normal.

Post by rubberdee »

Very interesting but I would suggest we could have told them that for free ;)
TStorm56
Posts: 212
Joined: October 20th, 2015, 5:10 pm

Re: It seems that we are perfectly normal.

Post by TStorm56 »

Age 3-4 seems pretty spot on for me. There are numerous pictures of me in a shiny yellow raincoat in family photo albums.
rainwearseeker
Posts: 650
Joined: April 5th, 2017, 10:49 am

Re: It seems that we are perfectly normal.

Post by rainwearseeker »

i was about 2-3 years as i can remember.
rainwear-experience
Posts: 3234
Joined: January 17th, 2010, 12:35 pm

Re: It seems that we are perfectly normal.

Post by rainwear-experience »

I've always thought myself to normal, its the people who consider them selves abnormal for liking something totally acceptable that worry me

I once heard Elvis singing on the radio, I liked it so wanted to hear more, seems very normal to me

Do we really have to analyse down to the last turd in every poo
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