Very Zen of you. :P Seriously though, I never really saw it quite that way. Well put.

Well, in my case, I don't get feet as an attraction.

But in that sense, I mean it as in it baffles me as to how it turns someone on. I can see some aspects of stuff which don't turn me on--hard vore, masochism, transformation, etc. They all have explanations that pass muster in my mind in terms of "Oh, I can totally see that!"

I can write about a kink I don't personally have and make it appealing for my partner if I'm roleplaying it!...Except for feet. Just cuz I dunno how to get someone more turned on with it. :x It's not so much that I think it's silly or stupid, it's just...Square peg, round hole, does not compute, is all. <:D

I guess what's really weird about it is that I have a mind open enough to fit three football fields and a bowling alley, so I really do try to understand most every kink I come across...that one is just the odd man out, I guess!

I have to wonder sometimes if people questioning using this method are on some level personally curious about exploring it themselves, and possibly repressing the desire by sublimating it in such a way.
Or maybe I'm overintellectualizing, but one good turn deserves another right :3

The next public Internet campaign needs to be about the Golden Rule, and "don't like it, don't look" should be a part of it. Obviously harassment and abuse shouldn't be tolerated, but there's a severe lack of respect for MYOB about....

I agree with this. I have asked some folks on occasion (way back when I was fresh and new and was blind to many kinks) about a particular fetish in a nice way on what they got out it it, but more specifically why. I was just truly curious about the why, and never said anything untowards them for it. I was just curious.

That's totally fair enough :3

When it comes to kinks, I suppose people are into their kinks for many of the same reasons that I'm into mine. I spend a great deal of time trying to understand how my own kinks started, and in figuring out ways to continuously enhance my kinks. I know basically what motivates my kinks, while most people don't seem to think about their own kinks on that level. Most people won't explore or try new things, so it can be very hard for them to accept or to understand what other people are into. Just watch the average person's reaction when they discover someone is into wetting themselves or something like that. People sometimes freak out over other people's harmless kinks. In most cases, they have their own kinks that they are ok with though.

I love fetishes. The weirder they are, the more interested I am in learning about them and even seeing them in action. Even if it's a fetish I don't share, I still love to learn what I can about it, and I am happy for those you are enjoying them. There is pretty much one exception to what I can relate to. That is people who have to hurt themselves or others in order to achieve a state of arousal. I'm talking about people who cut themselves or who are into extreme and painful punishment type stuff, like branding, burning, caning, cock and ball torture, punching, asphyxiation, flat-lining, drug abuse, and other things that could easily result in a hospital visit, or death. What makes some people gain sexual arousal from things that can easily hurt them or other people? Am I weird for being turned off by things that hurt people? I have friends that I really worry about sometimes. I'm afraid I might find one dead with a rubber bag over the head and a vacuum pump they couldn't reach to shut off. Sadly, these destructive fetishes appear to be growing in popularity, and my brain simply can't comprehend that.

99 percent of fetishes are safe and fun. Some are wild and messy and some are tame. I'm ok with people getting off to anything from sniffing socks to drinking bird vomit, from eating periods to swimming with fursuits in a pool full of banana pudding. If you like it, and it's relatively safe, then have fun and make it good! I just have issues with the abusively unsafe hurting stuff.

I don't think there are a lot of kinks you CAN'T understand, if you're curious.

Seriously. not getting a kink just makes me want to figure it out, and usually it's pretty obvious.

Yeah. There are a few fetishes out there that I just don't quite grok. There are fetishes and kinks I'm sure you feel non-plus'd by. But I guess we don't hate on them even if we don't understand them. People don't like things they don't understand and don't want to understand things because they don't like them, news at 11.

Criticizing others kinks is just another example of the natural tendency of human beings toward xenophobia. We don't like what is different by default. It takes an effort to go beyond that reflex.
friend of mine offered the dea that kinks could actually work like phobias. I can't find a weakness in this theory. It would imply kinks are learned and can be changed as phobias. An interesting area for experimentation.

I thought you meant "I don't get" as in people who are always confused.

When I ask what people like about something, I'm serious. I love learning about new kinks and what the buttons are for them. Tell me how you first found out you like it, or what your Words of Power are.

What I don't get is why people think that kinks are chosen. I didn't one day wake up and say "Oh, hey, THIS fetish would be cool to have so that I can face the ostracism of my peers." It just happened the way it did, and I deal with it as it is. I can't cure it any more than someone can cure my "gayness."

When I find myself thinking, "I don't get XXX," it seems to go two ways for me: I don't want to get it, so I avoid it because it makes me uncomfortable, or I want to understand it, even if it doesn't turn me on, and so I try to find some information. In the former case, I avoid it, so I don't wind up talking about it; in the latter, I usually wind up asking about it in an honest way.