And I want to call BS on the stereotyping comment. If even a handful of the women who fit that description were kinky and all about sex, I wouldn’t have to wade through such a sea of men that age just to try to hook up with my peers. Women who fit that description who are kinky would have heard “bondage rope” and purred.

That being said, I agree with Robert A. Heinlein’s character Lazarus Long:

“”Go to hell!” or other insult direct is all the answer a snoopy question rates. ” ‘Time Enough For Love”

I don’t disagree. But let’s see what Monk says that he does. (The “baiting” was in reference to how we got to the third question. This is about “the answer”.)

“No, instead I prefer to play the “3 strikes and you’re out” game with them.”

“I make and sell bondage rope to the sex industry.”
Several seconds of dumbstruck silence
“You what?!”
Ok honey, I tried, I honestly tried but now you asked for it.
“Bondage rope, you know so people can tie each other up and fuck? I supply most of the sex shops on the west coast and some of the best hardcore bondage websites in the industry. In fact I’m currently in negotiations with a major porn studio to supply rope for an upcoming series of videos.”

That usually shuts them right up.”

Do you really want to argue that that’s the only appropriate “answer” or even that all appropriate answers are roughly equivalent?

I resent the above. Our host is free to decide on any basis he wants, but I don’t think that the deleted comments were less polite than some that made it through.

> Only when a person inquires yet further is the whole kit and kaboodle unpacked.

The “you what” after “several seconds of dumbstruck silence” (quoting Monk) isn’t really a further inquiry. It’s just filler. It’s certainly not being “snoopy”.

It’s easy enough to answer “you what” with “it takes all kinds” or other blather when it’s clear that the other person is dumbstruck.

I think that there’s a difference between someone who is trying to get their bearings and someone who is charging ahead. Of course, you can treat them the same, but if you treat them differently, there’s a good chance that you’ll get different results.

“Goal” was a misstatement on my part, one which I thought was clear from my other statements. It would have been better if I’d written “result” or “reasonably expected result”. (Reading between the lines, I’d expect that Monk has gotten this result before.)

> When someone says they do something for some specific reason, and you ardently insist they are doing it for some other reason, you’re saying and suggesting that they lie.

Not at all. I’m only saying that he wants one result but does something that consistently produces a different result.

Good manners means I wouldn’t want to risk you actually conversing with me, or worse, probing my way into a shocking put down about my presumed and detestably evident prudery.