TPO

Hi, Sadly I'm not lucky (rich?!) enough to have been to that particular Hilton, but any reputable hotel in that area is going to be fabulous! Most Hiltons are lush - isn't it their flagship one? Must be the best. Are you after anything in particular, i.e. facilities, packages etc? Or do you have a reward programme with the Hilton? Work or pleasure?! ~TPO~

A straw thro' your tongue? I assume you have it pierced then?! Erm, I can turn my top and bottom eyelids up, which is sooo attractive. (Not!) More endearing would be weirdy tongue stuff, ooh and I can put my fist in my mouth. Some say I have a big mouth, some say small hands...my fella says he's pleased with both 'qualities'!

Yeah, I think the subject title was somewhat misleading. Although now might be a good time to point out that that was not why I decided to read it. Ahem.

Why thank you, Mr Dave. I have to say, I whole-heartedly agreee with you - but then, I may be slightly biased here!!

Sorry for taking so long to reply, not been on here for a while… Right, I’ll just reply to the questions directed at me, cos this is going on a bit! Does anyone ever just agree to disagree here?! Obviously I have the innate knowledge to know that rape, murder and terrorist attacks are evil. I do not need to experience them, to know that they are wrong. However, my point was that I am not going to comment on how I am likely to feel after doing such acts – because who knows – I might surprise myself and really enjoy such acts. I’m not sure I can pull off serial rape, as apparently us ladies aren’t capable of raping a man! So I am not incapable of telling good from evil, I’m just going to restrain myself from saying how I ASSUME I will feel after doing something bad. I might enjoy it! Just like you might enjoy visiting the BW Exhibition. OK OK, before you say – maybe ‘enjoy’ is the wrong word…perhaps just ‘surprise’ yourself. I asked if you were a skydiver, because you only used negative examples in your examples of trying new things. I assume you enjoy skydiving? But what made you start in the first place? Were you not scared? Excited? For many people, the thought of ‘jumping out of a plane’, most could not comprehend how it would feel to them, until they’d done it. But clearly you did it. The same goes for the sex comment. I don’t actually want to KNOW if you are a virgin. It was simply an example of trying something for the first time, and the anxieties that go with it – but then, you find you love it! And now I feel I must address your other ‘virginity’ issues, because as Skyrad mentioned – I think we may have stumbled upon something more interesting!! SO here goes… Just because you masturbate, does not of course mean you have lost your virginity. I refer to the physical virginity here, as I’m not sure there technically is another! For example, you can masturbate without penetration – i.e. clitoral stimulation and you can penetrate yourself without it being classed as masturbation – i.e. inserting tampons. In order to lose your virginity you are to have ‘sexual intercourse’ – I realise this is tricky in relation to lesbianism. Having said that, the definition relates to the sexual organs being brought together – there’s a loophole there I’d say! The definition then states ‘esp. of a man and a woman’ – but does not exclude two women, or two men, for that matter. I’m not saying virginity isn’t a complex problem – it’s like anything else in this world where a traditional term gets a modern twist. Once you start putting different spins on terminology, you get into a whole new ball game (no pun intended fellas!). That’s what lawyers do after all! Yes, she’s a virgin. How would this have happened? Anally? Then she’s a ‘vagina virgin’. Then she’s a ‘man virgin’. See above. Tampons break the hymen, so that guy must be teeny! But, if she hasn’t decided the guy’s not worth the effort and goes through with it, no, she’s not a virgin. She’s a real woman now! Hahahaha. Nothing to do with it. Not climaxing does not a virgin make. Doing the do, with or without love, with or without orgasms, means you ain’t a virgin no more. Ooooh, ‘making love’ ain’t the same as sex now, is it? I assume you mean she’s an oral sex expert but a ‘technical virgin’? So, blow jobs (or the 'lady love' version) aside, she’s a ‘vagina virgin’. I mean, you’ve obviously (or perhaps not, but others have) tried something for the first time, that is potentially a big deal for people, that they might not know for sure how they will react, but what the hey – they throw in the chips anyways! Good on 'em I say!

OK, so here we go again. Ying, I too love a good debate, so as much as I’m not sure I can be bothered to work round some of your ‘unique’ views, I feel I’d best have a go – lest you think you think you’ve gotten your second-degree Polemic victory from me! I’m not going to argue any further points about the usefulness of the Exhibition – as christelsabine mentioned some posts ago, all the answers have been said. (Yes, I know I still put my tuppence-worth in anyways – couldn’t resist it!) Oh yes, a rotting body is one Hell of a lesson – if that’s something you want to learn about. If it’s not, then don’t bother. And if it’s not, I’m on your side, cos it’s not a nice thing to experience – unless you have to. Funny how the Exhibition doesn’t deal with what rotting bodies look like. Or not actually, cos that’s not the point of it, right?! And von Hagens does not offer a scientific fake if you ask me – how can you comment so matter-of-factly? You clearly haven’t been to the Exhibition, and I fail to see how you have also seen the ‘real thing’ in which to compare the other thing you haven’t actually seen either, to. And please, before you throw the Tsunami argument out there again, anything you see on TV, doesn’t count. The bodies in the Exhibition do look like real bodies (after all, that is what they are), they just don’t look or smell like rotting ones. BTW, when I say 'real bodies' I don't mean as in looking like (i.e. in the face) the actual person they were pre-Plastination (see my previous post). The exhibits look like any human body, not the specific person who donated that particular body. As far as learning goes, well, it seems that the views on here are in favour of learning from the Exhibition. And the funny thing is, if you really want to learn about anything, there is usually a way of doing so. It’s not always going to be world-wide scandalous exhibitions, maybe a case of it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. But then that was before the internet! Most forensic science degrees teach you how to make explosives – sometimes outright, sometimes just by understanding the ingredients and how they work in the first place, and in conjunction with others. That is not to say, that you are going to take that knowledge and start tinkering in your shed – most people have the common sense to stay away from such things. Access to knowledge is in some respects a personal thing, you can either go out of your way to learn about a particular thing, or just be happy not knowing (or caring). Perhaps the reason why von Hagens’ work is not restricted, as it is not seen as dangerous to posses knowledge about your own body. Oh, and if you want to know what a body looks and smells like when rotting, go get yourself a pig and pop it in your back garden in the summer. Then imagine that on a larger scale. That’s what those of us who can’t take a picnic in the grounds of the ‘Body Farm’ do. For my point about “never going to know how something like that will affect us, unless we actually give it chance to affect us”, the clue was in ‘like that’. ‘Like that’ being an exhibition about what your body looks like and how it functions. It was not about raping or murdering. I think most of us would agree that they don’t need to know how those things will feel – most of us have the sense to know it is wrong. Whether or not you feel remorse for your actions, or enjoy them or repeat them, is something you are never going to truly know, unless you have a pop at it. But I don’t need to know how I will feel after doing such things – nor would I consider myself authoritative enough to try and comment or pass judgement on something I have never actually done. Funny how you’ve instantly picked negative examples of things to try – are you a virgin? Are you a sky-diver?! Oh and I don’t need to eat shit to know it tastes bed – it SMELLS like shit!

Woo hoo! I’m loving these forensically-related posts! (I have to apologise for the fact that I can’t add much to the sky-diving posts, as a seriously inexperienced jumper – but hey, we all gotta start somewhere, right?! ) As a forensic scientist myself, I have to say, I am totally torn when it comes to programmes about forensics. As much as I love anything to do with forensics, I hate over-exposure just as equally – there’s nothing like having knowledge about a certain subject – only to watch the media etc get it wrong! As I’m sure you’ll all agree! (Casing point: watching Bridget Jones 2 with my sky-diving fella!) I also find CSI et al tremendously amusing. Some of the cases featured, are actually based on those that have happened, but I doubt that everything was solved within an hour! The time it takes them to get a result, is anything short of unbelievable – and as Joe Public is watching, (and could then end up on jury duty) I’m not surprised there is a belief that every case can be solved. And as Zenister alluded to – I’m also very concerned that the public have a deeper insight into how crimes are solved, and that they may, start to take more precautions (there are of course, other schools of thought associated with that theory). Mind you, there’s still a great number of Burglar Bill’s out there who aren’t wearing gloves! However, the situation here in the UK, is that each police force has a budget that they can spend on their cases each year. It might come as no greet shock to learn that forensic work can come at a pretty high rate! But sadly, forensics is fallible. And this is what I think is pretty worrying, that the concept of the ‘forensic magic wand’ will solve all your troubles. We can only work with what evidence is recognised and duly recovered: we can only work with what is there. All the fancy techniques in the world, aren’t gonna help ya, if the material is simply not there. (Casing point two: Stephen Hilder. Yep, I got my views on that one: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because something is not there, doesn’t mean that something never happened and you cannot make a conclusive statement about a particular hypothesis. True forensic science is about testing alternative theories too, not just the one you [or others] want to believe and you have to demonstrate that you have exhausted all the possibilities. Even if you are hired by the Prosecution, and you discover something the Ol’ Bill aren’t gonna like, you have to disclose it.) It’s not merely about people working harder to catch criminals, if there were unlimited funds, techniques, people and time, there may well be a higher rate of solved crimes. But as I said, it’s irrelevant if there’s nothing to be worked on in the first place. Ooh, and while I’m here – here’s another point for us to debate – the jury rules here have changed, and us forensic-types can now be called for jury duty! What d’ya make of that? Is that worse than watching forensic programmes?! We’re gonna be even more critical, or lenient – or expectant, depending on how you look at it! And then there’s the issue of competition between different forensic providers…oh dear. Answers on a post-card please…

OK, I have a few things to say about this topic. I'm not trying to force my views on anyone here, or say that people aren't entitled to their opinions, but I'd like to offer mine, as someone who has a more vested interest in this area. This is my first post here – so hello everyone!