What does pervert mean in 2017?

[Karha of Honor]

No pictures please. What does it mean when people use it?

[ORCACommander]

it certainly has lost most of its meaning in 2017 since the loosening of sexual mores is every increasing and more mroe kinks are becoming vogue. however it is still meaningful for lecherous behavior and sexually conservative people are still going to use it to describe what they do not agree with.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious yet- People who engage in/are interested in non-consensual sexual acts, including with those unable to give consent, such as the underage or bestiality.

If their should be one hard line on sexual behaviour that even the most liberal society upholds, its "consensual okay, non-consensual bad".

[TGLS]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious yet- People who engage in/are interested in non-consensual sexual acts, including with those unable to give consent, such as the underage or bestiality.

Fair enough, but I think even in the old days there was a line between "sex criminal" and "pervert" (or maybe it's a Venn diagram). Today the line has certainly moved, but I'd say that pervert would be things that are socially unacceptable but not illegal (i.e. A forty year old going out with someone just over the age of consent).

[Rasp]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious yet- People who engage in/are interested in non-consensual sexual acts, including with those unable to give consent, such as the underage or bestiality.

Fair enough, but I think even in the old days there was a line between "sex criminal" and "pervert" (or maybe it's a Venn diagram). Today the line has certainly moved, but I'd say that pervert would be things that are socially unacceptable but not illegal (i.e. A forty year old going out with someone just over the age of consent).

But that's the whole thread right there isn't it? the line between what's socially unacceptable and what's illegal has become razor thin as it should be. Too much shame is not good for the mind - you can outright torture someone when you instill them a philosophy that makes them ashamed of parts of themselves they have little conscious control over and it's caused people to go mad and people have died as a result. Fundamentalist Religion is often the whipping boy in this case because it's where a lot of this comes from and the best way to combat it to to keep pushing the line until its indistinguishable from where things start being crimes.

Even some of the ones that are crimes in many counties need to be loosened up - Polyamory especially - if it's consenting adults let them do what they want.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Somebody who calls Bowser "Daddy".

[Admiral X]

A person with a healthy but overt libido who shamelessly checks out people they are attracted to.

[The Romulan Republic]

A person with a healthy but overt libido who shamelessly checks out people they are attracted to.

Their does come a point where leering at people does cross a line and cannot be considered good conduct. I don't know if I'd call it being a "pervert", but certainly in bad taste and potentially harassment.

It may be a "natural" reaction (hence my reluctance to call it perverted), but their are a great many things that exist in nature which are nonetheless useless or actively harmful in a modern civilization. I mean, its a "natural" impulse for a lot of people that when someone pisses you off, you punch them. Its also assault.

[Nessus]

I think looking for a hard, legalistic definition will only guarantee that you'll always be behind the curve. And if one NEEDS such a definition, that's probably a sign of deeper social skill deficiency. A large part, probably THE majority, of "good people skills" is being able to read and adapt to the personalities and boundaries of the people you interact with. Don't be that guy who thinks he's a "people person" with "good social skills" but is actually an ass who just does/says whatever he feels like and always blames the other party when this predictably produces chaotic results.

More generally:

I see "pervert" used playfully more often these days than in the past. I.e. people calling someone else or themselves a "pervert" in a light-hearted way to mean that they have a strong and/or diverse libido. I still see it used as a pejorative, but the word's use has clearly split so its meaning is positive or negative depending on context or tone, rather than being always negative like it was when I was younger.

What constitutes the bad kind of pervert seems to vary too widely from subculture to subculture for there to be a single definition. I see stuff that used to be considered bad-perverted being considered good-perverted (or in some cases just normal and not perverted at all) according to broader pop-culture, but I also still see a lot of "everything that isn't totally chaste and/or vanilla" die-hards as well.

You'd think/hope that violations of consent, mutuality, and trust would be the common denominator, but unfortunately not. There's still a lot of janky AF people who'll consider a sex toy stashed in a drawer somewhere perverted in the bad sense, while considering behavior that borders on sexual assault, coercion, or fraud (if not actually crossing those lines) to be normal and healthy.