Some thoughts about cats and dogs

I don't want to look at my own (blank) behind, I certainly don't want to look at someone else's.

I wondered about that photo. I don't speak German, but doesn't "shiess" mean poo? I just figured someone was trying to be edgy and missed the mark.

www.parfumo.com/Users/schocktail/PerfumePictur e/22294

I happen to speak German so let me shed some light on this picture.
The perfume "Dreckig bleiben" is issued by Elternhaus, a brand that aims at a nonconformist image.
The tatooed guy in his undies is supposed to portray just that. "Schiesser" is an underwear brand that became synonymous for being traditional; supposedly stuffy old men wear it. "Spiesser" is German for Philistine, Babbitt, petty bourgeois.

I see. Thanks for the explanation, Mia.

A few points:

1. Every picture has a story behind it. Why do my pictures all contain HRH Emperor Oliver? Because in 2009 he developed diabetes and suffered a stroke. As a result, I have been unable to travel as is my wont. Instead, I am pretty much chained to my house until The Emperor decides to take leave of this wretched world teeming with haters of all kinds. At that point, I'll be able to travel again and will probably cease writing perfume reviews. The bottom line here: if not for HRH Emperor Oliver, I would not be penning perfume reviews at all.

2. Personal photos are supposed to be personal. That's what the word 'personal' means.

3. Anyone who finds my images disgusting must, by transitivity, find me disgusting. I composed the shots, I selected what to include in the images and how to juxtapose the various elements. Therefore, calling my personal photos disgusting is tantamount to calling me disgusting.

4. Some people hate cats, it is true. Consider the Florida feline serial killer. He killed every cat which he encountered because he delusionally thought that they deserved to die. I suspect that he was grappling with ED or some other serious medical condition (aside from sheer insanity). The question is: is this sort of intolerance supposed to be acceptable?

5. If people find cats "disgusting", there are two plausible explanations. First, they may find them dirty. As anyone can see from the images of HRH Emperor Oliver, whose pristine white fur shimmers in the sun, The Emperor is not dirty. He is clean.

The second way in which someone might find a cat "dirty" is that he finds the image of a cat sexually suggestive. Perhaps cat haters are unaware that most domestic cats have been fixed. This means that they are not having sex with anyone, whether cat or human. Anyone who looks at a cat and sees a sex act or a vibrating dildo needs to have his head examined, IMNHSO

Just a few thoughts....

I hope it's OK, if I throw in a few thoughts myself.


That is a very touching story, Shera, and I had no idea. Thanks for sharing it with us and thanks to HRH Emperor Oliver for triggering you to write all your fab reviews. But it does not generate a general relation to perfume. What I am trying to say is, it is a very personal relation and does not constitute a criteria for perfume pictures. And besides, no one could have known this just by looking at your pictures.


Agreed. But aren't we free to upload whatever pleases us as personal picture (as opposed to perfume picture)? Or were the pictures in question rejected when you submitted them as personal pictures? That would, of course, be a different matter indeed.


Given anyone was disgusted by your pictures, I don't see how this would, by transitivity, imply that you are disgusting. Transitivity is a binary relation R, which is characterised as follows: if xRy and yRz then xRz - sorry for this excursion in maths but I hope it helps to clarify, why your conclusion is not valid. At max one could argue that your picture-style is disgusting (and I am not saying it is).

What if "disgust" was a lapse? May I point out that the writer is no native English speaker? In any case, I would have felt insulted as well and wholeheartedly understand, if anyone takes offence because of this phrasing. Moreover, I find it very irritating, that there's been no attempt to clarify the use of this, at best, unfortunate wording.


I doubt that this is about hating cats but rather how a perfume is presented in a picture. Of course I do not know but it might all boil down to inconsistent implementation of unclear criteria for perfume pictures. Pointless to mention that clarification is needed in any case.


If people find cats "disgusting", then they are well advised to keep that to themselves. Whatever the reason might be is irrelevant for the perfume picture issue, imo. Besides, HRH Emperor Oliver is a beautiful cat.

The question at hand, as I understand it, merely and simply is do the admins want any cat and what have you prominently displayed in perfume pictures.
If not, have the relevant criteria for perfume pictures been specified sufficiently and are they consistently implemented.

Thanks for your input, Mia, I believe that since I was the creator of the images, they reflect my values, not the cat's. "Disgusting" is an evaluation. So the transitivity holds. I chose to present the images in the way in which I did. That makes *me*, not the cat, the responsible party. No one said that the cat was disgusting. They said that the images of the cat, solely my own creations, were disgusting.

zip

The very first perfume bottle image which I ever submitted to Parfumo was flagged by Don for being poorly lit. I explicitly asked him if the cat theme was acceptable, and he said "Yes."

Someone from the Netherlands (and perhaps other wretched souls as well), feel that I have uploaded too many images of HRH. Well, my grand total is fewer than 500, out of 26K perfume profiles. Why are those people looking at the perfume profiles of perfumes found only in my collection anyway? Or why are they looking at my collected perfume bottle photos, if they hate cats?

"Winter Petal No. 1315" and "Agua de Naranjos" are two good examples. No one else at Parfumo owns these perfumes; no one else has reviewed them. Yet my photos were deleted from the queue twice. That is simply the absolute nadir of intolerance, in my opinion.

Shera, you're such a good mama.

*clap* *clap* *clap*

I'll say! Cats outnumber other subject matter on YouTube by some huge margin (I'm too lazy to look it up, but we all know it).

And scrolling to the next post, photo, video, etc., of course that's too easy a solution, and wouldn't afford people the opportunity to complain.

The United States is big on pets, I think well over a third of households contain at least one dog and just under a third contain at least one cat. We rejoice in them daily on the internet (and in our real life conversations). With all the subject matter at our fingertips online and we choose to devote so much cyberspace to pets? That speaks for itself.

If you're going to have an international site like this, you can expect lots of Americans to be here (because there are lots of us around), and with us comes our love of pets.

Smooches, everyone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi6on4Tag3Y

The other part of this whole issue is that I figured these shots we take of our perfume bottles should be creative and personal to us, rather than just a closeup of the product, which we can find online elsewhere. Whether it's tattooed buys in their skivvies, creatively lanquered fingernails, or plastic dolls in the shot, these additional elements are what make these photos interesting for me to look at and interested in posting.

The video made me cry. The song helped.

I have had a look at some of the previous posts and I have to say I do not understand all this commotion. Maybe it helps if I explain a little bit about Parfumo.

Parfumo is about perfume, and perfume only. This is a basic decision and cannot be negotiated.

Wherever people come together because they join the same passion, it is only natural that they show other facets of their personality as well, and at Parfumo, they are welcome to do so. This is why we have the Off-Topic area, the personal blog pages and the personal photo album.

Please have a look at my photo album on my personal page. You will find pictures of my custom-made Bike Friday – I show and explain every detail of it. I take a lot of pleasure in riding it, and I also like to discuss all the features it has. Let's say there might be other perfume lovers interested in folding bikes, and so I could start a thread in the Off-Topic section where we soon would discuss all the pro's and con's: Moulton vs. Brompton, Shimano vs. SRAM, the best possible handlebars and so on. Since I am so fond of my bike I would want everybody to see it, and so I would decide to upload perfume pictures with my bike, and soon others would do the same. At first, people would probably find it smart to bring together a niche bike and a niche perfume on a photo. But after bike photo no. 219, some other people – especially those who have no understanding for my hobby – would probably write comments like: „Oh, no, not that bike again!“ Eventually, Don would stop accepting my bike photos.

This is what happened here to the cat photos. We have hundreds of them, and Don has decided that it is enough now.

When I come home from work, I usually log on to Parfumo. At first, I have a look if we have some new users so I can leave a welcome note. Then I am looking after my PN's. Every day, I try to maintain the translation file so there will be no gap between the fragrance notes on the German and the international site. On the way, I also look after the unification of fragrance notes that runs in Parfumo Research. I then try to process a few proposals and corrections and sometimes, I even find time to write one or the other review.

I like it here with you, and so I gladly provide all this service, together with Don and lots of other people.

I am into perfume, not cats. They don't bother me, I tolerate your passion, but please don't expect me or Don to work for it.

Don't blame me for being immodest, but I think Don, me and the other helpers in the background have a lot to offer. We give gladly, please take it, it's free! But stop asking for things that we cannot provide or do not want to give.

Parfumo is about perfume, and perfume only. Perfume is our interest. We accept that people want to socialize and so we need the Off-Topic, that is accepted. But I know, Don is always having a very close look at it, especially the Off-Topic section on the German side: How big does it get in relation to the other parts of the forum? Are there users who spend time only there and hardly contribute anything to a perfume topic? Do people get along with each other? And finally, the main question: are we still focussed on perfume or are we becoming something else?

You can discuss nearly everything here, it would even be tolerated to promote a special interest or campaign for it – but not beyond the point where the basic character of this site would be changed or where we cannot cope appropriately with a controversy. None of your arguments will make Don go into a direction that he does not want – and loose his fun in the end.

One reason for this commotion here might be that there are different concepts and understandings of internet communities.

Don and me are not fans of Mark Zuckerberg, and we do not want Parfumo become a sort of facebook with perfume talk. We fight for every user, but not for every minute the users stay at Parfumo. Parfumo is a place for a very special interest, a functional forum, and we do not intend to become a general internet community where everything goes.

Having said that, please do not make Parfumo the only place for your social activities. If you expect Parfumo to cover all your interests, you might experience frustration.

It is a healthy thing to have more than just one interest, so please go out and find people that you can share your other interests with – in your neighborhood, in your city or maybe in another corner of the internet. And if these people are open-minded, then please recommend us!

Enough for now – back to perfume!

To me it's a question of freedom of expression. Don has bowed to the whining cat haters. What next? Will he delete reviews which discuss non-perfume topics? Maybe some whiner doesn't want me to mention the pope or British royalty or Madonna, or who knows what? Will mention of such "offensive" non-perfume topics be grounds for deletion of a review?

Apicius, I am sorry that you think that freedom of expression is a trivial matter. I do not. I asked upon my arrival at Parfumo whether freedom of expression would be upheld and was assured that it would. When I began to upload perfume bottle photos, I specifically asked Don whether my cat theme was allowed at Parfumo, and he said "Yes." Now the rules have changed.

I will not tolerate arbitrary and capricious censorship and therefore will not be contributing any new content to this site.

Sherapop, does freedom of speach mean to you that everything has to be done according to your wishes?

I don't know, Apicius. I certainly appreciate everything that you and Don do for the site. However, it seems to me that Sherapop has done just as much with her multitude of reviews, insight, photos, etc. And you just basically told her to fuck off. I'm appalled.

I originally came here because of Dolby and Coutureguru. Sherapop is one of the reasons why I hung around. When it comes right down to it, I could easily go to Basenotes for interesting, intelligent discussions of perfume, but I'm here because of my friends, some of whom I've known for years. If socialization in the OT section is going to be scrutinized and frowned upon, I may as well take myself elsewhere. Sayonara.

I’m saddened at this turn of events.

Shera, you are giving so much to this site with the incredible amount of quality reviews you contribute.
It is a true pleasure having you around because you know so much and are so good with words (plus you’re lovely).

Whoever moaned about the pictures you posted should go get those bottles and take the snapshots themselves.
Everything that anybody does at Parfumo is donated.
This is both time and effort that should be recognised and appreciated.
Whilst I understand that Parfumo is first and foremost about perfumes (and this is why we all come here to share our passion), people form friendships and inevitably will wish to share their other interests.
This will increase as the site grows so it really is an important point to remember.

Personally, I’d much rather have an informative and entertaining mixture with the onus on perfumery, than censoring interesting topics (as is the case on other forum) and eventually ending up with a collection of dull and quite frankly brain-dead perfume related posts that are repeated ad nauseam (as is the case on other forum).

Cryptic, don’t you fecking dare go anywhere! ... Or else ... (and I warn you, it will hurt)

This is really becoming tedious, Apicius. As I have repeatedly indicated, I asked Don all of these questions upon my arrival. He changed the rules without telling me or anyone else (except his friends the ailurophobes), and now you act as though I have done something wrong.

You guys are a bit confused about the state of this place. If you ever have a decent flow of internet traffic, it will not be because of the 18K profiles pilfered directly from Fragrantica (as is evident in every case where flagrant errors have been repeated verbatim here). No, people go to sites for NEW content, specifically, contributors' content. You act as though the contributors are worthless and only the administrators matter. As though somehow you guys do all the work.

But some of the perfumes in the database here are not at Fragrantica. That's because people like me brought them here. Not only did we bring the perfume profile information, we also contributed reviews and images of the bottle, set framed beautifully by several elements, including (in the two perfume images mentioned above, and I encourage you to go look at them) a sliver of a cat.

If I had been told that ailurophobes would be determining the future direction of Parfumo, I can assure you that I would never have contributed any of the nearly 1300 reviews penned here by me, nor (obviously) the nearly 500 perfume photos composed and uploaded by me.

Instead of thanking me and people like me, you act as though the TIME and THOUGHT and ENERGY which we have invested in this site, through all of the various contributions which we have made, are worthless.

I actually don't know what to say.