Talk:Mermaid problem

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on December 7, 2006. The result of the discussion was NO CONSENSUS.

Without getting too deeply into THE discussion itself, I might just point out that it never occurred to ME there'd be a problem.. I mean.. fish have an opening in that area, and one imagines the man doesn't care what manner of opening it is.. as long as he fits. And anyway, even sharks copulate. I always thought the only reason fish didn't was they couldn't lock together. The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.118.230.154 (talk • contribs) .

Same --67.72.98.107 09:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
There's always fellatio. Old joke, about a spit and a swallow? or is it Spitz & Swallows? Still it don't get 'em preggers.

Contents

[edit] Starbuck Logo

The logo portrays a melusine, not a mermaid.

And that page says it's a siren, expressed more clearly here. So what is it? GreenReaper 01:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The Starbucks article says "The company logo is a "twin-tailed mermaid, or siren as she's known in Greek mythology"" and provides a citation for that. (see Starbucks#Name_and_logo).Pro bug catcher 23:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents: Mermaids wouldn't be fish at all, but mammals. MAMMALS people! Ancient sailors thought whales were fish, too, but non! Mammals! More like sea cows or manatees, and BALD like dolphins or with oily fur like seals.

What I don't understand is why someone is considering the problem of people mating with NON HUMANS. That's usually a pervert thing, non? I suggest this topic be completely buried and never heard from again. OR otherwise linked to Bestiality, which it is.

[edit] Article name

The name of this article seems a little non-encyclopedic, or at least doesn't seem like a search term that might be used. What thoughts are out there about this for a better name? Mermaid biology? Mermaid sexuality? Agent 86 18:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If the thing doesn't actually have a name -- is there any reason not to merge it with mermaid? Goldfritha 00:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I would support a conscientious effort to merge this article into mermaid. -- Shunpiker 06:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I've proposed the merge. Goldfritha 20:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Though I've been pleased by recent efforts to source this article (see my comments in the subsection below), I agree that the substance of this article should probably be merged into mermaid. · j e r s y k o talk · 21:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I oppose the merge as the article is now. The content would be rather unwieldy in the mermaid article and, given the absurdity of the subject that is not all that well related to the symbolism or history etc. of mermaids, works better on its own. --Kizor 12:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
This should be trimmed (one example from popular culture is probably sufficient) and merged into mermaid]. NicM 09:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Wha?

I came across this article after hitting "random article", and I have to say I'm shocked, utterly shocked, that it survived AFD. It's a nearly completely unreferenced joke. If no solid references are provided in the next few weeks, I'll happily nominate it again. So please prove me wrong. · j e r s y k o talk · 01:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

No references? Did you actually read the previous deletion discussion? Val42 17:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I have read the discussion. I certainly read enough to note that there was no consensus. Several "keep" votes were based on alleged mentions of this phenomenon in pop culture. However, looking at the article, I noticed that several of the alleged (alleged because there are no references that comply with WP:CITE) pop culture instances actually do not seem to be related to the "problem" of intercourse with mermaids. For example, the Saturday Night Live skit (or at least its description in this article) doesn't seem to talk about sex with mermaids at all (but rather a man who f*cked a full-blooded fish). Similarly, the description of the Wilde story says nothing about sex. Finally, there are no references provided for paragraphs that should be easy to reference (e.g. the Wilde story, anything supposedly coming from novels/books/written works). These questions weren't raised, as far as I can tell, in the first deletion discussion. As I've said, we need references, and the references must actually discuss the subject of the article. · j e r s y k o talk · 18:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that it will receive the same "No consensus" for the same reasons, but go ahead and nominate it for deletion. Val42 19:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd rather it be referenced correctly and kept if it is indeed a legitimate topic, so I plan to wait a bit. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I would defend this article once again as a legitimate collection of folklore on a common theme that is not at all incidental. That said, I could see carefully merging the contents into Mermaid or possibly renaming the article to something more generic (e.g. "Mermaid Sexuality") since "Mermaid Problem" seems to be a recent (though not original) coinage. There's no getting around the humorous potential of the material, but that doesn't mean that the joke's on wikipedia.

Consider the Oscar Wilde reference. I agree that the name of the story ("The Fisherman and his Soul") should be called out. As to what the story says: "Now when the young Fisherman heard the words of his soul, he remembered that the little Mermaid had no feet and could not dance." Which is accurately represented in the article, and topical: A man falls in love with a mermaid, but anatomy gets in the way. The editor of the article is careful to let you interpret the mermaid's lack of feet and dancing as you will, just as Wilde does.

The Wilde reference shows that this line of thought, forgive me, has legs. The mermaid is inherently an object of sexual fantasy, but an anatomically frustrated one. That's worth a reflection or two, and the references in the article demonstrate that it has been the subject of any number of cultural representations, across media and stretching back at least to the nineteenth century. -- Shunpiker 18:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, if it's really as you claim, I'm all for keeping and improving the article. My main concern is that there are almost no hard references, which, given the subject, make it of somewhat dubious value for now. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your open mind. I will edit the article to try to address some of the criticism -- in particular, substantiating the references as reducing the amount of original speculation. -- Shunpiker 19:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Reason Wikipedia rules #841377: There is actually an article about the fact that mermaids have no vaginas. 130.184.211.145 19:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why they can't, it's a fantasy creature to begin with, like arguing what a unicorn's horn is made up of: you can make it whatever fits the story. I've seen examples of memaids with vaginas before, and in one particular case the "fish" end was almost dolphin-like, not scaly at all. Which would make more sense considering the other half's mammalian traits. Gargomon251 14:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Everyone knows that unicorn horns are made of toffee, get with the program. maxcap 02:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Is the fish vagina even that different from a human one? A hole's a hole, isn't it? Now merMEN would be an issue worthy of lots of discussion... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 06:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dumbest article

This is easily one of the dumbest articles on Wikipedia. --Tysto (talk) 17:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Au contraire. This is a serious article with some interesting and potentially valuable information about one of the dumbest subjects on Wikipedia. These kinds of articles, I maintain, are one of the site's biggest advantages: No traditional encyclopedia has the space or the manpower for this kind of breadth.

Besides, WP's basic concept is completely insane - I figure we need not seek to preserve our diginity. :-) --Kizor 19:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)