What Ever Happened to 'Toothing'?

Jim Hanas excertps from his very funny article on the quiet disappearance of last-year's promised digital bacchanal. "Remember 'toothing'? It was a craze that was sweeping England last year as bored commuters arranged sexual encounters using Bluetooth-enabled cellphones. You probably read about it over at Wired or Reuters or the BBC. There's a decent chance you even blogged about it. Well. What happened?" Update: 04/05 00:10 GMT by T : Hanas writes with a followup: "The original source on the whole toothing thing has just admitted it was a hoax -- in response to my email and your picking up of my post."

Comments

a/s/l

[fembots]

Well, like teething, it'll stop sooner or later.

I was Feeling-Google-Lucky with "toothing" (thanks FireFox!) and this Toothing Blog was last updated on April 28 2004.

And finding partners for sex using bluetooth mobile is as productive as asking a/s/l on IRC channels, or Mrs Gump's box of chocolate.

Seriously, no matter how horny you are, you wouldn't simply jump on bed with anybody, would you?

Re:a/s/l

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Seriously, no matter how horny you are, you wouldn't simply jump on bed with anybody, would you?

You're a girl, aren't you?

Re:a/s/l

[cooter1pt2]

Isn't that what you do in a club or bar? Or even, to a lesser extent, a house party? I doubt toothers would just accept blindly anyone who replied (say, if upon seeing them, they were a hideous, snaggle-toother beast). So in a way, yes, I can say I have engaged in that kind of risky behavior (avec condom). Wouldn't do it again, tho.

Re:a/s/l

[murphyslawyer]

if upon seeing them, they were a hideous, snaggle-toother beast

Wait - this is the craze that was sweeping ENGLAND?

Re:a/s/l

[mrchaotica]

A girl? On Slashdot?? No, she's a fembot -- look at the name.

Re:a/s/l

[Shalda]

(and i even go to a Catholic College)

Well, duh. Give girls a lifetime of sexual repression and two beers and the rest takes care of itself. I find that the less repressed they are, the better they control their urges.

Re:a/s/l

[Xugumad]

Seriously, no matter how horny you are, you wouldn't simply jump on bed with anybody, would you?
Yes is so much the wrong answer, isn't it? :)

Re:a/s/l

[happyemoticon]

And finding partners for sex using bluetooth mobile is as productive as asking a/s/l on IRC channels, or Mrs Gump's box of chocolate.

I've not done this myself, and /. is not the best place for an honest discussion of sexuality by damn sight.

First: There is one criterion for hooking up: looks. Man, woman or otherwise, you know whether you'd screw person x within a half second of meeting them. Chatrooms are a waste of time. thefacebook.com and okcupid.com are a bit better because of the addition of pictures, but those can be faked or obfuscated and the whole process isn't immediate enough, which is key if you're looking to do impulsive.

Second: There is a reason this happened in England. Mainstream American women have tons of hangups about sex that British women simply do not.

Seriously, no matter how horny you are, you wouldn't simply jump on bed with anybody, would you?

This is an excellent example of my last point. Some people, especially women, only acknowledge three roles for women: the virgin, the mother and the slut. That's pretty sad. It's not about doing anybody, it's about finding someone mildly attractive who wants the same thing as you do, and it's more conveniant if you're a commuter than going to a bar.

Re:a/s/l

[EnronHaliburton2004]

No, she's a fembot -- look at the name.

That's great! I see they have made many improvements with these bots since I last played...

The fembots used to just run around and circles and got confused when they ran into a corner.

Now, they can dodge and shoot around corners.

Great work to the fembot designers!

Re:a/s/l

[antarctican]

Sounds to me like someone bought a ticket to London hoping to get laid, and came home disapointed....

Sorry, if they won't touch your pot-belly, nacho stained D&D shirt in North America, they won't touch it in London either.... ;)

Re:a/s/l

[ShieldW0lf]

And finding partners for sex using bluetooth mobile is as productive as asking a/s/l on IRC channels, or Mrs Gump's box of chocolate.

I met my ex wife of 5 years asking ASL in an IRC chat. She is also the mother of my child.

I also meet most of my dates and yes sexual partners in chat rooms. Not because I don't go out, I do, but there are more nights at home than nights at the bar, and chatting and flirting are more fun and more social than watching television.

No matter how horny you are, you wouldn't just jump into bed with anybody, would you?

Which would you prefer, to jump into bed with a hunk you met at the bar and had some chemistry with, only to find out later that he's a selfish, obsessive, jealous boar who doesn't like to go down, or to jump into bed with someone who is compatible with you in their values and interests and quirks, who shares your likes and dislikes where sex and relationships are concerned, but is on the attractive side of plain. Because when people meet through chatting, when they actually meet face to face they can see pretty quickly if the person is a no-go in the physical department and call it off at the eleventh hour, while the bar-goer generally probably won't find out until it's too late.

Looking back, I had more fun with the plain jane lookalikes who caught my attention because they were my kind of lighthearted kinky in the bedroom that with the look-at-me gorgeous women I've brought home from the bar only to find out that they were plain boring in bed.

Re:a/s/l

[Xugumad]

Or more to the point, they're probably someone who feels reasonably confident that, if they want to get laid, they can do in the short to medium term. If someone is a lot less sure when (or if) they'll get another off, I think they're a helluva lot less likely to be in any way picky.

Losing track of my point here. Mostly, I think people who do have something resembling a regular/normal sex life might not realise just how desperate a small but vocal minority of /. users get.

I'm giving up now, taking the karma bonus off, and hoping this isn't too much babblage.

Re:a/s/l

[owlstead]

Which college? Wait, this is a public forum, forget I asked.

Re:a/s/l

[prockcore]

I met my ex wife of 5 years asking ASL in an IRC chat.

Oooh.. good example!

Re:a/s/l

[Rii]

Pfft- let me know when pause, fast forward, and mute functions are available.

Toothing has been filed as novely item #127345

[LiquidCoooled]

Along with leg warmers and flash mobs.

Re:Toothing has been filed as novely item #127345

[Scrameustache]

flash mobs.

The people who hunt flash happy web designers with torches and pitchforks? They called it quits?

Does that mean they got them all? : )

Re:Toothing has been filed as novely item #127345

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

Sir, you have directed me to my new calling in life. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

What happened?

[Qzukk]

Well, theres AIDS, Herpes, Syphillis, and discovering that the cute 20-something you were TXTing a minute ago seems to have become a disturbing 50 year old man with bad teeth and worse breath.

Re:What happened?

[bani]

sounds like you speak from experience.

Re:What happened?

[dgatwood]

Nope. He just listened to the radio ad like everybody else.

Experience? On Slashdot? You must be new here. :-D

Re:What happened?

[screwballicus]

discovering that the cute 20-something you were TXTing a minute ago seems to have become a disturbing 50 year old man with bad teeth and worse breath.

Or discovering that the big, hairy 50 year old bear daddy you were trying to pick up is some cute-but-straight 20-something who's just playing with you.

Re:What happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me but I'm not 50.

Re:What happened?

[failure-man]

I don't think that particular bit of stupidity is what the rest of the world is thinking of when they laugh at us. ;)

It turns out...

[halcyon1234]

No one got laid.

Welcome to the Internet.

Ouch.

[ethzer0]

I always say less toothing.

Those who...

[Tackhead]

> Remember 'toothing'? It was a craze that was sweeping England last year as bored commuters arranged sexual encounters using Bluetooth-enabled cellphones. You probably read about it over at Wired or Reuters or the BBC. There's a decent chance you even blogged about it. Well. What happened?

Those who read about it, never blogged about it.
Those who blogged about it, never read about it.
Those who remember it, were too busy to either read about it or blog about it.

Being a geek, I'm kind of amazed I even wasted the time to read about it.

What happened?

[nacturation]

Maybe toothing led to teething.

Promiscuous Mode: Off

[mattkime]

Apparently people have wised up and turned off promiscuous mode.

(Its a good way to prevent virus transmission.)

Slashdot

[Scrameustache]

News for nerds, stuff that might have been.

Here's what happened

[Anonymous Crowhead]

You see, English people aren't the most attractive people in the world. They kept meeting up and saying things like, "You look like a horse's arse", "Bob's certainly not your uncle" and similarly witty phrases. It didn't take long before everyone realized they were just wasting their time and just went home and masturbated.

Re:Here's what happened

[Cheirdal]

You obviously haven't been to the UK. I would say per capita London has more hotties than any U.S. city. On top of that the population over there is a lot more lean than us fat asses in the U.S. What really happened was that the news made the story up or greatly exagerrated the extent of "toothing" as they tend to do with tech stories.

Re:Here's what happened

[Deliveranc3]

Pity British Women, British Men have the french 20 minutes away by boat.

Yea they have to learn a new language but IT's WORTH IT!

like most media-hyped crazes...

[utexaspunk]

it probably never happened in the first place. methinks it goes something like this- joe reporter has a deadline to make, and nothing to write about. needs something sensational, turns to his fantasies, and voila! toothing!

I always thought Spencer Tracey said that:

[Thud457]

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

Too Hard

[TVC15]

It was too hard for the average user. Perhaps if Apple built it into the iPod and integrated it with the scroll wheel it would reach critical mass.

On second thought, just get a Lovegety

Re:Too Hard

[nacturation]

It was too hard for the average user. Perhaps if Apple built it into the iPod and integrated it with the scroll wheel it would reach critical mass.

Sounds good to me. I hereby dub it bodCasting.

High school bluetoothing

[Nevtje(hr]

i remember when i was in high school, i would occasionally scan a room for other bluetooth receivers which had their port open, then create a contact whose name was what i wanted the message to be, ie "Boyaa Wazzap" or something. then i would send the contact, via bluetooth, to the detected phone. free, short-range SMS kinda :)

i know, not setting up sexual encounters... but still a fun use for bluetooth

There was this girl we called 'Fang'...

[HBI]

'nuff said!

Well duh

[null etc.]

Well. What happened?

What do you think happened? It ended up being a bunch of blokes chasing after another bloke named "Shelly".

Simple...

[Roger W Moore]

...9+6 months later toothing has lead to teething.

By the number of dupes lately it should be

[dark-br]

Slashdot. News for the amnesiac, stuff that mattered.

Never existed

[elgatozorbas]

This toothing stuff maybe never even existed, except as an effective rumour to frustrate a whole news-for-nerds site in one hit...

Aptly named

[stratjakt]

"Toothing" sounds exactly like the type of sexual encounter you're likely to find in the UK.

Maybe it never did happen?

[LWATCDR]

I mean really it almost sounds like a Penthouse letter. It just might be that it was all made up. Of course that is impossible. I mean the press checks their facts right?

suckers

[argoff]

What happened is that somebody came up with a clever marketing ploy to push their bluetooth enabled technology. Like many "fads" reported in the media, they are fabricated via croney deals to serve marketing purposes and have nothing to do with real news or trends.

It appeared in Wired

[jfengel]

I have found that there are few more accurate predictors of a failed trend than an appearance in Wired before it actually takes off. (Wired is much better when the thing has already taken off; its ability to accurately predict things that happened yesterday approaches 50%.)

Two words

[Kancer]

Sausage Fest

Bluetooth Protocol

[__aaijsn7246]

Here's a little article from @Stake about Bluetooth, as well as some other insecurities.

I believe that even if the phone is in 'hidden' mode, on some models, one can still find a user's address by testing out every address. Redfang does that. This is brute force however and quite slow. In fact it could take up to a few years, as it takes about 20 seconds per address.

One thing I noticed while living in an apartment and playing with Bluetooth.. it is possible to tell when other people are in their homes or not. I was tempted to make a little app and compile statistics as to when/where people came and left, but then I remembered I wasn't the US federal government ;)

There are a bunch of other programs available to the Googler.

First rule of tooth club...

[DarthShader]

Gentlemen,

The first rule of tooth club is: You do not talk about tooth club.
The second rule of tooth club is: You DO NOT talk about tooth club.
Third rule of tooth club, someone yells "Stop!", goes limp, taps out, the toothing is over.
Fourth rule, only two people to a toothing.
Fifth rule, one toothing at a time, fellas.
Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes.
Seventh rule, toothings will go on as long as they have to.
And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at tooth club, you have to tooth.

Re:Conspiracy

[WhitetailKitten]

Here's your tinfoil hat.

Girls

[angedinoir]

It was a great idea until they found out that only men used bluetooth in this manner. It soon became a huge, wireless sausage-fest.

Plain vs gorgeous

[wombatmobile]

"Looking back, I had more fun with the plain jane lookalikes who caught my attention because they were my kind of lighthearted kinky in the bedroom that with the look-at-me gorgeous women I've brought home from the bar only to find out that they were plain boring in bed. "

Yes, those gorgeous women sure are boring in bed. I am tired of the wasted effort pleasuring gorgeous women that I bring home from the bar. Please, let's just concentrate on the plain ones.

Re:Conspiracy

[Chexiepie]

Your nick makes me think you are a coward.

Oh wait...

Toothing never existed, so it'll be on Oprah soon.

[The Archon V2.0]

Hmmmm. Let's see.

1) Toothing seemingly never existed outside the media;
2) it involves sex;
3) it's supposedly a secret, almost cultlike group;
4) it involves modern technology of a sort not understood by soccer moms but possibly used by their children.

Therefore:

"Tomorrow on Oprah: 'Toothing!' Is your little girl sending a message that she wants sex and she wants it now?"

And they can have an 'expert' on, who's met 'toothers' and knows that bluetoothers just give blowjobs, but redtoothers are into anal sex, and blacktoothers want to be sodomized by the entire football team, including the mascot.

--
Tonight's secret passphrase: The cautious cow from Azerbaijan is acrobatic and Snoopy nukes the railroad quietly.