[MR] Cloven Fruit

[Rorik smior]

If someone wishes to revive or continue the Cloven Fruit stuff, then please be considerate of others. Have a heraldic announcement that the Cloven Fruit will be passed around including the 'rules' as if it were a game. As I mentioned before:

>There may be an Art to flirting but I don't think that the Cloven Fruit
practice is an
>Art Form to be brought back, nor if it were done at some
event/meeting would I
>recognize the significance and would be very
embarrassed at being put in such
>a situation without prior knowledge.

Not only could you be the one responsible for being an embarrassment to the SCA should a Newbie be in attendance and thus giving us all a bad reputation, but as has been said before there is a disgusting element and possible contamination problem in handling the fruit. If you wish to make some obviously perverse or obscene gesture with the fruit like sucking on it or rolling it around with your tongue (insert your own imagination here folks) then do so in a more private area unless this is the general theme for that kind of party. Just let me know when you are going to have that kind of party... Be aware that sanitation is also an issue so please handle food in a responsible manner.

Unto the Populace I do hope we can all show 'respect' to others.

>There *is* one issue with the cloven fruit that I haven't seen mentioned 
>here yet.  Sometime in my first year of playing with the SCA (1996/7), I 
>came across someone who had a cloven fruit and was using it to flirt.  
>Problem was... I had *no* clue what the person was talking about when 
>offered... puzzled face and comment occurred on my part.  The man who 
>held the fruit obviously assumed not only that I knew what the fruit was 
>and how it was to be used, but that anyone offered it should partake and 
>participate.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to start up mandatory Etiquette classes in the SCA after all, for we are not represented well in a variety of ways and this is only one rather small obscure thing that is brought to the surface.

Rorik smior