80s Internet Flashback
May 7, 2015 10:41 PM   Subscribe

The MIT-original 500 point purity test. In a handy HTML form, here.
posted by 256 (49 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
I should note that I don't advocate this test as, well, anything. I just suddenly remembered being excited to discover it as a teenager in the early nineties.

Particularly, I remember having a printed off copy and paging through it when my great-aunt asked me what it was. I showed her and she immediately called her sister (my grandmother) on the phone and made her come over. Then the two of them (both in their seventies at the time) sat down at the kitchen table and calculated their scores. I remember my great-aunt being quite put out when my grandmother got a lower score than her.
posted by 256 at 10:46 PM on May 7, 2015 [22 favorites]


I never realized just how dark the questions gradually become.

This transition to obvious-parody was clearly lost on the 16-year-old version of myself (or I got too depressed, and closed the window before getting to that part)... It almost reads like a prototypical version of Sex House.

Meanwhile...
posted by schmod at 10:48 PM on May 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


333. eaten a lab dissection?

Also, what the hell is "Russian fingers"? I didn't know at 13 and I still don't know now.
posted by 256 at 10:50 PM on May 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


This test was incredibly popular on campus when I was in college.

I was quite proud of myself when I dropped 13% in one weekend.

I... had not had much luck having physical contact with members of my preferred gender in high school.
posted by flaterik at 10:51 PM on May 7, 2015 [5 favorites]


Metafilter: ---ALL TECHNICALITIES COUNT---
posted by bleep at 10:55 PM on May 7, 2015 [11 favorites]


I remember downloading this from Usenet in the early 90s and listing it and my geek code in my sig.

Russian hands and Roman fingers. Mom and Grandma always told me to watch out for boys with those. "Rushing" and "roaming".
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 11:24 PM on May 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


I remember when a stripped down version of this floated around my school and the dudes all were trying to one up each other with their scores, figuring the higher the score, the more ass people would think they get.

It got so ridiculous that at one point I turned around to the group of guys discussing it behind me and said, "you realize to get a score that high you would have had to have fucked a dog, right?" and then let them dig themselves their own shame holes.
posted by phunniemee at 11:26 PM on May 7, 2015 [15 favorites]


The 100-question version is just right. The point of this test is to spur discussion and show off your freakiness. Nobody gives a shit what exact size of submarine you had sex in, which is why the 500- and 1000-question purity tests are stupid.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 12:21 AM on May 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


I have difficulty believing this actually came from MIT, in any official capacity at least. (But then, this is a school that in 2008 offered a course in NetHack.)
posted by JHarris at 1:25 AM on May 8, 2015


I did the Rice Purity Test in 1988 on PLATO/NovaNet, aka =wildrice. Can anyone settle the provenance of this test?
posted by cgk at 1:47 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Told this story before, am doing so again -

So my friends and I were taking this test in someone's room in college. It was a group of us who'd been friends most of our 4 years by that point.

Anyway, there was a question about whether you'd had sex with the officiant of any religion. We all marked our answers, and there was a pause as the person reading the questions was finding their place. Suddenly one of the other girls - who'd recently converted to NeoPagaism - giggled and said, "hey, you know what, Pagans believe that we are each our own officiants. So anyone who's had sex with me can say 'yes' to that."

There was another pause.

Followed by two of the guys silently picking their pencils back up and changing their answers.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:44 AM on May 8, 2015 [12 favorites]


I decided to retake this test. Then I noticed it was not HTTPS. Then I stopped.

Hey the Geek Code still exists.
posted by sixohsix at 3:44 AM on May 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


You kids. I don't know about the MIT origin, but there was a Purity Test going around in the early 60s. Whatever you saw in the 80s was either a relic, or at least 2nd-generation.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:08 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


I first saw a version of this in 1988 (though sadly I had to fib a fair bit to get my score close to those of my older friends). I don't think I've even seen a reference to it since then, though.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:22 AM on May 8, 2015


66...performed oral sex on yourself? (Yes, this is possible for most males, and even for some females.)

Most?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:40 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


My friends and I thought this was novel when we first got home internet connections in the mid 90s. I like the idea that, upon being introduced to the concept of the internet, any newly-pubescent person's first concern is BUT HAVE THEY DEVELOPED A WAY TO QUANTIFY SEX YET? because this sure does fill a need for young people.
posted by almostmanda at 4:54 AM on May 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


I remember sitting around our habitual table at The Rat, waiting for the bar to open at noon, and filling these out on greenbar.
posted by mikelieman at 4:55 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


66...performed oral sex on yourself? (Yes, this is possible for most males, and even for some females.)

Most?


It's MIT. The actual PROBABILITY is very, very low, but not being zero, the possibility exists...
posted by mikelieman at 4:57 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yes, and had they left it as simply "possible for males" I would not quibble. However, the use of the modifier "most" infers that it is possible for a numerical majority (as opposed to a simple plurality) of the total male population to perform the act. I debate this inference.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:09 AM on May 8, 2015


Who wants to write a grant proposal to study that? Anyone?
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:12 AM on May 8, 2015 [6 favorites]


I remember when a stripped down version of this floated around my school

I see what you did there . . .
posted by JanetLand at 5:20 AM on May 8, 2015


Who wants to write a grant proposal to study that? Anyone?

You mean I could have gotten PAID for thst research too?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 5:33 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


You mean I could have gotten PAID for thst research too?

And it would have looked great on your CV!
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:05 AM on May 8, 2015


So, I started to retake the test just now, got to question 20 (or so) and realized just how much more time I had on my hands in college.
posted by oddman at 6:24 AM on May 8, 2015 [7 favorites]


I turned around to the group of guys discussing it behind me and said, "you realize to get a score that high you would have had to have fucked a dog, right?"

You really said that? You said "have had to have"??

Respect!
posted by moonmilk at 6:42 AM on May 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


I feel so old now.
And I miss the sound of the dot matrix printer.
Of course.... Thanks, YouTube.
posted by Mezentian at 7:02 AM on May 8, 2015


I see what you did there . . .

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
posted by phunniemee at 7:06 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


And I miss the sound of the dot matrix printer.

We had so many Oki ML-320's that we bought a service manual and used to just cross-ship our own depot-quality refurbs to our branch offices ( Retail Insurance ) when one wore out...
posted by mikelieman at 7:14 AM on May 8, 2015


We did this so many times in college in the early 90s. Sweet nostalgia.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 AM on May 8, 2015


So many questions seem written by someone who is imagining what sex is like, with all the variations they can think of.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:54 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


[opens tab]

[scrolls, sighs]

[closes tab]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:00 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


this was a BIG thing first semester, freshman year of college (1991).

Between this and Kurt Loder turning 70, I feel oh so very very old right now.
posted by Lucinda at 8:49 AM on May 8, 2015


I seem to recall getting this off a local BBS that had a Fidonet gateway.
posted by endotoxin at 8:55 AM on May 8, 2015


The best part is at the end where they give scoring instructions and make fun of people who don't have HP calculators.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:20 AM on May 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


Kurt Loder is 70???
posted by pearlybob at 9:27 AM on May 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


I had an HP48G and the lowest score of my immediate circle of friends. Which I guess as a college freshman was brag-worthy, but now? Not so much.
posted by 1adam12 at 10:17 AM on May 8, 2015


I have difficulty believing this actually came from MIT, in any official capacity at least.

There's MIT and there's the Institvte. I mean, obviously this didn't come "officially" from anywhere, but it could easily have come from MIT. It did NOT come from the Institvte.
posted by maryr at 10:18 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Nobody gives a shit what exact size of submarine you had sex in

No, it's how you use it.
posted by maryr at 10:20 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


The best part is at the end where they give scoring instructions and make fun of people who don't have HP calculators.

Oh god, I had completely forgotten about the Important 90s Nerd Controversy of whether HP or TI calculators were more leet. I always hated the HP models because you had to enter stuff the opposite way as the TIs and it was totally counterintuitive to me. Flash forward to 2015, and TI has definitively won the war - the gold-standard graphing calculator these days is the TI-89 Titanium, which is indeed a fearsome and wonderful calculator. I should install Snake and Drug Wars on mine today just for the nostalgia value.
posted by dialetheia at 10:39 AM on May 8, 2015


Oh God, high school flashbacks where because we were such nerds at a nerd school we would spend parties reading the rest rather than actually doing anything on the test.

Oh my God, how did any of us ever manage to get laid?
posted by Katemonkey at 11:15 AM on May 8, 2015


I decided to retake this test. Then I noticed it was not HTTPS. Then I stopped.

501. Took an online purity test over a non-secure connection?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:19 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Every time I look at these things I feel like my score should be a lot less pure than it ends up at. I mean, where's the point for "had my boyfriend lick my ass while I was wearing a reflective snakeskin-patterned bodysuit, upon which was being projected a music visualizer"? Where's the point for "had sex with a person who presents as a non-binary gender"? Where's the point for "paid my bills drawing weird cartoon pornography for a year"? And the many more points one of my friends gets for doing that for something like six years running now?

There isn't even anything on them that inspires me to use them as a checklist any more. Just gross stuff like "have you ever fucked a dead dog". It's all so quaint now.
posted by egypturnash at 11:37 AM on May 8, 2015 [6 favorites]


50-50 confirmed bisexual, then your partner in deed, often referred to by the word "someone" or "partner," is to be someone of the OPPOSITE gender.

*facepalm*

Thanks for the bisexual erasure, asshole.
posted by desuetude at 12:19 PM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


I feel like my score should be a higher percentage in exchange for how boring my life has seemed.
posted by bleep at 12:21 PM on May 8, 2015


248. had sex with a virgin? (not yourself.)

Damn, I was about to count masturbation as auto-sexual relations.

321. been in a circle of fuck?

Well, metaphorically...
posted by Rangi at 4:53 PM on May 8, 2015


I did the Rice Purity Test in 1988 on PLATO/NovaNet, aka =wildrice. Can anyone settle the provenance of this test?

I cannot confirm or deny provenance, but as a Rice frosh in 1985, I found the Purity Test was an old tradition already. They've updated it since my day, because I remember questions including MOS and MSS (member of opposite/same sex).
posted by immlass at 6:18 PM on May 8, 2015


Nobody gives a shit what exact size of submarine you had sex in
No, it's how you use it.


Ob: You sunk my battleship!
posted by Mezentian at 5:52 AM on May 9, 2015


Me wrote in comment #6040806">> 50-50 confirmed bisexual, then your partner in deed, often referred to by the word "someone" or "partner," is to be someone of the OPPOSITE gender. *facepalm* Thanks for the bisexual erasure, asshole.

Okay, I know I'm late coming back to the thread, but I keep thinking about this. I saw that test for the first time in high school but was so inexperienced that I didn't even bother going through all of it. But I remember taking it so many times in college, poring over it. I remember being embarrassed by my low score. I remember it making the rounds a year later and grinning at how my score increased. I remember being a little proud at my score a year or so later, relishing the way it felt meta-dirty.

I also remember internalizing that bisexual erasure. Part of the reason that I didn't come out to myself or others for a long time is that I didn't feel "queer enough," and didn't think anyone queer would find me queer enough and so I rejected myself as a...concept, y'know? And as maybe dumb as it sounds, I think this test and things like it -- seeing bisexuality "authoritatively" defined as 50/50 and yet still kinda default straight -- had a lot to do with that.
posted by desuetude at 10:44 PM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Given (and this is my understanding as an outsider, and 20 years have past) I recall bi folks being either passively (or actively) marginalised from, you know, marching in pride parades, that the test engages in "bisexual erasure" probably isn't that surprising.

I can still remember when there were battles (I swear to god, running street battles) in getting the B added to GL.

20 years on, and we now have QUILTBAG (unless even more letters have been added) so who knows?
posted by Mezentian at 2:42 AM on May 11, 2015


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