Bone conduction is something I worried about with motorcycling since wind noise can get intense! I love motorcycling, T was a big road block for me and really bothered me I spent way to much time researching hearing damage and motorcycling, In the end I found bone conduction to not be an issue at least from my findings with normal riding of 100mph or less.
Interesting to read; I've been considering selling my bike and maybe getting an electric one, just because I'm not convinced that it's not harmful to me. The engine on my bike is about 110db, and that's not even at full rev. (That sounds like a lot, but I have verified this with an actual decibel meter and not a shitty phone app.)
So 85db can cause damage in 8 hours of nonstop exposure. let's assume a very loud club is 105db (concerts are listed in the 105-110 range), with protection you'll never have damage even if you lived there.
This assumes that OSHA ratings are both accurate and equally true for all people including those with existing damage. I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. We just had another thread about this:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/which-guideline-to-use-to-avoid-hearing-loss.8992/
Basically, the EPA guideline is
75db for 8 hours. So, there's a huge discrepancy there, given that it's an exponential scale.
If you are correctly wear ear plugs at a club and come out with hearing damage, everyone not wearing hearing protection will be well on their way to being deaf.
There are probably genetic factors in much of this, and recent research has even started to identify specific genes as culprits in specific kinds of hearing loss. Different organisms can exhibit a huge variety of physiological responses to the same stimuli. I have no problem believing that some people can sustain damage from volume levels that barely cause a temporary threshold shift in other people.
Concerns about living life and hearing protection should be discussed with your ENT/Audiologist. If in doubt, do that before exposing yourself. Again, peace of mind goes a long way.
I have done this; I actually spoke to 3 different professionals about motorcycles specifically. One audiologist told me that he didn't think use of a motorcycle with earplugs was a concern. Another one said that use of a motorcycle at not-excessive speeds and for not-that-extended periods of time was not a concern. A third ENT told me that he thought motorcycles are unreasonably loud for anyone, and that anyone who already has HL/tinnitus was foolish to use them for any period of time, earplugs or not. So, there is no good consensus on that stuff.
I think it's fine for people to have different opinions and come to different conclusions, since we all have to live with the consequences of our own decisions. But, I don't think it's safe to necessarily assume that OSHA noise guidelines will protect all people from all kinds of acoustic damage.
Peace of mind is great for happiness, but it's not a good indicator of empirical fact. I have read that there were, in the past, nomadic south american tribes who actually liked tinnitus because they took it as a sign that their god was communicating with them. I am sure that goes a long way towards peace of mind, but that doesn't make it true. Likewise, in the 50s, some doctors told their patients that smoking tobacco was good for them and would help their overall health.