Happy New Year and Resolutions
A happy new year to all the readers of this blog. Thank you all for your encouragement and support.

My resolutions this year are to get my life into gear, to be more productive and find a more reliable income source while at the same time persevering with my first novel.

Things are hard for me at the moment. I partly have myself to blame but I am in a bit of crisis with my personal life. My partner's parents appear to think me to be the wicked witch of the North, and it has reached the point of estrangement. I will concede to PU that I may not have been the perfect guest, and the trip to the South when I was with them 24/7 did not help. I may have my faults but I like to think I am not a terrible person. But families are a minefield.......

It has naturally put a strain on our relationship, which is not without its problems anyway.

I will soon leave this city, tour the North and spend some time in Auckland. I met a few nice people at a wedding here who came down from Auckland and I'll spend some time with them.

So I'm hoping that things will sort themselves out and this year be not a bad one.
Enjoy yourselves, all xx

Kiwi and Aussie Chavs (Bogans)....

It seems in australia and New Zealand 'chavs' are called 'bogans'. But they seem nowhere near as subject to hatred and ridicule as are their British counterparts. This site appears to be the nearest Australian equivalent of the British 'chavscum' site. It appears to be relatively benign in comparison with 'chavscum' and I do wonder if the creators were bogans themselves..

'Littledick' and the Sewer Press.......

Here is a piece of bile from the Hate Mail's Little Dick. The murder victims in Ipswich evidently asked for it, according to him. They deserved what they got, had it coming, blah blah. If anything their deaths were a good thing as there are five fewer heroin addicts and sex workers in the UK.

I hope he one day gets an obituary that is as hateful as this one. I hope whoever chooses to write of his demise in the pages of the 'Graun' points out his total failure as a human being, and what a vile and stinking specimen of a man he was. What does Littledick do for humanity? Does he do any 'missionary work' in Darfur? Has he discovered any breakthroughs in medical science? Fat chance.

He is far, far worse than any heroin addict. He makes a living out of writing hate lit for the equivalent constituency of those who brought Hitler to power - the lower middle classes, with all their projected frustrations and pent up rage. Muslims, 'white trash', economic migrants, asylum seekers - in other words all those who are more vulnerable in society than themselves. I don't absolve the Mail's readership as was there not a market for Littledick's bilge he would not write it.

But to dance on the graves of five murdered women on the grounds that they were sex workers and heroin users should even make the readers of the Mail blanch a wee bit. However, I wouldn't be in tears if Littledick popped his clogs. Therefore I wouldn't expect him to shed any crocodile tears for the vulnerable who he despises. But I'd at least have expected him to have had the decency to have respected the feelings of the relatives of the dead women and have written nothing about it. It seems there are no depths to which he will not sink. It is lower than gutter journalism - 'sewer press' would be a more apt description. To expect any shred of human kindness or decency from this piece of slime is clearly is too much. Go to hell, Richard, or more accurately to the sewers.

It is vicious and bigoted to reduce heroin users down to any one thing just as much as it is with sex workers. Some heroin users I have known have been among the most gentle and sensitive people I have met. Perhaps too nice for this world - a world that stinks because it contains people like Littledick. Not because it contains heroin addicts, sex workers, Muslims, asylum seekers. etc etc.....

This will be a fairly short post to say...I hope you all had a happy xmas and will enjoy the new year celebrations.

I'm a little out of sorts right now, I don't want to go into all of it, but...

1. The weather now is crap here.

Not a good reason to be depressed, I know, but it sure doesn't help. If you want to remove a metaphorical cloud from over your head having a real one over the hills in the distance is not of much help. And...

2. The TV is crap too!!

This is normally a political blog and I tend not to delve much into the personal zone. But I haven't been following the News as much as I usually would. I will write about it when I feel ready, and I don't care if those involved in this damned scenario read it. It is of their own making anyway.

And I project my state of mind outwards a little. I start to miss being in the UK. A winter Xmas with mulled wine and all. And good TV. And the usual parties I'd go to. Hell, I even miss the London smog, the noise, the dirt and all. I miss being anonymous. It goes without saying that my circumstances here right now are not too favourable. Just imagine being a guest somewhere where you know you are being tolerated rather than welcomed, that your hosts would rather not have you in their lives if they could help it. It sucks, and you should be getting my drift now. But still you feign goodwill out of the nice old English tradition of politeness. Xmas and all.

Thank you people who have been following my blog. It may no longer exist without your input. One moral lesson to perhaps be learnt from this post is perhaps not to say anything about anybody that you would not want repeated. It hurts, if not yourself than the other person or people involved. If you can't be direct then don't bother.

Up until now I've only spoken of things I like about NZ, yep, even the englishness of Christchurch! But as I'm in a bad mood I'll name a few things I don't...

1. Weather and TV, as stated already.

2. Small town life and what it implies generally.
Compare the population of Bournemouth (an average sized town, not a city, on the South coast of England).
(In the latest census, the town had a population of 163,441. Bournemouth is part of a built-up area known as the South East Dorset conurbation which includes Poole and Christchurch and has a combined population of 383,713, )

Now look at Wellington:

Size:
(Source: New Zealand Census, 2001)

The Wellington region (including Kapiti, Porirua, Hutt Valley and Wairarapa) has the third highest population, containing 11.3% of New Zealand's population.
Wellington City 163,824
Wellington Region 423,765

Bear in mind Bournemouth is a town, not a city. Secondly bear in mind that Wellington is the capital city of NZ. You get my drift?

If you live in Bournemouth or any similiar sized town in England you have the option of travelling to London, or the nearest big city. You don't have such an option here. Auckland is the biggest city and that is a plane ride away, a bit like, umm, having to get from Bournemouth to Paris. There are fewer roads and trains are no good for inter city travel. So you're pretty stuck if you are in a situation like mine over the holidays.

In many ways I like the place but I'm unsure that I could live here. I did live in Bournemouth for a few years but returned to London because I got a bit sick of the small town life. I missed the anonymity that London offers, the way you can simply disappear if you want to. Perhaps this may be partly the reason why many New Zealanders come to the UK.

I hope Political Umpire isn't offended by what I've just written about his home country. Perhaps he can share a few thoughts on it. I'm expecting he may tell me I'll probably like Auckland better as a place to stay for any length of time. Perhaps I will. I still have not decided my return date but when I do it will be made known on this blog.........

A very good argument here against the prohibition of drugs, in relation to the murder victims in Ipswich having been heroin addicts.

Check it out. Prohibition kills.

The British Tradition of Puritanism and Sleaze (and the Myth of Nancy)........

I.

I came accross a copy of a John Bunyan book yesterday in the public library. 'Puritanism' the writer on the sleeve commented, 'is undoubtedly part of the English character'. I don't know if this is an aspect of my character that I am unconscious of. But while I cannot help but agree on the whole with that statement, it is not an aspect of the national character that I take pride in by any means.

But it is alive and well in the press, in Westminster, in the pressure groups, on the web and in the homes and the streets of the United Kingdom. It can exist similtaneously in the pages of the Graun and the Torygraph. It is a big part of the heritage of both English socialism and feminism (one main reason why I don't really identify myself with either of these traditions, which are essentially as middle class as George Orwell once pointed out). It is what causes the English to be more preoccupied with the sex lives of politicians than the Latin countries. It was this Anglo heritage that almost brought down Bill Clinton.

Sexuality, when it is repressed by puritanism, becomes 'dirty'. Part of the thrill of British sex is down to the belief that something wrong is being done, that a trangression is taking place.

This came to my attention after having read an Emile Zola novel (French writer of the late 19th century). it was entitled 'The Kill' and was a depiction of the decadence of the bourgeoisie of the second empire. There were some fairly graphic sex scenes. I realised that such a novel would not have even been penned, let alone published, by any respected English Victorian author.

I remembered the scenes of 'Oliver Twist' (one of my favourite Victorian novels). I recalled the way that the fact Nancy was a prostitute had to be spelled out by Dickens in the introduction as any description of her trade would have been considered indecent in the novel. Contrast this with Zola's (Zola often being described as the 'French Dickens' for his realism) 'Nana' - an entire novel being devoted to the tragic life of a Parisian courtesan from a working class background. The sexual activities of Nana were described just as graphically as was the bourgeois sex of 'The Kill'.

Let us compare the stories of Nancy and Nana (Paris and London, a Tale of Two Cities, Nana and Nancy, a tale of two.......).
Both women come from poor working class backgrounds. Nana's upbringing is documented in Zola's earlier novel 'L'assomoir', which describes the lives of her alcoholic parents in the Goutte d'Or district of Paris. Nancy's background is only referenced briefly in her discussion with the middle class virgin 'Rose' - but is taken to be not unlike that of Nana. Here, however, is where the similarities end.






Zola does not morally endorse Nana's profession. Her tragedy stems partly from her greed. But it is made clear that Nana decided herself to embark on her profession, and is relatively in control of her work. She gets involved briefly with an abusive boyfriend but it doesn't last that long. Her downfall comes more with the corruption of one of her wealthy clients with a fetish for bondage. Like Nancy Nana has to die, but she catches typhoid).

Nancy, on the other hand, is an unwitting victim. She did not embark on her profession via her own choice but was bullied into it by Fagin and her violent partner Bill Sikes. She was 'led astray', in other words. And she is full of remorse and self pity for what she is, a trait noticably absent from the unrepentant Nana.

Nana and Nancy respectively can be seen to symbolise the British and the French attitudes towards the sex industry. Nancy remains the perpetual archetype for the downtrodden English prostitute. Every woman working the street is Nancy. Every Nancy has a Bill. The shame attached to the sex industry makes it all the sleazier.

I split this into two parts as it is long and not on a straight continuum. Please read on......

II.

The Myth of Nancy (Continued).....

We know the story of Nancy. We know that she met her death at the hands of Bill Sikes, her 'bully' (Victorian for pimp). She was a pure victim of circumstance, of poverty and of male oppression.

I'm glad in a sense that I'm not in the UK right now. The tragic murders in Ipswich will bring the puritans out with no leash, snapping their jaws and using the deaths of these poor women for their own agenda. Agenda being to attempt to prove that all sex workers are Nancy.

Despite New Zealand's law reform, this attitude has found it's way into the press here. A hack named David Harrison writes an article entitled 'Stark Truth of the Sex Trade'. He comments that the murders have shone a dismal light on the extent of prostitution in the UK. Why, I could almost be at home. I'm feeling homesick already, in fact. And guess what? The article is couresy of the good old Torygraph, given to the 'Dominion Post'. Nice one.

'Britain's dark underbelly is a seedy world of desperate, drug addicted women who sell their bodies for their, or their pimps, next fix of heroin or crack'. Harrison unquestionally cites the home office stats on the prevalence of drug addiction among the UK's streetwalkers (stats which I pointed out yesterday were unreliable).

The drugs come early, most are offered heroin by their abusers, and are forced on the streets to feed their habits and pay their pimps (bullies). Some are 'launched' as early as the ages of 12 or 13 (as was the case with Dickens's Nancy, led astray by Fagin and Sikes).






Harrison writes "The street girls (sic!!) are the most vulnerable "workers" in Britain's expanding sex trade". He puts the term workers in inverted commas.

Such an article could just as well appear today in the Graun as the language is identical, patronising while denying sex workers their rights as sex workers. I am not questioning the fact that the vulnerable women he describes exists. I am sure they do. I don't doubt that there were women like Nancy who actually existed at the time Dickens was writing either. I have no doubt that the women are predominately from poor working class backgrounds either (I don't like the term 'underclass' used on the British poor). The fact that such conditions persist is a condemnation of 21st century Britain.

But it is misleading to suggest as he does that almost all streetwalkers are as he describes. They are not. Not all of them have a pimp or bully. Not all are on drugs. Some are simply freelancers who don't want to pay a brothel keeper and do not have the means to set up themselves or work from home. But what about minders? The issue is not one of the men themselves but their behaviour, and whether or not there is coercion taking place. Buying drugs for a partner doesn't necessarily mean he is forcing you either. The options of the men are often just as limited as those of the women. It may make more sense if you are a couple of addicts for the woman to sell sex rather than for the man to do a burglary and land himself in prison. I am not condoning these conditions, simply being straight and avoiding the implication that all partners of sex workers are 'pimps'. The drugs issue will of course be partly resolved by the decriminalisation or legalisation of heroin use - but few people promote this as an option when discussing the issue of addicted sex workers.

But I'll tell you what makes me mad. It is hard for me to express how I feel about this organisation using polite language. But I'll try. Harrison quotes Diane Marshall of Britain's 'Poppy Project', the home office funded programme to provide shelter for victims of sexual trafficking. Don't get me wrong - this in itself is something I would support. I believe that women abused in such a way should be given shelter and support, and it is a good thing for the British government to provide this. But alas, they are giving the money to the wrong people for this purpose. 'Poppy' are connected to a group known as the 'Lillith Project/Eaves Housing' who have a whole other agenda.

These ladies are continuing in the notable tradition of the 'National Vigilance Association' - to stamp out vice and public immorality. They are modern Victorians. They oppose prostitution being defined as 'sex work' - insisting it should remain 'prostitution' (root - to commit an immoral act for money). Yet how do these feminists do this without condemning the fallen women they wish to save? Easy. They use the term 'prostituted women' - meaning that nobody is doing such work voluntarily. Taking their cue from the Victorian social reformers, they believe that no woman would choose to work in the sex trade, all women being forced via economic or social circumstances beyond their control.

Marshall blames the 'normalisation' of the sex trade for the murders. What utter crock. What of the women murdered by partners and men who they know, women who are not sex workers? What is to blame for that? Monogamy? Marhsall praises the 'good old days' when "it used to be taboo to go with a prostitute, something to be done furtively, something that brought shame if you were found out". Aah, the joys of English puritanism. So it is somehow not so bad if it remains a dirty secret, Ms Marshall, so as to protect the virtue of decent ladies like yourself? It is better that sex workers remain stigmatised, the lowest of the low, so as to seperate themselves from respectable women.

Please don't think that Marshall's project to rescue sex slaves is anything new or remotely radical. It isn't. Victorian groups consisting of middle class women very often indulged in such projects - providing safe houses for fallen women who wished to leave the trade. The 'female mission for the fallen' distributed tracts outside brothels protesting the exploitation of women. Dickens himself was involved in such a project.

Predictably Harrison does not interview any sex workers themselves, only police, charities, and their self appointed redeemers Ms Marshall and a group named "Women for Justice' - who claim that drug addiction, homeless rape and murder are occupational hazards of the sex trade, therefore it is hardly a career choice. Yet they don't consider the possibility that criminalisation may have something to do with this. Oh, no. If they were really worried about the safety of sex workers they would call for policy to help protect them. But they prefer they be criminalised, hence running greater risks to their safety. Nay, they and their ilk call for heavier criminalisation. Which shows their real concern is not the safety of prostitutes but rather the virtue of decent ladies like themselves.

Harrison concludes by saying that 'the world's oldest profession is really the oldest oppression'. With his social conservatism (writing for the Torygraph) and his questionable sources, along with his patronising attitude towards women and his failure to speak to any prostitutes themselves it is not surprising that he says this.

Many middle class (decent and respectable) women give sex in exchange for something, be it security ( often dressed as commitment) or status. The prostitute is a threat to the middle class lady as she direcly asks for money, hence blowing the cover and thus the facade of decency. This exposes the hypocrisy of conventional morality - and the morality of puritanical 'feminists' and their buddies on the right.

It is interesting the way the Torygraph has dropped it's rhetoric of traditional values, public morality, etc and adopted the Graun's rhetoric about the exploitation of women. I guess it puts a better and more modern sounding spin on what is ultimately conventional morality.

To conclude my heart goes out to the murder victims in Ipswich and their relatives - and I am sorry that their deaths are being exploited in this way by the usual suspects.

Prostitution and NZ Law Reform.....

I see a man is being held on suspicion over the Ipswich murders (see link). It is too early to assume him to be guilty, he could well just be a lonely man who is an easy suspect, having known the murdered women and being a client of sex workers. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I met yesterday with Catherine Healy of the New Zealand prostitute's collective. I had a very interesting discussion with her over the effects of the law reform. I also spoke with a couple of workers who were visiting the building.

Surprisingly the first one I spoke with said it had made little difference to her personally, she pretty much continued working from home as she had done prior to the reform. However, when pressed she stated that she no longer has to register with the police when advertising in a newspaper. Even prior to decriminalisation, NZ had a relaxed attitude in comparison with Britain, with the police not always enforcing the law. Juliette also told me that she could be more upfront when talking with clients on the phone. Another woman told me that the law reform felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders as the threat of being busted no longer hung over her.

Something notable about this law is that it is the result of vocal campaigning by sex workers since the late 1980s, campaigning for their right to work as sex workers. It has not been handed down from on high by some thinktank who believe they are protecting the public from a social evil or containing it. Hence the law is based upon the human rights of sex workers as sex workers. It was won in parliament by a narrow majority, and it's opponents were largely on the religious right. It has received the support of most women's groups in the country, and of the liberal left. Ambivalence was also voiced by some residents groups, who feared there would be an increase in both streetwalkers and brothels. Their fears have been unfounded as there has not been a great increase in women choosing to work in the sex industry.

One thing Catherine made clear was that we cannot expect miracles to result from a change in the law. The problems associated with the sex industry have not all dissapeared, and it is doubtful they all ever will as every profession has it's problems and hazards. But there are a few things worthy of note.

Relations between sex workers and police have improved, and violence from clients is more likely to be reported. A murderer in the Christchurch region (who killed two prostitutes) was caught quickly due to the co-operation of sex workers with the police. Being free of police harrasment provides a better environment to work from, and due to the scrap of the pimping charges some women have chosen to take their partners with them as bodyguards or minders to take the license plates of the cars they get into. As sex workers are no longer illegal there has been a slight shift in the social stigma attached to them - they are no longer criminals but are workers with rights under the law.

Something that particularly struck me was the fact that there has been a shift away from brothel work and an increase in freelancers - women working themselves from home or in collectives. Brothel keepers have in fact been complaining that they cannot find enough workers anymore as women do not want to pay the shift fees they charge - they also prefer to work their own hours and charge their own prices.

It is little wonder that the brothel keepers opposed the model of decriminalisation. They were rather in favour of the Dutch model (State licensed brothels) being imported to NZ. The self interest here is pretty obvious. Those who advocate this model for Britain would do well to bear in mind that what they are advocating is a boss's law - not one that enshrines the rights of workers. Marxists would do well to think of the struggle between capital and labour, and remember which side they are supposed to be on. In the Auckland area brothel owners with massage licenses had a rather questionable relationship with local police prior to decriminalisation - they demanded that police clamped down on unlicensed premises, which clearly was not in the interest of freelancers. As I have stated before, one should not confuse legalisation with decriminalisation. They are not the same thing. Sex worker's rights groups almost unanimously oppose the former and support the latter, as do I.

It is also a misconception that most streetwalkers are also drug addicts. Some are (as were the women murdered in Ipswich) but not all are. The stats from the British Home Office on this matter (that 90+% of streetworkers are addicted to heroin or crack) are misleading as well as self serving, as they are taken from the women who use the government's drug treatment programme. In Catherine Healy's experience with street workers some are drug users but they don't make up the majority. That tallies with my own experience with sex workers. I have known women who work on the street and not all have been drug users. It obviously depends on the area too - districts which are struck with poverty and crime in general tend to have a higher percentage of drug users. Heroin and cocaine use is not as widespread in NZ as in Britain, crystal meth seems to be more of a thing here. But there is at least a needle exchange service for intravenous drug users.

But I should also stress that I support the rights of drug users as well as sex workers. If a sex worker is also a drug user (or the other way round) she will need rights as both. Hence my support for the legalisation of all drugs, or at least their decriminalisation.

We also spoke about the misconception that most (even all) migrant sex workers are forced into the trade. This is not the case in Britain and neither is the case in NZ. The main problem facing migrant workers in the sex industry here is their illegal status (as illegal immigrants, not as sex workers). They tend to come from South East Asia rather than Eastern Europe. Some come specifically to work in the sex industry, some arrive for other reasons. But the issues are the same. While it cannot be doubted that trafficking is an issue, it is wrong to assume that all migrant sex workers are slaves. They aren't. Claiming that they are is counterproductive as inflating the numbers is not conducivr to actually formulating policy to tackle the problem. The United Nations recognises that there is no reliable data in the way of human trafficking. If there was then the problem would be closer to being tackled.

A couple more items relating to the law in NZ. A few councils have managed to create by laws restricting the sale of sexual acts from certain zones. These have been opposed by the collective as being contrary to the law, and some have been repealed. Others have remained. What complicates matters is that a brothel in this country does not have the numbers clause as with Britain. In NZ one woman working from home would be effectively keeping a brothel, whereas in Britain it must be more than one.

It is also illegal to practise unsafe sex in exchange for money in NZ. While the collective opposed this clause as it could conceivably be used against sex workers, most sex workers have reported that the law works in their favour. If a client asks for activity without protection they can simply tell him that it is illegal and he will normally drop the matter. Client insistence has usually been the reason that some sex workers admit to practising unprotected sex in many countries.

More on Pinochet...

Political Umpire sent me this link. It is by the former British ambassador to Chile and reads in my view as little but an apology for Pinny.

Skilton writes:

"Many Chileans see Pinochet as the man who saved them from the social unrest, economic chaos and anarchy of the Allende years, and prevented Chile from becoming a second Cuba. They also see him as the man who presided over Chile’s remarkable economic success, which brought jobs, homes, healthcare, etc, to vast swaths of Chile’s previously impoverished population."

These 'many Chileans' he speaks of seem to comprise mostly of the wealthy and the conservative middle classes, who clearly had reason to wish for the preservation of the status quo. A status quo which was indeed threatened by not only the Allende regime itself but the hopes it stirred in the working class and the poor. Economic chaos and anarchy was brought about largely by the deliberate sabotage of the CIA (Richard Nixon having made clear he did not want Allende in power). The human rights abuses were what Pinny and his mates saw as necessary to put the masses in line, and quench once and for all their hopes for a better future. This was the cost of 'Chile's economic success'. Torture, death, corpses. And who precisely did the economic success serve?

The novelist Isabelle Allende pointed to the fact that this 'economic success' did not benefit those at the bottom of the social ladder. It made the rich rich and the poor poorer. It may have made the middle classes better off, but not the poor. Social inequality on the whole rose during that period. Any trickle down effect was minor, and it's costs were great, rather like Thatcher's Britain. I have heard similiar arguments in fact made about Thatcher - that the British economy was in a better state after she had finished than before she was in power. They do not convince me. If such measures are indeed necessary why have the Scandinavian countries prospered and been stable during years of social democracy?

Skilton also writes:

"But it is undeniable, if uncomfortable, that by the time Pinochet left office in 1990, Chile was in a far better state than when he started."

This is a red herring as nobody knows what Chile would look like today had the coup not occurred. Allendes Chile was not to be. The great powers would not allow it to be.

On Prostitution Law........

Many well meaning folk on the blogosphere and in the UK press have been calling for a legalisation of prostitution in the form of State licensed brothels following the Ipswich murders.

They are wrong on several grounds.

To start with, legalising something does not automatically remove the stigma attached to it, at least not straight away. And in the case of prostitution it is debatable as to whether it ever can be totally removed, although society does seem to be taking a less condemnatory approach to sex workers than it has done in the past.

Legalisation of the sex industry will require more State regulation. Women will likely have to register as prostitutes with the British State, something many of them will understandably be loathe to do. This may also have the effect of institutionalising women in the sex industry.

Licensing sex establishments will not stop managers from charging extortionate 'rent' for the women to work on the premises. Compulsory medical examinations have been suggested as part of the package, a law which would in practice be discriminatory. The mentality behind the proposition is not unlike that of the 'Contagious Diseases Act' which was proposed in the Victorian era.

"The Acts made the assumption," Megara Bell points out,

that prostitution was a permanent and necessary evil. They condoned male sexual access to fallen women and were specifically directed at women in order to protect the health of men. If the priority had been to fight VD, then inspecting the prostitutes' clients would also have been required by the Acts. However, the assumption was that, while men would be offended at the intrusion, the women were already so degraded that further humiliations were of no consequence. ["The Fallen Woman in Fiction and Legislation"]"

She is right on that score. It has not been proposed that clients of sex workers be examined as they would indeed find it intrusive. The assumption is made that the women are already degraded to an extent where being 'rounded up' weekly or fortnightly by a doctor (as sex workers in Germany described it) would be of little consequence to them. The assumption is wrong as some women have, in fact, found it intrusive and discriminatory when and where it has been practised.

If prostitution were legalised a two tier system of workers would be the result. The law in Holland has not eradicated streetwalking. Women who do not register and work in licensed establishments do not benefit from the perks of being legal, but on the other hand they do not suffer the downside of having to pay brothel keepers on top of their taxes. They are hence underground, but they retain the ability to be freelancers. Neither do they have to register with the State as prostitutes.

Streetwalking will remain as many (not all) women on the streets have drug problems, and the indoor market is known to be highly intolerant of drug use. Due to the prohibtion of narcotics we can assume that State licensed brothels would be even stricter in this regard. Addicted sex workers would therefore have to find their income elsewhere and still fall victim to State persecution.

New Zealand has taken the step of decriminalisation. It is too early yet for me to say much about this, but expect this to be updated as I have arranged to meet the collective next week sometime. But from what I know so far this seems to be the most sensible route.

All laws regulating prostitution or consensual sexual activity should be scrapped, including the 'living off immoral earnings" charge. Women would then be able to work safely from home and have men on the premises for security reasons without fear of them being prosecuted. These men may or may not be their husbands or partners. Or women could work in groups of two or more for safety reasons. Sex workers should have access to services such as non discriminatory medical care.
They should be able to register as self employed with the taxman (not the same as registering as a prostitute with the Home Office or whoever the body would be) and therefore work as freelancers without having illegal status the way that their Dutch counterparts do.

The State should only intervene when it is a public order issue - hence there may be a case for limiting street prostitution to certain zones, which would be good for safety reasons too. I will have to find out more, but it appears that in NZ the level of street prostitution has dropped since decriminalisation, and more women are in fact working from home.

Watch this space.

Statement from the English Collective of Prostitutes on Ipswich Murders.........

When prostitute women are not safe, no woman is safe

Gemma Adams and a woman the police believe to be Tania Nicol, have now both been found tragically murdered in Ipswich. We pass our deepest condolences to their loved ones. A number of women also working as sex workers have gone missing in the area in recent years. In order to save lives and not to repeat the horror of the Yorkshire Ripper, who was allowed to continue killing until 13 women had been murdered, the Suffolk police must not use the criminality imposed on sex workers by the prostitution laws as an excuse to deny women the protection we are all entitled to by law.

We demand:


an immediate temporary amnesty from arrest for prostitute women and clients so that anyone can come forward to give information to this inquiry without fear of criminalisation or harassment; (Previously, women with outstanding arrest warrants either couldn’t contact the police or when they did were arrested. (See Criminalisation: the price women and children pay, English Collective of Prostitutes response to the government’s review of the prostitution laws, December 2004)

an end to street sweeps, arrests and ASBOs against prostitute women and clients which have forced women into darker, more isolated areas making them more vulnerable to rape, violence and even murder. Women working under increased pressure are less able to look out for each other, have less time to check out clients and are forced to take more risks;

a change in police priorities; money and resources being used to prosecute women and clients for consenting sex must be re-directed into vigorously pursuing violent men and protection of all women

following the example of New Zealand, decriminalisation of the prostitution laws, which by criminalising sex workers signal that women’s lives are not worth much. The police and courts don’t protect women and violent men think they can get away with attacks.

Comment: Currently being in NZ I intend to find out more about how the prostitution law reform has worked out, if possible arranging to meet and interview some sex workers via the collective or union. I can say, however, that I was very upset when hearing about the murders back in Britain. Criminalising prostitutes only endangers them further, and I feel nothing but anger, contempt and scorn for those 'feminists' who insist that these women continue to be criminalised, socially stigmatised and marginalised so as to protect the virtue of 'respectable women' like themselves. I can see through their rhetoric. But they quite happily scream 'my body, my life' when abortion is the issue at stake, not seeing the contradiction and the irony. I'm kind of glad I'm not in the UK right now.

A feminist once remarked to me that her opposition to prostition stemmed not from the effect the work has on individual prostitutes but rather from the way that the sex trade implies that ALL women's bodies are commodities. Clearly she has a lot to learn. All women, yep, respectable ladies too, have used sexuality as a bargaining chip. Respectable bourgeois women have used this bargain for marriage and security. The prostitute is a thorn in the side of the bourgeois feminist as she directly asks for money, thus exposing how fragile the mythical virginity and purity of the middle class lady actually is. All the prostitute is doing is exposing a truism about sexual relations and the organisation of society, she is not creating it.
She is simply being explicit about it, and renting her sexual services rather than selling them for life (as is the case with many bourgeois marriages). The middle class feminists who support criminalising prostitutes are in fact supporting the status quo.

I'll also add that I mean no disrespect to those sensible feminists who see through the good woman/bad woman myth and realise the harm caused by the prostitution laws, and the hypocrisy behind them. Meanwhile I hope this bastard gets caught soon so he kills no more.

Meanwhile, vulnerable women with addictions and deep emotional problems (who do make up a large number of streetwalkers) could be greatly helped by at least being given heroin on prescription (ideally an all out end to prohibition will be best but that does not seem likely in the near future). And there should be more access to psychotherapy and counselling on the NHS. The mental health system in the UK is a shambles.

Death of a Tyrant.....

Now I'm not one to gloat over anyone's death. But I couldn't help feeling a tinge of gladness and thus making an exception when hearing of the demise of Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. It is a pity he escaped justice, but having expressed no regrets I would doubt he'd have reached heaven (if such a place exists, and I believe PInny thought it did. The Christian God is said to look into the heart. For all his observances of formalities Pinny doesn't make the grade as he was an unrepentant sinner. To be forgiven requires contrition, and this characteristic was noticably lacking in le general. This is going by the teachings of Catholicism, the religion Pinochet professed belief in. He'd have been better off being a fundie prod, as that faith does not require ongoing evaluation of one's character and deeds, just initial credence. Roman Catholicism though (at least as I understand it) gives no such free ticket to heaven.

Margaret Thatcher expressed sadness at the death of her best mate Pinny. All I can say is I'm glad she's sad. But she can consle herself with the thught that she is getting on in years and before long may be joining her friend in the heat of the inferno. Not a pleasant place but at least they'll be friends reunited.

I won't upload a picture as I don't want Pinny's ugly mug tainting my blog.

Trip Update....

I arrived back in Wellington last night from the South Island trip. I have to say that I was unable to see all that I would have liked to, as we were with my partner's parents who wanted to visit relatives there. We may well do a trip there again before we leave, as well as seeing more of the North.

After leaving Xchurch I spent a few days on the Otago peninsula, close to Dunedin. Dunedin was a Scottish settlement rather than an English one like Xchurch. It was fairly quiet partly because it is a university city and it was off season, students were away. However, I noticed it had a lot of art and culture for what is essentially a small city (at least by English standards!). Paid a visit to the gallery and viewed some interesting paintings, some were local and some were imports from Europe. There were some interesting shops too. Went in a shop in the Octagon (city centre, main square) named Gloria, where the propietor sells some unusual clothes and jewellry, mst of it is handmade and some of it she makes herself in the shop. The hat I bought was made by her daughter who is a local folk singer. I must shamedly admit that I didn't visit the bird colonies, partly due to problems with transportation and partly due to poor weather.

After that we stopped at Wanaka (a very charming lake town surrounded by mountains, not so touristy as Queenstown) and then headed for Motueka. Had a look at the scenery on the west coast (including the famous pancake rocks) with it's dense vegetation, and went on a flying fox ride over a valley. Was pleasantly surprised to find the water on the beach in Motueka warm enough for a swim. Also came accross a Santa Claus with a genuine white beard!

That is another thing I find strange, Christmas in the summer and summer in December! As there are no dark nights there are noticably fewer lights in people's windows. Christmas was initially based on the Northern Winter solstice (Christ's birthday being placed a few days after, or it may well have been put on the same day as the Roman Mithras festival). Most religious festivals of light are geared to the Northern hemisphere. I imagine I might find the Southern winter hard (was I staying here that long) as there is no festival of lights to break it up. Perhaps winter solstice should be declared a public holiday down here. But in a way it is nice to have a summer solstice Xmas!

Holiday Update.....

Posting has been a little sparse lately due to a lack of time. However, I'll use the time I do have by beginning with describing my visit to the city of Christchurch.

I heard it said a few times that Kiwis are 'more English than the English'. I never quite saw this, they have always struck me as being more like Aussies with manners (no doubt political umpire will have something to say on this, as well as on the rest of my post!)

However, I think this may just apply to Christchurch, which was in fact modelled on an English city, built on a river with a university in the centre. And yes, it has stone builidings and spires! And men in straw boating hats punting tourists along the river. The English class structure was also intended to be replicated. While the founder of Wellington tried this there and failed, I think the founder of Xchurch may have succeeded.

I stayed with a middle aged gay couple. Refined gentlemen, if anything classic English eccentrics in the upper class sense! They have a slight fascination with British royalty, and are converts to Roman Catholicism. I will also have the pleasure to greet them on their visit to England next year. I had their permission to write about them here. I also had the pleasure to meet a couple of their friends - a Cambridge educated Mathematician with an accent to match, a white beard and a slightly snobby wife. Could have been at home, albeit not London. I'll upload a picture later.....

I heard today that a Pakistani court has ordered Misbah Rana (aka Molly Campbell) back to Scotland while a Scottish court decides the verdict on her custody (see link)

.

According to her father (who she wishes to stay with) she is so distressed she say she 'will run away again'). She surely does not like her mum.

Meanwhile her mother states that she is looking very forward to the 'reunion'. Not much of a 'reunion' of the other person involved does not want to see you, is it? I have before on this topic, but any parent who puts their own wishes above those of the child does not really have their best interests at heart. From all empirical evidence it appears that Misbah's father is not by any means abusive, nor does he wish to 'force her into an arranged marriage' as the British press had previously assumed due to their prejudice. If this mother ever wants any respect from her daughter, respect on which any kind of relationship is conditional upon, she should respect her wishes simply by letting her be where she wants to be. Which appears to be in Pakistan with her father and sister.

I have commented before on this issue both here

and here.

This story upsets me as it is a case where a parent is failing to see a child as a person in her own right but rather as an extension of herself. This mentality remains for me a source of grievance wherever I encounter it, and it causes no end of heartache and damage among young people.

Society rarely suggests that an adult should be forced to continue living with a spouse if they no longer wish to. Why therefore are children still treated as chattel of their parents in this way? Ms Campbell clearly does not want the voice of her daughter to be heard, and she is patronisingly silencing her when she does attempt to be heard. If the courts take into account what is best for the child it may well seem that the father is more of a responsible caretaker with a more stable life, not subjecting her to live in what she defines as a 'hellhole' (which was how Misbah described her mother's home in Scotland).

For those of you who didn't know the star spangelled banner was initially a British pub song, the tune of which was later adapted for the Americans as their anthem. Check out this groovy video and song here.

Dirty Blonde......

Back in London I couldn't resist getting a copy of 'Dirty Blonde' - the published snippets of the diaries of Courtney Love, my fave rock goodess along with PJ Harvey.

A few reviewers expressed the belief that the item was too personal to be published. But then she's always been a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, it's part of her whole persona. A creative mind is revealed, intelligent and thoughtful although rather confused and messed up at times, as you'd expect.

It can be said about rockers that they are not simply musicians but works of art in their entire persona. Their lives can be read as works of art.

A cynic may dispute this, and believe me to be a dupe of the consumer celebrity culture when I say this. But I believe there to be a difference between musicians with some talent (although we may dispute which rockers have talent and those who lack it) and the mindless celebrities who are famous for simply being idiots on reality shows. That kind of celebrity is instant, but the celebrity of a serious rocker is not.

The personality of celebrity side by side with the talent (of art, music literature) appeared to have been first personified by Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter with her endless self portraits in her floral dresses. Although I'm not her greatest fan, it would be wrong to suggest she was talentless or broke no ground in the way of art. Her self revealing paintings were a new trend in the sense that they directly attempted to depict what was in her psyche.




It appears that Courtney Love gets slammed quite often for doing through music what Kahlo did via art. The feminist movement has claimed Frida, regardless of the fact that she was not herself a political feminist. Nor was Sylvia Plath, another feminist heroine. Love does in fact describe herself as such, but the movement does not quite know what to do with her, for obvious reasons.

The Hitch and Mother Teresa...

I read Xtopher Hitchens' exposure of the arch reactionary Mother Teresa of Calcutta yesterday (see link). I know it is a few years old but it's still worth a read for those who still harbour any illusions of the saintliness of this character.

I had long disliked her brand of Christianity - one that proclaims itself 'apolitical', one that advocates the giving of charity yet never questions a system which allows so many people to starve or die of treatable diseases, while others have many times what they need. This type of Christianity is in fact not 'apolitical' but is in fact deeply conservative, as Hitchens stresses.
It rests nicely with the status quo and big capitalists have no issue with it - in fact they actively praise and encourage it. At times they donate to its adherents to assuage their guilt, to salvage their reputations, or to buy favour from the Lord.

However, the crimes of MT go further than this. Her 'apoliticism' proved itself to be a sham when on a visit to Nicuagara in the 1980s she criticised the Sandinistas while remaining silent on the crimes of the US backed Contras. Despite the existence of weapons of mass destruction, racism and all the other ills in the world she explicitly believed that abortion and contraception were 'the greatest threats to world peace'. Although I deem it extreme and untrue to hold abortion to be *the* greatest threat to world peace, I can somewhat see the logic behind such an idea. But contraception?? Yet MT's opposition to birth control did not spur her to oppose Indira Ghandhi's coercive population control policy, which involved forcible sterilisations. You'd think someone who believed birth control to be such an evil would have something to say about such a practice going on in the very region where they work. But not MT. Clearly her desire to curry favour and praise from her host government (one of this world) was stronger than her professed ideals.

Not just this but she accepted money from white collar thieves while she ran her shelters on an ethos not unlike that of the Victorian workhouses. Money lay in her bank account while orphans under her care led an existence not unlike that of Oliver Twist. She refused painkillers to the terminally ill in her 'shelters for dying destitutes' due to her belief that suffering was holy, those dying in agony from cancer being united with Christ's sufferings on the cross. However, the Christian religion teaches that holy pains such as poverty and fasting should be voluntary. Jesus could have avoided death on the cross but he chose not to as he believed it to have been part of his mission. Jesus healed the sick and relieved them of pain, he didn't tell them to accept it and suffer as it would somehow purify their sin and hence unite them with his future suffering on the cross.

Hitchens is a declared atheist but that doesn't discredit his arguments. The paragraph above should show it to be possible to be a believing Christian while opposing the hypocrisy and obnoxious theology of Mother T.

Meet the Feebles.........

Lord of the Rings this aint. Nor is it suitable for children. But anybody interested in the career of Peter Jackson should check out his production of Meet the Feebles.

It is, to sum it up in one sentence, a very dark take on the Muppets. A strong stomach, a black humour with a taste for the macabre or the degenerate is required. Meet Heidi the Hippo, the Miss Piggy equivalent. Tragically in love and ever faithful to her husband Bletch the Walrus, a criminal adulterer whose only true love is money. Now our poor hippo has a weight problem, which is excacerbated by the heartlessness of the walrus (she addresses her pain via her sweet tooth) In turn her weight gain makes him use the pleasures of his new girlfriend, a slinky, model thin feline, even more. A catty cat who takes open pleasure at the pain of the hippo. Vicious and tragic circle.

Meanwhile the rest of the cast have their own problems. The playboy rabbit Harry has some ghastly illness which his doctor thinks is AIDS. Wynard the frog is a Vietnam veteran with a severe drug addiction.

The show reaches its climax when Heidi the Hippo decides she can take no more. After a failed suicide attempt when Bletch finally decides to ditch her because she is past her prime, her feline rival makes one last jibe at her while she has a gun in her mouth. That mistake costs the cat her life - and most of the other feebles! Heidi turns the gun on her and proceeds with a massacre of the entire studio.

Great fun if you like this kind of thing (and I do). You may enjoy it simply if you are a fan of the original muppets (as I am).
Lets hope Kermie stays faithful to Miss Piggy is all I can say for now.......

Update/note: A few years back I wrote a spoof rap involving Kermie, Miss Piggy and Kermie's new girlfriend, in which Miss Piggy's reaction was not unlike that of Heidi the hippo! Kermie lapped up the attention and was ultra laid back in his classic style while the girls were at each other's throats threatening blue murder. I'll try to dig it out. Not sure if the Muppet presenters will want it though. I'd like to know what Jackson thinks though.

10 Things I'd never do....

Political Umpire tagged me on this so I'll have a think....

1. Buy to a coldplay cd.
2. Live in the home counties.
3. Go to a Pinkfloyd concert.
4. Eat in Macdonalds.

Thinking on it......

5. Some of it which enters my mind is rather too filthy to mention so I'll lay off the smut.
6. Take certain drugs which are known to have a link with madness.
7. Listen to any daft conspiracy theories
8. Make excuses for people who insist on behaving like jerks.
9. Have an affair with someone else's husband ( I cannot make promises about one night stands, I lack the moral confidence to express any certainity about this matter!!). Hope you at least appreciate my honesty here!
10. Let the bastards grind me down (at least I'll try there!)

I think I should tag someone, so I'll try Maria. I know he doesn't have a blog but I'll tag Paddy nonetheless. And neprimye (sorry for the misspelling!!). Other friends of this blog have already been tagged. There are a few others but I forget their address and I'm having a bit of trouble with this machine (cannot seem to open a new window without losing this one, have to check out why and how...) But if they are reading this I'll tag Kris and David Duff too.....

Men Will be Men.....

A short note to follow on from my post on youth and sexuality.

A few years ago I bought into the myths promoted by a large section of the feminist movement. I believed my sexist and abusive father was the way he was not because of his individual character but because a system called 'patriarchy' planted the idea in his brain that women were inferior and it was the mark of a real man to be a misogynist arsehole. I did not realise that I was doing what my long suffering mother had always done throughout the course of her marriage - I was making excuses for him. If the thesis was true then all men would be like him. The fact is they are not. Sexism simply gives men like him a rationale for their behaviour. If it wasn't sexism it would be something else.

I also had other views. While I supported the rights of sex workers (as I still do), I also believed there would come a day when men would no longer feel the need for pornography. I swallowed the patronising attitude promoted towards women in the porn industry. I just failed to grasp the fact that visual stimulation is a legitimate aspect of male sexuality. I failed to recognise that men need their privacy, their fantasies, just as women do. I fell into the trap of politicising the differences between male and female sexuality, and hence demonised aspects of male sexuality I did not understand or relate to. But guess what? My male partners have found it extremely difficult to relate to aspects of my sexuality and fantasies. Sometimes they expressed boredom, other times they felt as disturbed by my theme based fantasies as I was by their visual ones.

It is true that women do often feel uncomfortable if their male partners use porn. They often complain about feeling unattractive, not good enough etc. Having had such feelings myself in relationships I can readily empathise with this. But what is at play here is our own insecurity in ourselves, which often manifests in sexual jealousy. It is not porn that is really the problem here but our own lack of self esteem. We can criticise the sex industry for promoting one standard of female beauty but that is as far as we should take it. It is wrong, so wrong, of the feminist movement to capitalise like this on women's insecurities and tell us that we must continue with the thankless task so typical of the female sex - trying to make men change. Trying, in other words, to make them more like us. It won't happen.

We can't plead with men to be 'nice'. We have to fact the fact that there is an aspect of male sexuality that is predatory, and of course it has it's mirror image in the submissive aspect of female sexuality. So how does this relate to my post on youth?

Teenage boys are walking barrels of testostorone, ruled by their hormones. So, of course, are teenage girls ruled by their hormones but it expresses itself differently. Boys will say anything to get sex. So will some full grown men who lack scruples to know any better. So rather than hopelessly dream of the day men will change we should learn to respect ourselves and not put ourselves in vulnerable situations where we may get hurt. This is what we should be telling our daughters.

In relation to the current issue of binge drinking and date rape - women do not 'get themselves raped'. We are entitled to go out drinking without fear of being molested or having our drinks spiked. On the other hand we should still be cautious and not get so out of it we don't know what the hell we are doing, drink ourselves unconscious and hence put ourselves at risk. It is foolish. But then I'd encourage nobody to drink themselves to that stage due to the great amount of other accidents caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

I hope none of this has sounded like male bashing. I simply believe that men and women are different, with their respective strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes these traits compliment each other but other times they appear to clash, leading to distrust between the sexes. Rather than seeking to change men it would be far more productive if feminists could make the effort to understand them (and asking them to understand us better of course). That would go a long way to improving relations between the sexes.

Anglo Youth - 'Respect' and Sexuality

It has been interesting to note that New Zealand seems to have the same issues with the youth of today as does Britain. I read a column yesterday in which a Kiwi journalist (Pamela Stirling) was praising Britain's approach with the use of Asbos for anti social youth. The column was titled 'It's all about Respect', and the word was used more than once. Not very subtle in her admiration of the British prime minister.

Meanwhile the same magazine had an article on teenage pregnancy. Evidently New zealand has the third highest rate in the world, Britain being second, and the highest I believe is the United States.

I have long wondered as to why English speaking countries seem to have this problem and have yet to come to any firm conclusions. Conservatives tend to blame it on too much liberalism while liberals tend to blame it on too much....Conservatism!

I think this is far too simplistic from either view. The Netherlands is often praised by liberals and pro choicers for it's liberal approach to youth sexuality and it's sex education programme, and they point to the fact it has a low rate of teenage pregnancy. But again, I don't quite see this. Why does Britain's rate of teenage pregnancy continue to rise in spite of the programmes of the last few years? Surely if the assertions made about the Dutch stats were true the opposite would be happening!

The reasons behind the Dutch stats are most probably of a cultural nature. For one thing - The Netherlands have a stronger family structure in their society than does Britain. The reasons behind the phenomena in the English speaking nations may also be economic - the monetarist policies they have been subjected to has contributed to greater social atomisation and weakened traditional family structures, families which help children grow through puberty and become adults. Children in lower socio economic groups also tend to have sex at an earlier age.

I'm a cynic about the usefulness of sex education as is currently constituted. If it is failing in it's aim it is simply not working and another approach needs to be taken, the format needs to change. Perhaps schools should also recognise the pressure children are often under to have sex before they are emotionally mature enough. Negative sexual encounters can emotionally scar youth and sometimes blight their adulthood (needless to say girls being more affected by this then boys, some of whom are taken advantage of by older men). It is difficult what with the sexualisation of children in our culture, but teachers and parents should try to express firmly that children should not capitulate to the pressure if they do not feel ready to have sex.
Many young girls have sex not because they want to but because they wish to placate their male partners, fearing the relationship may end otherwise. This is one area in which feminism has made no impact and I am doubtful if it ever will, experience telling me that men will always be men. So it may simply be down to women and girls to be firm and give boys and men a message that will be clear enough for them to hear.

The Crisis of Anglo Conservatism

An interesting snippet here about the involvement of the elusive brethren sect with the New Zealnd National Party (equivalent of the British Tories). But I personally don't see any difference between this and accepting help or funding from any self interested body on the part of a political party. Businessmen and media barons spring readily to mind so I don't see the big fuss about a religious sect.

I notice that the British Tories, meanwhile, are contemplating no longer drawing inspiaration from their national hero Winston Churchill but rather from Guardian journalists!. The gap between New Labour and the Tories hence closes even further. In the absence of proportional representation Britain could come to resemble a one party State. Worrying. What does it say about the Graunistas though?

Posting has been a little sparse this past week, precisely because I'm out of the country.

My partner and I are in Wellington, New Zealand for the next few months. It's a very scenic coastal city (built upon hills), far far smaller than London with a much slower pace of life. The pace of life is similiar to that on the South coast of England, somewhat like Brighton. There is also plenty of greenery around, and I'm staying just by a nature reserve in an outer suburb (which is not very far from the city centre, a short bus ride in fact!). After just ten minutes in town Mr Contraire (he was born and grew up here) bumped into an old schoolfriend of his outside the city library (which by the way has a great selection of books, I found a few rare Emile Zola translations).

The pattern of my blogging will be pretty much the same (apart from late next week and the following fornight when I'll be touring the South island). Posts may focus more on international affairs and I will of course be commenting on politics here, as well as the occasional comment on Britain from what I can glean on the web and on BBC news.

I would upload a picture for you but I'm using an apple mac and am not sure how to save it yet.

Queens Speech

Like much of the population I am extremely cynical and almost apathetic about the contents of yesterday's Queen's Speech. The only thing that really bothers me right now are the proposals for police to be able to evict troublesome tenants almost immediately, and after that they become 'intentionally homeless'(see link). Anti social neighbours are indeed a problem for some people, but what does turfing them out onto the street do to address the issues behind their behaviour?

But what always springs to my mind is the uselessness of the monarchy. It is a farce as we all know these policies are not the invention of the monarch but of the government.

Yet those who are in favour of a Republic must think of viable alternatives. We do not want a US- style presidential system in which the prime minister has unlimited powers (he already has too much as it stands). It would also be pretty useless and a waste of resources having any Head of State that is a mere figurehead, as with some countries. A modern republic would need a whole new constitution. It would need an elected second chamber and decentralisation of political power, voting reform and a proper chance for citizens to participate in an active democracy. Not the sham we have now.

Now I'm one angry girl. My numerous posts sum up my feelings about the so called 'pro choice' lobby. But I get even sicker when men (who don't know as they are not likely to ever be in such a position) repeat that drivel and tell me I am a brainwashed reactionary.

To sum it up - I met a friend for a drink on Saturday. He's a nice enough man, but regarding certain things he does not have a clue. I have long asked him that we agree to differ about the abortion issue - but he always manages to sneak it in, somehow.

According to him having an abortion should be just like having a tooth out (note - what does he possibly know??). Any woman whose experience is somewhat deeper than this is affected by 'religious propaganda'. I have heard him sprout this garbage more than once so I'm no longer affected by it, any more than I am affected by his ludicrous assertions that a human foetus is nothing but a piece of dead matter.

But what really make me angry was his claim (which of course he could not back up) that more women are pro abortion than men, as we are 'directly affected by it'.

Exactly. We are directly affected it and this will just as likely make as anti as pro. Like the woman who cried as she told me of her good for nothing ex who emotionally blackmailed her into the procedure. She is not the only one. What of the women who become pro life when they deeply regret their abortions?

According to this gentleman women who differ from his line are brainwashed by 'Catholic propaganda' - while women who are proud of their abortions, like the obnoxious Zoe Williams, are right on. The pro choice (sic) lobby never lie, while pro lifers lie with every breathe they exhale.

Tosser.

How dare he tell me, as a woman, what I should feel? He can argue all he wants with me about legislation, but how dare he tell me my feelings are wrong and a result of brainwashing?.

He backed up his assertions about women being more numerically in favour of abortion than men by citing that more women in Westminster are pro abortion than the men. Firstly he had no data to prove this, as secondly, what made him think that the views of the political caste in Westminster are representative of the population on this issue?

Other data tells a different story (see link). So did a YouGov poll last year, where more men were in favour of unlimited abortion than women. And more women were anti.

It doesn't surprise me if more men than women are in favour of unlimited abortion. Makes sense, doesn't it? If you don't want the responsibilities of fatherhood you can easily shirk them by paying for the 'operation'. If she doesn't want it? Say you will walk out and leave the child with no father.

Men have no right to lecture me, especially when they get their facts blatantly wrong.

Note: This also shows that the feminist movement do not represent the views or feelings of most women, especially due to the way that it ignores the feelings of women who are not happy with their experiences of abortion. Rather it only seems to represent the views of a self proclaimed 'sisterhood' whose views are only representative of themselves.

I won't deny that I am sick to death of the consumerist rhetoric of 'choice'. I am sick of being labelled 'anti choice' by hypocrites who cannot stand to be labelled what is usually the descriptive term in their case of 'pro abortion'. I am sick of being told that my view on this matter is 'anti woman', with the implication that I am some kind of a self hater who doesn't know what is good for me. I am sick of being told that unrestricted foeticide is a necessary condition for the liberation of my gender. I am sick of seeing people express moral outrage over prostitution but have no problem at all with unlimited abortion. Most of all I am sick of the neglect of the feminist and 'pro choice' (face it, they are not really pro choice as they are only interested in one choice - abortion) movements over the issue of forced abortions in China, coercive family planning policies in the third world, and of course the social and economic pressure that exists in the West for women to abort. Along with the emotional blackmail by relatives and most of all the male partners who have impregnated them in the first place.

On the other hand I would like to point to the good pro choicers who do recognise the ethical dilemma regarding abortion. The ones who do recognise the issue of coercion, and who do not resort to name calling and derogatory labels. They can relax, this post is not about them. It is about the disingenous characters described above, who parrot lies as well as offend.

The Guardian seems to do a great disservice to female writers. Instead of employing journalists of integrity it pays airhead hacks like Zoë Williams to write the most banal and trivial gossip about their middle class lifestyles, who have as much sensitivity in their small minds as does a pebble.

This woman has a couple of preoccupations, one of which is abortion. It isn’t enough for her just to be pro choice, you have to be in favour of unlimited abortion up until birth. Reducing the time limit, to her is just ‘a new way of saying you are anti abortion’. Never mind the people who are strongly pro choice yet are still not opposed to reducing the limit be a couple of weeks (Britain’s being among the highest in Europe). In an edition of the paper earlier this year she spoke of a ‘mawkish sentimentality over the foetus. Not only this but she manages to offend and alienate even the supporters of a liberalisation in the law (see link). A fanatic if ever there was one.

A few good responses to that article:

FinnChow
November 10, 2006 10:49 AM
I agree with Evan Harris 100%. I fear that it won't be enough for Zoe Williams though. Until we're all laughing and joking about abortion and treating it as though it were no different from having a tooth removed, I don't think she's going to be happy.

solarsentinel
November 10, 2006 12:02 PM
Evan said, Ms Williams laments the lack of open debate in Parliament about liberalising a 39-year-old rule. But if the response of the pro-choice lobby is to attack their allies, then it is hardly surprising that politicians are not willing to go there.
Free choice is only possible to the extent that one appreciates the nature and consequences of one’s actions.
The quickest and most effective way to remove someone’s freedom of choice is to lie to them.
In a parliamentary democracy, lying is frowned upon, so the next best way to remove someone’s freedom of choice is to keep the truth from them.
This is hard to do when there is open debate, since open discussion of facts educates and informs people’s choices.
If the pro-choice lobby are pressuring politicians into keeping quiet then they are undermining everybody’s freedom of choice, but most importantly, the freedom of choice of women who cannot make an informed choice without all of the facts.
That makes the pro-choice lobby hypocrites, and those who are really interested in freedom of choice should not listen to them, but should make up their own minds …. after listening to the debate.
When you deify something like free choice, it gets corrupted.

Goodgirl
November 10, 2006 11:07 AM
I have always wondered why a woman miscarries a baby at five weeks, but aborts a foetus at 24! What is the difference? - therein lies the moral issue in abortion. No matter where ons stands on it, there, but for a mishap (whether by abortion or miscarriage), is a human being. Pro-choice ignore this completely, along with the pain of many women who have had abortions lawfully. I am definitely pro-life, but neutral about the legal position, because whatever the law says, as humans we always have a choice to make and/or exercise, (whether legally or not). E.g. I have a choice to beat up a person that I do not like, or even to kill them, but the law prevents me from doing so. Therefore abortion being legal does not remove the dilemma of the effect of the act on the foetus, and whether or not it (foetus) requires protection from harm just as I, a fully formed and visible human being, do. For every woman proud of her abortion, there are 8 who are not. This is an issue that just will not go away, as medical science pushes the frontiers even further.

People like Ms Williams and the 'abortion rights' group she supports have an audacity labelling their opponents as 'anti choice'. Indeed they are the ones who oppose an informed choice. They oppose a public inquiry, blatantly ignoring the existence of women who are not so proud of their abortions. They knowingly lie and mislead, denying any medical facts that are not so favourable to their support for unrestricted abortion. Indeed they will not be happy until we are all laughing and joking about foeticide.

Leaving that aside her witterings about genealogy and the derision of those who are interested in tracking their ancestry as being on a par with those who view ‘animal porn’ sum up the bigotry and shallowness of this loathsome individual. Earlier this year she made infantile comments about the eating of ready meals (what the Americans call ‘TV dinners’) as being a result of ‘social progress’ – namely her beloved and oh so bourgeois ‘feminism’. Glad that one shallow person is so content and smug in a shallow capitalist society where people have no time to prepare a proper meal.

Journalists were once supposed to be public servants. The smug and privileged Williams, on the other hand, is nothing but a public menace.

Decline of the Novel

It’s not a question of being a literary snob. I am sure that plenty of highbrow types scout the latest in contemporary fiction and dissect the latest fads in prose.

But nobody writes a novel the way they used to. I spent hours of pleasure reading the classics of the 19th and early 20th century – Thomas Hardy, Dickens, the Brontes. Besides English literature I have taken great pleasure in Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, alongside the works of Emile Zola. Nothing beats the great American novel written by John Steinbeck.

The description these novels gave could transport you back to the English countryside in the mid 19th century, or the slums of London or Paris. Or California at the turn of the century. Or the lives of the Russian aristocracy. Dostoyevsky’s characters were the most complex in literature, extreme yet so human.

What has happened? I don’t mean to knock all modern fiction, indeed some of it I find witty and entertaining at times. But the description is not there, neither are the characters so rounded. There are a few exceptions but I can count them on fewer fingers than I can the great classics. Surely the format of the novel hasn’t really exhausted itself so, as is sometimes claimed? Why do they no longer write books the way they were once written?

Seems it has been an interesting week in American politics. Although nothing drastic will change the Democrats in office will at least be able to hold the Bush presidency in check. Perhaps they will also be able to make minor social reforms (such as raising the minimum wage) that Bush will be hard pressed to oppose.

Something noted in the media has been the rise of conservative Democrats - anti abortion, pro gun etc. I see little wrong in this. It is possible to be socially conservative while holding left or liberal economic policies, and the two are not inherently inconsistent. Likewise it is possible to be socially libertarian while being economically right wing (the Thatcherite Federation of Conservative Students springs to my mind). If anything the socially conservative conservatives look inconsistent at times, bemoaning the breakdown of the traditional family at the hands of economic forces they themselves support and prop up.

I myself am anti abortion, and will say that I will be glad if *pro choice* ceases to be a litmus test of one's liberal credentials, in this country as much as in the US. I can also say in all honesty that I have mixed feelings over the issue of gun control. In an essay on the atom bomb George Orwell commented that guns were a democratic weapon at the times of the democratic revolutions, empowering citizens rather than the State (adding that large weapons which are expensive to produce and the most destructive are undemocratic, the atom bomb being the prime and most obvious example). The American revolution was won with the help of firearms, and the right to hold them was a constitutional right, in theory giving the citizens the power to topple an oppressive government. It is therefore not surprising that it is a hot issue.

I have met communists who oppose gun control for similiar reasons to this.

However, when some conservative Democrats are also described as 'fiscally conservative' it does beg the question as to what the terms liberal and conservative restrospectively mean, and what views should be associated with the terms if they are not to become meaningless. Political parties need at least some distinct characteristics that differ them from their opponents.

However, in the United States there is a tradition of voting for 'the candidate and not the party'. This tradition that does not exist here. But with the two main parties losing their distinction it may yet come to pass. Perhaps it may be that politics will come to being led more by consensus of cross party special interest groups on single issues. If this is to be the case then it will have wide implications for the future, both for the left and the right. It has already been argued by some (the ex trotskyist Christopher Hitchens is one such example) that the old left/right categories have broken down. If the trend outlined is to continue this will become more noticable, at least in the famous 'centre ground'.

A good rebuttal today to Polly Toynbee in yesterdays Graun. Interestingly Toynbee noted that the middle classes and the wealthy are the least likely to be under surveillence. Yet she failed to draw the obvious conclusion - that those who are to most likely be victimised by the State machinery are the poor, ethnic minorities and the working class. Hence this is far from a 'middle class obsession'. Money currently spent on surveillence (and the military) could well be spent on social justice.

What makes her so trustful of this present government anyway? What makes her so sure that surveillence powers will not be abused by them? New Labour has shown scant regard for democracy, even in its own ranks. How she thinks it can be trusted with extra powers is a mystery. But perhaps a government friendly middle class hack like herself need not worry.

Saddam Death Penalty

We like to think we are more civilised than our ancestors who viewed public hangings. But are we really? A look at today's tabloid headlines made me think twice. 'Saddamned to Hell' read the front page of the Daily Mirror, taking obvious relish in the outcome. Aren't we a country that has renounced capital punishment? But while it takes place far from home and is therefore sanitised it appears that our collective desire for vengeance can safely be exorcised via a media spectacle.

Meanwhile Tony Blair voices his opposition to the death penalty. But he is a hypocrite to invoke Iraqi sovereignity to justify the verdict of death by hanging. That was not on his mind when he sent British troops to help the Americans invade the country.

It is necessary to add that this was a victor's court, put in place by what is a US client regime (Bush need have no hang ups as does Blair as he presided over death row while governor of Texas). There appear to have been irregularities in the trial, and dispute as to whether it has been a fair one.

However, if the death penalty was to be reserved for war criminals (and if such trials were to be in any way 'fair') Bush and Blair would also have been in the dock.

This proposition was voted against by MPs in parliament on Tuesday:

Ten Minute Rule Bill: TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY, Mrs Nadine Dorries
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to reduce the time limit for legal termination of pregnancy from 24 to 21 weeks; to introduce a cooling off period after the first point of contact with a medical practitioner about a termination; to enable the time period from the end of the cooling off period and the date of termination to be reduced; and for connected purposes.

This proposal was nothing very radical. Reducing the upper time limit by three weeks is not a great restriction, it would simply bring it on a par with most of Europe.
A cooling off period may be a slight inconvenience for those who have firmly made up their minds and are determined, but for a significant vulnerable minority (who are in quite a few cases coerced) it could make all the difference - between giving birth and and having to live with a decision that you will regret for the rest of your life.

I suspect that the Tories and Lib Dems were divided on the issue and voted according to their consciences. The Labour Party, on the other hand, have been known to be intolerant towards pro life members. So much that the Labour Life Group are not allowed to hold fringe meetings at their conferences. The only grounds for being on 'Emily's list' (the all woman short list) was that one supports 'a woman's right to choose'. Therefore it is disputable as to how many Labour MPs would actually vote with their consciences on the issue rather than that of the whips.

Meanwhile this came from the 'Abortion Rights' Pressure group:

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has launched a parliamentary campaign to drive back women’s abortion rights. Dorries has tabled a Ten Minute Rule Bill calling both for a reduction in the time limit for abortion and the introduction of a mandatory delay in service provision. This is in the context of a concerted campaign by the anti-choice lobby to confuse opinion over a woman’s right to make her own abortion decisions and to build support for successive restrictions in abortion rights.

Please email or phone your MPs office and ask them to be in the Chamber on Tuesday 31st October, from 2.30, to vote against this attack on women’s crucial reproductive rights. MP's email addresses follow the following pattern: surnameinitial@parliament.uk Their office can also be contacted via the House of Commons switchboard on 020 7219 3000.
Please let us know what responses you get.

I have said what I will about the 'mandatory delay in service provision'. But I will point out that nobody is trying to 'confuse opinion'. The facts, medical and scientific, are there for people to make up their own minds accordingly. If you believe that foetal development is irrelevant to the availability of abortion provision then so be it. But please do not lie and claim that any inquiries into the matter are 'anti choice' (sic) nor dismiss any findings which are not to your liking as pseudo science (which is what this lobby does repetitively).

'Crucial reproductive rights' are also a subjective matter. Not every woman (or every feminist for that matter) holds unlimited abortion to be such a crucial right as does this group. As their propaganda is so full of distortions I strongly dispute this groups professed concern for women. They don't even represent the views of all feminists, let alone all women, as I've mentioned before.

But what grates on me is their constant promotion of scaremongering and hysteria. Their campaigning always manages to bring their supporters screaming in full blast at the selected time. Their 'week of action' coincided with this bill, and their postcard campaign to MPs had been leading up to the issue being raised in parliament.
They and their supporters regard any restriction or compromise, however mild, as being an all out assault on women's rights and a victory for the so called 'anti choice' lobby. They are only able to see in black and white. Such has been the climate in America for ages and I fear that it may be getting this way here, if the rantings of the Graun's Zoe Williams and other hacks are anything to go by. And especially if the left continues to unconditionally support what is essentially an extremist and one sided group, the propaganda of whom shows no respect for the feelings of women whose experience has not been so positive.

Pole Dancing Kit

What should I make of this 'toy'?. I was initially under the assumption that it was a doll, having recalled seeing a pole dancing doll elsewhere, and got called a 'sectarian moron' and an illiterate (sob) for my error! A careless mistake maybe but not one that warranted that kind of hostility. Anyway, enough for that for the time being.

I would tend to view the sexualisation of childhood as being wrong, and that Tesco were wrong to market the product as a toy. An item of such a description probably belongs in Anne Summers or a similiar shop.

All the same though, is it any different from the constant promotion of sex that children see all the time, in teen magazines and elsewhere? I think not, so it is not something I'd make a big deal over. But I'm sure on this particular issue Scottish Socialist Voice would be in one voice with the Daily Mail.

It is also baffling as to how a group which give condoms (and information on how to obtain abortions) to schoolchildren reconcile this. Perhaps they don't mind children having sex, it's just the association of pole dancing with sex workers that they can't abide. Never mind the fact that this sex toy is not designed for commercial gain, but appears to be designed as an erotic plaything. If you don't mind children having sex then why object to them using toys with it? Say what you will about the commodification of sex etc, but there was a strong sense of moral outrage in the passage quoted on that blog. I am sure that the images children see on television of pop stars and in advertising have more of an impact on them than does any pole dancing toy. Sexualised clothing aimed at children seems to be purely a reflection of a culture they already are subjected to. It is the market finding its niche. The hyper sexualised culture in the West after the commodified sexual revolution is problematic in many ways, but save for jumping on the moral majority bandwagon and asking the State to censor media or ban the sale of items there is little one can do. The State has no right to censor material nor curb sexuality.

Capitalism makes a commodity out of everything. Sex especially perhaps because it is a primal instinct that obviously sells very well. The market works very well in this regard. Ask anyone who works in advertising. It does strike me as being more of a problem when children are targetted - but then I am not of the opinion that children under the age of 16 (or 18-19 in some cases) are really old enough to be having sex anyway. Sex ideally should not be a commodity sold to them. But it is even slightly unrealistic for me to say this, as sex is everywhere in advertising anyway. The only way you could possible keep kids away from it would be to teach them at home and never let them watch tv or read magazines. While parents will do what they can it is probably inevitable that some children will have sex, so if they do it is better they be given access to protection than not. Removing a daft toy from a supermarket will make no difference.

Most objectionable to me is the blanket assertion by the Scottish Socialist Party that all strippers have been or are being sexually abused. But with their latest resolution which advocates the continuation of criminalisation of the sex industry (on the Swedish model, albeit, targetting the 'demand' rather than the 'supply') such nonsense becomes explicable. The text of that resolution and my comments are in the next post down.