Sexism and self-education

As a feminist/womanist, you get used to endless questions. Most feminist and womanist bloggers write, read and interact with their minds and fingers ready and primed to filter and/or delete, because of these endless questions. Quite often, seemingly-naive questioners will reveal themselves to be toxic arseholes bit by bit, in a manner that somewhat recalls, now that I think about it, TV-drama serial-killers sending bits of paraphernalia to their victims/potential victims/the police/all of the above. All too often, the person who says 'What's wrong with thinking/believing/saying X?' does not mean ''What's wrong with thinking/believing/saying X?' What they mean is: 'Hey, I think X. What is your problem? Why aren't you treating my opinion with the respect it deserves?!' All too often, these nuances of meaning become gradually more apparent, as I was saying, until they are deleted and/or blocked. Occasionally, you get a person who DOES mean what they're saying, but still turns out to be a toxic arsehole anyway, and even more rarely, you get a person who means it AND genuinely engages with the other point of view.

The way the process typically goes is as follows:

- Commenter pops up on a feminist/womanist blog and asks a question to feminist/womanist blogger/commenter.

- Feminist/womanist blogger/commenter responds.

(Often, a Q may not be clearly addressed to anyone in particular, so several respondents may weigh in).

This usually repeats at least twice, possibly more, and depends on the patience level of respondents and the blog author.


- Once respondents' patience is wearing thin, they will urge the questioner to go educate themselves. This frequently results in a flurry of questions about how to do that. Respondents provide links, which are very often ignored, and questioner continues to ask questions, OR:

- Questioner will simply ignore links and keep on asking - I have seen this so often, I swear that it now raises my blood pressure in Pavlovian fashion upon glimpsing it again.

Once this show of disrespect has been sufficiently extended, the questioner will usually end up being deleted, blocked and/or ignored.


Now there may be some of you out there who, even after reading this description of how it happens all too frequently, are fool enough to ask: But what's so wrong with that? Isn't it flattering for feminists/womanists, to be treated like an expert on a subject?

To which I have to respond by figuratively looking you in the eye, and asking: Have you been in the world much? Watched the news? Do you read blogs, Private Eye, newspapers? Let's take this little thing that you might have heard of - now what was it called - 'climate change.' It's also known as 'global warming' and 'AGW'. If you exist in a state of about-average wakefulness (i.e., you're not given to chronic blackouts or narcolepsy), you'll be aware that a majority of scientists believe that it's happening, that it is down to humans and that we need to do something about it. Now, I don't give a shit what your personal stance on it is (unless you're a hardcore fruitcake of the still-disputing-that-most-scientists-believe-it's-happening variety...). You will have received this basic knowledge through the news. Now tell me, what was the response of most national governments to this knowledge? Did madness break out? Were presidents and prime ministers touring the country and writing to the press, crying that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE?

No. No, they were not. If, as I assume, you are a fairly average person, not massively political, you probably responded in similarly muted fashion. Cue some stuff about recycling and less car journeys and green products. Thus, despite a MASSIVE EXPERT CONSENSUS, the global reaction was mostly something along the lines of:

'What? You - What? Really? Melting? Flooding? Us? Omigod. Shit. Fuck... ahhhh, hell.'

Just goes to show what you think about experts. To use another example: hunger and poverty in Africa. You know it's happening, right? You know that it's still pretty bloody serious in parts of Africa. Does this send you, screaming and militant, to devote your life to building huts and raising money for water filtration and Fairtrade farming? As Michael Kyle says: 'Ah... Nah'. We will always ignore or filter out what someone's saying, even if they're an expert and at times, especially if they're an expert, if we've already made our own minds up.

I really urge you, even if you've blanked out by this point and have little or no will to continue reading, to read this brilliant post by a disabled feminist: 'Go educate yourself (please)'. Hopefully by now, you comprehend how massively disrespectful it is to keep harassing someone after they've told you to find out for yourself. Some feminists and womanists have had it happen so often that they now move to refusing the role of educator instantly. While I can accept that men may feel intimidated by feminism and think it's something they aren't allowed to be part of - surely no-one's actually going to stop you getting feminist texts from the library? Women aren't really going to leap from your screen and strangle you for attempting to read things online either, are they?

I've been tremendously lucky in that I've never really had to deal with this that much. On Pickled Politics, however, there is one commenter who's just pulled a questioner on me after having done it once before. He seems like an OK chap as far as I know, but he asked the question which prompted this post. The thread in question was in response to an article about Dr. Mitu Khurana, who is fighting to protect her five-year-old twin daughters from a murderous husband and in-laws - PLEASE read the article (if not the comments) and sign the petition. The commenter in question, Ravi Naik, wrote in response to me:

[...] in my mind, I am wondering what sort of grandparents want to harm their own flesh and blood? Is this an exception or the rule in Indian society?

To which I just thought... How the bloody hell should I know? Why should I know, given that I don't live in India?

Now if your response to my reaction was along the lines of 'Why don't you know?' and/or 'You should know,' then congratulations. You are a joke, and you have your very own square on the anti-feminist bingo board under "You should..." I would also turn the questions back onto you, and ask: do you know? If so, why not? Is the calculated murder of female children, whether in the womb or after birth, a subject of worth only to a select minority, mostly-female, here and in India? Why is it so? Why does the exercising of women's right to abortion in America draw vocal and violent protests from (usually) godbags, but this issue doesn't? Furthermore: what is it that I'm expected to know? Sex ratios in India? The individual psychology of mothers-in-law like Mitu Khurana's?

Ultimately, I do know to some extent - and how I found out is no secret (as the above link indicates), hell, I even link to an Indian feminist blog and one which campaigns against female foeticide up above ^

The matter of why I should know this is separate, however. There is such an easy answer: why should I know about this topic? Because I am interested in it. The minute you ask a question about something, you are expressing interest. If that wasn't your intention, then either think before you speak or type, or shut the hell up, listen/read, and learn. Even better, do both. It is not the asking of a question in itself which is troublesome. What is troublesome, is the assumption that you can - nay, SHOULD - keep asking, and get answers, because it is your RIGHT. Why, on the Internet of all places, where nothing is sacred and everyone is hidden, would you have more of an entitlement to an answer than in the 'real' world? Would you be more inclined to give your bank details to an e-mail scammer than your wallet to a mugger? No, because the fear of violence and the lack of possibilities for concealment keep you in check in the latter scenario. Interestingly enough, questioners may themselves resort to abuse and threats of violence after being deleted and/or ignored - which I think says a lot about the mentality and masculinity of questioners.

Note I didn't say 'maleness,' I said 'masculinity.' Questioners often reveal their masculinity very quickly through their assumptions of superiority over those they are asking for information - how paradoxical is that? They claim to be seeking help, yet they often ignore that help when it is given. This subsequently suggests that what they really want is attention and to provoke - it's no wonder that we must then be constantly alert for trolling. Scholars of masculinity and male feminist allies have pointed out how contradictory masculinity is, and the behaviour I'm describing is a perfect example of that. What it also brings to mind is the behaviour of a spoilt child, whether at home crying for Mummy until she's ready to tear her hair out, or in the classroom, driving the teacher insane. Which is when I stopped, and realised that I had to write this post.

Sure, there's the more apparent sexism (or racism, or homophobia, or transphobia, or ablism!) that is demonstrated through the assertion of the 'right' of white men (for it is usually they!) to be endlessly showered with attention and appreciation in spaces which are supposed to be kept safe for women, transwomen, non-white people, queers/homosexuals and the disabled, and in areas that have nothing to do with them. The very notion that it's 'OK' to ask a member of any or all of these groups to explain what they believe and what they experience for you without bothering to do even a little of your own research, and not only that, but expect them to do so in a way that doesn't offend you personally, is laden with privilege. If you really believe that that is your 'right' or 'entitlement,' then you are a massive, arrogant, dickwad and you can fuck right off. It's funny how even the most 'libertarian' of white males can develop a very bad reaction to being told that they ought to do some work of their own accord.

Yet for the men among you who have been reading this so far, and are feeling relatively confident that you don't behave in the manner, I've just described, consider this: the repeated posing of questions to feminists/womanists is sexist and disrespectful in itself, because it projects your expectations of femininity onto a bunch of women you don't know and ultimately becomes a subtle way of trying to put women 'back in their place'. If, as I'm assuming, you're relatively liberal/lefty-leaning socially and fairly politicised - how often do you go onto politics blogs and start asking the commenters there (for example) why the Labour party is historically considered 'left-wing' or not, or why the Conservatives are generally considered 'right-wing'? Have you gone out of your way to get people to explain to you in full (for example) why opposing wars is generally seen as a left-wing thing?

Unless you inform yourself on EVERY LITTLE POINT by bothering other commenters, then it is absolutely unacceptable to do that on feminist blogs. So feminism is large and diverse - so fucking what? The leftist movement's hardly homogeneous. The key difference in the two settings, which makes all the difference, is that politics blogs, whether left- or right-leaning, are seen as 'male' territory. Politics has always been overwhelmingly regarded as the domain of the male - which is why even I sound like I'm separating out feminist blogs and politics blogs. Despite being political, feminist blogs don't duplicate the style of most politics blogs and thus are not really regarded as such by the 'blokeosphere'. Hence the cynical gender-aware observer will be unsurprised to see feminist issues being mocked, ignored and trivialised even on supposedly 'liberal' sites. Politics blogs are an exercise in hyper-masculinity, with a frankly pathetic show of macho piss and pyrotechnics in the comments. Anyone who dares to show ignorance of the basic context of a particular situation will usually be ignored, and sometimes also mocked - and men have the nerve to claim that feminist/womanist bloggers treat them harshly! Men venturing onto feminist/womanist blogs, however, are well aware that most of the commenters are women. Women are feminine, they don't DO that hyper-macho rude thing! Women are mothers and nurses and carers and primary school teachers, don't you know?! They're there to pat you and tell you you're a big boy and make everything better. Answering your questions and doing your work for you - that's their JOB.

And so, with this embedded deep in their psyche through mere socialisation, men set out on feminist blogs to behave in a way they wouldn't dare demonstrate in front of other men. Even the most well-meaning of my male readers may have made this mistake already, because of socialisation. If you find yourself thinking or even hoping that feminists/womanists are going to be patient with you and entertain your dumb ass when you know that commenters on political blogs wouldn't - well, then, you deserve all the flaming, deleting and banning you get. So you cast women in supporting roles in your head because you're a heterosexual male - so what? Our spaces are for us, not you. That name on the screen is not your mother, your sister or primary school teacher. She wouldn't do it for you, and you shouldn't even be expecting her to. Take yourself over to here to get some feminism 101, and here for some womanism 101, use Google and libraries. As for asking questions, it's not verboten, but if you really want to be a feminist/womanist ally and demonstrate basic respect for women, you can't really go wrong with the following formula:

a) STFU, pay attention and read/listen. More than likely, you will get the answer to what you were wondering about if you just read what feminist and womanist bloggers are saying on a regular basis. Once you find a blogger whose style you like, check out their blogroll. Most have reading lists, or you could always ask them or their commenters for suggestions politely - that's perfectly fine. If you know somebody in your personal life who is a feminist or womanist and who wouldn't mind dealing with your Qs, you can approach them, but remember that ultimately, if you're interested, it's your job to find things out for yourself.
b) Stop and think. If you're thinking of asking a question, is it really necessary, or will a bit of patience and/or research or reflection do the job for you?
c) If you must ask a question, do so as politely and respectfully as possible. You may still get flamed, which you'll just have to live with. We feminists and womanists come under constant attack and have absolutely no obligation or relation to you. You have to earn our attention and trust.

Ultimately, if a man can't do that much - and it really isn't that much - then he is a sexist twat. THIS is what challenging privilege is all about - realising that the world does NOT revolve around you, confronting that fact head-on with people who have been harmed by the privilege that attaches to your body and accepting that their reality is equally valid with humility and respect. It's an ongoing process of course, but really, if you can't be bothered to make the effort to act like a full human, there's no reason why anyone should be bothered to treat you like one.

Libel: science VS the law?

Well, this has been a week to burn and boil with sheer fucking rage. On Thursday, I attended a panel debate with TL and one of my best friends. It was titled 'Science Fact - science journalism and libel law' and it was taking place to inaugurate the new Science Journalism MA that has been launched at City University this year.

I have followed the case of Simon Singh and the BCA (British Chiropractic Association - they manipulate spines (and reality!)) for quite some time, and tried to tell whoever I can about it, to get people to do SOMETHING. Heresy Corner is one good source of information on the whole thing so far, but Googling 'Simon Singh BCA' should bring up links to many a blog, and Bad Science is also excellent.

Listening to Simon and Ben Goldacre discuss their respective cases, and explain the libel laws somewhat for young, clueless, sheltered types like me, was electrifying. I wanted to throw myself bodily before the House of Lords and shout about the lack of shame. All the panellists were excellent, although I noted with amusement that Duncan wasn't really able to cobble together a credible defense of our libel laws, beyond the fact that 'they're OUR libel laws' (erm, riiiight, Duncan).

Some of the things I learnt: damages rarely ever cover the full cost of having to defend yourself in the first place (which I knew, but had to be reminded of), cases are often dragged out so that they cost the defendant even more and effectively seek to crush their spirits and of course the rise of the use of 'super-injunctions' in conjunction with libel writs means that someone can sue you and NOBODY CAN KNOW. Any details about the trial can't be made public! Presumably the idea behind this is to stop the 'Streisand Effect', where a story explodes beyond previous expectations as a result of attempts to suppress it. It's one of the things I love about the Internet.

It cost BG and the Guardian 'in excess of' £500, 000 to fight his case against Matthias Rath (read all about it here! Tell everyone you know!). He won - but in the end, only about £363, 000 or so (or was it £336, 000? Damn tired brain!) was paid by Rath. Given that the Guardian had a lot of suits against it at the time (Elton John's one over Marina Hyde's column, Simon Singh's...) and is a loss-making paper anyway, it's a lot of money to put up. With the clarity and simplicity so characteristic of those who have to mediate between widespread public ignorance, and skilled academic expertise in science, Ben and Simon put the case against our libel laws very well.

Think about it - if someone sues you for what is increasingly turning out to be 'hurt feelings' rather than actual loss of reputation (consider the fucking Elton John case!), you have to PAY TO DEFEND YOURSELF. You have to pay for the right to establish that you are not a liar. In Ben's case particularly, this is like a hideous joke. He challenged a man who claimed that vitamin pills cure HIV and that anti-Aids medication doesn't! Surely, you think, there must be some 'public interest' defence available, right? FUCK, NO! I for one agree with them that there bloody well should be. I wish there was also some way to prosecute newspapers and media in general over 'endangering public health and safety' given cases such as the MMR hoax, the assertions that a teenager who died of an undiagnosed tumour died of the cervical cancer jab (yes, really!), the repeated claims that people who died of underlying health conditions actually died of swine flu and - lest we forget - the news that men are more likely to rape sober women, because women who drink 'ask for it.'

Duncan made a good point about how we need to beware of the growing pernicious influence of privacy and copyright law, but sadly that doesn't really detract from our libel tourism problems. Under English libel law, the burden of proof is on the person being sued. You are guilty till proven innocent. If we put this in the context of a company, or a magnate or an association suing an individual, how is that fair? The body of people will almost always have more money and access to the best legal counsel, than the individual will. In cases such as Ben's and Simon's, it undermines the very foundation of science to prevent criticism of your ideas by other people.

I don't believe that the law should be 'above all', especially when we have seen time and time again that it does NOT always work in the common interests of humanity, but in the interests of the richest motherfucker. It should certainly not be above science. Science might be influenced by humanity, and developed and enriched by humanity, but it exists independently of us and predates us. Cells will respire whether we realise it or not; evolution will slope slowly on and osmosis will regulate the water and ion content of our cells without our peering eyes' presence (whoo, A-level Biology! Yeah!).

The law, however, is man-made. It might be admirable and even sacred, but it is not inherent. It does not exist independently of human beings, unless we're thinking of 'natural law' (and we aren't. So there). The incredible thing about our attitudes to the law, is the mix of optimism and sheer fucking cluelessness. People really believe that laws are going to back them up, much of the time, that 'we are all equal before the law,' despite proof since time immemorial of a lil' mechanism called corruption. They assume that the law is something that will magically make itself understood to them, that they will be able to fight their own case or get a good lawyer cheap. Uh... nah? The law only works for us if we work to change it.

Our laws are certainly not terrible, but society changes very quickly and law doesn't necessarily always keep up with it. Just look at the battles that get fought about Internet content. There are people out there who want to be able to sue bloggers for remarks that may have been made totally independently of them, in comments threads. This is the 'taking offense' I mentioned earlier (and that somebody mentioned on Thursday) - and people should not be allowed to use libel laws - which seek to prevent lies from damaging a person's reputation - to silence all criticism of them. Especially not when the criticisms are actually TRUE, and when journalists are laid off right, left and centre and investigative journalism inevitably suffers. We NEED somebody to hold people like Rath to account.

Furthermore, free speech needs to be safeguarded. It's heavily ironic, because bigots often hijack the idea of free speech without, as TL remarked, actually understanding what it means. Free speech, even more ironically, is invoked by racists, misogynists and 'alternative' medicine-obsessed freaks, as exactly the opposite of what it is. They seem to think it is the right to make baseless assertions and morally and ethically unsound or abhorrent judgements, frequently without credible evidence - and have their tender feelings protected into the bargain. In short, they want to be lauded and patted for being thicker than is humanly tolerable. Whereas the whole notion of constructive free speech is that you say what you think, and if you're wrong, you get taken to task.

As I said, the astonishing hypocrisy of unpleasant people means that freedom of speech gets misunderstood a lot. I do love how bigots rail against religious ethnic minorities getting offended by anything, for example, but when their crap 'thoughts' get demolished, they go into offence overdrive. If you say what you think - rather than just saying what you feel - then hopefully you can live with what you say being rigorously challenged. And no, 'rigorously challenged' does not automatically involve rudeness and/or arrogance and sarcasm, as so many online seem to believe. Anyone who gets too offended to go on living as usual really shouldn't, in my opinion, be living in the first place. Unless, of course, we're dealing with a delightful individual like Matthias Rath, or the ever-charming Paul Dacre and his glorious goblin horde at the Daily (Hate) Mail.

Before I go to sleep (it's only Diwali tomorrow! I mean, today), I'll take up the cry that BG issued yesterday. SUPPORT DR. PETER WILMSHURST! It would also be awesome if you could: a) keep up to date with the Simon Singh campaign (he's been given leave to appeal, as his lawyer Jack of Kent reports, and may even have been defamed by the BCA!) and b) get people to sign up to Sense About Science. I have signed their petition; hell, I even donated a tenner to Simon's campaign before Justice Eady, that truckfucking privacy-law lover, turned the judgement on him.

I don't have a chequebook, or if I do, God knows where it is, so I will hunt it out this weekend/email Healthwatch UK, who are supporting Dr. Wilmshurst, and ask if I can send cash. I can't give much - poor student and all that - but I will try!

Just before I head off - read this for a warm, fuzzy feeling of love. Twitterers aren't twits after all, baby! Also, make sure you complain to the Press Complaints Commission about homophobic bee-yatch Jan Moir's Hate Mail article about the death of Stephen Gately. Charlie Brooker has all the details. Unity rides in on a pixellated white horse to suggest how we could reform our libel laws. P.S.: I just pulled this big metal spike - like about nearly two centimetres - out of my mattress when it nearly slashed my ankle. That's pretty scary, isn't it?!

Dear homophobic (and/or religiously bigoted) fuckturds of the world...

'Gayness' cannot be taught. It is not a disease that you 'catch' just by hearing about it. Nor is it a choice, unlike the way that your RELIGION and fucking INTOLERANCE is. Quite simply: you chose to be odious, they didn't.

People struggle to leave religions fully after they have grown up within a particular religious culture. The 'culture' bit of the religion - not the indoctrination, not the abstract theorising (though it may to some extent stick) - but the culture bit sticks. These slices of ritual offer people familiarity and comfort. Rip them out, and you are left with a tottering, hollow shell. It is a part of identity that they struggle with for peace.

Now, think about gay people. Gay people struggle to accept their sexuality fully, having grown up (in most cases) within a particularly heterosexual culture (do you see what I'm doing here? Yeah? You better). The 'majority' bit of the culture - not the lack of attraction to women, not the society-assigned 'effeminacy' (though it may to some extent stick) - but the 'majority' bit sticks. This awareness of being suddenly and inadvertently 'outside the norm' offers people self-loathing and misery. Rip them out, and you are left with a possibility for self-development. It is a part of identity that they struggle with for peace. Graham Greene (a Catholic at that!) got it: suffering is identity.

Now many, many people in this country are somewhat unshowy by nature. They personify this verse, from Coventry ska legends The Specials' classic and angry hit, Concrete Jungle:

I won't fight for a cause
don't want to change the law
Leave me alone, just leave me alone
I want to get out on my own

Many of the gay folks I know, even if they might be out on a Gay Pride march, are hardly Peter Tatchell. Stop trying to turn them into your radical, minority 'Other.' You must feel so fucking pleased with yourself that your harassment ends up producing enemies that weren't even there to begin with. They're not paedophiles. They're not interested in your sex life (so why are you so obsessed with theirs?!) and they sure as HELL aren't interested in you.

Johann Hari's article is apparently about the Daily Heil's (formerly Hitler-supporting paper and online messageboard home-away-from-home for BNP knobs) 'vile campign against teaching kids about homosexuality.'

Oh, let me see. The Heil considers itself a 'Middle-England' paper, and by the look of the lobster-hued, jowl-and-froth 'I love herd mentality' types I've seen reading it (though, let's be fair here, there are plenty of moronic Asians and Blacks who read it too. My own fucking SISTER brings it home from the gym, sssssssssss), it unfortunately is. I have been holding my Listerine-laced breath with anticipation of the day when hackers set their sights on its website (goodbye Femail! Goodbye faux-concerned pictures of women naked/gaining/losing weight, with subtle bitching from fellow females! GOODFUCKINGBYEHAHA). In the absence of that, I'll settle for some mild hypocrisy-debunking.

If some of the Heil's target audience's precious little darlings wanted to study Performing Arts, they would probably prematurely expire at the chance of having even momentary contact with Sir Ian McKellen. Sir Ian McKellen, aka Richard III. Aka GANDALF. GANDALF is the God of wise-old-man dramatic roles, thanks to Sir Ian McKellen. He kicks Dumbledore's ass (both of them - although one of them died, so I am sorry if that is horribly offensive).

BUT - BUT - what will Jean "How about LESS sex education" from Blackburn,Lancs (no, I will not correct the fuckturd spacing error there, much as it kills me to refrain) do when she finds out...

*tremble*

... when she finds out he is A POOF!

That's right! Like so many other successful and admirable individuals on this Earth, Ian McKellen does the naughty with other men!

When you watched him, in Richard III, or Lord of the Rings, did you sit there, thinking 'Wow, sir Ian McKellen acts so well, despite his GAYNESS' or 'Wow, I would've expected Richard to start commenting on how well-coordinated the army's uniforms were, because the actor that plays him is GAY, but he didn't, he just efficiently dramatised Shakespeare's Richard in a whole new context!'

No. No, you did not. (Or maybe you did, in which case, you need help. Seriously. Urgently. Preferable in prescription-pill, or therapy, form...)

And I bet if he was running a drama workshop which your brat(s) benefited from, you might even be MALFUNCTIONING right now.

Now we know you 'Christian' (or whatever else) Mailites claim to be obsessed with what you can't see (God), and take literally that which is now past (the happenings in the Bible).

Here's a little suggestion for you. Less obsession with what you can't see (homosexuality) and more taking literally of that which is now past... but not irrelevant (Jesus's - and whoever else's - teachings). Alternatively, do as the Pope has done, and try to make it all go away by indulging in a prayathon. At the very least, that'll get you indoors and out from under our feet, while we aim for the more inclusive future, eh?

P.S: My brain has had it with the term 'PC gone mad,' and has replaced it with 'P. C gone mad.' So, when idiots start - gingerly, or frothingly - trying to rave about 'the PC brigade,' I will have a vision of a charging group of bleating IT technicians. When I hear 'PC gone mad,' I will have a delightful mental image of a personal computer going all Marvin on its owner, before growing to Godzilla size, hopping round the city, and then leaping - splat - onto the Daily Mail offices. Byu-da-full.

PP meet-up the THIRD

WARNING: This is a post of incredible mediocrity, as I have spent the whole day doing an essay that I now see in my nightmares, while simultaneously panicking about upcoming exams and work-placement. RUNAWAY! RUNAWAYFAST!

That's right. That's right mofos. Here is the write-up that none of you have demanded, and that even less of you (yes, I know it's theoretically impossible for 'less than none of you' to exist) care about reading.

Pickled Politics, that blog what I read, had a meet-up yesterday, and I went to it. There happened to be civilians ('non-regulars') present and consequently, an equal number of white people and non-white people for once! Though it must be said that the turn-out could have been better... like if the thread for the meet-up had gone up sooner... *coughs and looks deliberately in Sunny's direction*

Sunny, our Lord and Master was of course present. A struggle betwixt his inner Body Clock (set to run on Indian Standard Time) and his better instincts had obv. ensued, as he was only an hour late. He told me to give him a hug as I was staring, half-blinded somewhere in the direction of the sun behind him (I would tell you why if I could work out why myself... For now, t'shall be blamed on a heady mixture of dry-ass brownie (oh, NT, do you know how my heart withered and died with every love-free disintegrating bite of the broken top? The inside was moist. Why then, a top crumbling like old-person foot?), sun exposure, not enough sleep, walking around and being inappropriately dressed for the outdoors. A sausage sandwich may also have been complicit.

So yes, our Lord and Master, living fully and ironically up to his name, commanded me to give him a hug. I lurched to, wondering if by some trick he was going to move and I would end up dangling around his neck like a pendant ( which incidentally, The Libertarian's favourite economist has been accused of being...). The awkward grapple lasted mere seconds, after which I was returned, immensely relieved at having neither incurred nor caused any injury, to TL. The mysterious 'people on the second floor' looked at us from the table, and my sense of irony kicked guiltily in. The Second Floorers were both very slender, probably thinner than me; further down the table, right at the end, were two women of a build closer to mine, who seemed to be enjoying a never-ending meal. Rowenna - the female of our Second Floorers - disposed of them with the polite efficiency of a sort of cross between Uma Thurman's Bride and Mary Poppins. Sonia and I were suitably impressed; then, with TL in tow (of course!) we sat...

... and talked about legalising drugs. Immediately prior to this, Sunny introduced us in customary fashion: 'This is -----, she's a blogger and on Pickled Politics.... What's the name of your blog again? I never remember it.' Thank you, for that demonstration of support, O Great One. 'Get there steppin',' I reminded him sheepishly. TL, Sunny and Sonia then cranked smoothly into action while I sort of tried to arrange my upper body at 45 degrees to the bottom, fuse with TL and generally avoid the suddenly-unfriendly wind. It began with Our Lord telling us about the author of Freakonomics writing another book, which he had brought with him, about being a gang leader for a day. My hood went up. I mentioned The Wire and Ben (with perfect timing and quite possibly taller even than he had been at the previous meet-up) took the piss.

We shifted indoors, and I ended up 'at the head of the table.' However, for a good 10 minutes, I was preoccupied with trying to make myself sufficiently taller than said table so as to be able to feel like an adult whilst conversing like one. I achieved only the former, and only just. I don't know what happens to me at these events. The inner child is awakened, and cries out for satiety. I blame the seats. When you have to fight to keep your chin above the table surface, I tell you, you just can't take discussion of Moldovan election issues quite as seriously as they deserve. Having Ben (who turned out to be 6'3'', and hence the tallest real person (i.e. 'non-basketballer') I have ever met, and that INCLUDES my brothers-in-law) to my right didn't help.

Fighting down the chaos inside, I ventured to make conversation LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO, with D-Notice and Ben. However, as seems to be characteristic of every meet-up at the NT so far, a uniquely British band (I think they were blues?) were playing as we tried to have lengthy and intellectual discussions. I say 'uniquely British' because I returned from the toilets to hear the singer bleating 'Too many cooks spoil the stew'. Not the broth - that dodgy foreign word of proverbs and Americans - but stew. Aaah. :-D Neatly-attired old white people sat, enraptured by this lyrical gem, saved from blending into the background by the gentle luminosity of their grey/white hair.

I don't know what happens to me, but every time I'm at the NT for a meet-up, I just want to RUN AMOK. Maybe it's the way I dress. Perhaps my neon-green tights and bright blue miniskirt had somehow infiltrated my bloodstream, and worked their way up to my brain? Lots of old people. With their clutch purses and pearl necklaces. Enraptured to stew. 'Twas all sweetly tragic. Some perverse instinct was urging me to jump on all the tables like a five-year-old and/or draw my rather wordless compatriots into a game of Musical Padded-Stools. Political bloggers are a serious and mature bunch, and I, unfortunately, am not.

Then, I remembered that D-Notice had been regarding me in a perplexed manner and decided to prove conclusively that I am not the freak I in fact am. I made jokes to reassure him and Ben of my (ongoing) sanity. They laughed, and sometimes I even heard what they said! W00t. However, Ben confessed to having read this blog, which was almost enough to make me fall off the tiny tower of scrunched-up Libertarian-jacket, scrunched-up hoodie and Libertarian wallet narrowly keeping me at their chin (if not face) level. Two posts at that. I later revealed to him that I thought Oxbridge people were androids. He then revealed that most of his family were Oxbridge-ites. I conceded that maybe there are some out there who are merely part android. Oh, I learn so much from my blogging associates.

I also tried desperately to complain about the culture of impatience and its effect on blogging to my poor captive audience, whilst wondering what the fuck I was actually talking about. I remember complaining (repeatedly) about right-wing trolls, spelling and syntax (urgh, how original). D-Notice laughed at least twice, reassuring me that the words had left my mouth in the right order if nothing else. Then, contrary to my best wishes, my brain informed me that BIATCH, I was hungry. I tried to continue seeming erudite and civilised as a mental screensaver of different types of cakes began (why? why? I blame that GODDAMN brownie again). Then, the smell of sausages descended. I resisted the urge to bob hypnotically to the wafting scent like a snake being charmed.

Blah blah blah, Sonia told me a lot of very interesting things about hijabi women such as Shelina Zahra Janmohamed (whose book, Love in a headscarf, I highly recommend!). I took the piss out of TL's eating habits to her, and he began to stop having elite political debates, and grin slightly at me. Sonia quizzed him with her usual forensic meticulousness about what he ate. I laughed. Rowenna, overhearing mention of Cambridge, joined us. I asked her about her article on the 'blokeosphere', which I unsurprisingly agreed with, and whether it was designed to elicit waves of absolute nobs proving her point in droves in the comment box. She laughed and explained to the others. I suggested that perhaps such commentators should be diverted towards taking pictures of their penises and posting them in the comment box instead, as that might at least be entertaining. She laughed, but I was serious. Everyone's been going crazy for Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent... It's evidently time for another Internet Sensation.

So, to ease the frustration of all them there Cif-ers who think they're a cut above because they post on the Guardian website, I say this: bring it. Bring the cocktasticness. If you still desperately feel the need to invent creative (read: stupid) names for Gordon Brown or froth uselessly about 'ZaNuliarbore,' feel free. You could Photoshop in a little placard with it on, so it looks like your penis is protesting. Or get it in there in some other amusing fashion. Then, send in separate pictures of your faces so that we can have fun matching up the two. I mean, seeing as how you think virtually all the female writers are 'feminazis' who of course can't by definition be straight, why would we laugh? (Er...) The winner can get a brand-spanking new porn career.*

So yeah, Rowenna was a very nice lady, but today I found out that apparently she is only a year older than me, and now I am terrified of her. Nyrone, who was his usual mellow self, arrived unexpectedly and got on like a house on fire with her for what may have been all of eternity, before revealing that he got a job at Al-Jazeera English. Classy! He also praised me for my honesty when writing (and wasn't the only one to do so!). I ended the evening looking into TL's eye and muttering about enchiladas. On the way home, I proceeded to fight hunger by gossiping about Sunny like a harridan of the highest order. I leave you with this, which was delightedly and pointedly brought up by TL and I. Two words: sexy goatee. HILAAAAAARIOUS!


* career not included.

P.S.: I found out what I would be, were I a pop song - and I didnae even need a fucking Facebook quiz to tell me.

Easter Monday

What a wonderfully flat title. It imparts factual information (telling you of the day and the date), without hinting at anything within the body of the post. Yet that is just the point. For once, I am writing as I need to. Writing as I used to. I have no game-plan, no conclusion.

I cannot seem to accept myself as I am. I realised the other day that in many ways, I am a desperately lonely individual. I am that 'ivory-tower intellectual,' although of course, I'm not because life is more complex (read: nuanced) than that. I have the humility and apprehensiveness of a religious person trying to live in adherence with a detailed religious code - without the certainty of a Supreme Being. 'Believe, then,' you might say. 'You did once, you can do it again.' I'm not sure if belief and obedience are the same thing. I'm not sure if a desire for stability and genuine religious devotion are the same thing at all. I think it would do the genuinely-devoted a real disservice to claim that they are.

Everyone reads. Even people who boast of never reading a book, or having read very little in their lives, read to some extent. You can't help it now, can you? I read, like a thirsty little sapling drinking in all it can get, when I was younger. A very strange mix - abridged Reader's Digest novels, autobiographies, the Reader's Digests themselves, books for my own age-group, pizza leaflets, recipe cards... If it came under my nose, I would read it. Family (my cousin in particular) compared me to Roald Dahl's Matilda. I always smiled uncomfortably. Keen to learn and imaginative, yes. Child prodigy, no.

That desire to learn, when not checked by the pervasion of specialist jargon (or for that matter, any sort of foreknowledge) or the presence of complicated mathematical figures, has never left me. I still trawl sections of the Internet for articles, for blogposts, in short for literature. I don't get to read as much as I'd like to these days; obsessively swallowing large quantities of text and then being pressed to produce focussed critical analysis at a rate of knots can really leave a bad taste in the mouth. The terror of enjoying a book, and then finding my brain mechanically deconstructing it afterwards, makes the pursuit of reading more complicated than it ought to be.

So yeah, I read a lot of stuff on the Internet. Lest we forget, the Internet is a communicative rather than an educative medium, and so much of what I read is accompanied by comments from ''readers.'' I put that in inverted commas because what strikes me, especially when reading things on Comment is free, but also occasionally on Liberal Conspiracy and Pickled Politics - never mind on other sites - is how little people actually seem able to 'read' now. The smooth and steady process of information does not appear to be happening. What actually happens is reaction. Lots and lots of it. Even those who think they are being witty very rarely are and are simply indulging in smartarsery that brings to mind the big-mouthed kid in the playground who wants everyone to agree how funny he/she is.

To return to what I was saying, I've discovered a new motive hiding away, like a stow-away, alongside my desire to learn. It is a desire for companionship, for agreement - in short for community. My loneliness is amplified by being a solitary individual by nature. I also have an intense need for guidance (being young and confused) which sits uneasily with a distrust of dogma and diktats. I don't distrust authority per se, but I have an absolute horror of groups. This comes from being an 'outsider' within the most prominent group of my life - my family.

So of course, I'm trying to resolve all those paradoxes by creating a new one: finding other 'slippery fish.' Other people like me, who are almost a walking 'stream of consciousness' in themselves. I feel a sense of spiritual kinship with some people I read, people I don't even know, sometimes. I may never meet them, I may not even agree with them completely. Nonetheless, they reassure me that I'm not totally alone. The world is changing, and when I find another, in search of nothing quite so grandiose as truth - just in search of honesty - I feel safer. I am no longer just part of the present, and I sincerely hope that all the knobs who co-opt the writings of others, to grandstand and ridicule them, will become part of the past in time. To them, all I can say is: you don't know everything. Nobody does. I don't. The sooner we halt this ridiculous trend of pretending we all know all there is to know, the better. As Forster wrote, 'Only connect.'

Reading is that most wonderfully paradoxical of things: a private communication. You are inheriting histories, facts, opinions, fears - in short, the distillation of a person when you read, particularly when you read fiction (given that fiction has more room for the personal and the subjective). That is why I find it so ludicrous the way the majority of people respond to articles. They deny the communication. They simply seek space to posture (funny that a lot of them seem to be rather unreconstructed males). It's a World Wide Web, you fools. Not a clean, linear Tube network. Yet even a Tube network goes in both directions.

So a paradox is what frees me, ultimately. Pinning down my thoughts to the (web)page frees me. I read, committing myself to the thoughts of another, to escape. A private pursuit offers me companionship, offers me freedom. And hell, if I like the 'look' of you (and you don't live abroad...), I'll stalk you and make you my friend (just ask Ala...) Scared? You should be.

G20 Protests: The Problem...

I was commenting on a thread on Pickled Politics about the G20 protests, and something suddenly crystallised inside my head. I knew right then and there that I had to write this post.

The problem with the G20 protests, I realised, is that they fit into a common, polarised narrative. The reason this scares me so much is because all the protestors are doing is expressing an anger that most people have about the irresponsible way in which our financial institutions have behaved.

Note the italics. Did you note my italics? I hope so. The reason I did that is because I want to emphasise - perhaps rather pointlessly - that many of us share common ground with the protestors. Even some readers of the Daily Fail.

That's just the problem though. The mainstream media (MSM) - and let me say that in this description, I include the free daily London papers as well - has pursued a dangerously successful agenda of 'divide and conquer.' Sunny pointed out, I think in the comments, how many journalists were busy highlighting the minority of protestors who were violent, rather than focussing on the entirely peaceful Climate Camp protestors.

Going on to any site - PP, Comment is Free, whatever - I am struck how there are a range of 'stock positions' which people fall into. When I went on to Liberal Conspiracy, the commenter 'Letters From A Tory' said the following:

Honestly, Sunny - I have no idea how you can be so naive. You join a mass protest that was always going to attract a violent element, then complain that the police were keen to contain the protest.

I wrote you a letter on my blog this morning explaining why your account of yesterday’s events is at best laughable and at worst idiotic.

This made me angry. The whole thing makes me angry. Why in the fuck was it 'always going to attract a violent element'? Why do we have these expectations of events?

Prior to the events actually happening, there was more of this sort of attitude. I read a frankly infuriating column in thelondonpaper, which I will reproduce when I get back to my flat. I notice this attitude appearing more and more frequently - it was apparent in quite a few of the letters as well. It was the stupid daily column where they get members of the public to write in about something they care about - I think it has to be 500 words or something.

The author of the piece argued that the protests were putting '1 million people at risk' and that '95% of the protestors don't know why they are protesting' (um, how do you know?). He also used the age-old assumption of many a knobhead that the protestors were simply people who didn't have a job to go to (again - how do you know?), and thereby trying to ruin things for those who did.

Behind this blithe shower of bollocks (which I found all the more astonishing given that in that very issue of the paper, there were comments on how many local businesses were actually being closed and people advised not to leave their homes in order to keep them safe - hardly 'at risk') was a common belief that I see on the Internet and in newspapers (often on the Internet versions of newspapers, haha). It was the deformation of those that one does not agree with, the lionising of those that one does agree with - in short, the breakdown of a highly complex event into a battle between two opposing factions.

The MSM has been subtly priming us to think this way in the run-up to this event, and so before, during and after, people fall back into their 'stock positions.' You have the 'amused/contemptuous cynic' (as shown by LFaT above), the 'earnest and frustrated protestor/supportive journalist/victim', the 'misunderstood third party' (i.e. in this case, people claiming to be members of the police sticking up for themselves) and then a whole load of people trying to intercede somewhere between all this.

That column exemplified this 'divide and conquer' strategy that is so often. Most often, it's apparent when right-wing papers talk about non-whites and immigrants. The 'us' and the 'them.' I hadn't realised it was being practised in this instance. I was naive; I never realised that the papers could use such an ingenious method of turning apathy lucrative. People no longer interested in traditional political parties? The Labour/Conservative divide just not working any more, because they seem to be merging into each other? Great! Give the people what they're crying for! Give them division!

It's deeply insidious - I read an interview with the editor of thelondonpaper when I was doing a project on the British and French daily papers last year. He had this to say:

"Free papers acknowledge the realities of young people's lives and, pretty much everywhere in the world, they are politically neutral. All the research shows that young people dislike political bias in newspapers and they are sick of being preached at by journalists. That's why they don't want to read columnists either."

and this

"Our appeal is that we're the antithesis of their 'Little Englander' mentality."

Riiiight - that's why you regularly publish the kind of thing that was in that daily column, and letters like the slew of ones slagging off the protestors. The star letter was from somebody advising people to 'hold up a bar of soap' to the protestors because it would have the same effect as garlic on a vampire, or something along those lines. Bullshit are the free papers neutral. London Lite and Metro belong to Associated Newspapers which publishes - *gasp* - The Daily Mail. Thelondonpaper is published by News International - which publishes The Sun, The Times and The News of the World. Gee, is anyone seeing a theme here? Lord Rothermere, Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch - yeah, that's absolutely synonymous with being 'politically neutral' in my book... [/sarcasm]

It's very clever. These freesheets may claim to be neutral by not publishing anything overtly inflammatory - but by ensuring that you highlight the content sent in by your most bigoted readers and laying out your coverage of issues just so - that doesn't sound politically neutral to me, that sounds like you're surreptitiously favouring an agenda...

So yeah, as I already commented, now we have 'ordinary, peaceful, hard-working Britons/Londoners' vs 'jobless/time-wasting, violent protestors,' 'helpless scapegoat working-class City employees' vs 'middle-class protestors who are probably all in charge anyway', 'the faceless and brutal police' vs 'well-meaning but radicalised protestors', 'the trouble-making protestors' vs 'the poor police just doing their jobs'... On and on it goes. Of course, many of these battles are bundled up together, i.e. the first two. It's almost impressive - you can have many binaries operating at once - but somehow, we're not advanced enough to realise that real life isn't a black-and-white binary.

Shades of grey exist, bitches. Maybe it's about time we started taking the joke that all journalists are just failed novelists seriously?

Seriously though, we all need to be alert and wary, for dehumanising is a tactic common to - what? Think about it. War, yes, that's right! Consider that recent story about Israeli soldiers' awful T-shirts which make light of things like murdering pregnant Palestinian women. Think of the war on terror as well, and how the MSM (the right-wing papers in particular) have worked overtime to dehumanise not only extremists, but Muslims in general, as a way to avoid engaging with the fact that the 7/7 bombers were 'homegrown.' Sure, they reported it. However, as any fule kno, reporting an issue and engaging critically and analytically with it are not the same thing. If they were, we wouldn't have comment sections in papers, and there'd be no need for blogs.

Whether we like it or not, whether we'd take to the streets over how we felt about an issue or not - these protestors are 'us.' Bigots, unfortunately, are 'us.' Is there really a 'them'? There will, for the purposes of political manouevre, always be a 'them' but we are the ones who read the papers. We are the ones who feed off these divisions. The scores of annoying, smug pricks who were predicting how the protests would end were smug precisely because they are making the narrative. They know that life is perfectly capable of imitating art, so to speak. We can only try to keep some hope about the whole affair - and remember that everybody is human. Even Josef Fritzl, a perfect example of what happens when we fail to take adequate responsibility for each other. We lock ourselves into destructive cycles and never progress.

This bit:

his mother Maria, who herself had been fostered as a child, had had him "solely in order to prove to the world that she was not infertile" following a marriage which broke up because it produced no children.

"Herr Fritzl was a 'proof child', an 'alibi child'," she said, adding that this "was his only function as a child". "As a consequence he was a burden to her, something she was forced to look after". She said that Fritzl, now 73, struggled throughout his childhood to form a relationship with his mother but that "it was impossible to build up any sort of bond of trust with her".

The fear he felt by her constant absences was never more intense than during the second world war bombing raids on their home town of Amstetten. She refused to take refuge in the air raid shelter near to the family home, insisting on staying in the house and sending her son into the underground shelter instead. "As a result he suffered from an overwhelming sense of anxiety, not knowing when the air raid was over whether or not the only person in the world to whom he had any relationship, would still be alive," she said. "It's the type of fear that over time has a huge impact on a person".

... made me want to cry. I can see clearly how the leap from an unloved little boy to an incestuous rapist was made - and it is essential that we see that, and not tidy this all away as if it has been resolved. It hasn't. Humanity, if it really thinks it's superior to the animals, needs to learn to take full responsibility for itself. Just because we've invented the Internet, it DOESN'T mean we've got any less thick! Sigh...

A music video for cheer-up's sake. YEAH THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA!

An article, which I've just inadvertently realised, plugs neatly into what I've just said.

Rihanna, Chris Brown & Gossip Folks

Let me just begin by saying that one thing I really hate in modern society is the continually schizophrenic attitude we have towards celebrities. Overtly, people will bitch about how they're not as glamorous as they used to be (cue misogyny - frequently in gossip magazines - which involves slagging off female celebrities for having the temerity to um, go to the gym in their gym-clothes and the like, while sanctimonious twats reminisce about Marilyn Monroe and 'old Hollywood' actresses, and how 'women were so much more glamorous then') while secretly feeding greedily on every make-up free picture, every wardrobe malfunction and every failure to conform to a pre-ordained fashion trend or rule.

It's not in the least logical. Anyone who thinks about it - just think of Marilyn Monroe, if nothing else comes - can see that women weren't necessarily more beautiful or glamorous 'back then.' It's just that there was more privacy for, and respect of, celebrities in general - and then there's the issue of technology. HOO BOY. I daresay that the only reason celebrities from 'back then' had the privacy they did is because there wasn't computer software sophisticated enough to be uploading pictures of them all day long. Nor were there the kind of super-advanced cameras we have now that mercilessly and minutely capture a person's flaws. When you think of movie posters, for example, a lot of the 'old Hollywood' movie posters were painted - a lot easier to prettify someone that way. Photos of them are also frequently in black and white, which as any fule kno, is one of the easiest ways to make a picture look more flattering. Not to mention that there wasn't a 'gossip industry' quite as unscrupulous as today's.

(It is ironic, actually, because MM was never completely OK with being a 'sex symbol' and wasn't a natural blonde either... I've also read that she cut the tip off one of her heels to emphasise the wiggle in her walk, but I don't remember where I read that... Still, at least she had, by today's standards, quite a hand in controlling her public image).

Aaanyway, the worst thing about all this - gossip magazines, gossip sites, celebrity gossip in papers, etc. - is that it only encourages and reinforces the worst of human tendencies - that of leaping to judge people as if it is some divine right of ours. Now, judging others is a tendency of ours which isn't going to go anytime soon, and to some extent it's of course necessary, but snap judgements - fuelled ably by our obsession with celebrity-gossip culture - are just another way for us to pander to that which is lowest in us.

You surely will have encountered somebody in your life who tried to pass these snap judgements off as having some sort of intrinsic, instinctive 'truth-value', because they are instantaneous. BOLLOCKS. I would say that they're actually much more of a Pavlovian thing, the result of elaborate social conditioning. For example, if I were not a follower of gossip at all, and happened to observe that a female celebrity had gained weight considerably, I might see her and think 'Oh, she's gained weight. I wonder why?' in a surprised/semi-curious way. That in itself, is not bad. What is bad is when an elaborate chain of associations make themselves instantly known in my head, leading to the triggering of a negative 'snap judgement.' Anyone who doubts the truth of this may want to experiment with the scenario I've just described, using a fairly young and 'unsocialised' child. Show them two pictures of a celebrity and see what happens. I doubt they'll associate shame and disdain with the celebrity in the way that gossipers - older, more socially-conditioned beings - would: 'Oh my God, that fat cow! She's obviously let herself go since so-and-so dumped her' or similar.

Note that - despite it being a 'snap judgement', it's anything but simple. That's because humans, despite what reactionaries and pseudoscientists of all stripes would like to have us believe, are NOT SIMPLE. In that negative response, which is posited as a 'natural' occurrence, we have: disgust/disdain at the person's lack of shame in refusing to conform to a particular expectation, dehumanisation, instantaneous removal of their agency (she's 'let herself go', that is, given up instead of controlling and policing herself like she should) and extrapolation on a situation on which the commenter knows fuck-all based on a hamfisted appropriation of biographical detail.

Sorry to get so long in trying to make my point, but I'm trying hard to convince here! The patriarchy (I hate saying that sometimes, because it makes it sound more big, powerful and shadowy than I'd like to accept) has socialised us to react in ways which are posited as 'plain-speaking', 'straight-up' or 'natural,' when they're anything but. This is why the case of Rihanna and Chris Brown is so distressing (if you're not following, please follow the link for a speedy update, I'm not going into any more detail!).

By chance I came upon this response to the whole affair, which I found extremely heartening. Pricks on the Internet just LOVE trying to shout down feminists when they comment on things like this. One of the most frequent and infuriating techniques - no matter WHAT the issue - is to indulge in whataboutery by crying 'What about TEH MENZ??!!1!!1' Hence - naive that I am - I always like to see feminist-friendly articles written by men. It's still all too rare, which I can't help thinking fuels these idiots further. So I read it, thinking: 'Hmm, a black man commenting incisively and eloquently on the issue. Hopefully this won't be besieged by trollery, seeing as how it's a man...'

Alas, I was hoping in vain. I had reckoned without the power of the modern-celebrity-gossip-strengthened snap judgement. A quick scroll through the comments, and - hello! The whataboutery begins with the very first fucking comment. I'm not going to try and chronicle just how many people indulged in this type of comment, because I want to sleep sometime this night, but there were many, and not just here but on other posts about this which criticised the 'Blame the Victim' culture. The classic tactic is to respond (imagine someone saying this as if thinking causes them great difficulty, while their knuckles rub lightly against the floor): 'Well he shouldn't have hit her, but a woman shouldn't hit a man either, innit, and if she does, then it's SELF-DEFENSE!!1!!1!'.

The worst thing about these snap judgements is that they breed, and perpetuate more of the same, keeping the hateful misogynistic rumours in steady circulation. The above type of comment, while missing the point of the post entirely, also manages to distort the seemingly simple message that 'Violence is not OK. Ever.' By doing so, it generates a whole noxious narrative from where there previously was none. It is immediately implied that Rihanna must have hit Chris Brown which was why he hit her back, of course - it was self-defense, right?!

Er... well, actually, no. Nobody but Rihanna and Chris Brown actually knows what happened between them. Furthermore, if scum like the above really believed the crap they spouted, then they wouldn't say what they said. If they really believed that violence is always unacceptable, they would've said something more like this:

'Now, I don't know about this matter, but Chris Brown seems to me like a good fellow. Maybe Rihanna struck him first. Even if she did, though, he should not have retaliated - he should have walked away, because that is the mark of a mature and sensible adult. Violence only begets violence.'

Still, that's not going to happen because many of these male-privilege flaunting desperadoes are hypocrites. They don't care about violence being wrong, they just want to disseminate the 'crazy bitch' meme at all costs. They're basically trying to encourage more attitudes like Chris Rock's, as cited at the start of the post. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, but if we're going to play the gossip-extrapolation game, let's look at the facts: just by looking at Chris Brown, and knowing that he's had extensive martial arts training, one can comprehend that he's far more capable of doing damage to Rihanna than the other way round. Again, violence must be used responsibly and carefully - especially against a weaker opponent! Black mark. Also, as anyone with a shred of brain activity knows, people who are abused tend to become abusers themselves, and Brown has previously spoken out about his abusive stepfather. Again, this would imply that HE was in the wrong, HE behaved in a way unacceptable by the rules of martial arts and human respect in general - but let's not let that get in the way of a good round of misogynistic Blame-the-Victim.

Finally - if you were actually pushed to the point of 'self-defense' by someone smaller and weaker than you - as the morons are trying to suggest - that suggests that the situation would be so extreme that you would lash out simply to protect yourself. Either it would be a blind strike, or you'd try to knock out/immobilise your attacker, right? Especially if you'd had martial arts training. Rihanna had 'deep bruises on either side of her forehead, blackened areas around her eyes and what appears to be blood at the corners of her mouth' in the photo leaked online, which seems - gee, I dunno - more like domestic violence.

Especially now that Rihanna has apparently reunited with him and has declined to press charges, I can only see the victim-blame escalating. Cynical as it will sound, the way these male-privilege assholes are ('Of course he can bruise her whole face in self-defence, she obviously struck first and/or was a crazy high-maintenance bitch, while he's just a poor little R'n'B crooner, which obviously goes to show how much he loves ladies, yes, even though I know neither of them'), I suspect it's going to reach farcical levels. I tell you, the trolls are probably going to love the latest developments and say something like 'Well, he didn't kill her, did he? And she went back to him. So what's your problem, femonazis? Move along, there's no victim here, you're just trying to hate on men again and stop a brother from having a chance'. Sigh!

Identity, Culture and All Dat 'Ish

As any fule kno, the um, 'situation' with the Gaza Strip and Israel has provoked a lot of what I can only term sheer utter fucking lunacy everywhere. Pop along to Pickled Politics and scroll down a little to marvel at the sheer volume of articles on it; or if you're a rubbernecking connoisseur, wade into the brain-rotting depths of personal insults and virulent misunderstandings and misinterpretations that tend to make up the comment threads of such articles. Sheesh. I have heard several times how mental people go over I/P, but to see it in action is really something else. Some brave commenters, such as one douglas clark, ventured to say that British Jews should not be forced to shoulder the responsibility of Israel's actions and expected to 'make everything right' from a tiny island far away (I paraphrase). Now, that seems like common sense, don' it?

It got me thinking again on how so much of the danger that comes from having a religious identity (as far as I'm concerned) is in that symbolism. I'm far too timid to say anything like that the world should be rid of religion; I like to throw up my hands on these matters and say, I don't know, and if pressed, I could give you an answer, but not a simple one. I can't ever see myself becoming famous because I don't on the whole do snappy soundbites or 'big ideas' - but back to religious symbolism. It scares me because it allows, nay in many cases, demands the establishment of a connection of oneself with a much larger body of people. The way I see it, many people 'get into' religion for the community and stay for the God (forgive me if that sounds very cynical, and just to elaborate, I'm talking here about the things that keep people born within religion within it, but especially of those who leave and 'come back' or those who enter for the first time...).

Now that is all very edifying and so forth, but it becomes hugely problematic when you start to think about what this means. What it means, as I see it, is a declaration by the individual of surrender to a collective, over certain things and at certain times. In short, it's like hazing or any sort of unpleasant club membership, and even if you were BORN with those privileges, you never know when the tide of mass opinion might turn against you. Hence, though more shored-up than the new convert, you're still forever at risk of being undermined by the very fact of your 'membership', paradoxical as it sounds.

(Might I just say how painfully paradoxical this strikes me as? A significant part of the promise of religion to many is as an access of ready-made identity, culture, history, yadda yadda yadda... and instead it gets to the stage where you're always having to prove yourself. Well, I guess as the popular maxim goes, in life, nothing (but nothing) is free!).

Now, it must be averred that this risk of being undermined is not always greatly present. It tends to emerge handily with the arrival of an Other. I suppose the process works something like this: your 'identity' and 'culture' are threatened, hence you are threatened; by aggressively reasserting these, you refuse the attempt of the Other to undermine you completely. However, as we have already established, this shadowy Other (which may not be as much of a threat as imagined to be, who knows?) will then become projected unconsciously upon your fellow-believers for whom you must perform the rituals of belief. Isn't it ungracious? Isn't it undignified, how the best and brightest of us find ourselves bending the knee before those we know, know, in our hearts and minds to be stupid, ugly, and generally inferior... and yet whom the deranged reach of (oft-bigoted) zeal places on the podium, above us?

I commented disparagingly on a thread about a Sikh 'holocaust' museum, saying that I don't think the word should be bandied about quite so readily. Aye right, I fuckin' don't - the word means 'burnt sacrifice' and was applied to the full horror of the Nazi plan (need I really mention the gas chambers here...?) in light of the specificity of how this plan was implemented. I am a writer; I have the most enormous respect for words and it really annoys me when people don't use them properly, or use them out of context. Fuck you if you think that's precious - you wouldn't say the same of someone like Ben Goldacre seeking to debunk bad science now, would you? Miscommunication, apart from when it's deliberate, has a lot to do with making our lives harder than they ought to be, and the misuse of language is one of those things. Call the suffering of other minority communities 'genocide', call it 'mass murder' - but given how saturated this word has become with meaning - and that too after a prolonged effort by History not to let us forget such an awful happening - don't go bandying it about. Especially when the events in question are lacking in the same scale, type of mass-murder and specificity of evil intent.

(Rumbold helpfully intervened to explain what I was saying before I even could myself, so I have left no further comment 'pon that thread. Please head over to Charlie Brooker to see, fully and perfectly expressed, how I ultimately feel about Internet 'debates'. Ta for that Rumbold, true to form you put it rather clearer and more polite than I probably would've managed... comment threads often fill me with impotent rage, and then I feel dirty, as if I've just rubbed myself all over with The Daily Mail, and vow to do something REAL when my degree is over).

To return to the point - I can't help thinking that such things happening - such ridiculous abuses of language and over-aggressiveness - come, because with things like I/P, people's 'imagined' ancestry begins to come to the fore. Hello, trouble. The collective, baying for blood, seeks its recompense of the individual - now is the time to prove yourself, Sonny Jim! Now show your ideological colours! Lo, and so it comes to pass that people in Great Britain set about each other from the screens of their computers over something which is happening far, far away and to which they are not (short of having relatives in Gaza or Israel) directly connected. I mean, ffs, the link between Jews and Israel is imagined and symbolic, just as the link between Muslims and Muslims in Gaza is imagined and symbolic. Why do you suddenly feel the need to multiply yourself into a fucking representative of your whole religion? Because your people are being attacked here - your people, that's who! Jayzus.

I think here of all the times in the past that I have been forced to say things that I don't believe and agree with statements I find abominable in order to avoid attracting my family's negative attentions. I did it up to a certain age, and then I realised that I didn't have to any more. I could use the power of silence against them. They could infer what they wanted from it; I would not agree, and having got in serious grief on past occasions, I would not condemn either. If this was a coward's way out, I didn't care. My objective was to protect myself and to emerge intact.

My mother has made the observation in the past - very accurate, I feel - that it is only wealthy, middle-class people who have the time to dwell on these things. While this is not entirely true (I'm sure there have been some suicide bombers who weren't fairly financially stable too - or does that only fuel my mum's theory, in implying that poverty only added to ideological frenzy?), there is a LOT of truth to it. While discussing things is all very well and good, I often feel that if you are going to spit blood so, then why the heck don't you get off your arse and do something to help directly? Complain to the BBC, give money to the DEC, hell, fly out there and do something. Just spare me the bitching, and the soapbox-ing, which begin frankly to dive towards unsettling levels of moralisation and dogma, for me. A minority of disenfranchised people will, inevitably, react badly to the injustices that have befallen them - but since when was stooping to that level acceptable? What of all the other people who just want to fucking get by? Like me, they're more concerned with survival rather than ideology. Life is hard enough 'secular' as it is.

Religious fraternity and perspective is not enough when terrible things like this happen. People must remember that we are all ultimately human and that ultimately all the vitriol begets no solutions and no progress. Of course, there are always those who profit from such quarrels, but if people learn to practise a bit more forgiveness and a bit more forgetting, hopefully the planet can proceed on to the future.

Just to bore you senseless a little further, all this really churned about in my brain like clothes in the washing machine when my mum read to me a hilarious, and I fully believe, fictional account of a Sikh wedding (in two parts) from a Punjabi newspaper. Apparently in the duration of this story, some 'sensible observer' remarked how there were far too many women at weddings these days; if you went to the marriage palaces, all you would see was women, and that in the old days, women weren't even meant to be part of the baraat (the wedding procession, otherwise understood as the arrival of the groom and his party at the marriage venue). I immediately stiffened, my brain standing to attention like a guitar-string being pulled taut. My mater had not noticed this; nor did she notice the sudden, emergent incongruity of this remark peeking its ugly, goblin little head from the narrative.

As I glanced idly at the sheet she was holding out before her, a dim sort of epiphany set in. I tilted my head, casually covering the sheet with my gaze - yup. I rolled back my memory to previous glimpses of this paper (I think it must have been the Punjabi section of The Sikh times) - yup. The overwhelming majority of the participants in this production were male, bearded, turbanned and for the most part, pretty old (late 30s onwards). There were women (or there was one I knew of definitely, anyway) in the English part of the paper, but the only columnist I could think of, Rupi Gohlar, was consigned unfussily to a slim, 6cm-wide column somewhere near the entertainment section, which, if I was not looking for it, I would have likely failed to notice (first couple of times, I did miss it).

(To any Private Eye Readers, I appeal to you to recall the E.J. Thribb column. Do you see it now, in your mind? Yes, that's very much what her column resembles, in its slender insignificance. I am struggling now to recall if there are actually any female stalwarts besides Rupi).

I continued to take in what was being read to me, almost laughing at the right moments, but inside I vibrated with epiphany spreading, like the opening of a curtain admits more sunshine. Had I not, upon viewing Channel Punjab, only ever viewed the blurry outlines of women stereotypically 'dancing in the fields' (or had I imagined that too?) and consigned to women-only programmes such as Trinjhan (as far as I know it, a women's talkshow where they had writers and so forth on)? Other than that, women abounded only in the horribly cheap Star-Plus knock-off soaps, where a stereotypical mother-in-law bitch-from-hell would try to undo her stereotypically butter-wouldn't-melt daughter-in-law. Things might be complicated by the arrival of, or transformation of the latter into, a stereotypically gold-digging Westernised 'un-woman'.

I cast about in desperation, but the awareness was glaring me in the face. This was simply not me! None of these were me, and a slow, snakelike rage bubbled luxuriously in my veins. To think that all my life I had been told - had it insisted upon to me - that this was the right and the true, the tradition in which I belonged! I had grown up thinking that Punjabi culture and Sikh culture were one and the same. As I delved into Sikh history, I became much more conscious of the guiding principles of that religion, and as I began to find out more about Punjabi culture - through talking to people other than my parents - cracks began to appear. I discovered that Punjabis had a reputation for being big drinkers and loving fried chicken (that'd explain our local high street then, I tell you...) and, above all else, I began to notice the almost obsessive and deranged sense of male privilege that underscored Punjabi society. I suspect this went something like this: Punjabi men, being among the tallest, strongest and fairest-skinned in India (remember how colour-conscious India is!) were not only superior to women as it is taken for granted that men always are in Indian culture, but also superior to other Indian men! Hence they had extra entitlement!

The fact that the Punjab abounded with rich landowners whose sense of self-worth was only further pumped by laying claim to the glories of Sikh military history won't have helped. And so it came to pass that I watched Long Da Lishkara (a cult Punjabi film made the year before I was born) with my family, I think around the age of 11 or 12. I had not understood the obsession, in some films, with showing women jumping into wells. My young brain established that this must be for them to kill themselves - but why were they killing themselves? The screen soon brought me the answer.

A turbanned, well-dressed man - a man with a neat beard and moustache, and a fair complexion, almost like my own father - was holding a tumbler of whisky. I knew not the name of it, but by the shape and design of the glass, and by the colour of the liquid it housed, could discern what it was. I was horrified. Here was, to all intents and purposes, a Sikh man taking alcohol. Did he not realise it was forbidden? I was to be more horrified still, however, as he advanced upon the servant tidying the room. He seemed delighted by her; she was terrified. He continued to advance on her, I think breaking the glass, if I remember correctly to further frighten her, with his wrath. He managed to trap her on the bed somehow, her horrified shrieks and pleas for mercy only irritating him. Though the next part was obviously absent and left unelaborated upon, my precocious mind made sense of it. He had raped her, and she killed herself for having borne an illegitimate daughter.

My brain struggled. So the stereotypes were true, then? Punjabis were capable not only of drink, but of roundly disregarding the respect for women and acknowledgement of their equal status that lay at the heart of Sikhi? My world was painfully jolted. A man attired, as I said, not unlike my father, had committed a grievous crime against a woman who was, both socially and physically (I was sensitive to the former fact too!) as his female servant (and an Indian woman, thus hardly practised in self-defence) at his, the rich male landowner's, mercy. He had refused her his mercy. He had used her, and then left her to dispose of the evidence of his crime by disposing of herself altogether. Meanwhile, his wife, who had found out about it, did not leave, or punish him. Nor did she adopt the poor little girl. If anything, she began to get angry and worried as, now adults, her son fell in love with she who was technically his half-sister (eww!).

As I looked at my mum reading to me, all this came back to me. My mind whirred with the cascading visions of tiny, rectangular 'mugshots' of old, bearded, turbanned, male faces. I looked upon the writer of this 'humorous' article. His fat, round face was just about visible in black-and-white. I wanted to spit on it. More than anything, the urge to slap my mother fizzed dangerously in my arms. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' I wanted to cry. 'How dare you try and sacrifice me to these people who have never had a period, never worried about leaving their family, never feared their wedding night with awful dread? OF COURSE marriages are full of women now; we all know the awful suffering that many Indian marriages entail and women turn up in sympathy and commiseration! They too remember how it felt to pin your scant hopes to this one day of grandeur, wishing for its flashy charm to rub itself off on the union forever sealed afterwards!'

However, it wasn't really that strong - gone are the days when I came anywhere near doing that. This was the merest flicker, and it gave way, as always to sadness. My mother is a compromised woman, lost in the values of the time she grew up in. She still moves within the fug of '50s India, and all I can do is cast it off. It is not me, it is not my culture, and I feel elated that at last I can express myself with a concrete example. So you say that these white club-going 'goris' aren't me? Well, those old, sanctimonious bearded twats aren't either! Nor is that overweight, high-blood-pressure-suffering housewife, who dares not even suggest things to her husband any longer for fear of provoking dispute! I'm not the virtuous bahu! I'm not a gold-digger! I don't want my children, my sisters or any of my immediate female relatives to suffer, and that is why I keep trying to take them all under my wing! I may not know my American cousin too well yet, or the daughter of my mum's 'brother' (I think he's actually her cousin?!) whom everyone discusses in low, disapproving tones for having married an older, white man. I may be estranged from my eldest female cousin, Rani - but I'll fight for them, I'll fight for them all in any way I can, just like I did for my eldest sister pre-wedding, when her husband started shouting at her over her wanting speeches. I got in trouble, but I was proud - because that, that is who I am, and for a brief, shining minute, I was no longer leading a double life. That is who I am, my 'identity', my 'culture'; that is me.

Down With Anti-Intellectualism!

Down with anti-intellectualism! Down with anti-intellectualism! I have been reading some things online which have moved me to issue this war-cry.

We live in an age of MASS INFORMATION, I think you will agree. The Internet is a waterfall of differing accounts, of video and audio clips, blog posts and news articles. Waterfalls enrich and keep the supply of water coming steadily. However, if they flood, there will be deaths by drowning as the water overcomes all.

Now my alarmist metaphor might be a touch, well, alarmist, but the point stands. The Internet is a huge and wonderful thing. Some people don't like the notion that putting your data out there into cyberspace might mean that you never get it back, but life is full of risks and gambles, and for what you get in return, it is a glorious system.

The problem then, lies not with the Internet, but with us. Fucking lazy-ass humanity. We are an ineffectual lot, aren't we? We want to leap straight to the end-product of everything without making the journey. Did nobody ever tell us that it's not the winning but the participation that counts? Evidently not, and that is why we idolise Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal - we like the notion of a string of successive victories. We don't like to think about the work that goes into producing those victories and the long hard slog that results in a brief shining moment of sporting history at Wimbledon. Between the titles, a person's life is lived in single-minded devotion to training and fitness, a special diet and upon hearing that, we recoil in horror. It doesn't fit with the glamour of the brief shining moment.

To return to the Internet though - we fail to do it justice. We do not look upon it as a tumbling stream of water which could be combed into little rivulets to make it more comprehensible. Instead, we see a river bursting its banks and run, panicking, towards the opinion-ghettoes of the blogosphere or tabloid papers' websites, hiding out among those who share our views, be they justified, informed, articulate or not.

And Jesus fuckin' H. Christ, if you're looking at the Mail website or similar (which I categorically refuse to link to), it's a depressing sight. Don't be fooled - the Guardian's Comment Is Free is similarly packed to the cyber-rafters with morons, tunnel-visionaries and smart-arses. Trollish figures turn up everywhere, desecrating all our pathetic notions of humans as 'superior animals.' On the Web, it would seem, Darwin's rules don't apply. It's not survival of the fittest, it's survival of the stupidest.

Now, I know that people will be inclined towards sites that express their own views - that's perfectly natural. It is honestly sad though, to see how commentators pop up on Pickled Politics, for example, with the sole purpose of trying to be the sole right-wing maverick or whatever (I'm looking at you, Ashik!) and the numbskulls inhabiting the comments box on Guido Fawkes' blog are legendary among those with even a cursory awareness of the UK political blogosphere (that bloody word again!).

It is not about debate, it is not about legitimate criticism or disagreement, but about pathetic self-affirmation at the expense of others: I R A REBEL WOZ ERE, pretty much. Then you have Liberal Conspiracy, where the debates can descend into the most minutely finicky semantic wrestling, essentially to the point where people might as well be saying: 'You said X' and are responded to thus 'No, I said Y! YOU think I said X because that's what YOU think is right, but I think Y is right and I KNOW I'm right anyway'.

Let us move beyond words for a minute, I'm asking you. Let's break this fucking Great British tendency to complain and sound off about things, especially when we know next to nothing about them, because that's what is expected of us. The Web is a giant, giant place. Crawl out from under your tiny, little rock and actually open your eyes a little. Read articles - actually read them. Then try forming some thoughts.

I often castigate myself in the presence of people who write for a living, such as at yesterday's PP meet-up, because I can't always express myself particularly well. In fact, I'm even worse in person than in writing or print, or whatever. My tongue quivers hesitantly at the back of my throat as my brain swells dangerously, like a hen about to produce an egg. No egg is produced however - instead I get lots of strands that explode messily out, out of my mouth. Yet I do not feel shame about this. Why should I?

I talk to other people and I try to make sense of myself in the process, and that is what life should be about. Society is not something we can make disappear as if by magic, so trying to actually interact with it and the world around us might help. I am proud at the very least that I listen and take things in and try to collate grand ideas in my tiny little head. So many of us when we're forced to 'grow up' have moments where we extol the virtues of childhood. Conservatives in particular often seem to be the sort of people who wish they could 'go back' to that time (and I don't mean that in any good way whatsoever), whereas far-leftists often come off like that sulky, cynical smartarse in your sixth-form that everyone fancies for two years and then when you start uni you realise he was a total ass.

Yet it doesn't have to be so painful, it doesn't have to be all about loss. Just like the Internet should not be a series of adjacent ghettoes. It's called the fucking World Wide Web after all - a web is made of connecting threads. Let's learn a lesson from childhood in a constructive way for once, and apply the principle of homo viator. Life is a journey and when you decide to stop seeing it as a learning experience, you might as well jump in the coffin and let 'em beam you up Scotty. Or not, because you won't be going anywhere, just stagnating in the cesspit of your lazy ignorance.

There is a fine line between ignorance and bigotry and I think that a great majority of people are very much on the side of the former. So let's try and remedy that shall we? I was talking to my boyfriend and suggested that, given that the trend for reality TV does not seem to be weakening (X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, etc.), why not take something along the lines of Secret Millionaire, Faking It and Wife Swap? Except that it must expressly be people of different races and classes. Put them in each other's shoes for a week, no holds barred (unless you're forcing a vegetarian to eat meat or whatever) and then see what they learn from it.

I would be loath to suggest something like this as I am no fan of reality TV but as my eminently sensible fella pointed out (I am actually looking forward to when I can legitimately refer to him as my 'partner'), you can't force people to do things because they'll hate it. So, given that there's a recession on - coax 'em with fame (if not money)! Generate more cheap entertainment, and do it for a good cause! I think that it should be as full-on an experience as possible, and for this reason, only the 'younger generation' should be involved, not older people. We don't want anyone having a meltdown! If it was up to me, I'd force my male cousins and brother to see what it's like for a girl brought over from India - or force them to have an extensive interview with a prostitute.

The reason that specifically comes to mind is because an (unwanted) conversation with my 14-year-old American cousin made my blood boil. He said he wants to date but remain a virgin till his wedding night (ha! Yeah right) and that he wants a virgin wife. Now, if they're both virgins, that's fair enough, I suppose. However, I'm taking this to mean that he wants to marry a woman with next to no sexual experience, while having sexual experience. When I remarked how appalling this was, amounting as it does to rape as pointed out by Jai on PP (see comment #155!), he went 'Yeah, but I think your brother and male cousin (names have been omitted) would agree with me.'

Ooooh, I BET they would! I bet they would! My wrath was about run seriously unchecked, and I hammered out something along the lines of 'Of course they would, because you're all men.' What a terrible thing to say. I was angry, but it was because they were Asian boys, growing up in a sexist, patriarchal world where every move for women is simply countered with another backslide. Not because they were male - it's never as simple as our generalisations would have us believe. So you're letting your daughters work? Excellent, because no boy in his right mind wants a gold-digger! Don't think you're going to get off the house-work though, beta, what do you think this is, India? We haven't got time to sit around all day! Do your job and come home and take care of dinner!

I am very much in agreement with Halima and Germaine Greer: there's no point trying to bring equality into an unequal world. I have resolved not to fall into the trap of ideology; if ever I have sprogs, I will lead by example and let them take the model of my own relationship rather than trying to ram my beliefs down their throat. Children are not stupid, but they need to see a total role-reversal in order to have any concept of going against the system. My man grew up in a household where the relationship between his parents is very respectful and equal and to add to that, his mother cleans while his dad cooks. Not a highly conventional arrangement, I think you'll agree. Plus, his dad spent a lot of time with him and he has never wanted for a male role model. When I compare this to what I saw in MY upbringing, I am a tiny bit jealous. However, I have ended up with the product of that healthy and admirable relationship, so I can't complain now, can I? :-D Ain't life grand.

P.S.: Has anybody else guessed who my boyfriend is? A couple of people developed suspicions which turned out to be correct. I have kept his identity completely secret so as to respect his privacy (and mine!) but most of my readers know who he is and I have referred to him previously, but I tried to be surreptitious about it... I don't know if I should just refer to him directly occasionally, because I really don't want to repeat history by going down the 'My boyfriend this' 'My boyfriend that' de-humanising route again...