Kealey: More burkas, please!

Academic pervert Terence Kealey has written, for the Times Higher Education magazine that:

Normal girls – more interested in abs than in labs, more interested in pecs than specs, more interested in triceps than tripos – will abjure their lecturers for the company of their peers, but nonetheless, most male lecturers know that, most years, there will be a girl in class who flashes her admiration and who asks for advice on her essays. What to do?

Enjoy her! She's a perk.

She doesn't yet know that you are only Casaubon to her Dorothea, Howard Kirk to her Felicity Phee, and she will flaunt you her curves. Which you should admire daily to spice up your sex, nightly, with the wife.

As in Stringfellows, you should look but not touch.

Outraged overachievers everywhere called for the pervert academic's head for insinuating that 'normal' girls ought to disrespect their lecturers and just go out constantly, saying: 'First, A-levels are easy enough to be sat by monkeys, and now this. He's effectively saying that only the most abnormal of females actually cares about interacting with the people who have been paid to teach. Caring about what degree classification you get makes you a freak. Why doesn't he just ship our bright young women over to America, India and China himself?'

An unnamed female student at Buckingham University said: 'Actually, this is all the result of a terrible misunderstanding. The reason most of the class abjures his company, is because this pool of saliva forms on your desk if you happen to ask a question whilst being female. And he has really bad breath, and is often incoherent because he can't stop licking his lips and keeps jumping in the air and yelping whilst rubbing himself.'

She added: 'I would also like to categorically deny that I, or for that matter, Lucy - yeah, she's a friend of mine - 'flaunted our curves.' What's a girl to do when she forgets her glasses and has to go up to the lecturer to ask what the hell that weird squiggle on the whiteboard says?'

When contacted to clarify his remarks, Kealey insisted: 'What I said was highly moral. And you can't pin anything on me anyway, because the fault lies with the females. Everyone knows that a human woman higher education student is exactly like a female cat in heat. When she asks you for suggestions for her dissertation, EVERYONE knows she might as well be a pussy-cat lying back and showing you her bits. She WANTS IT.

And if she will insist on asking me to perform the duties for which lecturers are employed in the first place - well, I will have no choice but to imagine her face superimposed over that of my wife's. Spanking my Johnny. Nightly,' he added, twitching. 'Yes... it is good to think about the firm, white mounds of Lucy Norris each night... Night in, night out... Forgotten my glasses, she says! Got to check her final essay, the dirty minx!'

After a sudden, inexplicable 30-second break, Kealey resumed in a somewhat different tone of voice. 'Of course, my advising people to become obsessed with female students because it's better to constantly masturbate - I mean, copulate - to them rather than just listen to what they're saying, is common sense. Naturally, the way to avoid sexual liaisons *guffaw* is to encourage male lecturers - don't make me laugh, there aren't any 'female lecturers'! Ha! Ha! Ha! - to think non-stop about the foxy girlies. Look but don't touch - unless you're touching yourself.'

Adopting a sterner tone, he said: 'As I said, it's all the fault of the females really. I do so wish they would stay indoors. 'I want an education,' honestly. Still, if they WILL insist on intruding into the male public sphere, they could do worse than adopt the policy many of my female students appear to have taken up recently. That is, they dress in these frightfully practical black sheets so that you can only see their eyes. I sometimes wonder if there is always a woman under there. You know, it's not always clear by voice alone! Still, I get my job done without any stresses or hassles. Jolly good!'

FUCK YOU, Florence

Feminism has been hijacked. Feminism has been hijacked to dress up certain things which are dubious and sometimes ethically sticky, and magic away any objection to them.

On the whole, I would say that ACTUAL FEMINISTS haven't to the best of my knowledge endorsed things like sex work and pole-dancing as 'feminist.' What happened was that women were told that they weren't necessarily unfeminist if they did such things, or shaved their legs, or whatever. This was conveniently manufactured into the lie that all choices women make are 'feminist.' What utter nonsense. The fact of a woman making a choice for herself is feminist. As any fule kno, the circumstances in which choices are made greatly affect how 'free' they actually are, or not.

Nonetheless, we find ourselves in the tragic paradox where some people now think that empowerment is its opposite. Feminists use this to explain why some women, who are 'collaborators' in systems that hold them back, behave this way.

When I Googled the topic of this post to see if anyone else had written about it, I got this post: Florence And The Machine – ‘Kiss With A Fist’ – Is this the new feminism? . A commentator wrote:

... this issue relates to how the exploitation of women has become much more normalised that some women themselves identify it as empowerment.

The progressive changes brought about by feminism and the left during the 60’s and 70’s have been adapted by some feminists to fit in with the Thatcherite principles of neo-liberalism.

Food for thought. I also cannot help thinking that Florence of Florence And The Machine is mistaking exploitation and empowerment. I humbly ask you to read the post above, about the song 'Kiss With A Fist,' which isn't very long.

'Kiss With A Fist' is a very troubling song which cheerfully lists a sort of escalating 'one-upmanship' of abuse between a couple until the woman burns down the bed:

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed

That's the tamest of the verses, btw. Did I mention that the full name of the song is 'Kiss With A Fist (Is Better Than None)'?!

People routinely target rap music for its misogynistic lyrics, but this is a sunny, upbeat, MAINSTREAM POP SONG by a much-hyped group. I have to say as well, that despite having listened to a fair bit of rap in my time, I've never heard anything this repellant. I'm sure Eminem has done worse, but then again, he's marked 'Parental Advisory'. No-one exactly mistakes him for child-friendly listening, unless they're stupid and/or irresponsible.

This is an indie pop group who are effectively sending out the message that not only is domestic violence normal, but that it is an expression of love. To young girls, who are probably going to be the majority of their audience. GREAT. This isn't the first time I've seen this, either; a group I quite like, called Howling Bells, had a song called 'Broken Bones' on their first album with the uber-creepy lyric: 'Broken bones may hurt/But a broken heart will never mend.'

However, again, this group wasn't hugely mainstream and that lyric isn't really comparable to the ones above, is it? The tone of that song appears to be of a woman who cannot leave her partner and who seems to be waiting for him to finish her off. Horrible, but not obvious. I only clocked that it was about domestic violence after reading a review which implied that... Also, 'Broken Bones' is a sad song; it's not cheerfully indifferent to (accepting of, even) domestic violence the way 'Kiss With A Fist Is.'

Still, 'Kiss With A Fist' isn't even their worst crime. That honour must go to the absolutely fucking appalling 'Girl With One Eye.' This song disturbed me so much when I was listening to it last night that I refused to listen to the rest of the album afterwards and couldn't sleep for a while. The tone of the singer made it worse - she sounds really fucking pleased with herself. Maybe because, judging by the lyrics, she seems to be taking a 'male role' in this song. However, what is there to be pleased about when you're singing this?!!

Florence And The Machine
Girl With One Eye lyrics

She told me not to step on the cracks
I told her not to fuss and relax
Well, her pretty little face stopped me in my tracks
But now she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid

I took a knife and cut out her eye
I took it home and watched it wither and die
Well, she's lucky that I didn't slip her a smile
That's why she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry

I slipped my hand under her skirt
I said don't worry, it's not gonna hurt
Oh, my reputation's kinda clouded with dirt
That's why you sleep with one eye open
That's the price you paid

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry

You made me cry
You made me cry
You made me cry

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out my pie

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry

Ableism, rape, violence against women... The sheer level of spite and self-centredness in this song is unbelievable. Like I said, I noticed the lyrics primarily because a) I'm used to 'listening in' and b) she sounds so GODDAMN pleased with herself, like she's LOVING being in the oppressor role.

I despair. What does anyone else think? I wish there was some way to get Florence Welch to explain publicly what on Earth made her write this kind of malevolent shit. People have made a big thing of the fact that a lot of the Mercury Music Prize nominees this year are women, but both La Roux and Florence and The Machine are utterly depressing prospects. La Roux's already put her foot in it with victim-blaming, and now this. The only one who is worth anyone's time is Bat For Lashes.

AAARGH! Lars Von Trier's Antichrist

AARGH. I've heard about this film a bit, which to be honest, sounds like a lot of extremely self-indulgent bullshit.

What I must flag up, though, are the following comments from Xan Brooks at the Guardian. Particularly infuriating bits in bold:

Is Antichrist a misogynistic movie? That, inevitably, is in the eye of the beholder.

Couldn't help thinking: Translation: It features a woman mutilating her own genitals, but she's doing it so that's OK. No misogyny here, folks!

Here is a film that explicitly confronts the director's intertwined fears of primal nature and female sexuality. But does a fear of femaleness automatically equate to hatred? I'm not convinced that it does. Yes, the "She" character is anguished and irrational; a danger to herself and those around her. And yet for all that, she proves more vital, more powerful, and oddly more charismatic than "He", the arrogant, doomed advocate of order and reason

AARGH! AAAAAAARGH! Where do I start?!!

First off, where the fuck does this male writer get off, deciding what misogyny is?! Especially when he has just admitted the director's 'fear of female sexuality'?

And look at that - 'primal nature' and 'female sexuality' are intertwined. Gosh, how convenient. Says a lot, doesn't it? Women's sexuality is so GODDAMN PRIMAL. It's some huge, sweeping animalistic thing, that carries not a small hint of madness. Xan himself says: 'the "She" character is anguished and irrational; a danger to herself and those around her.' Wow, a crazy sexy woman - that's NOT a stereotype AT ALL! I can't help thinking here of countless VICE Dos & Don'ts, where they go on about how crazy girls are so much better in bed that 'normal' ones. Because, you know, it's up to a male to be the judge of a woman's mental state, whether he actually knows anything about her (beyond sleeping with her) or not!

Where have we seen 'crazy sexy ladies' before? That's right, kids: in Freud, of course! The idea of female hysteria predates Freud, but he took it much more mainstream. He thought that women who were 'hysterics,' were sexually repressed and/or had been abused in childhood. So you know, tying 'sex' and 'mental illness' together in a way that is both a) bullshit b) rarely done to men.

I find it bitterly ironic as well that in an article which hints at a feminist question and has the address:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/16/antichrist-lars-von-trier-feminism

that the first fucking person to be commenting is a male. Seeing as how feminism is meant to be about the equality of women, wouldn't it have been a NOVEL IDEA to put a woman's comments first? Instead of having Xan Brooks perched at the top, like he's the authority on whether a film is meant to be misogynist or not? Y'know, because not being a woman, he is so aware of what misogyny feels like...

I would apologise for the anger, but frankly, it feels good. I haven't been this clear-headed for a while. It is repeatedly disappointing to see the Guardian claiming to champion feminism in some ways and shying away from doing so properly in others.

I don't have a problem with Xan Brooks's opinion being sought - I just dislike the way the Guardian is putting him first as if to show how, even when a feminist Q is being posed, we are expected to put men's opinions first. On the up-side, it's a perfect subconscious reflection on who has the power in our societies. I can imagine people going 'Well, he is the associate editor of the Guardian website' and he does appear to have compiled the review. He could however have pushed a LITTLE further and not put himself top of the pile...

One thing I really can't forgive Mr. Brooks for as well is his literalist understanding of misogyny as 'hate of women.' This old chestnut:

But does a fear of femaleness automatically equate to hatred? I'm not convinced that it does

has been used, far less hesitantly, by sexist and misogynist pricks online, often on feminist articles or blogs, as a way to silence women. It is another form of 'it's all in your head.'

You see, these clever clever boys (and I wouldn't be surprised to find, some women too) go: 'Well, misogyny means hate of women. I don't HATE women, because some of my friends happen to be female and I like sexing them. Ergo, I win and you talk crap because you are referring to fear.'

This is of course nonsense. Fear and hatred go hand in hand, and why people won't acknowledge this more, I don't know. They don't necessarily ALWAYS go together, but in many cases they do. Look at racists, for example, who frequently combine the language of hatred with emotive stirring-up of fear about the Other. Hence it was that during the time of slavery, black people in America were brutally depicted as dumb savages (what is dehumanisation if not the putting-into-practice of hate?) and simultaneously depicted as animal rapists, keen for the delicate white woman's body. Urgh.

People think of 'love' and 'hate' as absolute points. Points which must be worked towards. This is, of course, nonsense. You can grow up having prejudice subtly and more directly instilled into you, and become a hater - it's not necessarily always a choice. Neither are hate or love exactly like the sort of things we read, see or hear in books and films and music. For example, the depictions of love as some sort of tornado or whatever - somewhat inaccurate to say the least. Most of the time, love is so subtle that we don't even realise when it actually kicks in, until it reaches high levels. That doesn't mean that love hormones haven't already started pumping and fixing our attention on that 'special someone.'

I think hate works the same way. When sexists say 'I don't hate women,' they are not completely lying. They are partially engaging in self-deception by using an absolutist understanding of 'hate.' 'I haven't killed or raped any women; how can I possibly hate them?' Well, refusing to treat them with the respect you accord to yourself IS hateful, mate! You're dehumanising them. At least be honest and say: 'Well, according to me, I don't hate women - I just strongly dislike them.'

Some men have managed to avoid this by simply claiming they hate feminists instead. Oh dear. I can't even go into the lack of intelligence this shows. Suffice to say, sorry, you ARE still a misogynist even if all your closest friends are women. Though I'm sure that when you tell this to these women, in your head, they'll back you to the hilt. 'Cause, you know, collaborators can't be misogynists, they're female! Yay! NOT.

Let us think about it on as elementary a level as sports. Often, you - reader-person - may come across a sport or activity that you struggle to do. Did you ever convince yourself that you hated something because you couldn't do it, despite trying repeatedly? I know I have; I feel that way about making chapattis. You blissfully ignore the existence of said activity, until it emerges in your face and you can't get away from it. You feel fear - will I be humiliated? and anger - I hate it, why do I have to do it?

Naturally, not everyone will react with fear and hate/anger together, but it is likely that the more you are confronted by this activity - say, you're at school and you have it every other day - the more you will hate it. Just because you don't kill or maim the person teaching you, that's hardly proof that you *don't* hate it, now, is it?

This is precisely what happens with feminism. The more feminists dare to challenge men on their privilege, the more prickfaces turn up to feminist blogs and demonstrate their misogyny. It is really laughable, the way so many of them put the lie to their deranged belief that 'feminists rule the world and want to kill all men.' Right - they're so powerful that their blogs are hugely mainstream and read by millions. NOT. Right, they care about men so much - that is, hate them so much - that they (feminists) discuss topics with each other peacefully, whilst YOU (misogynist males) turn up unwanted in THEIR space, getting in their face and trying to troll and intimidate.

Then, steadfastly REFUSING to listen or engage whilst loudly demanding that others do to you - the trolls claim victimhood when they are inevitably banned. God, my heart breaks for you - so much so that my tiny violin is playing itself.

I must just return to Antichrist and that review. Joanna Bourke, who (bless her) acknowledges yet tries to play down the film's misogyny, contradicts herself elsewhere:

Despite the erotic beginning, Von Trier has little interest in desire; his focus is on Sadeian extreme pain and enjoyment

But - de Sade wrote his stuff in order to get off, and you say VT is inspired by 'Sadeian extreme pain and enjoyment,' so how is there 'little interest in desire'?


Then at the end of the interview we get:

Von Trier has admitted that, of all his films, Antichrist "comes closest to a scream". It exposes us to an untamed erotic and aggressive aesthetic without redemption.

So... the film is erotic after all?


Linda Ruth makes an excellent point, calling our tabloids on their hypocrisy:

If only tabloids campaigned against real clitorectomies, done on real baby girls, rather than fabricated ones done in fiction movies.

but then comes out with this:

Of course, Von Trier probably doesn't "mean" any of it.

Oh, well, all dandy then!


A belated round of applause for Jane and Louise Wilson:

Unfortunately, this film leaves you quite unfulfilled. It's pretty damning about the whole of human nature. And, of course, the woman gets it in the end. Of all the to-dos you could have, there's a demonised mother, a witch who seems to prioritise her own sexual fulfilment over the safety of her child.

STICK 'EM BACK IN THE FUCKING KITCHEN! Wow, von Trier, that sounds like a revolutionary sentiment to me.

Putting Sex In Its Rightful Place

Sound the klaxons! I am about to go on to write a non-watertight post which will include some assertions and much musing. WHAT IT WILL BE: a reflection and an invitation to debate, discuss and ponder (I know, I know, call the ponce police NOW!). WHAT IT WON'T BE: sociological treatise supported by pages upon pages of peer-reviewed science.

Sex is overrated.

Yeah, I said it. That's right. You read me right. SEX IS OVERRATED!

Now that I've grabbed your attention with my controversial soundbite, sit still and bear with me. I don't think ALL sexual activity is overrated...

but when I said 'sex,' you thought of penetrative intercourse, didn't you? Go on, it's the right answer! It's the answer I want you to give!

I've always been a bit dubious about penetration. When I was younger, it was the idea that something being inserted up you could be fun. If you think about it, that brings to mind injections. Injections are not very fun, now, are they?

(Incidentally, I've only just now made that link, so don't go crediting my teenage self with scope I didn't actually have...).

As an Asian woman though, the prospect of it absolutely fucking terrified me. Ideally, I would be imagined - and expected - to be a virgin, a sexual ingénue, whilst my husband could have had numerous sexual encounters, and we would not discuss it because you Do Not Go There. Why would you want to broach a topic that would only lead to strife? Wondering how many previous lovers he might have had, if he's being honest about that number, how you compare, why it's OK for him and not for you...

Not all Asian men are hypocrites. Some of the genuinely devout ones aren't. However, depressingly enough, it is the religion-following (rather than any sort of internal reflection and self-awareness) that makes them so, for a lot of the men I know of. Sikh men. Let it be said though, that the power structures are partly responsible. Even though men benefit much more than women in Asian culture, they're by NO MEANS free of baggage.

So yeah, I would wonder why the hell the whole world was so goddamn obsessed with sex anyway. From the age of eleven, I made a resolution, and this was my only life's resolution. Now it may sound sad to some, and maybe some sort of betrayal to others (OMG, WHY DIDN'T YOU LIKE, AIM TO BE AN ASTRONAUT OR SOMETHING?!), it was important to me. It still is - important and necessary, and I feel that I was very lucky to find it.

I vowed that I wanted to love and be loved. Note: I didn't say 'wanted to be married,' or that I 'wanted to be in love.' No, I wanted to be loved. Not drama and not tears. Not the sort of relationship where his basic acknowledging of me as a fellow human was a source of happiness. Not the sort of marriage where his leaving me to get on with the housework, rather than criticising me for not doing it the way his mum did, was considered desirable. A partner who could understand that, was THE benchmark by which I would set my standards, thank you very much.

Sex has always been important, but many would argue that it has become more recent in modern times. I would be inclined to agree, especially when you think of changing attitudes to pornography, the arrival of the Internet and a general liberalising of society. That's not to say we're all fine with talking about sex now, but you know, you have things like Anne Summers shops and mainstream papers such as The Independent running lists of 'The Ten Best Sex Toys.' Hard to imagine in the 1950s, eh?

However, the way we think about sex has often been problematic. For a long time, you had a love/sex dichotomy, and it still persists. The idea that love and sex could be separate (especially for women) began to develop towards the end of the nineteenth century. I'm thinking specifically of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), which tentatively broaches a subject all too familiar to modern readers: the notion that you can love somebody - while simultaneously being attracted to someone else. No doubt it was there before, but it was very likely taboo, especially for women. Fancy someone other than your husband? You strumpet!

For some people, I don't doubt that love and sex is often - maybe even always - separate. That may even work for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for a lot of people. Read any number of letters to any number of agony aunts, and you see the same ol' time-weathered issues recurring: I love a married man, but he won't leave his wife for me, blah blah blah. Or I'm unsatisfied and I'm having an affair, blah blah blah. Alongside this kind of thing, you get celebratory articles about women finding sexual satisfaction in their 40s by having affairs, and stuff like that.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that - perhaps because of an increase in sexual freedoms for women - it became more acceptable for women to 'do as men do' sexually. Unfortunately, however, that increase in freedom didn't necessarily coincide with a weakening of certain ideas about sex and gender. Hence, many women had more sex, but the old idea that women wanted love and men wanted sex still held firm in the minds of many. So, you got this stupid and painful situation where women could have sex with whoever, but for many, love and sex were intrinsically bound in their subconscious.

There's also the fact that sex leads to the release of oxytocin, which:

has various functions in the body, such as inducing labor contractions and milk ejection, but from evolutionary biology’s perspective, its main evolutionary function is to bond us to our children for life. It also serves to bond us to our mate…at least long enough to produce a child and (if we're lucky) get it on its feet.

We are not programmed for monogamy, nor our own sexual satisfaction, it would seem. I DO NOT mean by this to say that women should stop exercising sexual freedom like men. Evolutionary science has been conveniently used in the past to enforce gender stereotypes and permit men to 'sow their wild oats' while denying women the same freedom. That's what you'd call 'bad science,' though. Proper science shows itself to be egalitarian in showing that actually, we're all set up for the same goal: to further the species. If males will 'sow their wild oats,' then females will replace flagging partners.

This is where I come back in. Yuman beans are, of course, brain-equipped creatures and not just bags of hormones, correct? We realised the dangers of blindly following our instincts since very, very long ago (see: Greek tragedy), in the form of overpopulation, if nothing else. We can't have our cake and eat it too. Either we have long-term stable relationships, or we have incredible sexual peaks and troughs. The time-honoured way to have both is to fake replacing your partner, by means of sexual exploration. You may notice how people always use terms like 'reinvent' or 'rediscover.' It's change, but you're tricking your brain - instead of a new partner, you're simply using new techniques to keep dopamine levels consistent.

Another possibility, to be used alongside, is to reassess the importance of sex. To put sex back in its rightful place (AT LAST! I hear you cry). No sex vs love. No more of this 'I love my husband, but I have great sex with the plumber.' No more of this 'I love my wife, but my secretary is so naughty and dirty.' Actions have repercussions. That's the shittest and most important bit of being an adult. Especially when there's children or friends involved, and Lord knows, there so often are. It's almost embarrassing.

Be slow. Be messy. Be fumbling. Learn, gradually and carefully, how to turn each other on. Think of your sex life as a book, which you chop into bits and put back together again. Does the end HAVE to be the end? How final was the end, anyway? In so many cases, you probably read to the end and then thoughts lingered in your head. You thought 'I wonder what happened next to so-and-so?' Even if there was a sequel, the likelihood of it carrying on right where the last left off was unlikely. In cases where that DOES happen, the first media I can think of are soap operas and comic-book series - and what are they? Long-running.

Penetration is not the end, nor should it be. It's been established that many women don't come through penetration alone; evidently it's not the key to orgasm in itself. Yet we persist in elevating it to such ridiculous levels of importance. Teens are all so interested in 'going all the way' and 'doing it.' Very few people's first time is about learning how to enjoy sex; it seems more to be about 'getting it out of the way.' How depressing! That's life, though. Social conformity exerts such horrible, crushing pressure on us that people have sex - or pretend to have - before they're even really ready for it.

I think the common attitude of 'lose virginity drunkenly, so as to ease fear, then have sex whenever I feel like' is fair enough, but watch out, people. If that's how you want to do, then you have to do it right. Go all the way. Don't think about love. Where sex leads, love does not necessarily follow - and you know what? That's not because men want sex and women want love. It's not because love and sex are opposed. It's because reproduction and monogamy are opposed. Yeah, that's right! How hilarious it feels to read that, when religion has been advocating socially/religiously/legally-enforced monogamy as the prerequisite for reproduction for years.

Sex needs to be rethought, and not just by feminists. Enough of the turgid meatstick in the quivering lower-lips. Enough of tits, asses and cock. Have you ever found somebody's eyelashes sexy? No? I sure as hell have (The Libertarian's thick, charcoal-dusting caught my eye even before his green-and-gold eyes). I like lips, in a man. The Libertarian has very rosy cheeks and lips, a freckled nose and unexpectedly dark, thick upper lashes. Half the time, I don't know whether to frame-and-display him, or kiss as usual.

I think I'm lucky, because I grew up with an awareness of classic Bollywood cinema, where filmi courtesans redefined the markers of sexuality. Between the sashaying of hips and the thrusting of abdominal muscles that we know so well, alongside wet saris, there was something new. I'm thinking of Madhuri Dixit as the courtesan Chandramukhi in Devdas, of the song 'Kaahe Chhed Chhed Mohe.' One of her most fervent admirers sings (roughly translated from memory):

'Jasmine makes fragrant her lovely dark tresses... Radha's face is aglow, electric... Her gait, seductive.'

In Sanskrit poetry, as well as old Bollywood, eyes, eyelashes, hair and faces are most often described as alluring. The face and hands are most often employed by filmi courtesans to seduce. It's still objectification, you might argue - but at least it's not quite as violent a form of objectification. It's not the same as when: 'you talk about getting laid, you never say a woman, you say a broad, a lay, a baby, a doll, a bird, you talk about butts and boobs, every time you mention a woman I see her either as a sort of window-dresser’s dummy or as a heap of dismembered parts, breasts, or legs or buttocks.’

There is some sense that a woman has some power, something concealed which is hers and which she can choose to give. Granted, this is somewhat illusory with a courtesan (a bought woman) - but I'm not telling anyone to be a courtesan! Nor am I saying 'cover up' or 'behave like a man/lady.' Sexual problems in a relationship are so often merely the most visible element of a larger underlying problem. Fluffy handcuffs, toys and dressing up are all very well. Just make sure it's not all one-way - and just make sure you're realistic about the relationship of sex to love for you. Does sex really = love? For a lot of us middle-class kudia, raised as respectably as we are, I don't really think so. Intercourse - especially penetrative - is not the apogee of desire. Standing close to someone, denying yourself, a loaded glance, a telling kiss - give it a try sometime if you haven't already, o no-doubt-horrified readers...

On Abuse

It's quite long, but please, please, read this post about abuse.

It's very well-written and thought-provoking, and it considers abuse in a number of ways which are both illuminating and surprising.

Feminism Wept...

Oh my God.

Let me announce this, here and now. I meant to earlier, but it just kept getting lost in the tiny cracks of exhaustion emerging between exams and school, travel and revision.

Whilst preparing an oral presentation in French ('How to reconcile feminism and Islam in France?' Only, in French, naturellement.), it hit me that feminists, like Muslims, have to keep putting up with vicious and untrue attacks on our public image. Like Muslims, we face constant attack by unimaginative and self-serving opponents who would like to blame us for everything-they-possibly-can that is wrong with society today. EXAMPLE. All the different strands of feminism are handily grouped and dismissed, which allows for a very effective form of 'divide and conquer,' whereby feminists such as myself have to say that we're not in agreement with those who really do seem to hate men, and assumptions are made about our sexuality.

A lot of modern feminists find themselves in the position of having to distance themselves from second-wave feminism, because of the prominence and influence of lesbian feminism within it. Feminist-haters continually highlight the misandry that SOME (SOME, not ALL) lesbian and/or radical feminists have shown, using it as a way to shout down the many valid criticisms they make. In fact, they use that as a way to shout down almost any form of feminist critique that doesn't bend over backwards to please them (see most articles even vaguely pertaining to feminism on Cif...). Divide and conquer. It is divide and conquer. They turn on individuals en masse, conveniently displaying the very mob mentality that they ascribe to those same individuals. Those individuals find themselves stuck, or should I say: WE are stuck. We can't acknowledge the huge ideological debt that we owe to second-wave feminism. Like Muslims constantly being harassed as terrorists, we must distance ourselves and say 'Not in our name,' as if it is completely removed from us.

Yet as any fule kno, radical voices are useful and important (as long as they're not generating immediate danger, of course). They stand to inform us both of what we could have, and in the case of more conservative voices, what we could lose, if we remain idle. Let me just say that I am not trying to establish some sort of suffering equivalence with Muslims here. I am so NOT A FAN of the Oppression Olympics. All I am doing is drawing a parallel, one which is in some ways heavily ironic.

It must be said that the public image of feminism certainly isn't done any favours when people who claim to strongly identify with it promote exactly the kind of cartoonish stereotypes that fem-haters love and lap up. Here I must cease, and present you with this. Julie Bindel and Julie Burchill interviewing each other.

It is ghastly. It is so, utterly, ghastly. Yet it's also very clever, because ultimately neither of them gives away anything new in the least about themselves. Burchill's reputation as a giggling, bandwagon-jumping delusionary is confirmed, and Bindel once again comes across as the stereotypical lesbo-misandrist automaton.

Feminism wept. Feminism wept. There is a certain hollowly-humorous irony in Bindel saying:

I much prefer women to men. A lot of them are emotional cripples. Have you not found that? Are we such different feminists do you think?

after Burchill saying:

But part of what makes a man a man is that he never takes offence! When you see sad-sacks like, what was his name, Neil something [Lyndon, author of No More Sex War: the Failures of Feminism]. "Men's Lib" - that's the opposite of a man, to me. Just shut up and take your lumps. And then we can all have a laugh.

It's so lovely that even in prison, men who aren't touchy-feely have to be stopped from beating up rapists - not just child molesters, but rapists of grown women.

This too after Burchill cheerfully hypocritises (neologism alert!) her self-ascribed epithet of 'militant feminist' by saying:

I like men and get on much better with them one to one than I do women, who can be a bit emotional.

and

I don't want to hear about every last thing someone is feeling. I think most men have it about right. All men should be like my dad!

I'm sorry. What the FUUUUUUUCK are you talking about, you stupid bitch? She basically DID just confirm what Bindel said - that men are 'emotional cripples,' because they don't overshare like those annoying women - and then implied that that is how men should be.

Great, Burchill, you stupid fucking bitch. So, a kid who is being bullied should just 'take his lumps,' should he? The likes of you should be spared 'every last thing someone is feeling,' until they walk into a school and massacre a load of people in one go?

As for the men beating up rapists comment - I must reiterate my expletive-garnished question above. The justice system is supposed to deal with individuals, Burch. It's not the job of mobs, or single persons to decide what happens to criminals. Jesus wept, this time.

It is ironic though, this woman is a shamelessly Freudian stereotype herself. 'All men should be like my dad'? Bet you wish you could've married him!

I have revised my opinion on the Grauniad's decision here. I now think it was absolute genius. You have *ahem* an intelligent and dedicated campaigner who generally poses as 'professional lesbian' (I hope she's not really as virulently anti-men as she makes out...) alongside a showy and inexplicably well-paid professional contrarian (not a very good one, either). The latter indulges in a frankly breathtaking display of female misogyny, showing the very real need for conventional assumptions of gender ('masculinity' and 'femininity') to be challenged. The former, perhaps because of her own transphobia and misandry, smiles and lets it pass. Oh, the female friendship! Oh, the uniting nature of the sisterhood!

Truly, feminism wept. I leave you with this thread I found, discussing Bindel's transphobia, which is really interesting. Look out for the post by 'Forced Buy' - in fact, if you ignore all the rest, at the very least read that. It's really insightful, and Burchill enters the equation once again!
This interview with Susie Orbach, feminist author and Dolly Draper's mentor, is also good reading. Also: a thread about whether make-up is acceptable or not. P.S.: My heart bleeds for Kater Andron. It really does, but... I just can't force those tears out. It's sort of like when you want to take a shit, but you can't.

(Given that the 'article' is called 'Julie Bindel talks to fellow feminist Julie Burchill,' I'm starting to wonder if the Guardian, a paper that SHOULD be feminists' friend, doesn't have it in for us too...)

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.

Man, FUCK the Catholic Church

Seriously, when you think of all the people the Vatican has fucked over and wants to continue fucking over? Totally fair and just course of action. If the Vatican had a basketball team or a barbershop quartet of its own (who knows, maybe they do!), they really should be called the Woman-Hating Wonders (replace final word with Wanderers for the basketball team...).

It's tried to avoid the allegations of child sex abuse victims for years, and as I pointed out in my post on abstinence, they haven't even got rid of some offenders, just transferred them! Classic evasion tactics, vah vah. In further evidence to prove that they will very resolutely do nothing, or at the very least, the minimum possible, the Pope called for 'continuous prayer' to deal with the problem of paedophile priests. Gee Benedict, I don't know... couldn't you ease off on priests a bit so that they don't have to be celibate? That way they might not turn to preying on whoever they can get their hands on (children aren't the only ones... if you've read Karen Armstrong's Through The Narrow Gate or watched The Magdalene Sisters, you'll know that women were/are also, unsurprisingly, victims of sexual abuse by priests). Alternatively, if a priest has had accusations levelled at him - FIRE THE FUCKER. Better safe than sorry, and what with the Catholic Church's antediluvian attitude and image, it might provide some much-needed positive PR.

Child sex abuse aside, let's not forget that the Catholic Church don't believe in contraception (just GREAT for all those male Catholics in poor countries who can keep on knocking up their poor wives, whether they like it or not!) and are rabidly anti-choice (ditto). Let's now look at two very recent cases where the Catholics continue to prove that they should really not have the privileged legal and political status they have. Sarah Palin was roundly and rightly condemned by many for her views, but she was one individual. This is a whole fucking group of patriarchal nutters - AND they have special observer status within the UN, meaning they can stick their oar in on things which don't have anything to do with them, like human rights.

Firstly, the frankly disgusting and horrifying case of Eluana Englaro. The Guardian ran a very thorough article on this which I can't recommend enough. Eluana had been in a vegetative state for 17 years, and her father wanted the tubes to be removed, in accordance with her wishes. The poor man is currently caring for his wife, Eluana's mother, who has cancer. So what did the Vatican - working through Berlusconi, of course - do? Kick up a fuss about it, declaring it 'a crime against humanity' (what about your paedophile priests, eh?! Surely that's 'a crime against humanity'?) and according to this Times article, describing it as a 'monstrous and inhumane murder.'

This is a woman who has been vegetative for 17 years and whose brain is so severely damaged that doctors have stressed that she will never 'come round', as the Guardian article states. That charmer Berlusconi justified his decision by saying: 'I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate' (Clearly he thinks he's Jesus...) and - get this - saying that she couldn't be allowed to die because she is still 'in the condition to have babies.'

Wow. Just wow. I think that's the only appropriate reaction here, don't you? Thankfully, with the quietly diligent work of the doctors, Eluana died before any more meddling could take place, and Italy's own President refused to side with Berlusconi. It is gobsmacking though. I remember reading an aghast comment somewhere about this, saying something along the lines of: 'So who would they get to impregnate her, then? Rapists?' Well, quite. Clearly the Vatican does not have the FIRST FUCKING CLUE about what constitutes 'human behaviour'; they are masters of misogyny (and I believe that the Vatican should be renamed 'The Ministry of Misogyny' or 'Misogyny Capital of Italy'...). Perhaps Berlusconi would perform the deed and then claim it was immaculate conception. Or a virgin birth, seeing as how he thinks he's Jesus.

The latest story to raise my hackles is this, on the rape of a nine-year-old girl. Nine-year-old girl gets raped, most likely by her stepfather who has now been arrested, and becomes pregnant with twins. Her mother takes her to have an abortion, which y'know, makes sense because she's just a nine-year-old child who has suffered sexual abuse. There is absolutely no way she can be made to take responsiblity for this happening to her.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother's life is at risk...

So, clearly one-nil to the Catholic Church in Brazil - their political stranglehold is making life hell for every woman in the country who wasn't raped/in danger of death and wants to make the decision to have a baby or not for herself.

and doctors say the girl's case met both these conditions... The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.

So... more of the same humanity, compassion and understanding from our frock-wearing friends! The fun doesn't stop there though, oh no:

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

Jesus wept. If I was that girl's mother, I'd be glad my daughter still had a life ahead of her, not bothered about whether some religious nut had excommunicated me or not.

The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.

He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.

Oh, how generous of you. Who knows, maybe in a few thousand millenia, you won't be forcing women and girls to bear the brunt of male-inflicted rape and abuse! Then again... I won't hold my breath.

However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

Bastards, bastards, absolutefuckingBASTARDS. This bit actually made me want to cry and/or be sick. That poor, poor little girl.

As with the case of Eluana Englaro, I'm absolutely delighted that the Catholic Church hasn't claimed any victory, but really, the Italians must do better. Peter Tatchell's Cif piece was very good, measured and so forth, but really, considering that the Italian taxpayers fund the Vatican's ongoing existence, it's time for a change. It's time the Italians got all 'what the fuck? You're not the boss of us, or anyone else worldwide for that matter, biatch. God's representative, my ass. Oh wait, I think my ass would in fact be a fairer and more reasonable representative of tha Lord than Benny-dick and his befrocked flock.'

To finish, a little game:

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

Replace 'all those' etc. with 'all those who damn child rape and sex abuse victims.' Then, take 'from the Catholic Church' and put it after 'all those who'. Replace 'secure' with 'by preventing'. Lose 'an' and put an s on 'abortion.' Finally, lose the whole first part of the sentence up to 'all', and replace 'excommunicated' with 'assassinated.' What do you get? Answers in the comment-box please!


Disclaimer: if you honestly think I am advocating the murder of anyone, then please read my previous post for clarification and get a grip, ferChrissakes.

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!

Gail Trimble and the Guardian

In my previous post, I mentioned how a feminist can encounter misogyny in the most unexpected of places, namely on (supposedly) socially-liberal sites such as Comment Is Free and Liberal Conspiracy (in all fairness, both are generally OK, but the commenters on Cif tend to be prats, and you get the occasional prat on LC too...).

So today children, I'm going to take on the Guardian for some hypocrisy which verges on misogyny regarding the reluctantly-ubiquitous Gail Trimble, 'intellectual blitzkrieg' and female captain of the Corpus Christi college team on University Challenge. As anyone with functioning senses and a tendency to be exposed to the British media will know, she suddenly became an object of interest for her impressive intelligence and then linked to scandal - her team were stripped of their 2009 winners' title after it emerged that one of them was only a student during the first round of the competition.

Now, I have no real idea why on Earth so much has been made of Trimble, but I'll hazard a guess - misogyny, anti-intellectualism, desire to drum up publicity for the show, easy copy etc. I think it is great that sites such as the F-Word came out in defence of her, but to be honest, I think most people could give less of a monkey's about UC and its denizens. Though, as a publicity stunt, making a star out of Trimble seems to have worked - apparently the BBC garnered a 'record' audience of 5.3 million viewers for the final.

I want to take the Guardian to task over this article which is really rather hypocritical.

The stripping of the title from Corpus Christi is an ignominious end for Trimble's rollercoaster ride to fame.

Is just me, or is there a real element of gloating here? Firstly: who cares? Not Trimble herself - as pointed out in an article which appeared just the next day on the Guardian website, they magically remembered that she didn't ask for the attention.

While Trimble hogged the limelight, little attention was given to her team-mates, although of course that has now changed.

No - as the saying goes, a star is made, not born. YOU, the mainstream media, are the ones who thrust her into the limelight. She didn't have any desire to 'hog' it. If no attention was given to her team-mates, that's YOUR problem, not hers.

The article also begins with:

The winners of University Challenge, Corpus Christie College, Oxford – captained by "intellectual blitzkrieg" Gail Trimble

Lest we forget.


This hypocrisy is pretty impressive on the Guardian's part. In an article by the same authors appearing just the following day, they wrote:

Producing a series of barnstorming performances that made her an object of public admiration and anti-intellectual ridicule, Trimble almost singlehandedly propelled her team to victory

Sanctimonious, much? A few bloggers discussed her previously - you lot in the mainstream media turned her into 'an object of public admiration and anti-intellectual ridicule' for the sake of an easy and research-free story. Even if she DID win two-thirds of the team's points, you saying that she 'almost singlehandedly propelled her team to victory' continues rather conveniently to single her out, and all for your own ends. Let me just say that there are currently 38 articles on the website tagged 'University Challenge,' of which 14 directly reference GT. There are probably also a number of articles which mention her in the body of their text.

It really feels like the Guardian is trying to demonstrate some sort of class credentials as well, the way it continues to get mileage out of the Trimble/non-student scandal affairs. As I pointed out, their attitude in that article is pretty gloating, and just to really rub it in for Sam Kay and the Corpus Christi lot, the NINE most recent articles are about them losing their title in some way or another, often mentioning proudly how it was the Observer who found out Kay was not a student. Seriously - WHO CARES?! Pats on the back for a storm in a teacup, or what?! There were also two BBC-bashing blog-posts by one Vicky Frost, one with the smug tagline: 'Manchester's University Challenge team have surely won the PR battle today, proving graceful in defeat', as if CC were somehow being arrogant. It also prompts the question: WHAT PR BATTLE?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT?

Just because the Manchester lot aren't as obviously privileged as the CC lot, it doesn't mean they have to gloat - the CC team KNEW MORE. Which was the POINT of this competition. Talk about resorting to reverse-Mail tactics! One, you make a star out of someone to generate easy copy. Two, you then turn a rather minor scandal involving her team into a chance to escalate the storm and generate yet more copy, gloating about CC's fate as if they deserve it because 'they're upper-class, innit'. Three, you then undermine the Manchester University team's reaction by heaping praise on it, thus implicitly suggesting that their getting the trophy needs to be legitimised somehow. Four, you then get some woman whose opinion no-one really cares about to moan about the BBC's reaction - twice and talk about a non-existent 'PR battle', all in the name of generating more hits for the website, I suspect, judging by the tone, the references to all this and to 'Sachsgate.'

Perhaps the Grauniad's online editors have realised the standard of commenter they attract (think the Mail Online, or the type of person who frequents the BBC's 'Have Your Say' section - see here, here or here for details) and have decided to go for the jugular. As Dan Ashcroft would say: 'The idiots are winning.'


Recommended reading for everyone in the world, ever.

Misogyny To The Fore!

Oh, readers. It's not been a good week. Not in the usual emo-meltdown fashion (though there was a little of that), but in a deeper, more depressing way.

A certain listlessness, a fear about the future and increasing consciousness of the speeding-by of Time have set in. Lack of sleep, a lunatic sleep-schedule, awareness of the fact that I am going to effectively FINISH MY DEGREE in about two months' time commenced the deluge. Then, there was guilt over my responsibilities to others. I have been regularly cheering up my friend Colin with long phone chats, and trying to be a source of occasional support to my oft-insomniac friend Trish. (She has huge blue eyes which seem to get even larger as she gets worked up, and make you want, as The Libertarian said, to pat her and tell her to calm down). These moments were rare, though.

I tried to intervene between my sister and parents every now and again, including this evening. Her idiot husband wants to reconcile - so he sent her a 3-page list of her flaws, and then when she replied that she did not want to meet with him, responded with: 'I'm amazed by your reply.' Even now, some days later, he remains 'amazed.' I remain amazed that I have not *headdesk*ed yet. Or *facepalm*ed. I never realised that trying to reconcile with somebody involved systematic and repeated attempts to blame them for your relationship's failings, while also refusing to take any responsibility for anything yourself. Nor did I comprehend that, in essence, it involves behaving in exactly the same way that brought the relationship to a screeching halt. More fool me!

(Somehow, I have graciously restrained my urges to email him abuse, despite even being encouraged to do so by my mother *twitches with this saintly effort* Though if I did, I would say, quite simply: 'FUCK OFF OUT OF MY SISTER'S LIFE, YOU CHILDISH TWIT'. I might also add 'SHE MIGHT GIVE A SHIT, BUT NONE OF US DO, IF YOU NEVER MARRY AGAIN' (As he said to her). Oh Lord, that felt good).

So yeah, I'm antsy like I've bathed in chilli-powder, and have found it really bloody hard to motivate myself to work this week. It doesn't help that misogyny seems to be bearing down on me from all sides. Not just me, of course - laydeez in general, but that doesn't make it any easier to stand.

Let me just link you good people to this and this. The author of both these posts is one Chris Dillow, who I've seen showered with praise, particularly by sites I read like Liberal Conspiracy, presumably for the fact that he is a liberal/left-leaning economist who seems to know his stuff and provides good analyses of stuff. Now, I've no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the explicitly misogynistic tone of those two posts, ESPECIALLY the latter.

I left an infuriated comment on the LibCon article, which got ignored (unsurprisingly). The thing that really depressed me was that five women disagreed strongly with the bullshit on it, whereas only three men did the same. On t'other post, about 10 people said things which were supportive of women against Dillow's bullshit generalisations; there were other comments that sort of challenged him, but rather weakly. The rest of the comments included such gems as:

Sexist weekend should be a cultural institution:

What do you do if your dishwasher breaks down?

Slap her.

You've got 7 points about women here and sex doesn't appear in any of them: there's something far wrong with you, m'boy.

While I'm a roll here I'd just like to point out that political correctness was invented so that all women could nag all men, not just the ones they are married to.

and finally:

If your basic statement is "There;s nothing less attarctive than a middle class career girl who takes a perverse pride in her inability to cook and considers friday night a good time to stay in and talk about the realtionship" then I'm in full agreement. If women concentrated on buying and wearing attractive underwear the world would be a much happier place.

Only half of the non-misogynistic comments stuck up directly for women. There were quite a few mocking ones from women (not just from women), but I thought the fact that nobody just called 'misogynist' was rather depressing. The best comment came from one James Hamilton:

My experience of people possessed by one form of prejudice, such as yours against people you perceive as posh or public school, is that there's always another form of the same thing in them somewhere. So I've been expecting this. I'm surprised by what it is,though. I expect you'll get off in the same way you usually do - enough people prepared to believe that you don't mean it. I'll give you this much: I do think you're open about these things, and that you do mean it, although I think you lace them with humour. But you're not being ironic, in that crude and misconstrued blogosphere sense. Good luck.

Wherever you are, James - we love you! How accurate your predictions were, with so many people actually engaging with this kind of thing in some form or another in the comments. A poster called Katie (apparently female, then?) posted the following:

In terms of an intellectual exercise, I am not sure this is a success. Some of your points are opinions, while few are supported by evidence. It would be good to see an evidenced four way comparison: boys good, boys bad, girls good, girls bad, with every point evidence to compare for each points.

I felt like saying No, no, NO, Katie! Don't fall into the fucking trap! You should not have to engage with this, and this bullshit disguising of misogyny as intellectual ranting!

It is so shocking, as a feminist, to see this kind of thing in the so-called liberal blogosphere, just as it is in the mainstream media. It makes you feel like a real tool, because you can be quite sure that if a conservative/right-wing blogger had expressed similar sentiments, they would be roundly insulted and criticised. However, when someone like Chris Dillow does it (that post is from last year, by the way, I only became aware of it through the Valentine's post), people will look the other way as much as they can. I never saw any condemnations of that post of his on any blogs I read at the time. So, did most people just conveniently ignore it? It would seem so!

Feminists occupy a particularly ugly position, given that there's nothing that crosses boundaries quite so effectively as miosgyny. Muslims, Christians and Jews can argue about the likes of I/P forever, but many of them will find themselves in sudden agreement on the subject of how to treat women. I would argue that we're perhaps easier to demonise than any other group. There's always a particular minority group that will receive its undue share of media attention, as is happening to Muslims these days, but men of all stripes - gay and straight, black and white, atheist and religious - will come together under the banner of misogyny. It's so depressing.

Comment Is Free, for example, is a platform for Guardian writers to air their views. The Guardian is supposed to be liberal-left. Yet feminist writers are assured of being roundly shouted down when they post on there. Sometimes, as in the case of Julie Bindel and occasionally, Bidisha, this is somewhat warranted. However, even on more moderately-expressed opinions, you'll get loons going 'BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ'. They also routinely try to use the argument that 'feminism is itself sexist because it's feminism.' As Lily Allen once sang, please fuck off. On an article by Zoe Williams about rape, ferinstance, in which she argued that the fact of having consumed alcohol should not have led to a rape victim's compensation being cut, the first comment was by 'thetrashheap' who lived up to his name by saying:

Better than the editorial yesterday but why just rape?

How can being drunk mean you deserve to get assaulted in any manner [Isn't that the point of the whole fucking article, you numbskull?]. Rape can be less harmfull than a serious assult. I know a man who was much more damaged by nearly being beaten to death than a women I know who was raped ['It is true because I know it to be so, based on 1 or 2 personal experiences']. Yet with the indignation over rape the guardian can say in one of its editorials

"Cuts may be justified when a victim's drinking precipitates certain violent attacks "

[Did you ever consider that maybe they were just reporting something as they were told it, and that's all there is to it?] How does being drunk percipitate a violent attack? [Gee, that's exactly what Zoe Williams is saying right here!] If somebody does an action that makes them partly reponsible for violence then so be it but being drunk isn't a reason.

So why concentrate on Rape and demean assault? Why try and lift rape as a crime above all else? Murder is worse, being left as a cripple can be worse? Being left too scared to leave the house after a serious assault can be worse on a person than a date rape.

The law needs changed but it doesn't need such righteous indignation over one particular type of assault. How many drunk men a year get less compensation for being assaulted? The problem is the law regards alcohol and culpability. Women aren't the only ones who get screwed over by this.

Can you hear the cries of 'WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ'?! I don't even have any energy left to continue ripping this shit to shreds. This is the worst kind of comment in some ways, where a small grain of truth buried amongst astounding ignorance is inflated into hand-wringing self-righteousness.

Then you have the fucking Mail website, where the most poisonously vicious articles are written by women and published alongside conveniently half- (or, as was in the case of Peaches Geldof, fully) naked pictures of younger female celebrities, so that the women can tut and feel good about themselves, and the men can do the same while having a surreptitious wank. I patently refuse to link to the pictures of PG. I don't like her, but she doesn't deserve to appear naked in the Mail in an article which slags her off for having tattoos. One of the top-rated comments when I saw it was 'What the hell does she think she looks like?'

What the fuck is it to you, eh, armchair-moralist? And what the fuck is it to the Mail? It's supposed to be an outraged comment, but it turns out to be unwittingly insightful, because of course it doesn't matter what she thinks she looks like. Evidently, she likes the tattoos. What MATTERS is that the Mail are on hand 'to do the proper thing' and trash her for them.

To top all of this off, I'm taking a course on 'British Culture In the 1950s' which has all the fun you'd expect - a surge in evangelical Christianity, colonialism, racism... but, reassuringly enough, the thing that seems to unite all the writers so far is misogyny. Don't worry fellas, when you feel that Africans and Englishmen are irreconcilably different, you can always unite in your disdain for women! I've just read City of Spades by Colin MacInnes. MacInnes was openly gay and had a major sexual obsession with black men, especially Africans.

Now, you would hope that a gay man, as a fellow sufferer of persecution, would try to avoid the rampant stereotyping and mistreatment of women that liberally (haha) garnishes 1950s novels (let's not forget, it was the era of James Bond). I got really excited when I 'met' an independent and capable female character early on, who held a senior position in the BBC. I was optimistic about a girl who was quite shy and meek, but by no means a pushover, and her sister who had apparently chosen to live with a Gambian man.

Alas, it was not to be, my friends! The BBC woman turned out to be a frigid bitch who 'discovered' her femininity upon falling in love with one of narrating characters, and then got punished for this by losing her job when she revealed she was pregnant by him in court, as well as losing the baby. Of course, she'd learnt her lesson by this point: 'All I deeply regret... is losing my child.' Yes, because you've seen the light now, and you realise that other than as a mother, you don't really matter. Without your 'fragment of him' that you loved, your life is meaningless.

The shy girl got knocked up and abandoned by the same character - after he had lived off her and perpetually left her by herself at home - just as his father had done to her mother. Her sister turned out to be a prostitute, pimped out by her own husband and last appearing in the novel in hospital because her husband had cut her face up after getting out of jail.

Of Colin MacInnes:

'I didn't like him at all,' says Diana Melly, who was a showgirl at the Cabaret Club in Soho along with Christine Keeler. 'His idea of me was just the wife with young children who cooked lunch all the time. I don't know what gave him the idea that he could get so drunk and be so rude after having his lunch made.'

This peculiarly male-homosexual disdain for women is nothing new to me, it's just really depressing. MacInnes is another one who was 'liberal' by the standards of his time. Why is it impossible for people, if they can stand other races, religions, etc., to not be the same about women?

As a socially-liberal feminist, it feels like the worst kind of betrayal when men who claim to be liberal/left-wing suddenly reveal themselves to be misogynists, or unfurl the handy caveat of saying 'I'm not a feminist.' You feel very alone, all of a sudden. If feminism doesn't have a home within the liberal-left community, then where is there a safe space for feminists? Liberal Conspiracy held a BlogNation event some time back (which I didn't attend, because I didn't 'matter' enough, and I doubt I do even now!), and the subject of trying to engage with the feminist blogosphere was raised by Sunny.

Let me offer a much-belated tip to you, Sunny: why don't you call bullshit on your ilk who profess misogynistic views? That would be certainly preferable to the following dubious comment you left on the Valentine's thread, in response to Jennie Rigg:

You see, the thing is women, rather like men, ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS. We don’t all think the same, and there is no sure fire way to please us.

Well, yes and no. Everyone’s an individual… as everyone likes to think. But people also behave in remarkably predictable ways.

Excuse me? The Libertarian, a white, middle-class man (probably the sort who Chris Dillow would loathe) who initially identified as right-wing (now, he's not so sure, because he's actually socially-liberal on the whole - what do you think I am, insane?!) has proven to be much more a feminist than some people *coughs and glances upwards* who claim to be, even though he didn't initially consider himself one.

So yes, you can bet that I've been disillusioned this week. Though it's been an accumulation of things, not just current affairs. The stuff about 'men are responsible for the banking crisis, bring in more women!' was another stab in the weeping lesion. BRING PEOPLE IN ON MERIT, and yes, we need more females in that atmosphere, but merit needs to come into the equation and we need to start challenging society's assumptions. Banking is a deeply sexist sector from what I've (repeatedly) read, it doesn't surprise me. Women within that field need to be able to know that they won't be forced to go to strip clubs and act like 'one of the boys' just to retain their jobs. I really think that bosses, the people in charge of recruitment and management decisions, should be made to show proof of feminist credentials. Male OR female. It doesn't have to be anything major - just interview the women they've worked with previously, if need be.

Anyway, I'm hauling my tired ass off to bed. I was feeling very low, but then I remembered - hey, I'm seeing The Libertarian tomorrow! How childishly excited I got! I actually wanted to send my friend a text about it as if it were news. I fought the urge to mention it in in my Facebook status. He smiles with his whole face (eyes AND mouth), and what a smile it is. Good God. I'd take his over those of cherubs or female figures in classic art anyday. The Mona Lisa? You are the weakest link, goodbye. Next to green/hazel eyes, rosy cheeks, a freckled nose and the most effortlessly alluring pair of lips I have ever known, the Italian broad can just go hang (oh wait, she is already - in the Louvre *drumroll and crash*). Admittedly, I can't help noticing his lips because the top of my head only comes up to his chin. Still, why quibble? I'm getting feminist-kissed!

Recommended Reading:

Another bigot emerges, seemingly from nowhere.

Intelligence in women - still a topic for debate in the 21st century...

Two really good pieces on women and cinema.

Upskirting - warn all the women you know.

Another woman comes along to tell us that in fact, if we willingly prop up the patriarchy, it can only be good for us. Cheezus.

More Sex Please...

I'm a feminist. Hur hur. I am using this post to clarify what I said in the previous post, and also to talk about other 'ish.

I'd like to say here and now, just in case it wasn't clear from the previous post that I'm not against waiting until marriage to have sex at all. Provided that it's actually a choice (some people are strong-willed/religious enough to do that) - a genuine choice and the person has sufficient awareness of contraception, diseases and their body parts to not do themselves any harm, then great. If they've found the right person and yadda, yadda, yadda, then more power to them. It is genuinely admirable.

That's just it though - when it's not a choice, but a cultural expectation, we're entering Whole Different Kettle-o'-Fish Land. All too often, it IS a cultural expectation, conveniently underpinned by misogyny. Worried that girls are getting pregnant too young? Hey! Don't get your knickers in a twist! You don't have to do anything as difficult as tell boys that they're just as responsible for the being that will be created. I mean, it's only 50% of their genetic material, and it's not like it's growing inside of THEM, right? Naaah, man, there's a much easier way to deal with it. Teach your girls to JUST SAY NO! Everyone knows they're the weaker sex anyway - you'd better drum it into them just to be safe.

I mean, girls are nothing but empty vessels, right? Shout that abstinence message right into their ears and it'll keep echoing delightfully around in their pretty little heads. They won't get pregnant, no sirree. They won't have sex.

... Except, as any fule kno, they will, because girls have desires too. Sometimes, even when they might not want to go 'all the way', a coercive boyfriend will tell them to do it 'if you love me', passing off a frankly galling selfishness that would have no place in REAL love under cover of emotional blackmail. Then, once they do, if they haven't used contraceps - that's right, up the spout! If they were told that 'abstinence is the only way,' then you can bet they're going to end up DOUBLY screwed.

Granted, the abstinence movement is bigger in the US than it is here, but there are things which make me think of it in this country too. Like this, for instance.

Why the flying fuck is The Times even giving this dumbfuck print-time, seriously? I was utterly UNsurprised to learn that the most prominent critic cited was affiliated with a religious body.

Simon Calvert, deputy director of the Christian Institute, attacked the leaflet, saying: “The idea that the government is telling families not to pass on their values [they're not... have you read the leaflet?] is outrageous.

“Preserving children’s innocence is a worthy goal. We would like to see more of that kind of language rather than this amoral approach where parents are encouraged to present their children with a smorgasbord of sexual activities and leave them to make up their own minds.”

Oh, Lord forbid that they should MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS! NOOOOOO! IT'LL BE SODOM AND GOMORRAH ALL OVER AGAIN, FORNICATING IN THE STREETS, RIVERS OF BLOOD...

(as opposed to the good ol' down-home repressed approach that some righteous Christians use to deal with their urges... Speaking of which, don't you just LOVE that the Pope not only didn't fire Cardinal Bernard Law, but transferred him, and then called for 'continuous prayer' to deal with the problem of paedophilia within the Church? Instead of like, y'know, doing something about it. Like firing those who do it, and recognising that it's PAEDOphilia - being attracted to children - NOT linked to those with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" as the Supreme Morons put it).

It beggars belief. I mean that literally. It reduces belief to beggary for the many Christians out there who are not utter morons - like Derek_M.

Seriously dude, if that's how you think, you should be sterilising people, because as soon as a human being is born, they are equipped with a fully-functioning (in most cases) mind of their own. The whole thing that's meant to be 'divine' about humanity is that they can choose and judge for themselves, not blindly follow the call of biology as the rest of the Animal Kingdom does. Adulthood is about children learning to make up their own minds. So, what do you suggest we do? Kill 'em when they're 18? Sterilise everyone just to be safe?

I thought of the abstinence movement here because what screamed out at me were the LIES, LIES, LIES in what Christofascist (sorry, had an attack of 'teh internets' there) Calvert said here:

"Preserving children’s innocence is a worthy goal."

It is, my frothing moron, it is. Don't think the warm glow of a universally-accepted statement is going to get you off though, because, you see, it doesn't apply to you. You're just a meaning-twisting liar like so many others out there.

You don't give two hoots about children's innocence. You want to amend that phrase to read 'Ensuring children's ignorance is a worthy goal' because that's what you mean. If you're worried about children's innocence, start taking bad parents to task - and I mean in a genuinely productive way, not through something like 'continuous praying' (snicker).

I think Mr. Calvert needs to have a read of this, if you ask me. The Virgin Mary might've done alright, but let me remind you, Mr. Calvert, that she was carrying the Son of God. Little girls out there who get pregnant are not all carrying the Son of God (wouldn't that be interesting!) and little boys who pick themselves up a nice STI or twelve and learn nothing about respecting women in the process are not Joseph. They ain't going to be visited in no dream by no angel, telling them to stand by her because they'll get fried otherwise!

And if the stuff about Alfie Patten's mother spreading the story to make money is true, then your rant is even worse than useless. People need money to live, especially in a recession, and if God doesn't come through for them but pre-marital teenage sex does... whatcha gonna do about it, huh?

Given that he hasn't even read the leaflet (it doesn't forbid passing on your values, it encourages it. All it does is (quite sensibly) warn against moralising when it comes to sex), I don't think there's many a strip more to be tearing off him. AND - perhaps most tragic of all - he confuses sexual activities with teaching kids about contraception and STIs. Good God.