Sex Workers' and self organisation

In this next installment of the ABC of feminism we have a guest post from Jane Watkinson who takes a look at some of the history of how sex workers have collectively organised to protect their rights.

The sex workers’ movement really took off in the 1970s as sex workers’ within Lyon, France occupied churches in protest against police corruption and treatment against sex workers. The direct action received international coverage, propelled the French Collective of Prostitutes and the English Collective of Prostitutes to form, as well as assisting with the development of many other sex workers’ organisations and collectives around the world.

Whilst sex workers’ organisation has existed for many years, the ‘prostitutes’ right movement’ came into its own in the 1970s; as the fight for sex workers’ rights to be considered with respect and seriousness became more prominent. The 1980s AIDS’ crisis was a double edged sword, as governments provided sex workers and health officials money to help sex workers gain access to preventative treatment and services such as condoms – but it also came with a reinforcement of the negative stigma associated with sex work through legitimising the view that sex workers are the ones who require mandatory testing and health surveillance, not the clients (most likely male).

Furthermore, AIDS funding for sex workers’ organisations has often been associated with an ‘exiting’ strategy. The USA only now provide funding for these organisations on the condition that they advocate for sex workers to exit the industry. This puts a strain on resources, especially given the legal situations of countries such as France where the possession of condoms can be attributed as evidence for ‘passive soliciting’. ‘Passive soliciting’ was introduced in the Domestic Security Bill in 2003 by Sarkozy and has been seen as a human rights attack, as the police often arrest sex workers based on their attitude or dress (even though dress was removed from the legal text after an amendment).

Nevertheless, not all community health organisations have suffered from these conditions. In France, the community health organisations posed in direct conflict with the social workers who took an abolitionist line. Furthermore, in Sonagachi, Kolkata, the sex workers’ AIDS organisation has over 60,000 members, with the Durbah Mahila Samanwaya Committee that runs the project even setting up a civic bank for the sex workers.

Gregory Gall documents sex workers’ organisation. He refers to the development and sophisticated progression of the movement, as the collectives and heath organisations were later complemented by the formation of trade unions for/by sex workers. Whilst Gall refers to the disappointment of sex workers’ unionisation across the world, he states that there have been relative success stories such as in the USA where Lusty Lady’s was unionised and turned into a sex workers’ cooperative. Within the UK, we have the International Union of Sex Workers; however, whilst the union has had relative success affiliated to the GMB specifically in the context of assisting lap dancers rights, it has various controversies surrounding their membership criterion that supposedly allows related groups such as pimps to join. Furthermore, there are concessions that their level of organisation has been limited – reasons for this however are hardly uncommon in regards to the sex workers’ movement at large.

There are problems with sex workers feeling ashamed because of the strong stigma attached to their work meaning they often feel unable to show their faces at protests, covering them up with masks. The laws surrounding sex work do not help with this; our own laws in the UK are a testament to this. Whilst it is legal to have commercial sexual services, there are numerous laws surrounding the industry that make it very dangerous for the sex workers involved to work. This is largely shaped by a ‘moral’ concern for keeping the ‘public’ areas ‘safe’; in consequence sex workers are given ASBOs, pushed into dark unsafe areas and prohibited to work together outside or indoors.

Internationally there are largely calls for decriminalisation of sex work where sex work would be recognised as legitimate work to be considered under existing work laws. There is a strong movements in countries such as France against state legislated brothels, especially given France’s history re brothels and the mandatory health tests that undermine sex workers’ movement and freedom. Regardless, some sex workers’ want brothels, others want designated areas so they can work on the street (managed zones, as designed by Liverpool and as ignored by the Labour government); illustrating the diversity amongst sex workers and the need to provide them space to air their views and arguments in public.

Labour were central to moving the UK closer to a prohibitionist stance. Nevertheless, there are countries such as New Zealand who have adopted a decriminalisation position (influenced by sex workers’ organisation). However, the UK have taken their influence from Sweden and its prohibitionist legal context, as women are treated as vulnerable ‘victims’ said to be in a false consciousness unaware of their experienced ‘coercion’. Sex workers’ organisation is often isolated from the feminist movement as it is polarised by these debates surrounding choice and coercion. Regardless, most feminists and researchers into sex work come to the sensible conclusion that sex workers’ are neither forced or freely choosing sex work – there is a complex mixture of both.

Whilst the sex workers’ movement has come a long way since the Lyon sex workers’ strikes, there are still many obstacles for sex workers to be given the rightful legal, cultural, social and economic recognition they deserve. There are strong moralist forces within countries such as France and the UK that dictate their policies around sex work, making it harder for sex workers to make a living.

However, sex workers’ organisation has illustrated profound resilience. The movement has developed in sophistication and whilst unionisation may not have been as successful as hoped with many unions rejecting sex work as ‘work’; there are real building blocks that sex workers can hold on to and work in correspondence to progressive forces to counteract the negative and moralistic constructions of sex workers that undermine their rights to public space and consideration.

Wankers live longer

I was reading the Mirror today and saw one of those 'scientific' reports. You know the sort I mean, the kind that prove women are genetically better at folding sheets or that gay people don't exist. Anyway, this one comes from the scientific laboratories of Dr Emmanuele Jannini who previously "discovered the G-spot" and has done no doubt worthwhile research into "female ejaculation".

In other words a tabloid friendly scientist rather than a finding useful things out scientist. As an aside I've always been curious about the way tabloids attack university courses on doctorates in Harry Potter or whatever and lap up scientific reports on whether women are funny or large breasts are interesting, which is surely just as much a waste of intellectual resources... but anyway, back on topic.

So, Jannini has discovered that having lots of sex makes you live longer. Good news for various historical Popes, less good news for Cliff Richard.

Actually it turns out there's a couple of caveats. First of all the research is about men despite the fact that the Mirror just says having lots of sex is good for you. Presumably all their readers are men, in which case that's perfectly reasonable.

It also turns out that it's based on the fact that if you cum a lot (men) you produce more testosterone which, apparently, leads to all sorts of health benefits (which I'm not sure is true but anyway). So the headline could just as well be "wankers live longer" leading to doctors proscribing the five knuckle shuffle.

The second caveat is that it has to be proper married sex not naughty extra-marital sex. No, no really, this is apparently the claim because "unfaithful men do worse because they are "also coping with the increased stress of their infidelity"."

Are we sure that unfaithful men are more stressed than faithful, or single, ones? They *might* be, but what's the evidence for this? How can I be sure that I'm not just reading a ready for tabloid pseudo-science report that says exactly what the tabloids want it to say reproducing their fetid ideology? Oh, I can't.

Thanks Mr Fry

At last someone has said it - straight men are the most oppressed out of everybody, or something. BBC2's favourite brain, Steven Fry has seen fit to let us in on his extensive knowledge of female sexuality and it bodes ill for the poor benighted straight male I can tell you.

You see, according to Fry, "The only reason women will have sex with [men] is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man". Well let's hope they don't have to pay that price too often, that would be horrible. I'm assuming this also means that lesbian relationships are mercifully sex free? Let's hope so.

Is this, perhaps, because his female friends (if any) have told him as much. Nope, quite the reverse in fact; “Of course a lot of women will deny this and say, ‘Oh, no, but I love sex, I love it!’ But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?" If by 'the way gay men do' he means with men, then yes frankly straight women *do* have sex with men. Snap!

So if women deny Fry's thesis and, as a gay man he doesn't have a huge back catalog of sexual experiences with women (no wonder as they're all frigid) what does he base this on. "If women liked sex as much as men there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas." Oh dear.

Look Fry, go to any city center on a Friday and Saturday night and behold - hundreds of ladies all out on the pull. For men. To have sex with. Preferably drunk, so they can't see them properly, ugly blighters.

The history of homophobic laws led to a culture of clandestine liaisons in shady spots where in-the-closet married men could indulge their behaviours without having to go through the 'shame' of being openly gay by having a partner actually share their life. Cottaging allowed some gay and bi-men to have sex with other men at a time when there were few other avenues, and the culture has stuck - not least because those problems have not entirely disappeared.

I'm sure cottaging is fun or whatever too so the tradition holds but because straight sex has never had the same stigma 'our' cruising areas are basically everywhere. We get to do it openly in the warm, with a glass in one hand and a fag in the other... hmmm... maybe I should rewrite that sentence... no, too lazy.

Anyway, I'd rather die than go dogging just as many gay men aren't massively interested in having sex in horrible public loos. So I think Mr Fry is wrong on this one and indulging in rather old fashioned stereotypes.

However, should he ever meet a woman on the set of QI (and I admit this is unlikely as it prefers all male panels, bless their nineteenth century cotton socks) he could at least pretend to be 'quite interested' if she cares to tell him just how ill-informed his opinions really are.

Is deception rape?

This is one of those stories which, when I first saw it, I thought it could not possibly be true - and then all the news agencies started reporting it.

The BBC reports that Sabbar Kashur, who has been under house-arrest for two years was sentenced to a further 18 months in jail for "rape by deception".

The pair met in Jerusalem and had sex that day. The woman later discovered that the man who had introduced himself as "Dudu", which is a nickname commonly used by Jews, apparently, is an Arab and was not interested in a serious relationship. He denies ever having said he was Jewish and that his nickname is one used by his friends and family, although he may not have helped his case when he said "My wife even calls me that".

In the court's ruling the judge, Zvi Segal, wrote: "If she had not thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious relationship, she would not have co-operated."

"The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price - the sanctity of their bodies and souls," the court judgement was quoted as reading.

I think that there's some really odd language going on there. Shall we start with "co-operated" when they mean "enthusiastically fucked him"? It looks to me that the judge is saying that women's role in sex is to passively allow men to have their way with them - otherwise how do you explain all this "sanctity of their bodies and souls" business?

I suspect the extraordinary judgement and sentence are a product of a revulsion on the part of the law that a Jewish woman was defiled by an Arab man, who is defined as a "smooth-tongued criminal" on the basis that he had consensual sex with a Jew whilst in possession of an Arab penis.

Neither side disputed that this woman met a guy she fancied and they decided to have sex on that first meeting. I don't think I'm being overly controversial by saying if you have sex with someone the first time you meet them it's quite likely that you don't know them very well and that it should not entirely surprise you if your new romance does not necessarily blossom into a life-time's love match.

If you only want to have sex with people who want to have a long-term relationship with you I advise a bit of differed gratification. If you don't mind having sex with people you may never meet again feel free to fuck on first meeting. Fill your boots, as it were.

That's fine and dandy, why should we know someone well if we want to have sex with them? We shouldn't be surprised though that a one-night stand did not end in either a serious long term relationship or that the other person wasn't 100% honest. A reasonable person would not expect to know someone well enough on first meeting to know whether they are an honest person.

A serious jail term isn't the appropriate response here.

Ethically it is quite possible this man hid the "shameful" fact that he's an Arab and was wrong to do so. He certainly hid the fact he was married. That pales in comparison to the ethics of having someone you were, up to that point attracted to, sent to jail when you find out they are an Arab. There are no Israeli Jews getting sent to jail for having affairs.

The "victim" in this case is someone who made a judgement call she later regretted - nothing more. That is her responsibility and no-one else's, and she certainly was not raped. If she'd made an error of judgement and found herself in a position where she was forced to have sex against her will, that would have been his responsibility and a (far longer) jail sentence would have been appropriate, but the undisputed facts show she wanted to have sex and approached Dudu with that in mind.

We cannot start having such a broad definition of rape that the seriousness of the crime becomes diluted by this sort of case.

Moreover the law should not be used to regulate our personal lives in this way. I'm certain that the fact that this man was an Israeli Arab is more than just an incidental fact here, but even if it wasn't the law's still wrong.

High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said a conviction of rape should be imposed any time a "person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him."

Well hold on, isn't this tantamount to criminalising adultery? In fact it criminalises all sorts of commonplace situations.

What if I don't mention my criminal record, or my model train collection or my secret desire to be rithlessly flogged with liquorice bootlaces? All things that might make a new lover regret having got involved in the first place. Under this definition any of these could find someone locked up and that has to be wrong.

Without going into too much detail I've had sex with women who, it turned out, had not been wholly truthful about themselves. Did these women rape me? No, of course not, jail would be a bizarre response. Were they unethical to be less than honest with me? I suppose so, but the law is not there to turn us all into saints - that's setting the bar unreasonably high.

This kind of paternalist attitude towards women's sexuality is not healthy and tends towards the idea that women are possessions that men must take good care of. We all make mistakes that we later regret, but when the state steps in to legislate the nuances of sexual relationships we're in very dangerous territory, all the more so when it becomes a crime to conceal your Arabic decent (although this man probably did not do this).

The law is not there to protect us every time we feel hurt or betrayed. It should not treat adults as children, nor should it lock up men for being Arabs.

Guest Post: Shot by both sides

In the next of my series of guest posts Charlotte Dingle, chief young person for the Greens, looks at whether there's homophobia in the gay community.

Greedy, untrustworthy, confused, lying, slutty, cowardly. I’ve been called all these things over the years, simply for being honest about the fact that my desire isn’t limited to one gender.

In a world which is slowly but surely getting its head round homosexuality, bisexuality seems to be the last taboo. People who would think twice before making a derogatory comment about a gay person still think it’s perfectly acceptable to suggest that bisexuals are great big sluts, unable to commit to monogamous relationships. As a bisexual woman, I have lost count of the number of times men have asked me for threesomes… or the times I’ve had both women and men say they’d never even consider dating me in case my desire for a ‘bit of the other’ got the better of me.

Bizarrely, the most prejudice I’ve encountered has been on the gay scene. It’s seen as some kind of betrayal, I think, that I’d dare run off and do the hetero thing at the same time as claiming my place in the gay community. They think I want the best of both worlds – in reality I am getting the worst, with hostility from both sides. The ‘B’ in LGBT often feels like it was added as an afterthought (well, actually, it was).

I grew up in a very liberal household, but even there I was taught that being bisexual wasn’t really the ideal way to be. I’ll never forget my Dad calling bisexuals “exotic”, as if it were some kind of decadent and affected behaviour… Oh, and my Mum calling them “sad” (in a melancholy sense, that is). Thankfully, both have (I hope) revised these opinions since I’ve grown up and tried to help them understand what bisexuality really means.

Then there are the folks who think bisexuals don’t exist. I’ve tied my brain in knots in the past, trying to work out if perhaps I am actually either gay or straight… and sometimes I’ve convinced myself for a while that I am one or the other, before someone cute comes along and blows my theory out of the water. The bottom line is, I have liberal friends and a liberal family and I work as editor of a magazine for lesbian and bisexual women. If someone was going to be too scared to admit they were a lesbian, it certainly wouldn’t be me. I certainly don’t date men in order to feel part of mainstream heterosexual society – I have no problem with walking down the road hand-in-hand with a woman.

Bisexuality falls along a spectrum, this much is true. I know there are girls who kiss their mates to turn their boyfriends on – and they like it just as much as Katy Perry did. I defend to the death their right to do this, but the fact is, they don’t account for all of us.

Anyway, if you’re waiting for me to ‘make my mind up’, you’ll be waiting a long time.

From the archives: Max Mosley and the policing of sexuality

In this celebration week one thing I'm going to do is to take a look back at the archives and repost some of those forgotten classics. Here's something I wrote for Stroppyblog in 2008 in the wake of revelations that Max Mosley had been visiting a sex dungeon.

Frankly all the papers have been very naughty. Very naughty indeed, and I have a basement flat that they must proceed to immediately for their proper chastisement. It really is not on plastering what are private goings on all over place. What's the use of being a fabulously wealthy son of Britain's most prominent wartime fascist if you can't have a private life, eh?

The term public interest is a strange one in the context of the Max Mosley sex scandal. Of course the public is interested, we all want to know whose bits and pieces have been going into whose whatchamacallit, but there does not seem to be a compelling democratic requirement for us to know the first thing about Mosley’s proclivities “sick” or otherwise.

Some of the discussion in the press seems to be of the opinion that because Mosley does the kind of things that only former Blue Peter presenters would contemplate he is not fit to be in charge of that stupid game where ridiculous looking cars whiz about until time itself seems to be standing still. For instance the Telegraph’s Kevin Garside thinks that the revelations around the case “paint Max in a deeply unflattering light, and more readily associates him with the kind of behavior unsuited to one running an international body like the FIA.”

Really? Frankly I could do with that one being spelt out for me because I'm not getting the connection. Perhaps he's called for the driver who comes in last to be stripped and lashed around the track and it's only now people have realised he had ulterior motives beyond simply spurring the others on to do better. However, unless this is so I am nowhere near convinced.

Admittedly when Garside describes Mosley’s sex life as “rich and varied” it’s difficult to know whether he is referring to the fact that Mosley’s five “friends” cost him £500 each and therefore he is regularly indulging a habit beyond the reach of most - even as a Christmas treat. That doesn’t include the reported £ 35,000 yearly upkeep of his fully equipped oubliette either. Yes, obscenely "rich" even.

Incidentally, there seems to have been very little focus on the prostitution angle of the case (and some of the evidence seems to be casting him in more of a pimp than a client) but there has been a great deal of censorious frowning about the so-called Nazi connotations of his ritualized abuse. As if the real social conditions of the women involved is far less interesting than the make believe games they were being paid to indulge in.

Mosley denies there were any Nazi overtones to his orgy, even though one of his captors was wearing a Luftwaffe uniform and a fellow prisoner pleaded with her guards that they were “Aryans” and so did not deserve to be harshly treated. Obviously there were Nazi overtones – but so what? They weren’t organizing a BNP branch, daubing local shops in swastikas or running for office as far right candidates – they were (or at least he was) having fun, mucking around – and they were not to know they were being videoed, so any sensitivities about other people’s feelings are irrelevant because for five out of six of them this was a private function, even if one of them was the wife of an MI5 agent. They just weren’t to know that the News of World would be posting selected highlights on the net.

In “Spanking good fun” I described the common “old stereo type of the elite white male in a powerful job by day and lashed to a dungeon rack by night” and that seems to fit our Max rather neatly. But the stereotype holds our attention because of the contrast between real world power and the make believe powerlessness - not because it reveals the old white guy's true nature, but because it reveals an unexpected side to it.

Some political people seem to be confused because they’ve mistaken sexual games for real oppression. Now obviously slap and tickle without the tickle is not everyone’s cup of tea. Fair enough, but that’s no excuse to go around tutting and getting sniffy at consenting activities you were never meant to find out about, let alone invited to.

In fact it’s worse when people start talking about BDSM as if it’s some sort of bizarre acted out therapy where he’s been working out “issues” with his father. I don’t get turned on by going round building sites, tapping pipes and then shaking my head sadly (which is how I imagine my Dad at work, perhaps the reality was different) and I don’t think it’s an appropriate way of sorting out any father/son issues that may or may not exist. Maybe it’s just that he’s into a particular form of kinky sex, and so he does it. I don't think you'll be getting any great psychological insights just from the press reports though.

Obviously there are some personal ethical issues involved. He’s been getting up to this for decades and forgot to mention it to his wife. That, dude, is not cool. There’s also the prostitution thing, I don’t think it stops being prostitution just because they’re getting paid large amounts of money and appear to be rather happy about the whole thing (which is perfectly possible). So there are power issues here, but it isn't the caning that's the issue.

Whatever the wrongs and rights of this I still find it difficult to get excised and start ranting about his deviance or immorality. I mean he’s not one of those back to basics Johnnies is he? He’s never openly nailed his personal morality to the mast – that just isn’t his kink - so I don't think it's our place to lash him for it. No matter how much he begs.

But still some want to send in the Nazi sex police. The weird thing is the press appears to be taking the position that kinky sex is alright, but German kinky sex? That’s just sick!

Take this from the Guardian when it was put to the reporter that in fact it was just an English dungeon fetish and had nothing to do with the Nazis the journo's patriotic feathers are ruffled and he replies "I know of no English prison that beats its inmates with a stick until their buttocks bleed. I know of no English prison where the warder will deliver those blows and count them out in German. I know of no English prison where the inmates then have sexual intercourse with the warder who has just given those blows." Whilst, of course, the real Nazi regime was just like the fantasy played out for Mr Mosley. Maybe someone needs a history lesson.

We should reject the policing of sexuality even by people who are progressive on other issues. The simple fact is that something can be an expression of a deep desire without being a literal exposition of what you’d like to really happen. Dressing up in a Nazi uniform for kicks does not make you an advocate of genocide – even if you’re a member of the Royal family.

Ah, I’ll go further, because I see some thin ice I’d like to skate on. Some people have rape fantasies, they do, it’s a fact. It does not mean they actually want to rape or be raped they are simply drawing from the deep, dark well of sexuality and if you are one of them it does not make you a bad person and you shouldn’t spend even one second feeling guilty about those fantasies.

Just as a dream does not mean you actually want to play strip poker with William Shatner at the local library (although, actually, that might be pretty cool) a fantasy or a fetish is just that and is not *real* in the sense that you're likely to act it out elsewhere. If you can’t see the difference between being caned by someone in a sexy uniform and the historic horrors of the Third Reich then you have officially left the building of free thinking and joined the temple of dogma where they burn the mention of "incorrect things" because they think that means they will no longer exist.

This is why you need health and safety

This is why you need health and safety at work. What is it with racing and sadomasochism? First we had Mosley with his extended spanking and dungeon settings and now the owner of RPM Motorsport, an ex-motorcycle racing champion Robin Mortimer has been found dead at an S&M club in Belgium, 'Torment Towers'.

Two women, Mistress Lucrezia and Mistress Juno, have been arrested although it looks like the authorities do not suspect that they meant to kill him, which only really leaves the possibility that some sort of violent session got out of hand and was not conducted in a safe manner.

According to the prosectution he may have choked on a rubber ball or died after taking an anaesthetic designed to prolong sadistic sex sessions. Legalised brothels and proper health and safety legislation and it's all so much safer.

Is there something about petrol or high speeds that encourages this sort of thing - or is it just a coincidence?

Who are we?

I was at a very interesting play last night which explored some ideas about who we are. At one point there was a discussion about whether your sexuality is anyone else's business. Obviously, as long as your not hurting anyone else, the answer is no, but this is not a majority opinion as there's always someone ready to pronounce on who should and should not do what.

The borders of 'normal' are constantly being policed to make sure transgressors feel our wrath. The fact that these borders shift over time does not make them feel just as immutable, just as timeless - even though such an idea that they are not constantly shifting is patently absurd.

During my sociology degree I'd have called this a question of 'norms' and 'deviance', in other words what we take to be normal standards for society and those who deviate from it. One of the interesting things about this is that things like murder or suicide are seen as great taboos and far from normal behaviour while, in reality they are literally everyday occurrences that have 'rates' that can be statistically measured and effected.

That's why they use the term 'norms' rather than 'normal' because breaking norms is normal, if not the norm.

So why do some people feel that the fact that some people are gay, for example, is any of their business. Why get angry about adult consenting behaviour that has no bearing on your life? Why do people get violently attacked, even killed, for daring to go about their daily lives without shame?

I think a large element of this is the way we define ourselves, which you might think of as a very individualist act, but it is in fact a social one. So much of who we are is bound up with others. Where we work, say, or who our family is, our position in the community, our academic achievements or friendship networks. Even those aspects of ourselves that feel very private are in fact inevitably bound up with social categories. A private writer of poetry is still perpetuating a socially created category, and using learned forms to articulate their emotions.

In fact I'd go so far to say that we define ourselves in relation to other people, often unconsciously and we have a tendency to categorise and formalise what is really quite fluid. We might think someone is 'sexy' or 'brainy' or 'witty' or 'emotional' but will also recognise that this is just one part of that person, more complex than a label and often a part that may be hidden under the surface in different circumstances.

When we dig into these ideas they become difficult, but they rarely create problems as we rub along in our daily lives.

These boxes that we put others in help us to place ourselves, to define ourselves. A box with firm and clear edges finds it more easily fits when stacked with others. It's safer that way because you don't have to define yourself anew everyday and when you find yourself in a social situation it isn't a terrifying venture into the unknown because everyone is meant to stick to the rules, even though they don't.

So if you start blurring those edges, redefining sexuality or stepping outside of the normal dress code or ways of speaking then you're doing something extremely scary. You're changing the rules. If your sexuality has fallen out of the socially accepted box then what's to stop mine doing the same? My ideas about myself are challenged and by being 'different' you challenge the whole basis of the shape of society when you wear lipstick with your goatie beard.

Those edges of what is acceptable isn't just socially policed, that policing itself helps define what is and is not acceptable and sometimes gets produced even when no deviance has actually been exhibited. If gay people are beaten up if they are open about their sexuality it reinforces where the line is. The bigots are not just unhappy about other's behaviour, they actively want to create, through their bigotry, what kind of world we live in.

Those Primark Bikinis

I don't know if you've seen the news that Primark have stopped selling padded bikinis for children (pictured) but this mini-moral panic has thrown up some really interesting issues to my mind.

On PM tonight (about half an hour in) they covered the fact that Primark had taken the item off sale and donated all profits to a children's charity.

Shy Keenan, an advocate for child protection, had been part of the campaign against the bikinis and made a very clear case against. Whilst I appreciated her tone, for example she repeated a number of times that she did not want anyone to live a "risk averse" life, I do think that a few of the things she said was less helpful than they could have been.

However, although the radio interview was conducted fairly sensibly she did say in The Sun "It never fails to amaze me just how many High Street household names are now prepared to exploit the disgusting 'paedophile pound'." In case people think The Sun might have made this up this is a phrase taken directly from her website.

I don't believe there is any phenomenon that is properly described by the phrase 'paedophile pound'. There are some rather tacky and stupid items like lap dancing kits for kids that pop up occasionally but the objection to these is not that they are bought by paedophiles but that they encourage kids to sexualise too early and in a very distorted, commercialised way.

I also believe her statement is intended to give the impression that you can't go into any of these 'many High Street household names' without seeing goods designed for sale specifically to paedophiles. This is not the case at all. It's dangerous hyperbole in an area where we need to encourage a measured response.

I don't want to get too pedantic over the radio interview because, in fairness to her, she may well have been grappling towards saying something that she didn't quite articulate the way she would have wanted, but never-the-less I think it's worth looking at the claims she made about these bikinis.

Here is the most controversial sample;

"We shouldn't be doing anything to help and facilitate [paedophiles] just don't dress your child up like a sexy adult, it's not terribly helpful."

[She was asked whether she thought there was a link between these bikinis and paedophilia.]

"There are paedophiles everywhere, you are never going to find areas where there are children where there aren't paedophiles. I'm suggesting again you have to live a risk averse life but I don't think you have to do things to encourage their attention and certainly a child dressed in extremely sexualised outfits would attract their attention."

Now, it seems to me there are some factual errors here. We can look at the bikini and make a decision about whether we think the pic above is an example of "extremely sexualised outfits". Unwise, yes. Tacky, yes. Extremely sexualised? That's a real stretch and, I think, more a product of her perspective on the issue than objectively true. It seems to me that she's reacting against her idea of the product not the product itself.

Secondly, it is just not true to say there are "paedophiles everywhere". It is not responsible to say everywhere you find children you will find paedophiles. Perhaps she was trying to make a more general, moderate point - possibly - but the effect is to cast a shadow over all adult-child relations whilst ignoring the extremely basic point that "stranger danger" is not the key issue when it comes to child protection, but those adults with direct responsibility for a child's safety.

The key phrase that made my ears prick up here was the idea that the way you dress your child "may help and facilitate" paedophiles. This is a new version of the idea that women who wear short skirts are somehow partially responsible if they get raped. This is plain wrong.

Those who abuse children are not enticed into abusing by kids dressing like adults. They abuse kids because they have a sick and distorted sexuality that makes them focus sexually on children. They are neither helped nor facilitated by a parent's choice of their kids clothing.

Like the ridiculous media furor over the "panic button" for a Facebook we have these campaigns for things that will have absolutely no effect on the number of kids that get abused whilst simultaneously raising the fear of abuse in society and distorting people's view of society as one that is full of dangers and those dangers are other people.

I'm not sad to see these silly padded bikinis taken off the shelves but it is quite wrong to imply that the cause of child abuse is children behaving and dressing like adults. Kids are not to blame if they've been abused, no matter what they wear.

Debating policy: prostitution

One of the interesting discussions that we'll be having next week at Green Party conference is on our prostitution policy. Whilst there's no motion this time there are two workshops aimed at rethinking our current policy - a policy I've expressed some pride in on a number of occasions.

In short our current policy, which was developed in liaison with organisations representing sex workers themselves, is aimed at taking the criminality out of the industry, pro-unionisation and enabling women (and men) to be safe, working in environments of their own choosing.

There will be two fringes at conference, the first (Friday at noon) is hosted by Eaves Housing for Women which describes itself as a "Debate on the demand for prostitution and human rights". Eaves oversees the high profile and heavily government funded Poppy Project which works with trafficked women.

The second is at four on the Saturday "Prostitution – is it time to update our policy?" which has Jenny Jones, Caroline Lucas, Sandrine Levêque (of Object) who will be arguing for us to change our policy and Natalie Bennett who will be the case for the defence.

Now, leaving aside the fact that there are two fringes booked both aimed at changing our policy on the same issue with one outnumbered speaker allowed to argue for the Party's policy, I'd like to say that this looks like a bit of push to at the least tone down our liberalisation message and at worst will be for greater emphasis on law enforcement, sidelining the views of those sex workers and advocates we consulted when formulating our original policy.

For my money policy should be directed towards helping the vulnerable protect themselves - by joining unions, by forming co-operatives, protected at work by legislation rather than criminalised. Our focus should be on the rights of the sex worker not the criminalisation of sex work.

Whilst the trade remains illegal those who work in the industry will be disadvantaged, and even where it is just the clientele that are criminalised, sex workers themselves say it makes them more vulnerable to attack and leaves them on the wrong side of the law.

I certainly hope that these fringes do not mark the beginning of the end of what I regard as one of the best social policies in the Party's manifesto. I guess I'll just have to attend the fringes and see what happens.

Does the Pope shit on the poor?

We all know that the Pope refuses to use a condom, no matter how much you beg him. He's famous for it. On his African tour he has been speaking on the sex issue saying that "A Christian can never remain silent". Good job the Vatican's got thick walls then I suppose, don't want to keep the nuns awake any more than we have to.

Benedict XVI (pictured here dispensing sex tips) was greeted on the first leg of his tour by Cameroon's President Paul Biya who has been President for almost 27 years, surrounding himself with much the same people for his entire rule. But his aging government has not retained power through murder and torturing political opponents. That would be wrong, it's just their hobby.

However, Biya may be a murderous strongman but this doesn't stop him being a "staunch catholic" and having a hearty welcoming ceremony with the Pope on his arrival. Just because Cameroon is the second worst for journalists in Africa should not blind us to the fact that it clearly isn't the worst then! Hurray for democracy.

Although the Pope could have used the flight over to bone up on Amnesty International's reports on Cameroon he spent most the time telling journalists how many friends he has in the church (oh oh) and defending his decisions over bringing right wing screwballs back into the fold. Isn't the Church full of that sort already? Did the Church really need a top up?

Anyway, when Benedict XVI isn't rubbing shoulders with the local elites he's looking after the interests of the poor and the needy by telling them off for having sex with each other. After all, if he didn't do his best to prevent the AIDS epidemic what would he tell his grand kids? That he just flounced about in a dress all day? For shame.

The other good news is that because the Catholic Church does everything for the benefit of the poorest and most needy in the world they have decided to donate their huge fortunes to the efforts to do good works in the world. That's right - they are selling off the palaces, the huge tracts of land, the art works, emptying out the the Swiss bank accounts, the lot. Well, I expect they'll announce that anytime soon.

They'll get right on to that directly after they've finished with the sex tips. For example, one Vatican official said that in the Church "The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing". Maybe that way it feels like someone else is doing it.

Case study: Abortions in Iran

I was struck by this short piece about unmarried sex in Iranian "youth" in the Guardian yesterday.

You see it seems that Iran is sliding into the sexual abyss with greater numbers than ever committing the heinous sin of sex *before* marriage. I know that many of you will not have realised that such an act is even possible - but allow me to reassure you, it certainly is.

I think it's safe to say that Iran is what we call a "conservative country" that officially frowns on activities like drinking, homosexuality and sex outside of marriage - although these sanctions are not universally supported. Despite setting up a fund a little while ago (the brilliantly named Reza love fund, named after the Imam Ali al-Rida, pictured) to encourage young people to get married, the average age of marriage continues to increase. If the heady aphrodiasic qualities that the thought of the Imam must surely induce cannot stem the tide I do not know what could.

One in four young people admitted (to the state run agency) to sex before marriage and more than one in ten of these cases have resulted in illegal, backstreet abortions. By my calculations these figures (which I suspect are an under-estimate in the context) mean that comes to just under half a million abortions conducted in unsafe, illegal conditions.

There are too many ifs and hows connected to the survey, so I don't want to get hung up on the numbers, but what is clear is that the laws against abortion have not prevented abortions rather they simply shift where those abortions take place and serve to endanger the lives of women, although accurate figures on this don't seem to exist, understandably.

It's illegal for the medical profession to take part in abortions, for instance Article 624 describes the Islamic punishment for those who were involved in abortion:

"If the doctor, the obstetrician, the pharmacist, the surgeon, or anyone who claims to be a doctor, an obstetrician, a pharmacist, and a surgeon provide the tools needed for abortion or become involved in the act of abortion, they will face 2 to 5 years in prison and they should also pay the blood money determined by the law." [the fine is determined by the term of the pregnancy]

Considering the context where having a child outside of marriage could have severe social repercussions the pressure to have an abortion is in fact massively *increased* by the social conservatism of society, rather than decreased. We know from Sarah Palin's tribe that abstinence only sex ed. isn't much use, combine this with injunctions against pre-marital sex and the illegality of abortions and you have a lethal combination.

What's to blame for this lamentable trend of women going about having it off willy nilly?

Hojatoleslam Ghasem Ebrahimipour, a sociologist, told Shabestan news agency that the trend was due to the availability of premarital sex, and feminism among educated women. "When a woman is educated and has an income, she does not want to accept masculine domination through marriage," he said.

Well, that's clear then. Ignorance and poverty - the solution to the world's ills.

It's good to bear in mind that there have been attempts to legalise limited rights to abortions (such as in cases where the child might be born with severe disabilities) which the Iranian Parliament passed, but the Council of Guardians (which must approve all new legislation) refused to ratify the legislation, although early abortion is still legally allowable in cases where the mother's life is threatened by the pregnancy.

There's a real difficulty of promoting sexual health in a country where women's rights campaigners are jailed, their publications suppressed and even when bills are passed by Parliament can be binned by a council of twelve religious bigwigs. It should come as no surprise that in a modern nation like Iran people (of all ages) like to have sex with each other regardless of the law. When those laws end up endangering the lives of women, even leaving aside the other very important issues, they need to be reconsidered.

There are progressive voices inside Iran who seek change on these issues, but their struggle is an uphill one. They need to contend not just with the undemocratic tendencies of the regime but with a wide conservative consensus in the country that will be difficult to shift without broader access to what we might, for convenience, call free speech.

p.s. twelve hours left to vote in my Iran poll (right)

Kissing warning: health and safety gone mad!

With the news that a young woman in China has become partially deaf from kissing (supposedly), readers of the China Daily were warned "While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution"!

Doctor Li explains that "The inner ear is connected to the mouth through a tube, whose chief function is to equalize the pressure between the two... In this case, the kiss reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear." Ouch.

Am I alone in thinking that if her partner's technique involved enough *suck* to pop her eardrum it probably was not the most enjoyable experience anyway - deafness aside. Although, let's not be sexist, perhaps the woman was to blame. Perhaps she was attempting to inflate him like a puffer fish and did herself a mischief in the process. Again, I'm betting this was not the world's greatest smooch, even before the unfortunateness.

In others words they were doing it wrong. In which case, surely, the papers should not be advising "caution" when puckering up, to curb a non-existent epidemic of "kiss of deaf", but rather should be providing expert guides and masterclasses in kissing to raise the general standard and promote well being.

Curious how the press always seems more ready to say "sex is dangerous" than "let's promote best practice" lest it seems to be encouraging lascivious conduct. Which it would be obviously.

Dubai: Prison for sex beach pair

I was waiting for the blogosphere to start commenting on this and it hasn't happened - so I suppose I'll have to. A man and woman have been jailed for three months (although they are on bail awaiting an appeal) for getting up to the kind of lascivious behaviour we've come to expect from UK citizens abroad.

Most of the British Press has reported this as a straight 'Brits fall foul of Dubai's strict sex laws' story but there is a bit more to it than that. It's true that in Dubai couples are forbidden to kiss and homosexuality is outlawed, which is clearly very harsh and wrong, but the charges against the pair involved include having sex in public (which is also illegal here, sort of), drunken behaviour (ditto) and assaulting a police officer (which is fine in the UK, but only after night fall).

So when the Times talks about "Arab values" and Dubai's "slender claim to modernity" I was rather left wondering whether it was the assaulting the police officer, the public lewd behaviour or the drunkenness that was specifically breaching "Arab values" and dragging the region back from "modernity".

When the Guardian says they had "fall[en] foul of the strict Islamic laws" you're left to ponder whether they're reporting on the case or just passing judgement on Islam and it's strict "no attacking policemen" ways. I mean it comes to something when Arabs start locking up white people doesn't it? It's not like he was a real policeman - he didn't even have a bobbies helmet or anything.

As I understand it the affair all started after the two executives attended an all you can drink champagne brunch. They had been drinking for some time when they went to the beach together. At this point a policeman cautioned them for their behaviour and wandered off. It's then alleged the pair started having sex, which they deny, although it's probably irrelevant when you consider that they admit “kissing and canoodling” which is illegal.

The policeman returned and was probably a bit irritated that instead of taking his friendly warning to heart the couple had upped the stakes. At this point the lady in question became abusive, assaulted him and waved her shoe in his face. She and her partner have now found themselves on the wrong end of a three month sentence because of it (which has been seen as lenient as the judge could have sent them down for six years).

If the pair had done the same thing here they would probably have been held over for the night and possibly given a caution for drunk and disorderly (although I might be wrong about that). Clearly there is a difference between the legal systems and I do prefer ours - but I'm not going to treat these two as victims of an injustice when they're clearly morons who think that having a tax free executive job in Dubai makes them a cut above ordinary people, particularly the locals with their funny ways.

I think I'll leave it to the British Press to use this as a stick to beat Islamic countries with and let them come to the defence of behaviour in other circumstances they would usually decry as anti-social behaviour. Whilst I don't think these should go to jail I do think that if you poke a bear it bites you. If they can serve as an example to other stupid, rich bigots to help them mind their manners a little more, then at least some good will come out of this.

New Poll: Sex with pupils - good idea / bad idea?

Thanks to everyone who voted in the What do you think of the US bailout plan? poll. Here are the results.

Good idea - it's a necessary measure	25%
Only if funded by a tax on the very rich - otherwise no dice	39%
There's no need for it - things aren't that bad	2%
Absolutely not - it will make things worse	18%
Don't know, could be the right thing	4%
Don't know, but it feels wrong	10%

Initially no one was voting for either of the don't know options - which I thought was odd for such a tricky subject, but we had a few people wade in at the last minute which I think helps balance the whole thing out a little.

We have a new poll as of now which is;

If a teacher has sexual contact with a sixth form pupil it is a sexual offense.

This time I'm giving you just two options, yes or no.

For those of you watching the news you'll know this is because the NASUWT general secretary, Chris Keates, has told her union conference that teachers who have affairs with their charges who are over the age of consent should only be subject to professional sanctions rather than, as it presently stands, be prosecuted and placed on the sex offenders register. Controversial stuff perhaps.

Personally I'm ambivalent and would appreciate any guidance on this. It seems to me that the sex offenders register is a sledgehammer to crack a nut sometimes. When you have a teacher who kissed a 17 year old placed on the same register as Gary Glitter it does make you wonder how useful the list is, no matter how creepy that teacher might be.

Keates told the conference;

"Clearly there have to be appropriate disciplinary sanctions in the school where a teacher works to make sure that inappropriate relationships don't develop.

"But it does seem a step too far, when there has been a consensual relationship, to put that person on the sex offenders register when, in fact, they could have a perfectly legitimate relationship with an 18-year-old at another school."

To be clear then we're not talking about non-consensual acts, or with kids under sixteen, but specifically about sexual relations between teachers and charges over the age of consent. Clearly they have a duty of trust and responsibility over young adults, but does the law as it stands create a double standard for teachers, as Keane claims.

Celebs, Filth, and legal history

Last year a civil servant from Westoe wrote a blog post. This month he is before the courts under the Obscene Publications Act, which aims to protect people from "being depraved and corrupted". If it says that why isn't The Economist in court every week you say? To which I reply - get real dude!

Septicisle has done his research and our civil servant clearly has some sort of torture-rape-fantasy thing going on having written a number of times on the same theme. The piece in question, which is still online, Girls (Scream) Aloud, is poorly written puerile tripe about the famous girl band members being kidnapped, raped and murdered. Please don't click the link if you are likely to be shocked by a potentially illegal and certainly obscene story involving torture.

Personally I didn't find it that shocking. I did keep tutting throughout, although this was due to the clunky overuse of the same terms over and again. Buy a thesaurus man! Either I'm hopelessly jaded or getting depraved and corrupted is a lot duller than I remember. I'd add to that if the extraordinarily sick SAW movie series aren't prosecuted then this blog post certainly has no business being at the sharp end of the law.

However, it is a disturbing case. Clearly the writer is fixated on pop clones, dazzled by celebrity culture in a most distasteful way. Not the stuff of fantasies at all I'd have thought. These incredibly unerotic eroticised commodities are hardly fit subjects for obsession, and it does a disservice to us all to pretend that they are.

It's almost as obnoxious as the golden statue of Kate Moss by Marc Quinn or that terrible statue of the sub-Tiffany wannabe Brittany Spears. I mean we know that artists can be as vacuous as everyone else, but why they would want to flaunt the fact is anybody's guess. Art's meant to deepen our sensibilities isn't it?

This anemic version of sexuality draws on a set of people that don't even look the way we think they look. We only see them after the make-up, dresses, lighting, posing, choosing of the correct image and then photoshopping has had its way. Not that I want to cut off anyone's legs or hang them up on hooks you understand - quite the reverse.

These women, in fact most women in the media, are presented in such a shallow way that there is nothing to say about them that isn't shallow itself. We're given nothing else but the images which tricks us into thinking that maybe that's all there is to them. Substanceless fancies. No wonder they make such poor subjects for sick erotic fiction.

I'd say that this whole identikit sexuality business is pretty unappealing. Surely there's a danger in allowing the consuming of images to become our key sexual focus because, as the saying goes, you are what you eat, and I'd prefer a rather more substantial meal.

Who's in bed with the oil industry?

Literally in this case. It appears that the government and the oil industry are unethical. I know, who *would* have thunk it? An industry directly responsible for world ecological and social problems on a hither too unseen scale - and you say they don't do ethics? Me oh my!

For those of you who'd like the gos it seems that a whole bunch of US government officials responsible for the ""royalty-in-kind" programme under which energy companies barter oil and gas to the government in return for permission to drill on federal land" have been caught with their drill bits in the slick stuff.

It seems that, contrary to expectations, the US civil service is just one long party with illegal drugs on tap, and sexual favours a plenty - just so long as you're working with this season's favoured rapacious conglomerates.

So endemic was this problem that one in three Minerals Management Service employees were involved in what a top level report describes as a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" which was "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards."

According to Think Progress "Gregory Smith, Program Director of the Royalty in Kind Program, referred to cocaine as “office supplies” and rewarded his employees for obtaining it for him." This reward not only included paying for the drugs and extra sex on the side but office "performance awards", which could be considerable amounts of tax payers' money.

One curious defence from some of those accused of mis-deeds has been to say that the sex and drugs were all part of doing their job with due diligence. "Employees said they felt that in order to effectively perform their official duties, they needed to interact in social settings with industry representatives to obtain 'market intelligence'" Well, that's a good line if you're ever in a hole - but I can't guarantee its efficacy.

I think it's time for those in charge to take the drill bit between the teeth and call this for what it is - an orgy of corruption from a government in the pockets of big oil. Odds on that happening? Not this side of November certainly.

Palin's little addition

So abstinence only sex education hasn't worked out so well for hyper-religious Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin. Her unmarried seventeen year old daughter is now pregnant.

Congrats. The family must be very happy.

But I can't be the only one creeped out a little by the insistent press announcements that the expectant mother and her beau are to be wed.

I hope the couple will be happy and good parents to their new addition - I just can't get it out of my head that this marriage is more about the political face of her mother than anything this seventeen year old might have wanted for herself.

Mind you, it's none of my business...

See also the silver ring thing.

Consent under watchful eyes

Over at the Curvature there is a very interesting post on the case of a son separating his father (95) from a woman (82) who had become his lover in the old people's home that they shared. Things blew up after he apparently walked in on them whilst she was, um, having "dinner beneath the bridge". Because both the father and his new friend both had dementia the son split up the couple, making his father's choices for him.

Cara says that "I feel that everyone has a right to sex, albeit one that stops at another person’s right to not have sex. I don’t feel that’s something that ends with old age or with disability." Well, I'm not going to get pedantic about the "right" to have sex but I totally agree that no one should have the "right" to stop others having consensual sex.

But the issue becomes clouded when we bring in other factors. There are groups such as OAPs, disabled people or kids[1] that we are meant to see as completely desexualised. However, just because respectable society pretends someone is not sexually active does not actually make it so. The issue becomes even more "horrifying" when the participants are not all from the particular desexualised group (issues with an 85 year old woman with a 22 year old man anyone?).

One of the comments under the original post talks about how a son and his wife decided not to take a mother's vibrator with her to the OAP home even though she was asking for it and getting quite distressed. Old women, mums no less, just can't be allowed to be sexual beings. I think you get this quite a lot when real flesh and blood people come into contact with those who are both there to "care" for you and effectively make decisions for you, no matter what the touchy feely PR might say.

I think it can become particularly difficult when the ability to give consent is impaired. It's clearly right to have a concept of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour on the part of staff, "service users" and their families. But as one comment put it, this leads to a situation where people become "touch starved" and that can't be good for you. In other words perhaps protecting someone can become abusive when official policies become the way you have to live your life.

I used to work with people with learning disabilities and mental health problems and the issue of consent was something that came up quite regularly. After all my job only existed because some people find it difficult to make decisions for themselves without either doing themselves serious harm or behaving in a way that is dangerous or very unpleasant to others. I was there to help people live as nice a life as possible whilst protecting society from some of the worst aspects of their challenging behaviour.

Often that meant doing things that the "client" does not want the worker to do, or stopping the client from doing things they wanted to do - in their interests and in the interests of those they might harm or distress. There were clear cases where this role was overstepped and became an exercise in power over someone more vulnerable than the worker(s). There were also cases where ethical decisions that had to be taken were intolerably difficult.

For instance, a young couple with learning disabilities where the man was basically a bit of a git. No, more than that, he was a horrible person - and, such is the way with these things sometimes, the woman wanted to keep going out with him despite the fact that he was fleecing her of her money and she was very, very unhappy due to his various cruelties.

Absolutely no one *wanted* her to go out with him and although people often spoke to her about it (perhaps too often in my opinion, putting her under a pressure she found difficult to cope with) because she continued to want to continue their relationship it had to be "supported".

Unfortunately I think that was the right decision. Whilst I'd love to have the power to break up relationships that I thought were *wrong* I just don't have the right to make that kind of life chaning decision for someone, even when their ability to make their own decisions were hampered.

The thing is, an institution that forbids you to be sexual can't abolish your sexuality by edict, but what it will do, without any doubt, is effect how you see your own sexuality. That it's wrong, or something that only be done in secret, or something that you learn not to talk about with those who have power over you. It can also make it a source of rebellion, leading to extremes of anti-social behaviour. The sexuality does not disappear, but the message is that this is something that is disapproved of and verbotten.

It's my belief that in secure units and other places where people are held for "their own good" the staff are at far more risk of institutionalisation than service users. There is a whole unconscious process of manufacturing the consent of their charges, often for the best of motives but ultimately breaching the boundaries of a professional relationship. We stray into denying the ability of fellow human beings to try to have a half-fulfilling sex life because our institutions don't fit to you - you have to fit to them.

[1] I thought about taking kids out of this equation - but then thought nope, it's true so let's leave it in. My caveat is that there are issues involved that I'm not dealing with here, I am not arguing that kids have an adult sexuality nor do I think it's appropriate for adults to have sex with children. So there.

Sexual messages

Noticed this interesting item on the F Word. Science Daily has a piece on Why College Men May Hear 'Yes' When Women Mean 'No' which argues that "Faulty male introspection may explain why men so often misinterpret women's indirect messages to stop or slow down the escalation of sexual intimacy". Hmmm.

The study's argument is that men find it more difficult to understand that when a woman says 'its getting late' she doesn't always mean 'let's go to bed'. I think there are a whole number of unwarranted assumptions going on here. Just to raise a few thoughts.

Do these men "misinterpret" women, or do they just do what they want to do?

> I think this plays into the idea of sensitive but weak women and masculinity being about goonish strength. Where's the proof?

> If a man wants to touch someone up whose too polite to say no thanks some men may find it more convenient to just go ahead only stopping when explicitly told because they don't regard the woman as an equal human being but an object to be pawed.

> Why not go the whole hog and say that men "can't help themselves" if you're going come out with that sort of thing? Doesn't this attempt to absolve men of responsibility for their actions?

> When a man goes beyond where a woman wants to go there are lots of other explanations that don't seem to have been explored. Perhaps they think they can persuade a woman to go further? Perhaps they think the pleasure they'll gain from such an act out weighs any unpleasantness the woman may feel? Why assume this is a question of "misinterpretation"?

Does a multiple choice questionnare of 90 college students really give you the authority to start publishing conclusions?

> Hardly a large number of respondents.

> Are college students a reasonable cross section of society? It seems to me that this is the age when people are maturing sexually and often make mistakes that they make less frequently later in life.

> By using multiple choice questions the researchers have already skewed the survey results. It looks to me like they've designed their survey to get the answers they desire.

> By relying on men's conception of themselves you are inevitably going to screen out answers that basically say "I'm an arrogant idiot."

> Where's the context? A couple who've been together twenty years may have have very different communication difficulties than people who are having casual dates. Yet the "conclusions" are all about men in general.

Basically this sort of thing should never be published by anything that has the word Science in the title as the "study" amounts to nothing more than a potentially interesting bit of froth. I mean look at the conclusions that this far from extensive research reaches.

• Men need to be aware of the many ways that women may say "stop" without using the word "stop."
• When a man asks himself during intimacy, "Why did she say that?" he should not try to answer the question by imagining what he would mean if he said the same thing.
• When in doubt, ask. "So it's getting late; does that mean we should stop?"
• Women should use direct messages.
• A woman who cannot be direct should at least work a direct message into the indirect one: "It's getting late, so I'd like to stop."

I have a different set of conclusions for both sexes based on no pseudo-scientific data what so ever. Say what you mean and try not to be an arsehole.