Heresiarch's Dungeon

Off topic

2011-05-19T10:38:00.003+01:00

Some rather strange comments have appeared beneath Laurie Penny's anti-princess rant in the New Statesman, not all of them clearly related to the subject in question. For example this from "Mr Divine", responding to "Buckskins":

I miss Stuart too .. we had some great moments. He'll look back and realise that the engage he had with me was a pivotal moment in his life. That and his new girlfriend.

The whipping scene was ace, him trying to pull me off my camel, and me whipping him on his tiny willy with my diamond tipped whip. Those were the days. But I miss his Big Issue stories and unique perspective on todays events.

Was I hard? I was hard and I was soft. You were just soft soft to him. I made him angry, and I made him laugh at himself and at those words that made him angry. He said more than once how much he enjoyed his engages with me. Of course he liked you because you were nice to him, but he loved me because I made him laugh and cry.

The site could probably do with some moderation. Just saying...

Why privacy isn't just for the rich

2011-05-13T18:16:00.002+01:00

Cross-posted from Heresy Corner

The Daily Mail - along with several other respectable news outlets - brings us the story of Faith-Anne Lesbirel, primary schoolmistress by day and "kinky dominatrix" by night, whose unconventional second job has now led to a dressing down from the General Teaching Council. Found guilty of "unacceptable professional misconduct" (is there such a thing as acceptable professional misconduct?) she has received a two-year reprimand. She has, however - as the Mail was forced to report - "escaped being struck off." The panel also displayed a perhaps unexpected - and welcome - degree of enlightenment when it concluded that her essentially private activities did not make her a danger to children.

By most accounts, indeed, she was an excellent and well-loved teacher, working at a school in Milton Keynes. But she was also into things like domination and sploshing, and as "Mistress Saffron" advertised her services online, both on her own website and on a forum for like-minded people called "Informed Consent". It was this advertising, we are led believe, that got her into trouble. The report quotes the tribunal's ruling that "the reputation and public standing of the profession was placed at risk by your choosing to initiate and run such a website and indeed the exposure of this did in the event damage the school and the profession." The clear implication is that the "publicly accessible" nature of both her website and the online forum was responsible for bringing her activities to the notice of local parents, who complained to the school. And that her exposure was therefore her own fault.

That isn't really what happened.

Faith-Anne Lesbirel - who was also known as Faith Hamilton - carried out her BDSM activities for a long time without any of the parents or children finding out. And there was little reason why they should have found out. Informed Consent might be "publicly accessible", in the sense that anyone can view its contents without registering as a member, but it unlikely that many people would come across it without at least having a pre-existing interest in the subject. The same goes for her Mistress Saffron website. This is a niche area of the web, inhabited mainly by mistresses, their clients, and the odd tabloid journalist. Her two identities should have remained quite separate, as long as she observed a certain degree of cicumspection.

Faith may have been a victim of the Max Mosley scandal. Those who are in a position to know believe that she was betrayed by "Woman E" - also known as Mistress Abi, "Michelle" and latterly Mistress Kiera - the dominatrix who secretly recorded the goings-on in that notorious Chelsea basement as part of the News of the World sting operation. You may recall that the relationship between "Abi" and the newspaper went sour after she was unable to provide Neville Thurlbeck with cast-iron proof that Mosley's party had had a "Nazi theme". In an interview with Sky News, she said that she had never claimed that there was a Nazi theme - it was all a product of Thurlbeck's lurid imagination. Whatever the truth, it seems that the Screws pressed her to provide some additional titillating information to justify their payments to her. And so she gave them Mistress Saffron the kinky schoolteacher. Who was supposed to be a friend of hers, as well as a fellow member of the Milton Keynes dungeon sorority.

The story appeared under the headline "Miss gets strict with PVC punters" and was illustrated with pictures taken from her website. The paper predicted, not as is happened inaccurately, that "parents of the kids she teaches would go ballistic. While they’re reading their youngsters Winnie the Pooh at bedtime, their teacher is hard at it as a Miss Whiplash hooker."

The involvement of Woman E has never been officially confirmed, I should say (though the coincidence of time - May 2008 - and place - Milton Keynes - is striking). What is beyond doubt is that it was the exposure of Ms Hamilton/Lesbirel in the News of the World, not her website, that led to her departure from the school - leaving her out of a job and the children, to whom she was devoted, confused and upset. To the News of the World, it was all in a day's work, of course. As Clair Lewis - longstanding friend of this blog - says in a statement released today by the campaigning organisation CAAN, "some media people remain unconcerned about smearing people and the dangers this poses. Shame on them."

With Mosley's lawyers breathing down their neck, ruining the career of an unknown schoolteacher represented a much safer strategy than continuing to pursue that increasingly threadbare scoop. Faith-Anne Lesbirel wasn't going to sue them for invasion of privacy. She was in no position to get a super-injunction from Mr Justice Eady. She certainly didn't stand ready to petition the European Court of Human Rights to demand prior notification of embarrassing revelations. The most someone like her can hope for is a positive ruling from the largely toothless Press Complaints Commission.

Sadly, with celebrity exposés now threatened by the advance of privacy law we may see more stories like hers, with the press attempting to justify their prurient interest in people's private lives because they happen to be teachers, nurses, social workers or police officers. And while professional bodies continue to have widely-drafted - some would say discriminatory - policies against "bringing the profession into dispute", anyone falling foul of a tabloid "outing" may well face much more devastating personal reperpercussions than the fleeting embarrassment of some footballer who has visited a hooker.

By viewing this post, you're breaking the law

2010-09-14T17:52:00.014+01:00

That's if you're in Britain, that is. In other parts of the world, you may be OK - though probably not. It depends.

This rather worn print, by the early nineteenth century Japanese master Eisen, is currently being offered for sale by Fuji Arts with a starting price of $245. I wouldn't advise you to buy it, though - there might be a problem getting it through customs. Or else the police will knock on your door five minutes after the postman has dropped it through the letterbox.

Eisen is best known for his charming prints of elegant kimono-clad beauties, but in old Japan there was also a lively trade in exquisitely drawn but absolutely filthy pornography, coily known as Shunga ("spring pictures"). Almost all the major artists produced shunga, including the most famous of all, Hokusai, whose Dream of the Fisherman's Wife depicts a woman being groped and orally pleasured by two octopuses.

This one, by contrast, shows a woman trying to juggle the joint attentions of a man and her baby. Sociologically it raises some interesting questions. Were living conditions so cramped in pre-Meiji Edo (now Tokyo) that such scenes were commonplace? Is the woman a prostitute, or is the man her husband? Is the picture intended to be comic, or did Shunga-buyers get off on that sort of thing? (Another picture up for sale on the same site shows a woman receiving cunnilingus from a horse, which is certainly comic. And Hokusai's tentacle porn is just hilarious.) Perhaps there are deeper ideas at play: the baby may be there as a reminder of the possible consequences of the sexual act, or the picture may express male ambivalence about the dual role of woman as mother and lover, or male fear of being usurped by his offspring in the woman's affections. And why does he look so bored?

My purpose here, though, is to draw attention to the probable illegality of the picture under one of New Labour's recent laws. Section 62 of the portmanteau Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (which I discussed here) makes it a criminal offence to be in possession of a pornographic image of a child, however unrealistic, which "is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character - which porn is by definition, of course. Being "in possession" includes looking at something on the internet. The offence also (ss 7) covers depictions of "the performance by a person of an act of intercourse or oral sex with or in the presence of a child." That is certainly what is going on here. It's no defence that the work in question is artistic (as the Eisen might possibly be considered to be). "Pornographic" is defined as "produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal". Art historians agree that that was, indeed, the main purpose of Shunga.

This blog is not hosted in the UK, and I've deleted any versions of the image I may have had briefly on my hard-drive. So I'm safe, I think. But I'm sorry to say you're guilty. Go on, give yourself up.

Something Dark

2010-07-21T17:44:00.005+01:00

Daryl Champion sent me the following press release about his new magazine, SomethingDark

SomethingDark (SDk), a new cultural webmagazine, has just been published after nearly two years in development. Issue 01 is available online for free in a format that occupies a unique space between the internet and a print publication. SDk takes full advantage of an innovative format to deliver its avant-garde mix of dark glamour and eroticism in photography, art and edgy fiction; of poignant nonfiction and criticism; and of exhibition, film and book reviews – all in the social, political and economic context of today’s disturbed world.

SDk additionally strives to be a valuable resource and, concerned with the world around us, is also a forum for re-assessing what is of value in contemporary society. How is SDk innovative? Unlike most news, magazine- and journal-style websites, which depart from their print-published counterparts in format, look and feel because they were developed with by-now conventional website design in mind, SDk has been developed with the format, look and feel of a print magazine. Yet, being fully html-coded – indeed, pushing that technology to the limit – it also offers the full dynamism of the internet, especially in a complex system of internal linking, that flash sites cannot deliver. Feet back on the ground. If your taste in culture leads you to shaded woodlands replete with nymphs and satyrs, an expanse that must be treated with respect lest an unmindful step finds you teetering on the edge of an unimagined place, then SomethingDark is here. Or there’s McDonald’s.

I've taken a look. The picture sums up the contents quite well - if you like tasteful erotic photography and writing this may be for you. The first issue includes, among other things, a feature devoted to the work of Scottish photographer ArtPunk and a long critical analysis of Robert Mapplethorpe. The website is beautifully done and very easy to use.

A creative solution to hospital funding

2010-07-06T15:11:00.005+01:00

In these days of enforced budget cuts and national austerity, any idea for raising additional cash for government departments is welcome. One intriguing possibility was raised by the Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, Penny Mordaunt, in a Commons debate yesterday on the allocation of departmental budgets. She questioned the principle that departments and public sector bodies should be able to supplement their income without losing taxpayer funding, and had an unconventional example to illustrate her point:

A second scenario might see a Department creating an income-generating activity that failed to deliver value for money or came at the expense of the statutory service that that Department was charged with carrying out. I will give the House a quick example from real life, not "Yes Minister", although it could well have been used for that. When I was a director of Kensington and Chelsea council, I discovered that one of our local hospitals was hiring out one of its closed, but fully equipped, wards to a film company to use as a film set. To add insult to injury, the movie was a pornographic one. Although I cannot claim to have seen the final picture, as I understand that these things are no longer claimable on parliamentary expenses, it was a big-budget affair and it generated substantial income for the hospital-but apart from cheering up a few of the in-patients, it could not be said to be contributing to the objectives of the primary care trust.

I don't really understand Ms Mordaunt's criticism. It doesn't appear that the "fully equipped" ward was needed for patient care, in which case it was lying idle and was a drain on resources. So its utilisation in another capacity strikes me as very much contributing to the objectives of the PCT - the money raised was presumably spent on better healthcare for patients. It sounds like an excellent idea, and it's nice to know that there is (or was) sufficient money in the British porn industry to make big-budget films and, indeed, to pay top price for the use of locations.

There must be many opportunities for such creative use of resources. Perhaps it would create political controversy if under-used schoolrooms were hired out to makers of corporal punishment videos, but what of all our courtrooms or, for that matter, prisons? The Palace of Westminster itself - no stranger to sexual hi-jinks - would make an excellent venue. Indeed, one enterprising former Labour MP, Nigel Griffiths, starred in his own impromptu Commons set photostory last year (though was admittedly unaware that his antics were being recorded by the News of the World).

Indeed, Government and the porn industry already have much in common: they're both based on screwing people for money, after all.

But which was the hospital, and what was the film? According to the BBC report (which quickly went viral) the incident referred to must have happened before the present health trust was formed in 2002. Nicholas Cecil of the Standard, moreover, has "established" that the location was St Charles Hospital in Ladbroke Grove. But I'm most indebted to "Paddy the Greek" commenting on the Standard article, who thinks that the film may have been Pirate Deluxe: Xtreme desires, directed by the pioneering female pornographer (and fetish specialist) Tanya Hyde. It was originally produced in 1998, which fits. I've no proof, but I did find the following synopsis of the production, which starred Monique Covet, Silvia Saint and Laura Angel:

Already an icon on the busy British fetish scene, newly acquired Tanya Hyde proved a timely shot in the arm for the Private porn emporium with this inaugural effort for their Pirate Deluxe line.... The first of several high voltage fetish features Hyde bestowed upon the company before she took wing with her own Harmony Concepts label, XTREME DESIRES provides half a dozen vignettes of varying intensity, albeit usually on the high end of the scales, highlighted by the director's imagination and ingenuity, which in turn seems to have inspired the female cast to perform well above and beyond the call of duty....

"Doctors" finds beautiful bespectacled nurse Silvia Saint pleasuring patient Laura Angel, in stir-ups for easy access, until medics Kevin Long and Tony De Sergio (the notorious British bisexual performer billed as "Jay Alexander" on gay projects) join in the fun.... Revisiting medical territory, "Nurses" has French John B. Root discovery Fovéa and the returning Mona resplendent in latex nun's habits, exchanging less than pious glances over supine patient Frank Major's bandaged physique, then draining his vital fluids with doc Mike Foster providing an additional appendage before death bells solemnly and irrevocably ring out.

I've omitted descriptions of the non-hospital related scenes, but the full information can be found here. And here's the rather explicit back-cover photo. You have been warned.

Face the truth about porn

2010-06-08T18:17:00.005+01:00

Following on from today's Heresy Corner article on the impact of ubiquitous hardcore porn on the nation's children and teenagers, I'd like to share with you a little talk by Cindy Gallop, delivered at the free-thinking but ever-so-slightly cultish TED.

Drawing on her personal experience with younger lovers (she cheerfully admits her cougarish proclivities) Cindy tackled a standard pornographic cliché: "My concern is particularly with the young girl whose boyfriend wants to come on her face. She does not want him to come on her face, but hardcore porn has taught her that all men love coming on women's faces, all women love having their faces come on, and therefore that she must let him come on her face, and she must pretend to like it."

That sounds plausible enough. But I can offer an equal and opposite experience. A close friend (all right, it was me) was once in bed with a woman and enquired what turned her on, sexually speaking. She replied that she liked it when men came on her face. "Surely not," I protested. "Men only come on women's faces in porn." My theory, I continued - I talk more or less how I blog, I'm afraid - was that the whole coming on women's faces thing was an invention of the porn industry, serving the practical function of externalising the act of ejaculation. I believe I actually used the verb "externalise". And now (by this time I was channelling Cindy Gallop) young girls habituated to porn pretended to like it when their boyfriends (who, equally cluelessly, got the idea from porn that coming on the girl's face was just something they were meant to do).

"Oh no", said my companion, who was no ingenue and, like me, remembered the days before internet porn, "I like it when men come on my face." "Not really my thing," I lamented.

Needless to say, the relationship was doomed.

A night of wild sexual abandon

2010-05-02T19:01:00.029+01:00

I attended my first-ever orgy the other night. Well, sort of. The Night of the Senses, incorporating the Erotic Awards, is a long-running institution founded by pioneering activist Dr Tuppy Owens (she was the first, though not the last, pornographer-academic and now leads the Sexual Freedom Coalition, among other things). It pitches itself both at "seasoned sexual adventurers" and at those at an earlier stage in their sensual journey, serves as a showcase for erotic performers, raises money and, via the Awards, recognises artists, campaigners and sex-workers alike. It sounded quite fun. And knowing (at least virtually) some of the nominees I stunned myself by purchasing a last minute ticket. Friday evening found me at a club near London Bridge, heart in mouth, ready for whatever might be about to happen.

The dress-code was flexible but seemingly unforgiving: anyone in civilian wear - or anything "plain, humdrum or unsexy" - would be invited to visit the "dressing up shoppe" or else leave, I read. Dressing up, said the programme, allows you to "float around in a haze instead of feeling invisible". Nudity was an option, though not for me. Cue frantic search through the wardrobe. I considered black tie - but would that be "different" enough to avoid a humiliating arrest by the style police? In the end I went with subfusc, enlivened by a slightly garish silk waistcoat I once wore at a student ball. The academic gown with its schoolroom connotations was at least mildly kinky.

I needn't have worried. There were plenty of people less exotically dressed than I was, though there was no shortage of stereotypically kinky outfits and goth wear. One man came dressed as the Pope, which in present circumstances was perhaps the most outrageous costume of all. There were a few extravagant historical or fantasy creations. On the other hand, those partygoers who used the same outfitters as Hans Christian Andersen's emperor were in for a chilly night: the programme warned people against wearing too much, yet many of those I spoke to complained about the cold. My gown, meanwhile, garnered several compliments, including from a similarly clad gentleman who was running a spanking booth.

The evening kicked off a little before nine with the famous Erotic Awards. The trophies - impressively large (at least I thought so) winged golden penises - were distributed to a selection of performers and activists in a ceremony that was at times fairly shambolic. Dr Petra Boynton, winner of the blog prize, was unable to be present - much to my disappointment - but Anna Arrowsmith (aka Anna Span) famously representing the Lib Dems in Gravesham, did step forward to accept her trophy as politician of the year. Her moment of glory came only after an embarrassing kefuffle when the compere forgot to announce the category and declared the end of the awards.

Of course Arrowsmith is a hero to the sex industry, both as a pornographer and now as a public face, but I did wonder if she was strictly eligible, given that she is only potentially a politician. Perhaps she won it for agreeing to turn up. Another Liberal Democrat, Chris Huhne, had been suggested for the honour but (mindful, perhaps, of the shape of the trophy) had declined to be nominated. Even so, with the party's MEP Chris Davies the only other nominee it was clear where the organisers' political sympathies lay. That's not so surprising. Conservatives tend to veer inconsistently between libertarianism and moral puritanism - remember "back to basics"? - while pro-gay rights and feminist Labour has introduced a plethora of authoritarian laws against prosititution and extreme porn. As Ewan Morrison puts it in an article for Erotic Review - handed out free to departing guests - "no matter how much it tries to disguise the fact with its talk of liberties, the Left is about normalising standards for all and enforcing them."

Other winners included two longstanding internet buddies of the Heresiarch's, the writer Jane Fae (formerly John Ozimek, and still looking more like a John than a Jane, alas) and the campaigner Clair Lewis. It was nice finally to meet them, if only briefly in Clair's case: her evening ended on a sour note when the organisers neglected to offer her a wheelchair-accessible platform from which to say a few words about the work of her pressure group CAAN. She left soon afterwards, and has since declared the whole ceremony to be a sham and the compere "very rude". Given that Night of the Senses prides itself on its acccessibility to disabled people, and raises money for a charity that aims to improve the personal and sexual opportunities available to the disabled, Clair's experience is at least somewhat embarrassing. She now dismisses Tuppy Owens' charity as "an archaic organisation which is too busy patronising disabled people to let us join in on an equal basis."

After that unpromising start to the evening the cabaret began, a pleasingly varied succession of burlesque acts. There was blind woman talking while draped in a red sheet, a munchkin who polished a blow-up doll before taking her clothes off (hilarious but also a little bit scary), a Spanish poet who recited a rubbishy poem while removing his clothes and a much better one stark naked, a woman wearing a kimono and rope bondage who almost started a fire while attempting to light a paper lantern - and my personal favourite, a cross-dressing male stripper styled Major Suttle-Teese, part top-hatted toff, part vamp.

Then it was party time.

It wasn't quite the full-blown orgy I had been nervously anticipating. Indeed, I spent much of the time managing to avoid thinking about, talking about, and certainly having, sex. Perhaps that says more about me, but others I spoke to also complained that there was too much conversation and not enough action. The venue was plastered with notices demanding guests behave with appropriate respect and threatening transgressors with summary expulsion - not an unreasonable sentiment, of course, but the assumption that it needed to be said at all lent the party an unfortunate whiff of the nanny state. Equally counter-intuitive was the woman offering "non-sexual hugs". Non-sexual hugs have their place, of course - many, perhaps most, of the finest hugs have no sexual component - but as a Ukrainian-American artist I got chatting to pointed out, that place is surely not at an anything-goes sex party. There was a dungeon, but when I put my head round the door it was populated by people sitting around drinking while the implements of torture stayed forlornly underused.

Needless to say, there was sex to be had, some of it presumably in the Room of Riotous Pleasures ("specially designed for women to live out their fantasies of enjoying anonymous sex with a succession of men"). I couldn't find it. I did notice the "frantically busy" Dark Room, which was reputed to contain people randomly having sex in the dark (though I didn't go in to find out). But nanny had insinuated herself even there. "Be respectful to others," cautioned a programme note, "No pushing or shoving, ask before joining in, ask before putting fingers anywhere." There was also a Grope Box, apparently a Night of the Senses institution, which you went in to be groped by unseeing arms. Whenever I walked past it seemed to be occupied by a woman, the groping hands almost entirely male. Maybe this is significant, maybe not.

The only actual sex I witnessed all evening was in a tastefully decorated boudoir dubbed the "Sensuality Chamber". Participants were accompanied by musicians, while peep holes provided glimpses of the goings-on. I spotted one voyeur masturbating enthusiastically at the sight, but he was an exception.

Much more to my taste was the Salon of the Five Senses, in which I was blindfolded, tickled, massaged, fed strawberries, enticed by all the perfumes of Arabia and lulled by gentle bells. Blissful. Given that sight was excluded, Salon of the Four Senses might have been more appropriate - unless, of course, an extra "sexual sense" had been identifed. I had kept my trousers on (I know, I know) so was not in the best position to find out. Waiting for my turn in a long but comfortable queue I found myself sitting next to a man sporting what turned out to be a Ukrainian floral headdress. (It belonged to his female companion, the American-born artist mentioned above. She was quite interesting. One of her projects, I learned, explored the practicalities of snogging in zero-gravity conditions. I subsequently discovered that she was staying at a charming boutique hotel near Paddington.) The woman on my left commented that he looked "baroque". "Like something out of Caravaggio", I suggested, thinking of the celebrated portrait of Bacchus. It turned out that she was an art historian.

That sort of thing happened to me a lot. Later I found myself talking to Dr Antony Lempert, founder of the Secular Medical Forum and Golden Penis laureate in the academic category. We discussed the Pope, the insidious spread of faith schools, the brilliance of Lord Justice Laws' recent judgement in the McFarlane case, the religious strangehold on hospital counselling services (in the guise of denominational chaplaincies) and his own idée fixe, the iniquity of male circumcision, which appears to him to contravene the Offences Against the Person Act. Fascinating, but in the circumstances more than a bit surreal.

Though perhaps not quite so surreal as what I saw next, back in the cabaret lounge, where renowned artiste Mouse was putting on a jaw-dropping show loosely based on the story of Goldilocks. Mouse used considerable dramatic licence. There there was only one bear, for example, and I don't remember the part of the nursery tale where the heroine inserts fireworks into every available bodily orifice, or lights a birthday cake using a candle held with impressive firmness in her vagina. And then sits on it. Nor was I psychologically prepared for the woman in the blonde wig's demonstration of her ability to absorb and then spew out copious amounts of liquid. I was thankful to be standing at the back.

It was the most extreme thing I have ever seen or am ever likely to see. After that, anything could only be an anticlimax (even the climaxes being offered to patrons of the Climax Clinic). In any case, I was wilting. It was an all-nighter, and I hadn't had much sleep the night before - the anticipation, you see. Plus a tummy ache. I crashed out in the cabaret room, almost oblivious to the hardcore porn being projected onto the big screen or the gyrations of an amateur pole-dancer who had come to the party with a much older man. Four O'clock found me sitting at a table with Jane Fae and my new artist friend, discussing the minutiae of East European geography, Jane's problems with nPower and the balance of subject matter at Heresy Corner. And that, I thought, was that.

I was wrong, but that's a whole different story.

Recognise these people?

2010-03-27T17:16:00.005Z

Yes, it's the Westboro Baptist Church, Christianity's answer to Anjem Choudary's boys. This time they might even be said to have a point.

I notice that the minuscule church - whose leaders were banned from Britain last year by the much-missed Jacqui Smith - have set up a subsidiary website dedicated to gleefully recording the unfolding scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. They have a charming message for the Pope:

Praise God’s righteous work! He alone brings to pass events to fulfill his word. What an amazing/wondrous work of God! Hundreds of years those raping perverts have preyed upon helpless creatures. God made your children bear the burden of your filthy deeds, keeping the matter under the radar. Now, he’s causing the world to hate your guts, fulfilling his word, to wit:

And the [nations]…shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. (Rev. 17:16-17.)

Lying Whore False Prophet Benedict winked at the abominable conduct of those raping priests. He knew full well of the depths of their depravity, that God had given them over to reprobate minds and vile affections - and he decided to give them more little children to molest. The leader of the catholic church helps so-called religious figures get away with rape. The Pope hates children & so does any parent that would subject them to those catholic monsters.

Proverbs 6:12 ¶ A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth.
13 He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers;
14 Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.
15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.

You have spit in God Almighty's face for too long! Your doom is coming & your destruction is imminent!

It's phrased rather differently from a Guardian editorial, but underneath the sentiment is not altogether dissimilar.

New light on "60's sex-ed mystery"

2010-02-14T16:09:00.007Z

Like many proper viruses, viral emails have a tendency to lay low for long periods of time, briefly breaking out in epidemics before disappearing again. The supposed sex-advice I covered in the last post is a case in point. Over the past few years, it has broken cover several times. The earliest outbreak I could trace was in 2003, though doubtless there were earlier instances. As I discussed, the extract derives from an elaboration of an earlier spoof entitled "The Good Wife", purportedly from a 1950s housekeeping magazine but more likely dating from the late 1980s.

So what caused this latest outbreak, which centres around what looks like a scrunched-up photocopy? While the printed original remains elusive, I've found what might be a clue from a blog entry by Maria Williams, a journalist with the South Wales Argus, dated 5th October 2009. She writes as follows:

IT'S been a thoroughly depressing week on many fronts... So I was cheered when a colleague brought in an item one of his relatives had been given at a retirement seminar to show just how far our society has come in the past 40 years.

It was an extract from a 1960s sex education textbook for girls, written by a woman - and I shall share it with you in a bid to brighten your day.

Is the South Wales Argus the source of this latest infection?

Ms Williams also has this to say:

How the world has changed - perhaps a little too far now that tweenie magazines have advice on sexual positions and how to get and keep your boy using management techniques.

But is does put me in mind of that great quote by the American humourist P.J. O'Rourke: "If anyone ever tells you that things were better in the good old days, just say the word dentistry."

As sex law expert Chris Ashford notes, hoaxes like this are doubly revealing: of our views about the past, and of our present attitudes and ideas. We are encouraged to smile at the supposed naivety or antediluvian attitudes of our predecessors, but at the same time pause for thought at the implied contrast with today's sexual free-for-all. What Williams' "dentistry" remarks shows, however, is that the piece ultimately affirms contemporary mores by casting the past as a place of rampant sexism and sexual misery.

It may not be entirely coincidental that the "advice" has re-emerged at a time when traditional views of marriage have once again become politically contentious. The subject is certainly "in the air" - witness the news story about the Rev Mark Oden's instruction to the women in his congregation to submit to their husbands. Though I don't think Oden was just talking about sex.

No doubt I'm reading far too much into what is just a bit of harmless fun.

Cautionary advice to young ladies - and Internet users

2010-02-11T17:35:00.024Z

I found this bizarre photocopy - posted here - via someone's Twitter feed earlier today. Stu Kennedy, who put it up, tells me that it was forward to his brother at work as part of a circulatory email.

The text, which purports to be from "a sex education textbook for girls" from the 1960's", reads as follows:

When retiring to the bedroom, prepare yourself for bed as promptly as possible. Whilst feminine hygiene is of the utmost importance, your tired husband does not want to queue for the bathroom, as he would have to do for his train, but remember to look your best when going to bed. Try to achieve a look that is welcoming without being obvious. If you need to apply face cream or hair rollers, wait until he is asleep before doing so, as it can be shocking for a man last thing at night. When it comes to the possibility of intimate relations with your husband, it is important to remember your marriage vows and in particular, your commitment to obey him.

If he feels that he needs to sleep immediately afterwards, then so be it. In all things be led by your husband's wishes. Do not pressure him in any way to stimulate intimacy. Should your husband suggest congress, then, agree humbly all the while being mindful that a man's satisfaction is more important than a woman's. When he reaches his moment of fulfilment, a small moan from yourself is encouraging to him and quite sufficient to indicate any enjoyment that you may have had.

Should your husband suggest any of the more unusual practices, be obedient and uncomplaining but register any reluctance by maintaining silence. It is likely that your husband will fall promptly asleep after relations have concluded, so once he is fast asleep, adjust your clothing, freshen up and apply your night-time face and hair care products.

You may then set the alarm so that you can arise shortly before him in the morning. This will enable you to have his morning cup of tea ready when he awakes.

A hoax, I presume. It certainly reads like one, though that hasn't stopped many people from taking it at face value. The "sex education" book isn't named in any of the online sources for the text. It is variously attributed to the early 60s, the 1950s, or specifically to 1963; several sources add the claim that it was "written by a woman" (although the author herself is never named). Almost all versions include the phrase "this is an actual extract". The earliest dated example I've tracked down online is from an old messageboard, August 2002.

The page above, whose provenance I cannot trace, seems to be from a printed original. I can't confirm this; there are, however, other known printed versions. The same passage also occurs in "The Good Wife's Guide", supposedly taken from a Home Economics textbook (also from the Sixties) in which the sexual advice is tacked onto the end of more general comments about an ideal housewife.

The first paragraphs of this read as follows:

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return from work. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favourite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.

These same paragraphs also occur in a shorter piece with the same title, which claims to be from Housekeeping Monthly, 13 May, 1955.

This is how The Good Wife's Guide ends:

Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

A good wife always knows her place.

The longer Internet version omits the two sentences following "fairness and truthfulness". Instead, it continues like this:

Once he has had a chance to have his evening meal clear the dishes and wash up promptly. If your husband should offer to help decline his offer as he may feel obliged to repeat this offer and after a long working day he does not need the extra work.

Encourage your husband to pursue his hobbies and interests and be supportive without seeming to encroach. If you have any little hobbies yourself try not to bore him speaking of these, as women's interests are often rather trivial compared to men's.

At the end of the evening tidy the home ready for the morning and again think ahead to his breakfast needs. Your husband's breakfast is vital if he is to face the outside world in a positive fashion.

Once you have both retired to the bedroom prepare yourself for bed as promptly as possible....

There follows the sexual advice with which we began.

According to Urban Legend site Snopes, the magazine extract is a fabrication: it didn't surface until long after the text began circulating by email and is "clearly a mock-up". It is just possible that it dates from the 50s - presumably as a satire on contemporary images of the ideal housewife. On balance it's likely to be far more recent, however. It is said to have been circulating in faxed form since the 1980s.

To sum up: the sex advice, purporting to be "an actual extract from a sex education textbook", began life as a hoax continuation of an original spoof article, itself likely to have been a hoax. But the style also owes something to another piece dismissed by Snopes, the hilarious "Advice to Young Brides" supposedly written in 1894 (though the repeated use of the word "sex" rather gives it away). The bride in that text, though, is imagined to be a young woman of rather more spirit than the submissive Stepford-style wife depicted in the passage allegedly from the 1960s. For example:

The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.

Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.

Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.

It's also rather kinky:

Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include, among others, performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

A hoax, obviously. Yet according to Wikipedia, while Advice to Young Brides "reads like a satire on the Victorian era" and is often assumed to be a spoof, it is actually genuine. At least, it is accepted as being so by the University of Washington, which published the piece in its bizarre entirety on its website in 1998. The URL would seem to bear this out. Furthermore, it was the pamphlet's use in a UW course in human sexuality that year that led to its modern circulation on the Internet.

Despite these undoubted facts, I remain sceptical. There are good reasons for thinking it to be a hoax: neither the alleged writer (a suspiciously-named Ruth Smythers) nor the supposed publisher have left any trace in the records. In fact, the only evidence offered in the text's favour is its endorsement by the University of Washington. Academics have fallen for hoaxes often enough not to take this as decisive.

And what of the piece with which we began? Some sources date it precisely to 1963, the year (according to Philip Larkin) in which "sexual intercourse began". A coincidence? The world it depicts probably never existed - unless Mad Men is a documentary.

If anyone has any clue as to who actually wrote any of these pieces, and when, do please let me know.

SEE UPDATE 14/2/2010

Hunting PunterNet

2009-09-30T22:48:00.008+01:00

In her speech to the Labour conference today, Harriet Harman announced a new, shocking development in the world of online vice:

And there is a very sinister development which we are determined to stop. You know trip advisor – a website where guests put their comments on line for others to see. There is now a website, like that, where pimps put women on sale for sex and then men who’ve had sex with them put their comments on line. It is ‘Punternet’ and fuels the demand for prostitutes. It is truly degrading and puts women at risk.

Punternet has pages and pages of women for sale in London. But Punternet is based in California so I’ve raised it with the US Ambassador to London and I’ve called on California’s governor Arnie Schwarzenegger to close it down. Surely it can’t be too difficult for the Terminator to terminate Punternet and that’s what I am demanding that he does.

And I’ve got news for him: if he doesn’t, I’ll be back.

Actually, according to its front-page PunterNet has been going for more than ten years. There are no pimps in sight - though women working in the sex trade are active in the site's forum pages. Several have left messages today mocking Harriet's hopelessly naive comments. There's a lively thread here. One of the contributors points out that PunterNet is actually registered in Ohio! From what I've seen, PunterNet is, as its name implies, entirely client-driven. It's basically a modern version of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, though rather less well-written.

Alix Mortimer, now gloriously restored to blogging life, pulls Hattie to pieces here.

Also up on the site today was an open letter from the site's proprietor, who goes by the name of Galahad:

Dear Mrs. Harman,

I have a few points to make regarding your recent remarks regarding my website and your fantastic demand that the Governor of California close it down.

Firstly, PunterNet is not violating any laws. If it were, then surely the many websites catering to the US prostitution scene (where sex for pay is almost completely illegal) would already have been closed down.

In the USA, there is a concept called "freedom of speech" which is considered the most important personal right guaranteed by the Constitution. It exists specifically to prevent the sort of abuse of power that you are attempting. The Governor (indeed, even the President) has no authority with which to shut down a perfectly lawful enterprise such as PunterNet.

PunterNet was not the first, and is certainly not the only, website in the UK with the same subject matter. Rather than creating the demand for commercial sex, sites like PunterNet are a response to that demand, which has existed since the dawn of mankind and certainly long before the advent of the Internet!

One of the missions of PunterNet is education - to provide information and guidance in hopes that the commercial sex scene is limited to consenting adults and those who choose of their own free will to engage in it.

If sites like this one did not exist, and if prostitution were outlawed, then it would effectively be handed to organised crime on a platter - just as happened with liquor during Prohibition. If, on the other hand, sex-work is recognised as a legitimate, honourable profession, then there will be no market for the criminal elements, and the truly despicable aspects of the scene such as sex slavery and trafficking will die out. Surely that is a far more desirable goal than driving it back underground where it will then consist only of criminals and victims?

In closing, I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.

The last point is, of course, the most pertinent. In delivering her scoop about the existence of a ten-year old website, Harman has triggered a predictable Streisand effect. But she got her Terminator gag in, so she's probably happy.

Double standards

2009-09-30T20:02:00.001+01:00

From the Agnes Poirier thread:

A priest and Roman Polanski walk into a Hollywood bar.

The priest says to the bartender, "I just molested one of my altar boys." The bartender says, "Get out of my bar you creepy pervert before I call the police!" The priest leaves.

Roman Polanski says to the bartender, "Thirty years ago, I drugged and sodomized a 13-year-old girl." The bartender says, "Man, I loved Chinatown!"

"Grant"

Bad girls really bad

2009-09-07T17:16:00.003+01:00

The Heresiarch's longer standing readers may remember the Satanic Sluts, a Gothicky softcore performance troupe briefly rescued from obscurity last October when one of their number featured in one of the year's most ridiculous scandals. That was the delectable Georgina Baillie, aka Voluptua, a granddaughter of actor Andrew Sachs and a one (or possibly two) time paramour of Russell Brand - I think she's the one in the middle. Ah, yes, those Satanic Sluts.

They've hardly been seen since, but apparently they're still going. A source spotted them on the bill at the Dark Mills Festival in SW19 on Saturday. Dark Mills describes itself as "the Premier celebration of the alternative scene in London, bringing together cabaret, burlesque, art, music and theatre from the Gothic scene". Apparently, Les Filles Sluts did not impress. They were"execrably bad", reports my source. "Describing them as 'burlesque' is paying them far too high a compliment. 'Cover themselves in stage blood and wriggle' seems to be the content of their act."

Mind you, Russell Brand has never been renowned for being fussy.

The Face of Jaycee?

2009-09-06T19:16:00.005+01:00

One of the strangest facts to emerge from the deeply weird (as well as horrifying) story of Jaycee Lee Dugard is that her deranged abductor Philip Garrido allowed her face to appear on some of his business cards. The Telegraph ran with the story a few days ago, quoting one of Garrido's clients, Cheyvonne Molino: "Her picture was all over his business cards for the last 10 years". The paper speculated, bizarrely, that this may have been a "cry for help" on the kidnap victim's part.

Today, we learn that

The Sunday Telegraph was shown a card advertising the business that featured her in a glamorous pose, head resting on her hands, blonde hair falling across her made-up face.

She looks just like a happy young woman, even an aspiring model. That she could have appeared so contented is another mystifying twist to a near-inexplicable story.

The cards, if genuine, must now be quite valuable collectors' items - though I couldn't, yet, find any available for sale. I did however track down what seems to be the picture described in the Telegraph report. It's hard to tell if it's the real thing. It certainly looks a lot like her last known childhood photo (above), but it's so blurred it's impossible to be sure. The hair and make up have rather an Eighties feel to them, though it must have been taken no more than ten years ago - but then Garrido did inhabit a time-warp of his own creation.

Total Fiddlesticks

2009-08-28T17:44:00.003+01:00

A day late, I discover that Heresy Corner ranks at no 30 in the "Right of Centre" category of this year's Total Politics poll. That's a miserable 7 places higher than last year, when my average daily readership was less than a third of what it is today. From that I conclude that most readers didn't bother to vote for me. Pooh. (But if you did, a thousand thankyous.) I'm less popular than Nadine Dorries. Or even Boatang and Demetriou. How the hell did that happen?

I demand a recount.

I'm happy to congratulate my evident superiors, though, including Leg-Iron and the Epistolary Conservative, who had a tremendous result at 14.

I also take some consolation from the fact that I didn't debase myself this year by soliciting votes, and in any case Heresy Corner is not a committed, one-dimensional political blog like many others on the list. "Right of centre" is also by far the largest category, with 491 blogs in the Total Politics database. Annoyingly, if it had been placed in the libertarian category (which I think it qualifies for) it would have come in at more impressive-looking number nine.

I note, by the way, that more than 2000 blogs are listed in the TP directory, while only around 1,500 people bothered to vote (or could think of ten blogs to vote for). I've had afternoons with more hits than that. So the result is utterly meaningless, except in a willy-waving sort of way. The real result, the top 100, will be revealed in a couple of days time. I anticipate humiliation.

What Women Want

2009-08-13T19:49:00.007+01:00

The hit topic on Comment is Free today concerns an erotica/porn mag aimed at women called Filament. It has recently launched, or it will launch if it can find a printer. They started off with soft-focus shots of men in shorts - but it seems that in the course of their research they uncovered a desire for something a little more obvious, to wit, erections. The magazine's staff were more than happy to oblige - indeed, photographer guidelines have been issued which state, inter alia, that "if your model is keen, we encourage it", but encourages freelancers to "think creatively when photographing an erection". Some may find that easier than others.

Unfortunately, they hit a snag: "the pervasive nervousness about depictions of aroused men". Nervousness among printers and distributors, that is. There was some concern about the Obscene Publications Act, and printers, citing potential objections from "the women's/religious sectors", didn't want to go anywhere near it. Kristina Lloyd and Mathilde Madden, writing on CIF, think that this attitude ("cockblocking") reveals "a deeply entrenched sexism: men can look at women but women cannot look at men". In a magnificent display of Guardian logic, they then go on to argue that while pictures of naked women aimed at a male audience are inherently sexist, pictures of naked men aimed at women aren't:

But there's nothing inherently sexist about depicting nudity. It's sexist when only women are deemed to signify the erotic; it's sexist when eroticised images of women are so normalised and widespread that women stand to be viewed first and foremost as sex objects – their value inextricably linked to their sexual desirability. The sexism is in the inequality.

Filament, by contrast is "challenging a culture that positions women as sex-products for men" - by, erm, positioning men as sex-products for women. This is far more positive, since it "is asking for women to be acknowledged as human beings who can look and lust just as men can." Otherwise, the "deficit" in penis (compared to nipple/vagina) depiction "positions women as the providers of sex for perpetually horny dudes." This leads on to a rather convoluted piece of political positioning, which rather misses the point of any sort of porn, which is to turn people on:

Perhaps what's most insidious in this saga is that the market's refusal to admit that Filament reinforces an idea of female sexuality that justifies that very refusal.

Come again? No, that sentence doesn't work, grammatically or otherwise.

The absence of visual erotica for women on shelves crammed with magazines where women are products for male consumers, reduces female desire to the less-interested counterpart of male desire.

Help!

And so, runs the self-fulfilling logic, of course women don't want magazines targeting their desire. Women don't have desire, see? They merely receive it. How do we know? Just check out those magazine shelves.

Oh, I see. I think. As an experiment it's worth doing. There's no reason in principle why women shouldn't be able to buy magazines featuring naked men, with or without erections., provided the same concession is accorded to men wanting to look at naked women. But I fail to see why it should be seen as some sort of moral crusade. Many feminists object to pornography on the grounds that it degrades and "objectifies" women. It certainly reduces its participants, male as well as female, to their sexual attributes, using them instrumentally to provoke sensations of arousal. Porn is exploitative, by its very nature: not because it exploits the women who appear in it (some of whom, it seems to me, are more exploited than others) but because it exploits the consumer. It takes a fact of nature - that sexual arousal (in the male) is a necessary precondition of successful coitus, which in turn is biologically driven - and turns it into a source of profit.

Is the woman (or the man) who is "objectified" in the name of porn degraded thereby? Only in a society which regards sexual allure as inherently demeaning, surely. Such would seem to be the underlying assumption of those opposed to porn on political as opposed to religious grounds. It's one thing to say that sex is crassly commercialised in the modern western world, and that this puts undue pressure on young women to dress or act in overtly sexy ways. But it's quite another to maintain that women who do act in this way, to the extent that they become strippers, glamour models, pornstars and the like, are debased by it. In a society that worships sex, such women ought to be objects of worship; and, indeed, the most successful "adult" performers become brands, selling not merely videos but sex-toys and other paraphernalia, signing autographs for the thousands of fans who queue up for a brief glimpse - in the flesh, as it were - of their fantasy object.

Kristina Lloyd protests in a comment:

At the heart of all this seems to be a culture which says women don't want to be consumers of sex/porn/erotica because women don't lust, they are the objects of lust.

But are the women in porn seen merely as objects? On the contrary, they are usually depicted as active participants, getting a kick out of displaying their bodies, masturbating, actively enjoying the sexual acts taking place, reaching improbably explosive orgasms. They are not - except in some sub-genres - lying still and passively accepting what is being done to them. The main purpose of heterosexual porn marketed to men is to arouse men by the depiction of female pleasure. An unrealistic fantasy of female pleasure, no doubt, and one that flatters the male that he is a "stud" - and may mislead the viewer as to what women actually enjoy - but the payoff is nevertheless significant. The woman who is sexually uninhibited, unabashed, in control, demanding "more" - and getting it, and climaxing - is the star of the show. It is the male, with his obliging erection, who is the bit-part player. He isn't even strictly necessary, as the huge market in faux-lesbianism reveals. At most, he provides reassurance to the male viewer that women really enjoy heterosexual intercourse.

Why should there be such emphasis on female pleasure if porn is inherently misogynistic and degrading? Why, if men hated women, would they want to fantasise about women having fun?

But back to Filament. On their website, the editors set out what they see as the main imbalance in the erotic marketplace.

Representations of women’s bodies far outnumber representations of men’s bodies everywhere: from advertising to art. In erotic image in particular, representations of the male body specifically designed for women are almost non-existent.

The common explanation for why women have sometimes seemed disinterested in images supposedly intended for them – the idea that "women are less visual" – has now been largely disproven by research. Research also shows that women prefer images of men designed quite differently to those usually marketed toward women.

Filament's big idea is "the female gaze" - cod-academic jargon for what women find attractive. To discover precisely what women did want in their naked men, the editors looked at both psychological research into female sexual tastes and the input of a panel of women who contributed their thoughts via LiveJournal (I notice that this year's most exciting young feminist, Laurie Penny, was one of those who took part). They determined that women tend to prefer men who were "not muscle-bound", had "more feminine faces" and adopted poses that showed "the subject's character and the environment he is in". Boy bands rather than hunks, then. However, the guidelines suggest that "if you’ve got a guy who is very muscular and you think, very hot, we’ll certainly consider your images".

The advice for photographers is extremely detailed - and thus informative as to what they think women want to look at. It counsels photographers against using body-oil, instead suggesting a “flushed and sweaty” look that might be achieved by "having your model run up and down the stairs a few times before you photograph them." It urges them to shoot in interesting, beautiful and/or recognisable environments where it would be reasonably believable that a sexual encounter might take place - which apparently does not include "places like kitchens, the outdoors, plain studio backgrounds or hotel rooms". Facial expression should "convey eroticism" without being "angry or arrogant", and could include "vulnerability", but not "pictures of men looking hurt or abused". They don't want pictures of men cross-dressing, holding babies ("just inappropriate") or doing housework.

What is most striking about Filament's website is its overwhelming, almost oppressive, air of moral seriousness. This is porn with a purpose. It might be thought that satisfying a demand among women to see naked men was enough on its own, but no. Under "What inspired the concept of Filament?" we learn that:

Women are 10 times more likely than men to undergo cosmetic surgery and 43 times more likely than men to suffer an eating disorder. Is this because women are ‘naturally’ life-threateningly obsessed with their appearance, or is this in some way influenced by women’s media? Many men’s magazines don’t discuss men’s appearance, but nearly all women’s magazines discuss women’s appearance.

Difficult to see how a few tastefully photographed stiffies will put an end to all that.

UPDATE: Ms Penny explains her involvement with Filament in more detail here. Similarity of title might or might not be a coincidence.

Beware the Spinal Trap

2009-07-29T11:04:00.002+01:00

Simon Singh's allegedly libellous article
Originally from The Guardian, Saturday April 19 2008

(DISCLAIMER: I publish this as a gesture of solidarity, and for information purposes, only. The words complained of are in italics. The British Chiropractic Association successfully argued before Mr Justice Eady that the phrase "happily promotes bogus treatments" amounted to an accusation of knowing fraudulence on their part. Singh continues to deny this.)

This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let's be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, "99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae". In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer's first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

I can confidently label these treatments as bogus because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world's first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: "Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck."

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Professor Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

Bearing all of this in mind, I will leave you with one message for Chiropractic Awareness Week - if spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

· Simon Singh is the co-author of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial
www.simonsingh.net

Mistress of Reinvention

2009-05-03T11:48:00.017+01:00

It's a year since the Heresiarch first became intrigued by the goings-on of Max Mosley and his friends in Chelsea. For those directly involved, it has been quite a year - especially for Mosley himself who not only won his legal action and reasserted his control over the FIA but has turned himself into a scourge of tabloid journalism. His ongoing feud with Paul Dacre may well lead to permanent changes in the way in which newspapers operate in this country, for good or ill.

For his nemesis, the Milton Keynes-based dominatrix known officially as Woman E, who filmed the private spanking party (inaccurately described as a "Nazi orgy") at the behest of NoW's Neville Thurlbeck, the fallout from the affair has been less happy. Her husband lost his job with MI5, the Screws diddled her out of some of the money they had promised, she was shunned as a traitor by many former colleagues, barred from clubs and placed on blacklists. She was reduced to begging forgiveness in a cringe-making Sky Television interview - in which she was revealed as a very ordinary-looking housewife called "Michelle" - and selling her story to Dacre's Mail on Sunday.

It seemed to be all over for her. But, as the Heresiarch can exclusively reveal, the dominatrix formerly known as Abi is now getting back into the mistressing business. She has a new name, a new website, and even a new costume which an untutored eye might think incorporates elements of Nazi chic.

In her new site, illustrated with pictures both of her facilities and of herself in a number of poses, she introduces herself as "Mistress Kiera, supreme Dominatrix and Goddess". "I am a tall, beautiful, sensual and sadistic Dominatrix with many years of experience," she proclaims. "I have a commanding presence and I am always dressed in the finest rubber, leather and fetish clothing." But although she might "seem an unattainable goddess", she reassures her potential clients that she is "approachable" and will "consider most requests". Including, no doubt, those from journalists.

Kiera offers "high class BDSM and fetish services from my fully equipped chambers in Buckinghamshire". (Always fully-equipped, these dungeons. When did you last hear of a "semi-equipped dungeon"?) The range of her services is as extensive as ever, ranging from "anal training" and "foot worship" to "light to severe nipple torture" and "shaving". Wasn't that one of Max's special requests?

Not without reason, given last year's events, Kiera would appear to be especially proud of her expertise in blackmail. She boasts:

I run a number of blackmail and financial schemes including; taxation, extortion, contractual control, photo and personal details blackmail. Each scheme is tailored to individual requirements and a bespoke contract will be drawn up between us by my legal slave. Because of timewasters you will be expected to prove you are genuine by either visiting me for a session or pay an upfront fee to cover the set up costs (contracts etc) before any scheme can start.

She must regret not following these rules when negotiating with Mr Thurlbeck.

Given the animosity towards her in the tight-knit world of bondage and whipping, it might be expected that she would be desperate for any custom that came her way. But apparently she can still afford to be choosy. She writes:

Personal hygiene is extremely important to me and I expect the same from clients. Anyone arriving for a session who is lacking in this area will be turned away. Also anyone who in my opinion is under the influence of alcohol or drugs will be turned away. My chambers are situated within a private house and are extremely discreet. I expect the same level of discretion from all clients in return. Anyone who fails to arrive for an appointment without having the courtesy to cancel will be banned from ever visiting me again. Likewise all other timewasters will have their phone and email details submitted to 'timewasters' websites and to fellow Mistresses.

As to who those fellow mistresses might be, we are given no clues. Presumably they don't include the celebrated Mistress Switch, her former best friend turned sworn enemy, who has been warning her contacts and anyone else who cares to listen of the prospect of Woman E's re-entry onto the scene for several months now. On an online forum, La Switch has repeatedly calumniated her traducer as "thick" and "a liar" who "has no loyalty to anyone except herself". "Leopards don't change their spots", she believes. She complains that:

This bitch is playing the sympathy angle, I hear what untrue stories she is putting about. I'm sure she'll be deluding herself and not facing facts. Too scared to look at herself and see what she did. All you have to remember is SHE (not her husband, not the newspaper) walked into a flat wired and betrayed a client and her friends for money. Who would do such a thing?

Who indeed? Clearly, for Mistress Switch, the anger is still very raw against a woman who "went against everything that is fundmental to a PD/client relationship, discretion and trust". She was "blinded by the pound signs" says Switch, who isn't above issuing the odd predictive curse:

I believe in karma. Years ago a neighbour caused our family unnecessary nasty aggravation. My husband said at the time that she was evil to the core. 2 years later she died of bone cancer.

Another mistress joins in, expressing doubt that Kiera's new venture will prove successful. "Even the watersports enthusiasts wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire!" But this lady intuits that there might be something more to the story:

Is she hoping that this will hit the tabloids and get her some more lucrative column inches, a contract with Max sodding Clifford, and perhaps a new job on the telly where she's wheeled out to make a comment on every future scandal as it breaks from an *insider's* perspective? It all seems a bit odd.

It makes the atmosphere in the higher reaches of the Labour party seem loving by comparison.

"She's most likely back because she's penniless and isn't qualified to do anything else" Andi Switch speculated the other day. She's advising anyone booking a session with Kiera to "film your sessions for You Tube, we could do with the laugh being on her". I thought YouTube had guidelines about that kind of thing.

For Mistress Switch herself, things are going rather better. Together with two of the other Mosleyettes and a number of other women, she was in Las Vegas a couple of months ago to film some shorts and take part in a prestigious spanking convention. She continues as active as ever in her particular demi-monde. Women C and D are equally busy: a recent explicit lesbian romp featuring the two of them has attracted great excitement, while Miss D chose to celebrate the completion of her doctorate by getting several of her colleagues to kidnap her and subject her to waterboarding and "interrogation". It was, she reports, "the most amazing experience in my scene life so far". Mistress Switch was a particularly sadistic interrogator, by all accounts, leaving her victim "totally broken". Perhaps "Kiera" should watch her back.

The Istanbul Declaration

2009-03-26T17:32:00.003Z

The Muslim Council of Britain is under official interdiction from the British government after one of its leaders, Daud Abdullah, attended a conference on Gaza in Istanbul which agreed an outspoken declaration of Islamist principles. Hazel Blears takes particular exception to two paragraphs, which appear to treat international forces in the area - potentially including British forces and ships - as the enemy. But the document, signed by Dr Abdullah apparently without reservation, contains considerably more than that. It withholds from Israel even the recognition of its name, preferring to call it the "Jewish Zionist occupying entity". It declares that the Palestinian authority is illegitimate, and that all Arab governments are traitors to Islam. It invokes the blessings of Allah upon global Jihad, which it declares to be a religious duty. And it looks forward to the day when the whole of Palestine is in Muslim hands.

That a senior MCB representative could sign such a document, without apparently realising that it was potentially controversial, demonstrates beyond doubt the full-blown Islamist character of the Muslim Council of Britain. Preferring to draw attention to Blears' "interference" - in calling for his resignation - Abdullah is entirely unrepentant about the document, though cagey about its precise contents. If the Muslim community in Britain is to be represented by an "umbrella body", then it should be a non-political one which concerns itself primarily with the welfare of Muslims in Britain, most of whom have no personal connection with the Palestinian conflict or indeed with the Arab Middle East. Instead the MCB believes that it best represents Muslims by acting as a conduit for political Islam.

I welcome the fact that the government has suspended its ties to this dangerous organisation. I only regret that it has taken them so long.

The "Istanbul Declaration" is available as a PDF from Harry's Place. For your convenience, however, I reproduce it here in its entirety, with the most "interesting" passages highlighted.

Statement signed by Duad Abdullah, among others

In the name of Allah the Most-merciful the All-merciful

A statement by the religious scholars and proselytisers (du’a) of the Islamic Nation (ummah) to all rulers and peoples concerning events in Gaza

Praise to Allah who strengthened His troops, aided His servants and alone routed the Zionist Jews, who says,

‘It was incumbent on Us to aid the believers.’ [Quran 30:47]
And blessing and peace be on the Imam of the mujahidin who says,
‘There will remain a group of my Ummah adhering to the truth, and those who oppose them will not harm them until Allah’s command comes.’ [Hadith]

This statement is addressed to the Islamic Nation, its religious scholars, its rulers and its peoples. In it we congratulate the whole family of Islam on the manifest victory which Allah has granted us in the land of Gaza, a land of pride and dignity, over the Zionist Jewish occupiers. Allah has appointed it as the first step in the complete victory for all of Palestine and the holy places of the Muslims. Furthermore, we herein emphatically affirm various resolutions and judgments.

I. Affirmation of the following unequivocal resolutions:

1. We affirm that the victory that Allah accomplished by means of our brothers the mujahidin, our defiant and steadfast kinsfolk in Gaza, was indeed achieved through His favor and help - exalted be He! It was also achieved through fulfilling the religious obligation of jihad in His way. This is a confirmation of His statement - sublime is He! -
‘How often a small party overcame a large party, by Allah’s leave.’ [Quran, 2:249]

2. We affirm that this manifest victory has clearly disclosed the volume of international and local military and political conspiracy against the jihad and the mujahidin in Gaza, as represented by the following:

• Military co-operation in tightening the blockade and closing the crossings to the people of Gaza, especially the Rafah crossing

• Public or quasi-public support for the enemy

• The prevention of demonstrations and popular events held in support of the mujahidin; the arrest, trial and severe punishments of those who instigate them

• The aggressive pressure put on the mujahidin to break their will and force them to agree to their [the conspirators] terms and the stipulations of the Zionist enemy

• The attempt to present the Hamas government as the cause of this malicious Jewish Zionist war over Gaza

• The absence of any official and effective Arab and Islamic stance and its weakness in reflecting the will of the Arab and Islamic peoples to help our brothers in Gaza win. This indicates the width of the gap between the Nation and those rulers who lead it

• The use of funds for reconstruction and aid to those hurt as a negative pressure card on the mujahidin to abandon their legitimate demands, or some of them

• The prevention of delivery of aid and reconstruction funds to the Hamas government and the reliable authorities in Gaza; deeming the Palestinian Authority, represented by the presidency of Abbas and the Fayyad government, the sole representative of the Palestinian people, without the Hamas government; and the delivery of such funds and aid to increase their grip on the legitimate elected government of Hamas. This redoubles the suffering of the people of Gaza at the time they mostly need those funds and aid

3. We affirm in full conviction that the Palestinian Authority, whose mandate is coming to an end, is not eligible to represent the Palestinian people. It stands outside the will of its people, and has given up the choice of jihad in the way of Allah Almighty as an effective means in defeating the occupation and the liberation of the Islamic holy places. It adopts the wishes of the Nation’s enemies in exchange for the illusions of false peace.

4. We affirm in full conviction that the so-called Arab peace initiative is a proven betrayal of the Islamic Nation and the Palestinian cause, and a blatant betrayal of the Palestinian people. It aims to criminalise the Resistance [muqawama] against the Zionist occupying entity in perpetuity through its de facto recognition of it, as well as the confiscation of the right of refugees to return to their homes and their property.

II. Affirmation of the following legal judgments:

1. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to rush to the aid of the people in Gaza; to rebuild what the Zionist aggression destroyed; to compensate the injured and support the widows, orphans, those suffering permanent disabilities, and the old and infirm.

2. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to restrict itself to dealing only with the legitimate elected Palestinian government (Hamas) in the delivery of aid and reconstruction of dwellings. It is the sole government authorised to do that by reason of its official legitimacy as well as its maintaining the Resistance against the Jewish Zionist occupation, its integrity, and its solidarity with the people in all circumstances.

3. The obligation of the Islamic Nation not to recognise the Palestinian Authority, whose mandate is ending, as representative of the Palestinian people. It must not elect it again, in view of its proven financial and administrative corruption as well as its squandering of time and assets behind the false peace process. It is also necessary to work seriously to choose a new authority that will guard the Palestinian ranks, respect their will and their right to resist the occupation, and work for the complete liberation of its land and holy places.

4. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to circulate a declaration to withhold aid funds from the undeserving or placing them in the hands of those who are not trustworthy. It must regard this as a legal betrayal that should be prosecuted, and punish those who cause mayhem, negligence and waste of these moneys.

5. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to find a fair formula of reconciliation between the sons of the Palestinian people, under whose responsibility a legitimate authority will be formed that will attend to the fixed norms and the legitimate and national rights; and will carry on with the jihad and Resistance against the occupier until the liberation of all Palestine.

6. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to open the crossings -- all crossings -- in and out of Palestine permanently, in order to allow access to all the needs of the Palestinians -- money, clothing, food, medicine, weapons and other essentials, so that they are able to live and perform the jihad in the way of Allah Almighty. The closure of the crossings or the prevention of the entry of weapons through them should be regarded as high treason in the Islamic Nation, and clear support for the Zionist enemy.

7. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard everyone standing with the Zionist entity, whether countries, institutions or individuals, as providing a substantial contribution to the crimes and brutality of this entity; the position towards him is the same as towards this usurping entity.

8. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters, claiming to control the borders and prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Nation. This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways.

To conclude: the Nation’s scholars and proselytisers remind the Islamic Nation, rulers and ruled alike, of the necessity of returning to its religion, adhering to the book of its Lord and the sunna of his Prophet, working for its unity, and seizing control of the instruments of power that will make possible its supremacy and the preservation of its holy places and provisions

‘Allah prevails in his purpose, but most people know not.’ [Quran, 12: 21]).

What Wilders would have said

2009-02-13T19:18:00.002Z

Geert Wilders has released the text of the speech he wanted to make in the House of Lords. Here it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.

Thank you for inviting me. Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for showing Fitna, and for your gracious invitation. While others look away, you, seem to understand the true tradition of your country, and a flag that still stands for freedom.

This is no ordinary place. This is not just one of England’s tourist attractions. This is a sacred place. This is the mother of all Parliaments, and I am deeply humbled to speak before you.

The Houses of Parliament is where Winston Churchill stood firm, and warned – all throughout the 1930’s – for the dangers looming. Most of the time he stood alone.

In 1982 President Reagan came to the House of Commons, where he did a speech very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom. He introduced a phrase: ‘evil empire’. Reagan’s speech stands out as a clarion call to preserve our liberties. I quote: If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

What Reagan meant is that you cannot run away from history, you cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. Denial is no option.

Communism was indeed left on the ash heap of history, just as Reagan predicted in his speech in the House of Commons. He lived to see the Berlin Wall coming down, just as Churchill witnessed the implosion of national-socialism.

Today, I come before you to warn of another great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, the end of democracy. It is not a religion, it is a political ideology. It demands you respect, but has no respect for you.

There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is build on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never go away. First, there is Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect.

Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. The question is whether the British people, with its glorious past, is longing for that submission.

We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible speed. The United Kingdom has seen a rapid growth of the number of Muslims. Over the last ten years, the Muslim population has grown ten times as fast as the rest of society. This has put an enormous pressure on society. Thanks to British politicians who have forgotten about Winston Churchill, the English now have taken the path of least resistance. They give up. They give in.

Thank you very much for letting me into the country. I received a letter from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, kindly disinviting me. I would threaten community relations, and therefore public security in the UK, the letter stated.
For a moment I feared that I would be refused entrance. But I was confident the British government would never sacrifice free speech because of fear of Islam. Britannia rules the waves, and Islam will never rule Britain, so I was confident the Border Agency would let me through. And after all, you have invited stranger creatures than me. Two years ago the House of Commons welcomed Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh, linked to Al Qaeda. He was invited to Westminster by Lord Ahmed, who met him at Regent’s Park mosque three weeks before. Mr. Rideh, suspected of being a money man for terror groups, was given a SECURITY sticker for his Parliamentary visit.

Well, if you let in this man, than an elected politician from a fellow EU country surely is welcome here too. By letting me speak today you show that Mr Churchill’s spirit is still very much alive. And you prove that the European Union truly is working; the free movement of persons is still one of the pillars of the European project.

But there is still much work to be done. Britain seems to have become a country ruled by fear. A country where civil servants cancel Christmas celebrations to please Muslims. A country where Sharia Courts are part of the legal system. A country where Islamic organizations asked to stop the commemoration of the Holocaust. A country where a primary school cancels a Christmas nativity play because it interfered with an Islamic festival. A country where a school removes the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar so as not to offend Muslims. A country where a teacher punishes two students for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class. A country where elected members of a town council are told not to eat during daylight hours in town hall meetings during the Ramadan. A country that excels in its hatred of Israel, still the only democracy in the Middle-East. A country whose capitol is becoming ‘Londonistan’.

I would not qualify myself as a free man. Four and a half years ago I lost my freedom. I am under guard permanently, courtesy to those who prefer violence to debate. But for the leftist fan club of islam, that is not enough. They started a legal procedure against me. Three weeks ago the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered my criminal prosecution for making ‘Fitna’ and for my views on Islam. I committed what George Orwell called a ‘thought crime’.

You might have seen my name on Fitna’s credit role, but I am not really responsible for that movie. It was made for me. It was actually produced by Muslim extremists, the Quran and Islam itself. If Fitna is considered ‘hate speech’, then how would the Court qualify the Quran, with all it’s calls for violence, and hatred against women and Jews?
Mr. Churchill himself compared the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Well, I did exactly the same, and that is what they are prosecuting me for.

I wonder if the UK ever put Mr. Churchill on trail.

The Court’s decision and the letter I received form the Secretary of State for the Home Department are two major victories for all those who detest freedom of speech. They are doing Islam’s dirty work. Sharia by proxy. The differences between Saudi-Arabia and Jordan on one hand and Holland and Britain are blurring. Europe is now on the fast track of becoming Eurabia. That is apparently the price we have to pay for the project of mass immigration, and the multicultural project.

Ladies and gentlemen, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack. In Europe, freedom of speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural component of our existence is now something we again have to fight for. That is what is at stake. Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue. The question is: Will free speech be put behind bars?

We have to defend freedom of speech.

For the generation of my parents the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my country men listened to it, illegally. The words ‘This Is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon. If only the British and Canadian and American soldiers were here.

What will be transmitted forty years from now? Will it still be ‘This Is London’? Or will it be ‘this is Londonistan’? Will it bring us hope, or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery?

The choice is ours.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We will never apologize for being free. We will never give in. We will never surrender.

Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail.

Thank you very much.

Geert Wilders MP
Chairman, Party for Freedom (PVV)
The Netherlands

Goodbye to all that?

2009-01-28T11:36:00.016Z

Here are some pictures from the CAAN/Backlash demo last sunday - the eve of the coming into force of the "extreme images" ban. Thanks to Clair Lewis for letting me have them.

Mark Mackenzie

The lady with the "Big Brother is Watching You Masturbate" sign is the renowned spanking model and scene icon Pandora Blake. More pictures, together with a first-hand account of the day, on her highly recommendable blog.

Bruno Deflorence

Taking centre stage here, erotic fashion photographer Ben Westwood, who last time led a group of chained fetish models around Westminster. One of the "slaves", Jade (more conventionally dressed this time) is busy texting.

Here's Clair herself looking at home in front of a TV camera. She later turned up on the BBC Ten O'Clock news.

What would Winston make of it all, I wonder?

Another proud day in the life of the Home of Democracy.

The Community of the Dome

2009-01-07T13:29:00.005Z

A satirical short story by Cranmer's Curate

The Dome squatted in the rain as Peter entered the Media-zone for his
last seminar before the Winterval vacation. He had narrowly averted
being evicted from the Dome Academy, an elite feeder for both the
Modernisation Commission and the People’s Media. Following a meeting of
the enablers up in the Lennon-zone to consider his insufficient student
debt, he had been ordered to go to the Conran-zone for some retail therapy.

For festival time, he went to his father’s home in a check-pointed and
well-guarded garden suburb. Peter's parents had recently terminated
their civil partnership. Following the abolition of marriage in 20-,
work-place ballots were held to maintain the required termination rates
set by the Commission. Peter's father had been nominated by a
disgruntled junior and got elected. It was terminate your partnership or
lose your job. Future employment across the Modernised Zones was
impossible to find for anybody who had failed to comply with a
civil-partnership termination. ID cards stored the relevant data.

It was in the pocket of a borrowed suit that Peter found the book. He
had been invited to a 1960s retro party and his father had said he could
borrow an old Mod suit belonging to granddad up in the attic.

"To Pete - this'll really blow your mind. Love Zoe" was written on the
inside cover of the paperback, in good condition but bearing the
desiccated pages associated with its age. Peter noticed some
strange markings on the back - 2/ - net in U.K. The front-cover pictured
a large golden lion and a boy wearing shorts.
Its title - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Peter had liked his granddad, and was curious about the book. He read it
from cover to cover and found its imagery compelling - the strange land
entered through the wardrobe, the perpetual winter, the Witch and her
secret police, and above all the towering figure of the Lion.

But he was baffled by other aspects of the tale, particularly the events
surrounding the death of the Lion. What on earth had the boy Edmund done
wrong? What was wrong with disclosing his enemies' whereabouts to the
Witch? What was wrong with wanting to gain promotion for yourself at the
expense of others?

He could not understand the reason for the gory and humiliating
Voluntary Self-Euthanasia of the Lion. It was not as if he was seeking
to avoid pain, inconvenience, or shame for himself. He was sacrificing
himself for somebody else. It seemed folly to Peter.

Voluntary Self-Euthanasia
At the beginning of the autumn term, Terry began to suffer persistent
headaches. He presented himself to one of the Dome's in-house healing
enhancers in the Detox-zone. The tests began, the operation occurred,
the ensuing therapy continued, but the brain tumour was terminal.

Voluntary Self-Euthanasia had been introduced by the Commission to deal
with the growing problem of an ageing population. It was also useful in
depleting the burgeoning prison population amongst the underclass.

The framers of the legislation considered that the growing culture of
shame surrounding death would lead most terminal patients to
sign their own VSE consent forms. But if the patient was too
incapacitated to give their own consent, VSE procedure allowed the
obtaining of a signature of consent from the stakeholder's employer. For
educational institutions, the Chair of Enablers' signature
was required; for retired persons, the Commissioner
for Pensions was responsible for issuing VSE signatures.

Early on in the scheme, a legal challenge by the relative
of an elderly VSE patient on grounds of age discrimination had
ensured that regulations had to be applied in an egalitarian manner
across all age groups. VSE age discrimination was ruled contrary to
human rights.

When the system first began in 20-, procedures were observed carefully
due to the threat of legal challenges and the initial political
opposition to VSE. Initially, the signatures of two healing enhancers
were required to verify that the patient was unable to give consent
before the main signatory could give theirs and VSE proceed. There was
also an appeals procedure for relatives, which did in some cases delay
VSE.

But now the system was operating in a streamlined, and
uncharacteristically for the times, unbureaucratic manner. The main
signatory would generally be satisfied with one healing enhancer's
signature and VSE could proceed speedily.

Terry knew his moment would come as soon as the sun-tanned Chair of
Enablers took his case in hand and issued the necessary decree. Confined
to the Detox-zone, he asked for and obtained permission to visit the
Spirituality-zone.

The Spirituality-zone
Banks of computer screens lined the Spirituality-zone. Aromas filled the
air and the atmosphere was enhanced by electric candelabra projecting
soft lights.

Terry keyed in his password.

HELLO TERRY. WELCOME TO THE SPIRITUALITY-ZONE. YOU ARE INVITED TO CREATE
YOUR OWN IMAGE.

Since childhood, Terry had particularly liked cats.

I WOULD LIKE A CAT.

One duly appeared on the screen, sitting upright and staring
benevolently.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY TO THE CAT, TERRY?

I AM A CANDIDATE FOR VSE. WHAT GUIDANCE CAN YOU OFFER ME?

REMEMBER THERE'S ONLY ONE YOU, TERRY. YOU'RE VERY SPECIAL.

When the decree came from the Lennon-zone, Terry's VSE was performed by
a petite healing enhancer who gave him a massage and waved a crystal
over his prostrate body before administering the
injection. Terry breathed his last and was instantly cremated. His ashes
were placed in a container shaped like an old-fashioned Oscar.

Media Idol
The Community of the Dome gathered in the Nietzsche Hall for the
end-of-term Media Idol, judged by a panel of People's Celebrities. The
format was a policy announcement at a Commission press briefing. Each
contestant spoke into an autocue with their face projected onto a large
screen behind them.

For the first round, contestants were tasked to brief
the media on new funding for 24-hour nurseries on the day that a
commissioner had been charged with obstructing the course of a VSE
authorisation. For the second, they were tasked to humiliate an
unmodernised journalist with an impersonation of a personal mannerism.

Peter's punchy performances in all the rounds won him the prize and in
the blaze of a simulated fire-work display he was declared Dome Media
Idol of the Year. The Community of the Dome then linked arms and sang
the People's Anthem, Imagine. On this occasion, Peter's lips did not
move. His mind was elsewhere.

Sex and the Slutmaster

2008-11-06T18:36:00.014Z

As one of my regular Heretics remarked, Manuelgate encapsulates so many of the themes this blog has been pursuing this past year and a bit that I might have orchestrated it myself. Apart from the tittle-tattle, and the debate around the role of the BBC in shaping national standards of taste and decency, the workings of the media industry, the Goth scene that James was exploring (in a quite different context) the other day, the "blasphemy" implied in the name Satanic Sluts, even a bizarre and improbable connection with the Max Mosley saga that occupied the Heresiarch so much earlier this year, the story also brings to mind the present government's attitude to porn and, more broadly, to sexuality as evidenced in its Extreme Porn Ban.

I was first alerted to this (courtesy of CAAN's indefatigable Clair Lewis) by the borderline extreme nature of some of the photographs in which Miss Baillie appears, one of which briefly appeared on the Daily Mail website. Possibly the strongest of these (it wasn't in the Mail) featured Georgie in a bath of fake blood, naked, her carotid artery apparently severed by a kitchen knife held by another naked woman lying in the same bath. She didn't look particularly dead, though: so it might pass the "explicit and realistic" test set out in the Act. Be that as it may, the links between Manuelgate and the current porn debate are deep and fascinating yet have been relatively little explored.

The mastermind and impressario behind the Satanic Sluts is the avant-garde filmmaker and erotic horror importer Nigel Wingrove. Wingrove in fact has a long history of involvement in censorship controversies of one sort or another. His 1989 short Visions of Ecstasy was the last work to be banned by the BBFC on the grounds of potential blasphemy - a ban upheld in a famous test case by the European Court of Human Rights in 1996, but now presumably consigned to history along with the law of blasphemy. A later production of his, Sacred Flesh (1998) was described by Dr Linda Williams (a.k.a. Mrs Mark Kermode) as being "replete with deranged nymphets tearing off their habits and lasciviously mounting giant crosses, its overwrought screenplay fleshed out by a range of underwrought acting styles."

In 2000, The Independent called Wingrove "an unlikely champion of liberal causes". By contrast, Stephen Green of Christian Voice urged his followers earlier this year to pray "that his troubled soul will find rest in the Lord Jesus Christ." Don't make the mistake of visiting his website, Green warned: "This is truly another world which should not exist in a civilised nation."

In the mid 1990s, Wingrove was one of the first importers to take advantage of Michael Howard's new liberal approach to hardcore porn (yes, you read that right) after the Tory Home Secretary gave the green light to the BBFC to pass scenes of basic intercourse uncut. The theory, as the former BBFC director James Ferman told Panorama, was to "draw the line between sexual portrayals which are simply within the range of normal sexual practice and sexual portrayals which are degrading particularly bestiality or lavatorial practices or whatever, or force, or violence or restraint". Ban everthing, he argued, and you just drive it underground where "inevitably it will be mixed up with other criminal kinds of representations which involve torture and degradation."

John Ware, the presenter of that 1998 edition of Panorama, entitled Porn Wars (here's a full transcript), described the relaxation of the previous ban on all hardcore porn as "one of the last Tory government's best-kept secrets". They didn't even tell the police, who raided Wingrove's distribution centre while he was promoting his wares at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. When he protested that the material they had seized was fine by the BBFC the vice squad retorted that in that case they'd have to raid the censors. It all came down to how you interpreted the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, which outlaws anything tending to deprave and corrupt. As the great John Mortimer QC told the programme, prosecutions have not always been trouble-free since "it’s very difficult to find anyone who's actually come forward and said they’ve been depraved and corrupted".

The incoming Labour Home Secretary, in an early indication of the new government's moralising tone, was outraged when he found out what the BBFC had been up to, describing Ferman's attempt to distinguish standard porn fare from the extreme variety as "circular and risible". Which is an interesting statement, given the legislative contortions recently perfomed by the government as it tried to do precisely that. He claimed and suggested that allowing any hardcore pornography would lead to "a much greater likelihood that more extreme material would take its place."

What finally did for the attempt to keep out porn, of course, was the Web. The Home Office finally gave up the fight under David Blunkett, and today the BBFC scrutinises hundreds of porn videos each year. Their guidelines ban, besides the obvious no-nos of child porn and bestiality, depictions of rape and sexual violence, the infliction of pain (with the possible exception of "mild consensual activity"), "penetration by any object likely to cause actual harm or associated with violence", and "any sexual threats, humiliation or abuse" - which is "likely" to be cut even if clearly consensual. To take an example, Anna Span's 2006 film Hug a Hoodie - a satirical work which consisted of sexual scenes filmed on a housing estate - was cut (says the BBFC) "to remove vaginal penetration with a hand and a foot."

Such a policy would seem in line with Ferman's stated aims of more than a decade ago. Then, to judge by the Panorama film, the authorities were as alarmed as they are today by the more extreme end of the market, although in those days the concern was with under-the-counter material stuffed into plain brown envelopes and sold in (often) illegal and unlicensed sex shops. Despite Straw's objections, the police rarely bothered prosecuting videos showing consensual sex. The programme interviewed Chief Inspector Martin Jauch of the Met's Clubs and Vice department - based in Charing Cross - who summed up the cops' priorities:

For most people pornography is..tits and bums and it’s not, the material that we deal with is an ocean away from that. It includes the most revolting sorts of torture, of coercion, of exploitation of both sexes. It’s material that I think most people haven’t got the remotest idea even exists.

Yet even "extreme" material didn't always make the grade. Jauch described his frustration with the OPA and the way some juries interpreted it. One particular tape he had seen involved the insertion of a fire extinguisher into a body orifice. In his view,

It was quite outrageous, it was degrading, it was really beyond anybody’s experience and that was found to be not obscene, it makes you wonder if they’ll find some of this material to be not obscene, then what will they find to be obscene.

Fast forward a decade, and you don't need to bother with underground networks or even pay-per-view websites. Today Fleshbot, a site owned by, and openly linked to from, the popular New York-based political and media gossip blog Gawker, offers hardcore porn without even the interposition of an age-confirmation screen. Just last week it offered online readers "Extreme Halloween with Belladonna". Said the none-too-explicit text:

Have you picked out your Halloween costume yet? We're still working out the details on ours, but we think we're going to go as Belladonna. It's a pretty easy costume—just get a black wig, paint on some tattoos, and carry around a baseball bat... wait, you didn't get that last part? Um, maybe you should just watch this video then. (And Happy Halloween!)

This playful introduction led into video footage in which a full-sized baseball bat was inserted (big end first) some distance up the rectal passage of a young female performer (presumably "Belladonna"). It's most unlikely that such a scene would have been passed by the BBFC, and it seems certain to fall foul of the CJIA ban on depictions of "injury or threat of injury to the anus." Yet here it is for ten or twelve year-olds to look at.

There are signs that even the sybaritic Nigel Wingrove - who deals in (and produces) some pretty hardcore stuff himself - has concerns about the current easy availability of extreme porn. Writing on his blog a few days before Manuelgate brought the Satanic Sluts to wider public attention, he described a typical day at the office. His muse Kelly Lyne (nom de slut: Sabrina Sixx - she can be seen romping with Georgina Baillie in a clip from the cable "reality show" Slut House, courtesy of the News of the World) was busy uploading trailers for a new internet shop.

She commented on the extreme grossness of some of the footage, possibly a gaping arsehole oozing cum or something equally delightful had caught her attention. This was not inspired by prudery or timidity on Kelly's part and neither were these titles 'extreme' in the porn sense of the word as they were all in fact trailers for titles produced by the highly regarded and mainstream UK adult company Harmony.

Wingrove took this incident as a starting point for a meditation of the changing nature of porn, and the ratchet effect whereby what is at first outrageously far out soon becomes commonplace:

For now, gaping arseholes sell so gaping is good, so is seeing women's faces covered in spunk as umpteen men stand around her and masturbate, their aim to get as much spunk as possible onto her face, for extra effect her eyes and mouth are often held open to increase her discomfort, in some films the men piss on her and into her mouth just in case the film's misogynistic fervor was in danger of passing the viewer by. Also popular in the current new wave of porn is the introduction of vomit, this is favoured by the likes of Max Hardcore and his ilk and is where men force their cocks or hands so far down a women's throat that she throws up! This is highly erotic of course, as is shoving lit cigars and various large objects into women's vaginas and anuses, double vaginal penetration, double anal and spitting into their eyes are also popular modern seduction techniques.

Max Hardcore, a notorious American pornographer (real name Paul Little), was recently convicted by a court in Florida for distributing obscene material and sentenced to almost four years in jail. During his trial, many of his regular performers turned up in court to testify as to the thoroughly consensual nature of the film-making process. Others, though, have described very young girls - barely 18 - being "persuaded" to participate in extreme and disgusting acts. The popularity of his product certainly demonstrates the jading nature of much contemporary porn whose consumers, like junkies, need progressively greater fixes. As Wingrove puts it, "constant exposure to something one desires necessitates constantly upping the ante." The internet sex shop, he writes, is "the Disneyland of pornography" where "every perversion, every possible function of the human body and every fetish ever conceived or imagined can now be accessed in minutes, day in, day out." And by children and teenagers as well as by adults.

The pursuit of pornographic extremes recalls the Roman Colosseum, where audiences fed up with watching the usual gladiators slugging it out were offered women, or dwarves, or blind men fighting ostriches. It also mirrors the descent into an abyss of tastelessness of more mainstream culture, where each series of Big Brother introduces more uninhibited or damaged personalities and the contestants on I'm A Celebrity... are subjected in the name of mass entertainment to a theatre of cruelty. And submit, because the exposure helps their careers. An interesting question thus emerges: is porn becoming ever more extreme because that tendency is in the nature of porn, or because that tendency is in the nature of modern society?

Porn can of course be a valuable educational tool for teenagers, who now come to sex far more knowledgeable and proficient than they ever used to. For adults in committed relationships it can provide an enriching source of fantasy and inspiration, opening previously unimagined horizons and enabling communication between partners. It can even save marriages. But it has a distorting effect. It can encourage premature sexual experimentation. It projects unattainable ideals (or unnatural norms) of bodily perfection, pubic topiary and (for boys) penis size. Girls feel the need to perform deep-throating or submit to anal sex: boys come to think that the natural conclusion to a bout of lovemaking is to ejaculate in their partner's face. It is deforming, perhaps dehumanising. Long term, the social and sexual effects of a generation reared on hardcore porn are difficult to gauge. This is an experiment that has escaped the laboratory.

I have previously criticised the current government's decision to ban possession of extreme pornography, which strikes me as being ill-judged and badly-drafted. It is based on the dubious proposition that a taste for violent or sadomasochistic porn indicates a propensity for violence, or encourages its viewers to commit acts of violence. Often, the opposite is true. Individuals attracted to the darker or more unconventional side of human sexuality are typically seeking fantasy, exploring their desires in a safe and controlled environment. In their day to day lives they tend to be well-balanced and successful. Whether by accident or design, the new measures target - and may jeopardise the livelihood or even liberty of - an entirely inoffensive and law-abiding part of the community.

The government, moreover, seems determined to return to the days of pre-internet border control, when Britain stood unique in the western world in its aversion to even the mildest porn. It appears driven by a combination of neo-Victorian religious moralism (can it be a coincidence that New Labour has also presided over a rapid expansion of faith schools and various "faith-based" initiatives?) and feminist dogma which sees all pornography as inherently exploitative and degrading to (and objectifying of) women. Jack Straw's instinctive revulsion at the very idea even of adults being able to watch consensual and no-frills intercourse suggests that the ban on "extreme porn" is only the beginning.

Yet there's a big difference, surely, between permitting informed adults, whose tastes tend that way, to receive and enjoy material which the majority would consider extreme or outrageous, and a situation in which such disturbing material can be accessed anywhere, at any time, by anyone, sometimes without any warning. The problem has only just begun to attract the serious attention of lawmakers, but in this area as in others the days of the internet free-for-all may well be numbered. History moves in cycles, as the licence of one era provokes a reaction in the direction of repression and moralistic control. I sense such a flipover may be upon us.

Naughty Girl

2008-11-02T16:18:00.019Z

After days of internet speculation - some of it courtesy of your increasingly depraved Heresiarch - the News of the World provided further details of the hardcore lesbian spanking video staring Andrew Sach's granddaughter. The Screws is, of course, sister paper to the Sun to which Georgina Baillie a.k.a. Voluptua gave an interview (for a reputed £40,000, which is what Ross, before his suspension, would have called two and half days work).

According to the write-up, which was accompanied by stills of much higher quality than have previously been available (via Popbitch originally), Miss Baillie "can also be seen romping on a hardcore website called Clothed Female, Nude Male." They also offer footage of her appearance in a cable "reality TV" show entitled Slut House.

Special Detention, I have discovered, was made by California Star productions, an adult video company specialising in fetish, spanking, bondage - and also tickling, which sounds altogether nicer. They are responsible for a long-running and apparently successful series entitled English Punishment, of which this film would appear to be a variation. According to the News of the World, Georgie's "bare bottom is whipped by a raunchy history teacher before she has sex with the blonde and another “schoolgirl”". A description I have found on a pay-per-view porn site is somewhat more explicit:

James and Gray, two of the naughtiest young women in St.Lukes have once again found themselves in detention hall. This time however the teacher in charge Mrs.Ravenscroft, a strict disciplinarian who is quick to use the cane despite it's recent ban by the courts. Rumors are that she uses a strap - on dildo, and if the women agree to be humiliated, she will lessen the degree of caning administered.

She readily spanks and canes the two leaving welts in their pretty bare bottoms .The girls are also made to spank each other before being bent over the desk for a lesson with the strap-on .This however turns the girls on after pleasing themselves they soon enjoy making love to one another on the conservatory floor.

No performers are credited by name, but the blonde Mrs Ravenscroft is portrayed in the film (I am fairly certain) by Jadie Reece, who is very well known in the world of spanking videos and parties. A former glamour model, she has been involved in the scene for several years and is extremely well-regarded (indeed, beloved) by corporal punishment enthusiasts and by her co-stars. As "Jadie", she appears in several further CalStar videos available on the same site. In most of her roles, as in life, Jadie takes the submissive part. To see Baillie turn up on the same set as the renowned JR was actually rather surprising: the CP scene, I had learned earlier this year, was a close-knit world at some remove from the rest of the porn industry. And Georgina Baillie is not a regular member of that scene.

With her (some might say reckless) desire to profit from her notoriety she certainly - as I noted the other day - stands in marked contrast to the discretion shown by the women in the Max Mosley case. Perhaps her association with the spanking scene was too casual or short-lived for her to internalise the code of Omerta under which it operates. There's no doubt that her actions have alienated some who might otherwise have been sympathetic to her. Mistress Switch, for example - a model of elegant discretion in such matters - was tonight heard to opine that Voluptua had "now completely lost my sympathy for playing the poor victim whilst milking it to the maximum and enjoying the publicity." Indeed, La Switch added,

I don't believe if you get the dirt slung at you, you should then sling it right back and make a tidy profit and raise your own profile. Dashing to Max Clifford and making out you're whiter than white? She's no victim. One could almost say this has been manufactured. Naive maybe but if she'd had said nothing, maybe this story wouldn't have been blown out of all proportions and other people wouldn't have been dragged into the story.

True bdsmers enjoy playing in peace and quiet without the attention of the press under any circumstances.

That's telling her.

The back cover for Special Detention lists the date of production as Feb 27th 2008, which along with other evidence suggests that Georgina's move into the porn business is relatively recent. Although it might also be seen as the culmination of a period lasting at least five years, during which she has been a fetish model, a burlesque dancer, a bit-part actress, a presenter for Redemption TV (a cable channel associated with the Satanic Sluts) and, earlier this year, a dominatrix. Images from the CFNM site, and accompanying descriptions, reveal that her performance in two films stopped just short of penetrative sex with a male performer. In one, entitled Jason Davidson,

Georgina Baillie and a female board of directors evaluate a new rugby player by stripping him down and getting nasty with him. The granddaughter of Andrew Sachs helps examine the naked man’s c*** and a**.

Then sex-crazed Georgina excitedly delivers a firm paddling to his bare ass while straddling him. She hungrily milks his cock while he’s naked on all fours on the table.

Hogarth would have had great fun, I suspect, with the tale of this young lady, granddaughter of a well-loved and respected comic actor, advancing deeper and deeper into the sex industry. Whether it represents the triumph of feminism and sexual liberation or moral disintegration is unclear; but if I were Andrew Sachs I would find these revelations far more distressing than the news that she had spent a couple of nights with a talented if dissipated comedian.

Everything I've Learned about Spanking

2008-07-25T11:25:00.023+01:00

When the Max Mosley "Nazi orgy with hookers" story first broke I scarcely noticed it. Lacking much interest in sadomasochistic orgies, Nazi or otherwise, never having heard of Max Mosley (or, come to that, the FIA: I imagined that motorsport was run entirely by Bernie Ecclestone), and not being a regular reader of the News of the World the fuss barely registered on my radar screen. But then, a few weeks later, came something that did interest me: the revelation that one of the women involved - the very one who sold the story to the Screws, moreover - was married to an MI5 officer. I wondered how much I could find out about her, and the circumstances involved. Was there a grand conspiracy? Who really set Mosley up? What kind of truths, all these weeks later, were still out there?

Cherchez les femmes quickly became my watchword. I searched - and found. No smoking gun, no conspiracies (I lacked Lord Stevens' resources or expertise), but I did discover fascinating details about the women involved in the case. What I found overturned completely all my preconceptions. It may also, in retrospect, have skewed my moral compass.

The process of tracking down the women, originally fuelled by pure, prurient curiosity, slowly changed into something else as I learned more about the world they inhabit and about the women themselves. I pursued them through a network of message-boards, blogs and obscure fetish sites. I learned a new vocabulary, of CP and BDSM, of pro-dommes and submissives, of munches, judicials and paddles. I hung out in deviant chatrooms. I have seen enough photographs of striped, enflamed, bruised and scarred backsides to last several lifetimes. I was never remotely turned on; yet bizarre, disturbing images, which must appear inherently abusive, began to appear normal, even banal. I found this disquieting. But whatever my final thoughts about their lifestyle I have over the past weeks developed a respect and, strange though it sounds, an affection for the women who, for whatever reason, choose it.

What at first seemed to be an undifferentiated group of "hookers" turned out to be anything but. There was the outwardly respectable middle-aged divorcee with a head for figures and an allegedly "dynamite" contacts book; the young glamour model struggling to raise her child alone; the ultra-bright graduate student who craved polyglot humiliation and the firm thwack of a hairbrush; the German with an enigmatic past and hair as dark and lustrous as polished obsidian; and, of course, the villainess, the arch-deceiver, spanking's own Mata Hari, who owned and ran a fully-equipped dungeon in old Milton Keynes. Far from obscure, they were stars in their limited firmament, with an adoring fanbase. Like proper celebrities, they even did their bit for charity.

The treacherous Mistress Abi, who can now be pictured. They're calling her "Michelle"

Whether or not one chooses to use the word "prostitute" of such women is a difficult question (even among themselves), and to some extent an artificial one. At one level, they are obviously providing "sexual services" in exchange for money, even though the services rarely include penetrative sex (and if sex does occur, it is a freely-given extra, on the woman's terms). But in other respects they are most unlike prostitutes, even highly-paid call girls, whose whole raison d'être is to earn money through sex. With the spankees and dominatrices of the corporal punishment (CP) scene, even if spanking is their career (and it usually isn't) it is above all a personal need, an outward expression of inner compulsion. And, indeed, it's hard to see how it could be otherwise. Being hurt for money sounds like the most abject degradation: yet these women are not degraded. They do it because that is who they are. If they aren't paid to be spanked, they offer themselves up for free. And if they can't find anyone willing to do if for free, they may even pay.

Another awkward question raised for some by the professional BDSM scene concerns the political (and, indeed, moral) ramifications of the infliction of pain in exchange for money. Whether or not it is "prostitution", whether or not it is consensual, is it inherently abusive? This is something that particularly troubles feminists. Kit Roskelly, herself an S&M Submissive and self-declared feminist, puts the problem this way in an article posted on The F Word:

While people of every orientation and gender are involved in BDSM, the scenes in which heterosexual couples interact, and particularly those in which a woman takes the submissive role, are of particular interest in the context of female sexuality. In taking on control of a female submissive during scenes, dominant men appear to be enacting all that is worst about male privilege and control. The use of tying and restraints, physical punishment and sexual domination, all ring alarm-bells for the feminist viewer.

Roskelly's own answer to this question stresses - as do all apologists for BDSM of any variety - the paramount importance of consent. But some feminists - sharing in this (and not for the only time) the views of the distinctly non-feminist journalists at the Mail - find this less than convincing. And where money changes hands, the "punishment" of a female submissive seems to go beyond the ritualisation of the assumed patriarchal dominance in wider society and to depend on it directly. After all, those paying, whether to spank or to be spanked, or merely to watch the spanking, are overwhelmingly men. They have the money - and therefore, if you accept the feminist analysis, they also have the power.

As "Prime Rib" put it in a comment on CIF, "He [MM] assaulted women (yes, they were prostitutes - so what?). Since when did handing money over excuse violence? What about their 'feelings?' What about their health and safety?... " When I put it to her that the women were consenting and in any case were doing it for their own enjoyment as much as Mosley's, she described my point of view as "bullcrap":

Personally, I find S&Mers largely comic, sad and only rarely disturbing. But that's because they're still a subset of oddballs. Normalise, and the 'boundaries' become far less defined. Too many men (and some women) have 'issues.' Licence to express them sexually, for money, is a recipe for abuse.

Such an argument seems to me to be based on dogma rather than experience, and strikingly similar to arguments made forty years ago against the legalisation of gay sex: that the young and vulnerable would be taken advantage of, or that normalising something deviant will damage society more widely. Yet I cannot dismiss it entirely, and - picking up hints here and there - it seems clear that despite a strongly expressed attachment to the principle of consent the potential for abuse remains. I found this blog comment, for example, by a professional spank model - one of the best in the business:

But when is play not so good for the sub? I guess when what he or she receives is not at all what she was expecting (and is not a slave and so has a right to complain about this) and is really rather damaged from the whole experience both physically and mentally. I have seen (and been subjected to once or twice) the result of bad play and it can really do bad things to both your psyche and your posterior!

What all this emphasises, of course, is the centrality of trust and personal relationships. In an interesting post, Adele Haze (another leading light of the Scene, who was not directly involved in the case) compared herself and her fellow spankees to geishas whose position is, perhaps, similarly anomalous. Among ten points she raised, she mentioned that "both a geisha and a spanking model compete for attention of a relatively small group of people". This, I think, is key. It's a small community of about 20-30 girls who know each other, go to the same parties, show up in the same films and on the same specialist websites, and who therefore put a high premium on trust. It seems far removed from the seedy, anonymous, soulless world of commercial sex. Eady J alluded to this element when he wrote in his judgement,

I was told that there is a fairly tight-knit community of S and M activists on what is known as “the scene” and that it is an unwritten rule that people are trusted not to reveal what has gone on. That is hardly surprising....It is alleged against the woman in question (known as “Woman E”) that she breached that trust and that the journalist concerned must have appreciated that she was doing so.

The judge further quotes a text message sent by Miss A to Max Mosley soon after the News of the World exposé

“ … our scene is based on complete trust and complete discretion. However one of my so called close friends dominatrix [Woman E] has betrayed that confidence by doing what she has done. I am devastated by this act of pure total selfish greed, she has no morals, no integrity, no loyalty, complete disregard to others, cruel, and she is a liar!!! No one … deserves this invasion of privacy.”

Everything that I have learned confirms this impression. Ethics matters to these people. Miss A spoke in court of the "family atmosphere" that bound the women together - and their clients, too, with whom they often come to form close relationships. Although, as in all extended families, there are also quarrels, rivalries and feuds. One important distinction would seem to be between "pro-dommes", mistresses doing it just for the money, and "genuine players", who do it for love. Identifying Mistress Abi as a purely mercenary dominatrix enabled some on the scene to put her betrayal into some kind of context. Yet other pro-dommes retort that confidentiality is just as important to them as to anyone else, and Abi's behaviour wasn't their fault. Who knows when, or whether, the breach will be healed?

The Scene is, as it is designed to be, a world of mirrors, in which real identities are submerged behind false names and, occasionally, fictitious details. This serves as a buffer between the scene and the mundane, or "vanilla" world, which is perceived as being potentially threatening. There is a fear that with exposure would come consequences, a sense that the world as a whole, or at least the powers that control it, represent a threat to their lifestyle, to their jobs and to their relationships. With that fear comes also solidarity, a desire to protect each other's security and, when need arises, to circle the wagons.

One important aspect of this security concerns names. "Scene names" are carefully chosen. Sometimes, they will have purely theatrical connotations - "Mistress Switch", for example - and will therefore give no indication as to the actual identity of the person behind the name. Others will resemble real names, but not be. Similarly, clients will tend to use pseudonyms - Max was "Mike", for example - even where their real names are known to their closest confederates. As far as I can tell, that element of confidentiality has so far been largely preserved. Certainly the "real" identities of the women are not easy (though not impossible) to uncover.

The need for trust - and the close personal relationships that this entails - thus exists in tension with circumspection. The girls on the Scene, and their largely male clientelle, are bound together not just by a shared enthusiasm for spanking but through fear of the consequences of exposure. It is this delicate balance that the Max Mosley case has upset. Above all, it was the action of "Woman E" - a professional dominatrix and a close friend of at least one of the four other women in the case - that has sent shockwaves through the community. The sense of betrayal is still raw. Adele Haze, for example, writes on her blog that the affair has left her "numb with anger". She had come to know the scene as a place of trust and safety, "a benevolent, friendly world of kinky humans". E's actions had destroyed all that:

This is why it was such a blow to me that the betrayal of my colleagues (and Max, their client) came not from a mustachioed spy creeping into a dodgy spanking party, but a woman they considered one of their own. This alone was hard to take in, and I still struggle to understand what has to go through the mind of a woman who throws away all relationships, connections and friendships in the scene, gleefully pushing five people off the cliff...

I couldn’t begin to equate my distress to the daily anguish suffered by the girls and Max. I’m safe and well here behind my computer screeen. And yet, the profound disappointment in my scene is looking to haunt me for a long time. I don’t see being able to walk into a spanking party without guessing who is going to betray everybody present.

Shortly after the MM affair went public, one of the leading organising figures on the British corporal punishment scene, Lucy McLean, sent a round-robin email urging her spank-buddies not to blog about the incident, to protect the women involved. She feared that they might lose their jobs or even the custody of their children if their true identities were exposed. The embargo was adhered to until the case concluded last week. By a bitter irony, however, it was McLean herself who was to suffer most.

Together with her husband Paul Kennedy, Lucy runs the Glasgow-based Northern Spanking site, where CP enthusiasts can pay to watch videos of their favourite models being spanked. Four of the five Mosley women were regular or occasional performers in NS productions - indeed, it was owing to a prior engagement shooting for them that Woman D was unable to take part in the first of Max's two parties in March. As a result of these connections, NS came to the attention of a reporter who, unable to find out much about the Mosley affair itself, decided to expose Lucy and Paul instead. The ensuing publicity cost Paul his job and the couple most of their income. There's not a great deal of money in online spanking, it would appear. "It has always been a labour of love for both of us," says Lucy.

In a comment which sums up a general feeling on the scene, Lucy proclaims, "The fact that these animals are allowed to completely ruin people's lives under the guise of "public interest" and "freedom of press" is abominable and must be stopped."

The moment the dangers of exposure really hit home to me, however, came when I discovered the identity of Miss D. Like the Mail a few months later, I had been fascinated to learn of her double life - research scientist by day, professional spank model by night. Her well-written and fascinating blog (now, for whatever reason, defunct) became, for me, a window into a world of which I had hitherto had no knowledge. She came across as open, candid, brave, likeable and popular, with many friends and a positive approach to life. So open was she, indeed, that I began to rue my earlier pursuit of her and (hypocritically, perhaps) became genuinely annoyed that the Mail had, if anything, gone further (and, of course, a national newspaper must be far more dangerous to her anonymity than a relatively obscure blog). And then I found out her real name, the names of her colleagues and supervisors, and the name of the institution to which she was attached. Suddenly it seemed a lot less funny. If anything I wrote contributed to her problems then I am truly sorry.

So what have I learned? Firstly, more than I ever wanted or needed to about the milieu in which Max Mosley moved undetected for more than 40 years. It's an intimate society with rules and conventions, and one that operates at several levels. There are basically three interconnecting circles: and the Mosley women operated in all three. There are the private appointments - "1-2-1" sessions and small, confidential parties, at which the first rule is absolute discretion. It was such a gathering that was successfully infiltrated by the News of the World back in March. But there are also larger, more public assemblies, which are all ticket affairs including fairly elaborate theatrical tableaux.

It emerged in court that Miss A used to arrange such events in Euston, with financial backing from Max Mosley himself. As described in the newspapers, these were orgies where "up to 30 men pay around £200 to have sex with ten women in a stage-like setting". This led the Telegraph's Kevin Garside to note that "having a financial interest in a tawdry sex den in Euston... is of a different order of perversion" which might have been even more damaging to Mosley's reputation that the goings-on in Chelsea. I've seen photos from similar parties, and they do indeed seem fairly uninhibited; but apart from the odd bit of fondling the only "sexual acts" were being performed on stage between the women. And this account of such a party by a regular participant makes it sound like an S&M version of speed dating:

there was not really enough time to enjoy the CP from all the guys as we had to rush to the next and the next (and so on)....and the implements and caning was particularly speedy (kinda like speed spanking). I felt a little rude asking the guys to come over quickly and do their stuff at speed, particularly as I did not feel I had spent enough time with some of them, however that is the nature of a large party and I have to hope that the guys there understood that.

(Bisexuality would seem to be a near-universal trait among spankees. As Eady J commented at para 121 (getting a little hot under his robes, or so it seems to me), "although the Claimant's sexual activity as revealed in the DVD material did not seem to amount to very much, some of the women stayed on after the party was over and indulged in same sex action purely for their own entertainment.")

The third level is that of the websites and specialist films. There's an obvious overlap here between BDSM and more "mainstream" varieties of porn, much of which features S&M scenarios. But the differences are equally striking, such as the fact that most spanking films do not feature explicit sex; or the fact that almost all the girls who appear in films or on websites are also available for private bookings and attend the above-mentioned parties. Or the fact, admitted by Adele Haze, that physical attractiveness is not always a prerequisite for the women in the films.

The second thing that became overwhelmingly apparent was the strong sense of community and fellow-feeling that exists in the spanking world, and BDSM generally. The Mosley affair threatened them, and they responded partly by closing ranks, and partly by standing firmly behind Max in his fight. He became an unlikely hero; and the women who gave evidence, braving exposure, had at least the consolation of strong support from their network of friends and colleagues. Whether the Scene will re-emerge unchanged, and whether the four women will continue to play their formerly prominent roles within it, it's probably too early to tell. In some ways, its denizens will be safer after the judge's explicit acknowledgement of people's right to conduct their personal sex lives in private. But the fear of exposure will remain; as the case of Paul and Lucy has confirmed, being outed as an S&M practitioner still puts your life and career at risk. And while many ordinary people may take a more tolerant line than the News of the World, or indeed the Daily Mail, the BDSM community remains one of the few against which explicit discrimination is still legal.

The other thing I learned was about myself. I'm not into spanking. Honestly.

© 2008 Heresy Corner, all rights reserved.

Chelsea Girls

2008-07-19T13:15:00.003+01:00

Saturday's Daily Mail carried a typically unbalanced and exploitative exposé of the women involved in the Max Mosley affair, especially Miss D. One particular quote, attributed to "a blog", regarding Mistress Switch's contacts book, was not mine but rather my translation of an article that appeared in a French magazine. I have no idea whether or not her contacts book is "dynamite"; but if other people in high-profile or influential roles attend her parties or meet her on a private basis, then so far as I'm concerned that is no-one's business but theirs.

Secrets of the Chelsea Basement

2008-05-31T11:11:00.023+01:00

I have decided (10/7/08) to reinstate this item, since most of the details came out in court anyway. But, mindful of legal constraints, I have deleted full names and the photos that previously appeared.

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Max Mosley, FIA president and son of famous fascist Oswald, has been in a spot of trouble recently, ever since the News of the World exposed his unconventional sexual preferences at the end of March. He was, so they claimed, "a secret sado-masochist sex pervert", who engaged in "a depraved NAZI-STYLE orgy in a torture dungeon" - helpfully caught on film by one of the five "hookers" who participated in the event, staged in a Chelsea basement flat.

There were calls for him to resign (so far he has resisted) and widespread revulsion. But Mosley has fought back, hiring an ex-Screws editor Phil Hall to do his PR, and current Screws columnist Lord (John) Stevens to investigate the circumstances behind the sting. In his defence, Mosley denied that there was an overt Nazi theme in any of the role-play, stressed that it was in any case his own private business what he got up to, and alleged that he was the victim of a conspiracy.

It's not entirely clear whether or not it was Lord Stevens' company, Quest, that outed the 38-year old blonde who shopped Max to the NotW as the wife of an MI5 agent. But this latest development certainly adds to the intrigue. At the very least, it is a severe embarrassment to the intelligence service, who are supposed to have vetting procedures to prevent this sort of thing. While the man himself - unnamed for "security reasons", though his identity is well-known to the press - was fully aware that his wife of just over a year maintained a fully-equipped 2-storey dungeon in Milton Keynes, he had, it seems, neglected to inform his employers. And they, we are told, had no idea. "We expect high standards of behaviour from all staff at all times, both professionally and privately" said a spokesman, primly. According to other reports that I have found, on the other hand, the agent made no secret of his wife's professional activities, and even boasted about her to colleagues. Make of that what you will. [Indeed, much of this speculation was confirmed by a report subsequently published in the Mail on Sunday - 10/7/08]

Personally, I would far rather MI5 spent their time monitoring terrorists than prying into people's sex lives. On the other hand, it's hard to see precisely why having a wife who spanks middle-aged gentlemen in her basement should be a bar to serving one's country. It might, in fact, be a positive advantage, given the intelligence that might be gleaned in such a situation. Was it just that he didn't tell them about it?

MI5, needless to say, denies that anything sinister has been going on. The idea that they might be a party to a sting operation makes no sense, they maintain, since Mosley was not a security risk and, in any case, there are more important things for them to worry about. I hope so. But did "Mistress Abi" did take the decision to run to the News of the World and pocket a large wad of their cash entirely on her own, without consulting her husband? It's hard not to think that someone somewhere has a hidden agenda. Formula One is a notoriously muky and espionage-obsessed business.

I cannot, alas, penetrate that particular mystery. But I have been able to discover more details about the private party in Chelsea and its attendees. And it seems that Mosley and his paid guests may indeed have been unfairly maligned. Of the five women, four knew each other (and Max) extremely well. The fifth - professionally known as "Mistress Abi" - seems to have been invited along at a later stage. This would seem to reduce the likelihood that Mosley was targeted "by persons and for reasons unknown", as he alleges. Unless of course someone got wind of what was in the offing and found a way to exploit it.

According to the original report in the News of the World, the "cast list" was as follows: Mistress Abi, (E) "Mistress S" (the main organiser, identified in court as A), a German dominatrix named in the News of the World, but due to legal restrictions now merely as B, and two "prisoners", described as a blonde and a brunette.

I managed to identify the two submissives, who were referred to C and D in court, and got a court order for my pains. These seem to be the only two who particpated in the sex acts, if any. (All the women involved deny being prostitutes.) Suffice it to say that both are well known in the BDSM "scene", having featured in numerous fetish and spanking videos with titles such as Prison Chronicles and Punished Brats. Both have also featured in a prison-themed S&M website which D co-founded (although she recently left due to "creative differences" with the director).

Besides her film career, the privately-educated Londoner (28) identified as D is PhD student in biochemistry (this came out in court). Her research concerns the structure and synthesis of lipids. She is also a former ballerina and rugby enthusiast, and she has even appeared in an episode of The Weakest Link. In an online interview she explained the origins of her favourite role-playing scenario:

I truly believe that the prison fantasy stems from spending many years growing up in a boarding school. If someone can name three differences between prison and boarding school I'd like to hear them. However, some inspiration, such as the use of storyline and particular characters come from TV and films based in prisons, women's prison's especially. I guess my fantasy is an exchange of power and in prison this is particularly strong. You are completely at the guard's mercy and that has always been my thing.

Miss D has her own fairly innocuous blog. Following the scandal she posted her side of the story (in an entry since deleted), explicitly denying that there was any Nazi theme to the March gathering: it was, she insisted, a bog-standard prisoner-interrogation scenario, there were no Nazi uniforms, and no orgy. Like Mosley, she insists that the Nazi elements were invented by the News of the World (or Mistress Abi) to spice up the story. The available video footage is, it must be said, ambiguous. German accents and snatches of German dialogue do not, of themselves, make a realistic concentration camp. Still, the man's name is Mosley.

Woman C is slightly younger, but is equally popular as a spankee, both in films and at parties which she organises with a friend who goes by the name of Dublin. In "real life" she works in the National Health Service. Her profile on the invaluable Northern Spanking website mentions that she "got into spanking through my glamour modelling work and one of the other girls asked me if I'd like to try it. I'd always liked a good slap on the bottom during foreplay, so I thought, why not?" She adds:

Since then I've gone strength to strength and become instatiable for spanking and all things corporal punishment. My favourite being the cane, and I love nothing more than a double caning especially when Lucy is the left handed participant!

Parties are probably my favourite thing to do because they are such a laugh, but I like doing videos and photos too - mostly because I love dressing up. It makes me feel so sexy!

The German participant B was named in the NOTW but is also subject to the court order. Her website, however (like D's, but unlike those of the two leading protagonists) is still fully functional. On it, she describes herself as 34 years old, 5'8, with natural long black hair. She adds, "my bottom enjoys a really good seeing to, and I don't mind either hand, cane or paddle." Although her main role in the Mosley affair seems to have been to bark orders in German, she says that she performs both dominant and submissive roles, but prefers submission. Elsewhere, we learn that she attended an all girls' school in Germany, and is a veteran of many S&M videos. In fact, she turns up on some of the same productions as Misses C and D. The three, together with "Mistress S" (A), took part with a number of other "scene girls" in a 2007 charity run in London for Cancer Research. They called themselves "Bums on the run", and raised almost £12,000.

B herself describes her initiation into the spanking scene as follows:

Two years ago I came to England and after a rather boozy rock and roll night we went back to my flat. I went to the kitchen to take some wine from the fridge. As I bent down to grab it my friend - Sam Johnson - slapped me across the bottom. I said: "aaaaaaa, that's great - give me more, it really turns me on"

I felt quite naughty because I enjoyed it. Sam administered a few more handspanks. I was reminded of my former school in Germany. I used to secretly like it when I had to be punished by the Headmaster who was severe.

However, in a French source she is described as having been "formed in the red-light districts of Hamburg and Cologne". In this account, it was B who brought the final line-up together, having been first contracted by "Mistress Switch", who was Mosley's only direct contact.

We now come to the two leading protagonists in this saga. Both blonde, both dominant, both aged around 40, both apparently hailing from Milton Keynes, and possibly both calling themselves Abi, they are rather difficult to separate. It took a while to work out which was Switch. While they clearly aren't the same person (they both featured in the NotW video, after all) the confusion between them may be either accidental or deliberate.

Mistress Switch, the overseer of the whole proceeding, is described as a divorced 40-year old mother of two from Milton Keynes. ("Switch", by the way, is a term used in BDSM for a mistress who performs both dominant and submissive roles in a single session. Woman A claims to be London's leading exponent of the technique.) Her website no longer works, but could be accessed via an internet archive. Elsewhere, she reveals that she has been in the spanking business for around 15 years and has appeared in a number of films with the other girls. In her "vanilla" life she runs an office. According to press reports, she is the ex-wife of a business associate of Mosley's, which is how they were introduced, and she has been arranging sex parties for him for a number of years. According to a rather gossipy French account (which I have attempted to translate), following her divorce,

She reinvented herself as a priestess. She became Madame Perversion for the whole of London. Her client-book is dynamite. It causes terror in government departments and the most secret offices in Whitehall. Happily, Mistress Switch is a prudent woman... She had already worked for [Mosley], who has frequented many S&M dugeons in Mayfair. She recognised in him a guilty neurotic who needed to be punished: but until this moment he had not confessed to her the original sin which obsessed him. Then towards the end of March, his instructions became more precise, constituting a confession in themselves...

Mistress Switch ("I'm Abi if I'm being naughty and cheeky, Mistress Switch if I have the upper hand and feeling, dare I say, sadistic") is reported to have her own palace of perversity at her Milton Keynes residence, trading under the name The House of Whispers. However, it is the woman billed as "Mistress Abi" (E), who is the 38-year old wife of the MI5 officer, who would seem to be the true proprietress of that particular dungeon. It was revealed in court that until they fell out spectacularly over the Max Mosley business, the two dominatrices sometimes shared facilities at the house. Although her website has also shut down as a result of the scandal (and has been blocked even from the archives), elsewhere on the net this "Mistress Abi" describes her services in considerable detail.

I am a tall, beautiful, strict, demanding, bi-sexual Dominatrix, the kind you've always dreamt about. I expect total obedience and discretion from those who wish to serve me in my private chambers. I get genuine pleasure from having submissives totally under my control, helpless for me to do with as I please. I am always dressed in boots or high heels, rubber, leather or PVC and have a very active and sadistic imagination, making your servitude both a fulfilling and exciting experience... I get a huge thrill from having a slave (male or female) completely submitting to me, completely and willingly under my control, able to go to subspace, able to test their limits.

Originally from Birmingham, "Mistress Abi" is another former boarding-school girl. And here was me thinking it was only boys' public schools which led to this kind of thing. In a photo I will not reproduce even here, Abi is using her stiletto (very successfully, it appears) to stimulate the reproductive member of an anonymous and headless client. However, she stresses that she operates a strict no-sex policy.

Interestingly, Abi lists "blackmail" as one of the many dominatrix services she offers, between "anal training" and "bondage (suspension)".

It was "Mistress Abi" who was fitted up with secret cameras by the News of the World after offering the paper an exclusive. According to some accounts, she was wearing a "Luftwaffe-style uniform"; others insist that it was simply a leather jacket. Her photo gallery certainly features (or used to feature) a range of military uniforms, but none of them are overtly Nazi.

In fact, and perhaps not surprisingly, Mistress Abi has made herself extremely unpopular with her fellow sub-doms. One colleague, Amy, called her "a callous “pro” domme who has gone against everything the scene’s professionals stand for, namely trust, discretion, and integrity." Apparently, too, some in the scene believed the Nazi stories and did not approve, so all those involved have suffered from the taint. Which makes it all the more unfair if it was just your average spankathon.

Sex, spies, Formula 1, le vice anglais: this story is British tabloid entertainment at its very best. Yet it also raises some serious issues. Whatever one thinks of Max Mosley's predilections (and whatever the precise nature of those predilections) are they, should they be, enough to destroy his reputation and career? He is not a politician. He didn't hurt anybody. True, he has a wife, who may or may not have been aware of his unusual tastes. But how she chooses to react to the embarrassing situation in which she finds herself is her business. And falling foul of tabloid morality (especially the morality represented by the News of the World) is not, yet, a criminal offence. Although the way this government has been going recently, it might soon be.

Compare and contrast another recent News of the World exposé: that of the Conservative peer Lord Laidlaw, who was revealed to be in the habit of flying parties of prostitutes to Monaco for champagne-fuelled "romps". That quickly blew over. But then Laidlaw reacted like a much younger celeb: he issued a statement blaming his behaviour on "sex addiction" and appealed for sympathy. It's a fair cop, he seemed to be saying; and his openness was rewarded with forgeiveness. Mosley's reaction was more old-fashioned, and dignified.

Is it the "Nazi" dimension? Let's assume the worst, that Mosley gets his kicks from acting out Third Reich scenarios. There may be deep psychological reasons for this, stemming from his family background. Perhaps he feels overwhelming guilt, which is assuaged by acting out the role of a concentration camp inmate. Perhaps he just likes being assailed by women in uniform. As Bryan Ferry pointed out some time ago, the Nazis knew a thing or two about style. Ferry got into trouble for his comments. And it may be that Mosley has simply fallen foul of this ultimate modern taboo.

All the same, I can't help wondering who else is in Mistress Switch's "dynamite" client book.

© 2008 Heresy Corner, all rights reserved.

Some thoughts about Prostitution

2007-12-19T18:47:00.003Z

Feminists hate prostitution. The latest bugbear of uber-feminist Julie Bindel, writing in the Guardian, is sex tourism, especially the type "exposed" in a recent Channel 4 documentary. A club-resort focussed on by the programme-makers, in Venezuela, caters to a largely American and British clientelle. The men choose "girlfriends" from a menu presented to them. The chosen girl then moves into the man's room, providing sex and companionship for the remainder of his stay. They make $80 per day, a lot of money in Venezuela.

According to Bindel,

Unlike regular prostitution, where the women at least get a break between customers and shifts, these women never stop. If the customer gets ill while she is in his employ, she will be required to clean up his vomit. Although the publicity for such package holidays promotes the "real girlfriend experience", it is anything but. Men who travel to such destinations are buying a dangerous delusion - that there are plenty of women in far-away "exotic" locations who will pander to their every desire, and love it to boot.

While the customers in such resorts can enjoy 24 hours of constant attention and pure, hedonistic pleasure, the women hate the experience. The worst of it, the women admit to each other, is the fact that there is no escape. Their facial muscles look almost fixed in fake smiles, and the voices sound hoarse from laughing at the unfunny jokes, coming out of the mouths of men they would not glance at twice, were it not for the money. Sex tourism promotes an insidious form of racism. The men view the women for sale as "exotic" and "other" - so unlike their mothers and sisters that they can treat them as mere commodities. Research has shown that many sex tourists do not consider the women as prostitutes. They believe that women from the countries they visit simply love having loads of sex with western men.

That there are at least two different sorts of imperialism on offer here. There's the imperialism that says, I have a right to possess the produce of country X. The purchase of women is, on one level, a metaphor for the expropriation of the third world by the first. Thus the woman working in a shoe factory, or forced to sell coffee at a below-subsistence price to Starbucks, is as much a victim of foreign oppression as the "holiday girlfriend". Perhaps more so. After all, despite what Bindel might think, a reasonably non-abusive form of prostitution is actually an attractive option when the only alternative is a sweatshop. It holds out the prospect of economic independence: at best, the possibility of a new life in a rich country. These resorts trade on the physical attractiveness of their inmates. How come there's such a high proportion of attractive young women? Because they are the ones who get hired.

Having watched the programme, it seems to me that Bindel's horror is misplaced. The Total Satisfaction resort may be sleazy, certainly, but there are far worse evils in the world. One of the women was working there to pay for her education so that she could pursue her chosen career, something not entirely unknown in this country, of course, since Labour introduced tuition fees. One can, of course, deplore the fact that there weren't other equally lucrative options available to her; it was a case of sell her body or lose her dream. But she was determined enough, and future-oriented enough, to make that sacrifice, and I think her choice, made in difficult circumstances, is deserving of our respect, even admiration. Bindel and Co, of course, would deprive her of her education and condemn her to a lifetime of drudgery.

This type of thought-process is in some respects deeply misogynistic. What it amounts to is the assertion that women are inherently victims, men are inherently evil, and that in the balance of the sexes men always have the power while women are poor darlings who need protecting from themselves by Big Sister who always knows best.

This is deeply, deeply, patronising. It is little more than an updating of a quasi-Victorian notion of female inferiority.

The idea that it's the business of well-meaning feminists in comfortable western countries to tell poor women in less-developed countries how to live their lives, while at the same time tolerating the economic system that makes prostitution attractive to these women, strikes me as post-imperial paternalism not entirely distinct from the impulse that made Bush and Blair want to rescue the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein, with catastrophic consequences for all concerned (apart from Blair, now off making his millions). The world looks very simple from Planet Bindel: filthy, greasy, fat, unattractive men preying on vulnerable, abused women. Yet the argument could so easily be phrased in precisely the opposite way. Gullible losers being fleeced for all they're worth by smart, cynical, self-confident women playing up to stereotypes of submissive oriental women for their own betterment.

Once you stop drawing a line round sex as being existentially different from any other human activity, then much of the argument collapses. Thus it is essential to maintain that line, which is, at base, rooted in Christian and other religious morality. Granted that prostitution is often in practice abusive, is it also in principle abusive?

It's usually asserted that prostitution cannot be a free choice for young women in deprived circumstances. But who is to say whether a girl from a dirt-poor family isn't in a position to make such an assessment? Many of them actually want to work in sweatshops that would give H&S people in Europe massive coronaries, so unappealing is the alternative: penury and backbreaking agricultural labour. Yet many in such factories would rather work in "bars". They're not all teenagers, by the way.

If you outlaw sex tourism, in what ways will the women benefit? Many would be made destitute. I think that the implicit acceptance of other forms of exploitation, in the context of concentrating on the sex industry as being a unique evil, is somewhat questionable. Especially when the parts of the sex industry in question are voluntary. Rescue the children, rescue the women imprisoned in brothels, and the trafficked women, then start worrying about free women working in resorts like that featured in the documentary, who earn relatively good money and struck me as adults responsible for their own actions.

Even the sexual alternatives available to such women may not be particularly appetising: some have fled "arranged" marriages, others suffer in a social order that devalues female children. Strange as it may seem, the unappealing sex-tourist may be the first man who has treated her with any sort of respect. They're not all monsters. Most of them are just lonely.

The top priority of any legislative regime must be to protect women who are abused, involved in a sordid trade, trafficked, drug-addicted and hopeless.

The problem with feminist demands to criminalise the buying of sex, as has happened in Sweden, is that those are the women least likely to benefit. If the result of criminalise paying for sex is to drive prostitution underground, those parts of the industry that are already underground will be the least affected. Instead of new laws, the government should be concentrating resources on enforcing those laws which already exist against trafficking, sex slavery and so on.

There is a deeper question of principle at stake here, however, and I don't think it's ever consciously addressed by policy makers. And it is this: is prostitution wrong in itself, or is it wrong because of its attendant evils? Are the attendant evils inevitable, and if they were banished would we still be left with something undesirable?

Religious moralists have no compunction in answering that prostitution is wrong in itself. But what of secular moralists? For me, I think it's impossible to separate the situation which women involved in the sex industry find themselves in from the status which the prostitute occupies morally. The prostitute is culturally an un-person, defined either by her victimhood or by her notoriety. It isn't a job like any other because anyone engaging in it is tainted.

This isn't an inevitable situation: there have historically been societies in which prostitutes were not considered fallen women. The opprobrium which surrounds prostitution is thus best considered as a hangover from Christian morality. If the effect of legalisation were to in part reduce that stigma, and the women were happier as a result, in what ways would it be deleterious for society?

There is a type of woman that does possess the mental toughness, the singlemindedness and the ability to compentmentalise necessary to enter, and then get out of what is a peculiarly dangerous occupation. Such women (and indeed men) have always existed, and tend to end up famous and rich. The "fuck lit" of the Belle de Jour variety, which feminists deplore, is only a modern twist on a very ancient phenomeon. The Greeks understood it, making a distinction between "2 obol girls", who were literally slaves, and high-class hetairai who were just about the only women in Athens able to live independent lives. The 18th century understood it: Georgean London had sexual squalor as bad as anything today, yet some courtesans ended up as duchesses.

To pretend that different levels of prostitution do not exist is a peculiarly modern piece of wishful thinking. It reminds me of the bishop's wife confronted with Darwin's theory of evolution. "I pray it isn't true; but if it is, I pray it does not become widely believed."

The logical conundrum faced by anti-prostitution feminists is that, supposing the premisses of 1) equal rights and 2) informed choice, it must be at least conceptually possible that some women will choose prostitution, not out of desperation, but because they actually find it preferable to the alternatives (which include, for example, graduating with a huge student debt, or being unable to get on the property ladder). The fact that the choice is, by and large, unavailable to men does not ipso facto mean that it is a bad one. It might just as logically be the case that women are peculiarly fortunate in having the option. Yet this goes against the dogma that prostitution is a form of exploitation, in which male economic power is exercised over female "victims". This is, of course, an argument about society rather than one about prostitution. Apart from anything else, while on average women still earn less than men, there are plenty of rich women..

This, I think, is why traditional feminists wish to assert that Belle de Jour represents merely a "fantasy", despite the incontrovertible evidence that that side of prostitution does exist. Rather than concentrate on the abuses, they prefer to deny any complexity, any hierarchy, any nuance. Because to acknowledge the nuances in the situation would bring them up against the logical incoherence of their feminist position. Much more than prostitution is at stake.

There's a word I'm looking for, but I don't find it, so I'll have to make it up. Pornophobia: a fear of and aversion from prostitution and other manifestations of the sex industry. Arguments such as we're hearing on this thread may lay claim to a grounding in evidence and logic, but at base they're pornophobic. It is a phenomenon which should be very interesting to anthropologists.

A point I made earlier concerned the limited sexual options available to many women in the third world. In some places, the main fate of most women will be an "arranged" marriage in which she is effectively sold by her family in a transaction only linguistically separable from prostitution. Rape and abuse within marriage are commonplace in such situations. Prostitutes, with their relative independence and freedom, have been objects of envy, as well as of fear and superstition, in many societies. Their position is a liminal one, simultaneously inside and outside of society. Thus they threaten the social order which they simultaneously (by "mopping up" excess male sexuality) help to maintain.

They also parodise sexual relations in an often uncomfortable manner. To the woman whose respectable marriage was based on property transactions and social duty, and not on emotion, and who may be having a miserable and abusive relationship, the prostitute seems to mock her: for how does her marriage differ? The answer is to look upon the prostitute as a degraded and fallen creature, a victim to be pitied and simultaneously shunned. Pornophobia thus becomes a psychological survival strategy.

Why the Conservatives can never be right

2007-12-19T17:37:00.001Z

(Heresy Corner, September 2007)

Gordon Brown's speech to the party faithful in Bournemouth yesterday was a predictable exercise in right-wing demogogery, equally predictably characterised as "stealing Tory clothes". Except, of course, that no Conservative would talk, as Brown did, of "British jobs for British workers", or indulge in the kind of authoritarian language that ought to have the hang'em and flog'em brigade speaking in tongues.

There's a paradox here, one which has often been pointed to but never really understood, because it has been misinterpreted as one of language. It's too easy to say that an assumed "man of the Left" can "get away" with right-wing rhetoric which no Tory would have the temerity to utter. For to say this is to buy into the cosy "left-of-centre" assumption that Tories would obviously like to say such things, and much worse, and only the salutary effect of a liberal media obliges them to bite their tongues. For some Tories, at some times, this is no doubt true. But to imagine that it is true of all Tories, at all times, is to buy into a left-liberal Toryphobia that has contributed in no small way to the catastrophic erosion of democracy and civil liberties in this country.

Toryphobia: that hate that has no problem at all speaking its name. This struck me forcefully the other week (although it had certainly occured to me many times before) when I heard the saintly Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on the radio preface some mildly complimentary remarks about David Cameron with the mealy-mouthed disclaimer, "I hate Tories but...". Now, I doubt Mrs Brown meant it literally. It's hard to imagine her actually hating anyone. But the fact that she felt able, even obliged, to say it speaks volumes. Should she have said "I hate black people", or "I hate homosexuals" or "I hate Jews" she would never have been allowed back on the airwaves. But then even the spokesmen of the BNP would never say anything like that.

Any concept of "Toryphobia" is, like the concept of Islamophobia, open to the objection that Toryism is a set of ideas, and you can't be racist against ideas. But Tories, like Muslims, aren't ideas, but people; and people who hate Tories seem to hate them not for their ideas, but for who they are. And just as it's easy to stereotype Muslims as woman-hating terrorists, it's easy to stereotype Tories as privileged, fox-hunting, bigoted, closet racist, crypto-fascist "toffs". But just as the majority of Muslims are decent, honest folk just trying to get on with their lives, so within the ranks of the Conservative Party are a great many hard-working, compassionate, charitable pillars of society.

But Toryphobia isn't just morally suspect. It's also politically highly dangerous, because it hands carte-blanche to left-wingers in power to hack away at the foundations of liberalism: civil society, civil liberties, and the rule of law. The New Labour attack on the British constitution, on the presumption of innocence, the discretion of judges, and trial by jury; not to mention their authoritarian schemes for identity cards and detention without trial, the assaults on free speech, the official secrecy, the corruption of office, the cronyism and quangoes: all this has gone, if not entirely unchallenged, then insufficiently challenged. Even strong opponents of such measures on the left still tell themselves, come polling day, that "It would be worse under the Tories".

No it wouldn't.

All these things have happened under a Labour government. Not because Labour happened to be in power at the time, but because these are the sort of things only Labour governments can do. Not because the media would restrain the Tories by shrieking "lurch to the right", either. But because they are the sort of things that only a Labour government would want to do. The last Conservative government looked at the case for ID cards and decided against them. It took a socialist regime determined to brand the population like cattle to introduce the appalling scheme, whose consequences (unless it collapses under its own weight) will be baleful. This isn't an isolated incident. Conservative governments, even Mrs Thatcher's, have never been particularly right-wing. Name a liberal Home Secretary. Unless you're thinking of Roy Jenkins, the name that most readily comes to mind is a Tory name. Hurd. Clarke. Whitelaw. In the criminal justice system the Eighties was a time of liberal reform. Now name an illiberal Home Secretary. Blunkett, anyone? John Reid?

People who are neither liberal nor conservative, or liberal but not conservative (or indeed conservative but not liberal, like Gordon Brown) find it impossible to understand the liberal conservative position. They imagine that liberal conservatives are liberal despite being conservative, whereas the truth is that it's being a conservative that enables you to be truly liberal. "Liberal" is not a euphemism for "libertarian", either, although freedom is a large part of it. No, conservatives are so-called because they want to conserve things. In particular, British conservatives want to conserve ancient British liberties like free speech, trial by jury, the Whig tradition of moderate progress, honour and restraint in pubic office, and being left alone to live one's own life.

A state that asserts its power over the individual is an oppressor, however benign its intentions, however well-meaning and morally comfortable its supporters. Any government, even (perhaps especially) a "progressive" one which expands the scope of state supervision over the individual and over the institutions of civil society tends towards tyranny. Civil libertarians and others who value personal freedom and oppose state control should take off their blinkers and learn to love the Tories.

Welcome to my dungeon

2007-12-16T13:33:00.002Z

This blog is intended for longer treatments of various subjects, for supplementary materials, and also for items which, for various reasons, I consider unsuitable for Heresy Corner. Most, but not all, new content will be announced and linked to in Heresy Corner.