This article seems a little a confused at first, but then so is societies attitude to teenage girls and it makes a change to see them being attributed with agency, albeit hovering between adulthood and infantasy.

Sorry, infantacy.

My iPhone made a Freudian slip.

Are you suggesting some sort of direction of cultural travel, towards greater sexualisation and objectification of girls and young women? In my experience, female sexual autonomy (which was never absent, only hidden) seems to be increasing, and I think our culture is all the better for that. Both the right for women to engage and refuse to engage in whatever sex available to them, is becoming a more common standpoint.

Rape happens, and it has always happened. Now people are developing a more sensible attitude towards it, it is more in the open and there is more opportunity to deal with it, and bring some of the perpetrators to justice.

Very strange moral blindspot amongst some on the Polanski affair. A child rapist who is also a great film director and suffered under the third reich is still a child rapist. Dunno why a handful of people find that so difficult to grasp.

Bill Corr,
No court conviction is necessary to destroy such an innocent fool’s reputation forever:
What planet are you living on? Careers can be destroyed because people misuse the CRB system, but that’s because the tabloids concentrate on men who “seek access to children” at work. Most abusers are unrestricted by any of that, because most abuse happens at home or in some other unsupervised place.

Wendy Smythe,
That’s disgusting. Have you read what actually happened?
http://cruellablog.blogspot.com/2009/09/roman-roads.html
I hope you never find out what it’s really like.

Sunny, can we delete some of these rape-apologist trolling comments?

Thanks.

Well done Laurie.

Write an article then delete the responses.

That’s how to win an argument……….

No I agree with Laurie. Being in favour of rape isn’t an argument, it’s an attempt to derail a thread, and none of the above trolls would attempt to argue it in real life as they know they’d get a deserved kicking.

Frankly there are more than enough morons commenting here and de-railing good threads that a stricter comments policy is now necessary

“Not bad going for an undemanding hour’s unwilling participation, with champagne supplied!”

Wendy, I seriously hope you didn’t write that under your actual name, and that you’re just a troll going for what you mistakenly believe to be a funny.

Troll comments deleted.

“Whilst young boys are acknowledged as having and acting upon sexual desire from a young age, the notion of young girls being sexual is still shocking – but it’s also exciting. From the pages of playboy to music videos to porn, girlhood is sexualised and undeveloped female bodies fetishised as the ultimate in naughty fantasy.”

Indeed, here’s a case in point:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/1759859/Lily-Cole-Playboy-pictures-Supermodel-Lily-poses-naked-for-sexy-pictures-for-front-cover-of-French-Playboy-magazine.html?enlargePopup=true

This is a really, really excellent article. Spot-on, Laurie.

On the subject of rape in schools, I also think – saddly – that you are completely right. We’re into the land of anecdotes, but I now know for sure that two girls in my year at school were raped by the same guy, who was in my form class.

Given the playground stories, the shamed faces, and what I now know about the way most rape is conducted by men who are known already to their victims, how rape does not have violence either as a prerequisite in terms of resistance, or in terms of facilitation, i’m convinced that the number of girls raped at my school was considerably higher than just two.

And you know what? It just wasn’t an issue. People didn’t talk about it. Girls themselves certainly didn’t talk about it. If everyone was talking about how so-and-so “got shagged by” some macho arsehole, and the story actually went that she’d been heard saying “no” several times (cos you know, this sort of stuff happened fairly communaly, and usually within earshot of other people) but then it had happened – well nobody batted an eye lid.

One of the girls whom I knew personally, who was raped by the guy in my form class, never told anybody at all for 4 years. When she did finally talk about it, she was absolutely terrified that she’d be branded a slut. Why? Because after she was raped, her rapist boasted about how he’d “shagged” her – and everyone at school called her a slut (obviously, her denials that anything had taken place at all were ignored – she had been seen associating with the guy before hand, so obviously she was gagging for it).

How is this state of affairs possible? Because of the deeply fucked-up nature of our society that Laurie explains and pin-points in this article.

Fuck the trolls.

“Well done Laurie.

Write an article then delete the responses.

That’s how to win an argument……….”

The best thing about liberal conspiracy is that constructive debate takes place in the comments threads.

Debate is similar, but not the same as, argument, note.

But we can have neither debate nor constructive argument if people turn up deliberately to derail intelligent exchange of ideas. That’s what trolls do.

Laurie is perfectly justified in asking for troll comments to be deleted.

sorry – wasn’t around earlier. Glad don paskini took care of it. The rules on commenting are very clear for people who are unaware.

Thanks, Laurie. I find it funny that people are so quick to condemn the kind of misogynist behaviour that is ingrained in Asian cultures (not just Asian cultures, however). People seem to understand that the mentality that smears young Asian women for having male friends (for example), is wrong and can result in extreme behaviours like forced marriage and HBV.

However, similar attitudes among non-Asians with regards to things like rape (both within schools and more generally) persist, and people seem conveniently blind to that. I mentioned all this because, as you know, I’m Asian and a lot of what you describe happening to girls in schools is effectively practised, more discreetly, by a lot of our parents.

However, people can take a morally self-satisfied shocked stance when parents or family police sexuality and shame young women; but why not when it happens in schools? Maybe because in the latter case, everyone is effectively complicit in policing and punishing female sexuality?

Girls do it to each other (as you know), boys do it to girls, well-meaning parents and teachers make it worse when they either fail to intervene early and/or give effectively useless advice. It’s a bit like bullying: things like ‘Ignore it’ (against unwanted sexual attention) or ‘Fight back’ (which puts the onus on the victim?!). With sex, the advice is usually either insufficient, or abstinence is made out to be the best course of action. Even when there’s good sex-ed, not enough emphasis is put on encouraging girls to retain their self-respect and at the very least, they need to be taught more about the emotions surrounding sex.

It’s a tough job for teachers, though, often effectively working alone against the multitude of external negative influences that are heaped on students.:-( My own particular conditioning only began to budge when I put myself in serious danger, though brilliant teachers certainly helped.

Thanks for the support over the comments, guys. I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t 100% sure it was according to the comments policy already extant on the site.

Depressingly enough, those ones weren’t as bad as five I’ve just had to delete from Penny Red. One telling me that I deserved to be anally raped. Ugh.

Of course no sane person would agree with the construction “Wendy” put on the Polanski affair but the way to confront such an attitude is not to delete the post but to counter post- to ridicule and belittle the argument.

Of course this is Sunny’s blog and he can do with it as he wishes. But in my view the general level of debate here is of a reasonable standard and trolling is actually pretty rare.

Let’s not shut down debate. That is illiberal.

Stupid comments deserve to be exposed then preserved for posterity- not deleted.

Btw, this:

From the pages of playboy to music videos to porn, girlhood is sexualised and undeveloped female bodies fetishised as the ultimate in naughty fantasy

Yes, yes, HELL YES. Let us consider the recent Brooke Shields aged 10-nude-portrait scandal. Now, I’m all for art and ambiguity, but consider this bit of background:

Spiritual America is a photograph of a photograph. The original – authorised by Shields’s mother for $450 – had been taken by a commercial photographer, Gary Gross, for the Playboy publication Sugar ‘n’ Spice in 1976. Shields later attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress the picture.

Though Richard Prince had every right to see it whichever way he does – the picture is ACTUAL CHILD PORN! Not only that, but Playboy-produced child porn. The same Playboy that now markets pencil-cases to girls. Disturbing irony, or what?!

The comments on this Guardian piece were full of whinging about ‘Thought Police’ and similar – but while it’s a shame for the artist, it’s illegal to display child porn, isn’t it?

Just found this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/oct/03/brooke-shields-nude-child-photograph

Interesting quote from it:

Gross’s lawyers argued that his photographs could not further damage Shields’s reputation because, since they were taken, she had made a profitable career “as a young vamp and a harlot, a seasoned sexual veteran, a provocative child-woman, an erotic and sensual sex symbol, the Lolita of her generation” (emphasis mine)

Full of interesting background, and I will cease to go O/T now, sorry!

Some folk seem keen to manage the sexualisation of women.

Hamas bans women from riding motorbikes, saying it’s to “safeguard the safety of residents and to maintain the stability of traditions and customs in Palestinian society.”

Apparently: “Men and women who are seen together are regularly stopped by Hamas policemen or militiamen who question them about the nature of their relationship. “

#18 – saying someone should be raped hardly constitutes a debate though. Whilst leaving the comments there can serve to emphasise what a twat somebody is being, it only works if the person is a semi-regular who doesn’t usually troll.

If you don’t have a good comments policy that elimates trolls and racists you end up like CIF, and people with intelligent things to say simply go elsewhere. Its why I’d rather read crooked timber than guido. Its bad enough on here -particularly on immigration threads – wading through tons of ill informed opinions that are simple cut and paste jobs from the express or mail.

If it was my site I’d probably have a rule that states one must be familiar with the academic basics of the topics before commenting. So on a thread like this one should at least know the basics of sociology and feminism 101 (you don’t have to agree with them – but at least know what they are about), just as on economics threads one should at least have read an economics textbook and know about concepts like barriers to entry, keynesianism and different models of competition.

I’ve got to disagree with #21, which strikes me as being intellectually elitist. It would be a great shame to bar people from discussions on topics which affect everyone, whatever their educational background, and on which an informed and enlightened electorate is the only way for democracy to succeed. You should want to be reaching and debating with as many people as poss., not operating in a rarefied vacuum. It may be frustrating, for those who know their sociology, but in the name of democracy and egalitarianism, at least let it trickle down.

Pagar…

“Well done Laurie.

Write an article then delete the responses.

That’s how to win an argument……….”

Just as a side-note, I really don’t see any problem with this. Deleting comments on a weblog – especially one that the authors own – is not a free speech issue. Wendy is perfectly entitled to express her opinions elsewhere.

Of course, we might feel hostile to a blogger who deletes comments (if, for example, they delete opinions particularly challenging to their own), but in the case of rape apologism, a) the author clearly wouldn’t be deleting them out of self-serving motives, b) contributors with better things to say might be offended, and c) even if they wanted to “win [the] argument” it would be a long, inflammatory and gratuitous sidetrack.

[Aw hell, should've read further, this thread's already pockmarked with perfectly adequate side-notes. Never mind, never mind, must press on...]

Laurie…

I want young girls to be allowed to be sexual without being taught victimhood, and taught that victimhood is all we deserve.

As sexuality doesn’t – or, at least, can’t – develop in a vacuum, what practical changes would you like to see?

Planeshift @21

I do agree with you that many other blogs are ruined for those interested in an intelligent debate by commenters who appear to post with the intention of destroying the thread. Often such stupidity would not, in itself, fall foul of any comment moderation guidelines and the best defence is to ignore or expose.

But saying someone should be raped hardly constitutes a debate though demonstrates the problem with censorship.

You see my memory of the “Wendy” post was that a crass comment was made regarding the motives of the girl in the Polanski affair, not that “someone should have been raped”. As it has now been deleted, we will probably never know.

Regarding the article itself, it is confused and confusing and, as so often in articles dealing with sexual politics, it is so because the author wants to reconstruct reality as they wish it would be.

The reality is that there is a disconnect between male and female heterosexual sexuality. The male sexual impulse tends to be triggered as a response to visual stimulus much more so than does the female and it is less connected to emotion. Hence the interest in pornography, prostitution etc. is preponderately male. That men do not respond as well sexually to women they find physically unattractive is also true.

I have often thought that, if God created us, the above represents his cruellest joke and it is responsible for much unhappiness. But it is the reality and it will not be changed by articles complaining about it or by social engineering.

You can argue that men should not be stimulated by a photograph of a 10 year old (as discussed above) but whether or not they are is not an intellectual choice. You can also complain that the male sexual impulse is fundamentally unfair and that women should not respond by attempting to pander to it, but you cannot reprogramme the species.

But in my view the general level of debate here is of a reasonable standard and trolling is actually pretty rare.

That’s *because* the crap is deleted, not in spite of.

Don Paskini @ 11:

Troll comments deleted.

I propose a new technological development, which I will call “fainting Victorian maiden mode”, whereby comments can be flagged as offensive and a button is placed at the top of the comment thread which anyone who feels that they may be offended can click to hide the offensive comments and any direct replies to them. The rest of us can happily mock, argue and disagree with what is said by the idiots. If anyone thinks that this is a remotely good idea, I will happily develop the necessary WordPress plugin.

Failing that, threaded comments and comment ratings. Seriously, spend an hour reading Slashdot and see how they do it.

The problem here is that people like me (I’ve no idea how many of us there are, but there seem to be a few judging from the comments above) dislike gratuitous insults, flames and diversionary debating tactics. We also dislike censorship and our dislike of the latter trumps our dislike of the former. As a result, we end up being more upset at the people deleting the comments than we are at the idiots making them in the first place. I’m sure this isn’t the intended effect, but it does seem to keep happening and pretending that it doesn’t happen isn’t going to make the problem go away. Continuing in this way just means that any discussion thread for a controversial topic will be full of people like me complaining about comment censorship, scarcely an improvement of the original situation where the threads are full of people making stupid comments.

Finally, idiotic comments are actually a great way of unifying ‘our kind of people’. If we see someone come on here trying to argue that rape is OK, it’s a great chance for us all to band together in giving this person a collective shit-kicking, thus boosting the communal good feeling amongst us notoriously fractious left-liberal-progressive-ish types. We hardly ever all get to agree unanimously about something, and when the opportunity comes along it gets deleted!

Rob, I think that’s a good idea.

BenSix, I made some suggestion in comments to this at Penny’s place, but no-one seems terribly interested in practical change.