It seems to me that a crusade for women’s rights should be fighting to facilitate a woman’s capacity for self determination rather than insulting them by insisting that they’ve been victimized or are in denial if they choose to behave contrary to what’s politically popular.

Those who would deny a woman’s right, if she so chooses, to engage in sex work are no better than those who would deny her right to an abortion. In both cases they are forcing someone else to behave according to their own standards. To then claim that they are doing it in support of women’s rights is like banning the use of foul language in the name of free speech.

Women sexualising themselves in a staid and self-objectifying manner, rather than exploring desire in a more healthy way, should be a cause for concern.

But who are you to decide what is “healthy” and what isn’t?

Your readiness to impose your view of what is and what is not acceptable in gender politics demonstrates highly worrying proto-stalinist tendencies that are, in their way as crass as homophobia. You say you are against censorship but you want the editor of Nuts prosecuted for hate crime!!!

The fact is that most young women are heteronormative and are enjoying the freedom they now have to express their sexuality- by attempting to attract the opposite sex. In this article you struggle miserably to fit that fact into your feminist/Marxist counter culture conspiracy theory of our patriarchal/capitalist society.

But that is not a problem for the “irritating slags and wannabe sluts”.

That’s a problem for you.

I didn’t claim hard-wired was ’straight’, I pointed out that the biological function of sex is reproduction. There is no such thing as biologically ’straight’, any more than biologically ‘gay’, as ’straight’ and ‘gay’ are social constructs not biological facts.

Gender is 100% socially constructed. Gender is about behaviour. Sex is definitely not 100% socially constructed; sex is about biology, anatomy, hormones, genetics. It’s not even as if we only had two sexes in this species; the biologically deterministic binary dichotomy, or ‘sex war’ to use tabloid terms, is a construct of religiously inspired gender politics. Some are born intersexed; some are born with theoretically functional sex but are by inclination entirely asexual.

In this post-Puritan society, you’re surely not trying to tell me someone who has same-sex crushes got the idea from peer pressure? If the incidence of homosexuality is not, in fact, about the Teaching Teh Homosex In Our Schools, then that person must have got it from somewhere else. How many options are there, if it ain’t nurture?

When you say ‘no such thing as biologically straight’, you seem to be clumsily expressing the idea that sexual orientation is a continuum, without understanding the implications thereof. You agree that most people are not 0 or 6 on Kinsey’s scale. Good, this is what the science says.

I, for example, am probably a 1. I might, in theory, love a man emotionally enough to be sexually aroused by the person; the body is not sexually interesting to me, no matter how aesthetically pleasing. In practice I’m a 0; never had homosexual sex.

However, I’m kinky. My kink manifested itself through fantasy and dreams by the time I was four or five. And it always involved straight encounters, right from then, long before I knew what sex meant or how gender stereotypes played in society. Worth noting it wasn’t this society they played in, either; I grew up in bush-country Africa. My partner, on the other hand, is English and bi; her kink manifested as early as mine, and always included both sexes.

Biological determinism is wrong because it says you can’t change, conquer or behaviourally modify your pre-existing inclinations. That’s clearly stupid; the entire concept of civilisation and enlightenment is based on the ability of humans to claim agency through conscious choice.

This doesn’t, however, mean that some people aren’t wired up to prefer the opposite sex, or their own sex. Statistically, it seems to be about 10% of people are wired for their own sex, with the possible implication that only 10% of people are like me, as well. The other 80% seem to be very heavily influenced by nurture in how they behave, but to have at least the capacity, acknowledged or not, for bi-sexuality.

Now, to address the other failure of thinking here:

The biological purpose of sex is reproduction.

No; one of the biological functions of sex is reproductive. We’ve known this for decades, at least. Ever since we overcame subsistence agriculture as the basic expression of human economics, that function has become less significant in furthering the species than the social functions of sex.

The closer we get to uterine replicas, and genuine reproductive freedom for all humans regardless of sex, the less significant the reproductive aspects of sexuality will become; but I guarantee you that the human race will not turn celibate. We are by no means unique in finding reproduction to be the boring bit of sex; anyone who’s seen QI is surely aware of the most famous other example. [1]

Sex is a very significant process for the formation of secure bonds between individuals to facilitate co-operative strategies for species advancement. Or, in lay terms, happy humans work better in teams and humans really like to fuck.

The definition of “acceptable sex” as “reproductive therefore hetero” is JCI dogma, it’s a Bushism. The idea is not in any way related to truth or fact (which are arguably different things). It is a meme propagated long ago to acquire control of reproductive capacity, for the economic and political benefit of a small number of people who can’t bear children (i.e. the actual patriarchy, the alliance of fathers against women/servants and younger men/rivals).

So, no; if one notices that some people just like girls and some people just like boys (“biological hard-wiring”, in your original comment), and notice that the body they were born into seems to have little effect on which way round [2], then Laurie wouldn’t accuse one of being heteronormative. Quite the reverse; this is part of the line of reasoning that normalises homosexuality.

[1] Bonobos.

[2] A britpop band called Blur figured this one out in the early 90s, and i suspect they were handicapped by the haze of alcohol between them and their thoughts.

I didn’t claim hard-wired was ‘straight’, I pointed out that the biological function of sex is reproduction. There is no such thing as biologically ‘straight’, any more than biologically ‘gay’, as ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ are social constructs not biological facts.

As I think I made clear, sexuality is a social artifact as distant from ‘nature’ as literature is from primal grunting. It’s Laurie who seems to believe in some primative form of sexuality existing outside of culture that we’d all have access to if we just stopped deodorising our genitals dialectically.

“#45 Surely the easiest way of dealing with that anomaly is to argue that rape has nothing to do with sex.”

The problem is, while that sounds good rhetorically, its not entirely true. Rape is an act of violence, primarily, but its clearly sexual violence. And there are also a lot of gray areas between fully consensual sex and rape, which there would not be if one had absolutely nothing to do with the other.

At the same time, I think its important to clear up the myth that rape is simply caused by an overabundance of lust, that men can’t control themselves if they’re aroused beyond a certain point.

I think as long as you have an openly sexual culture, there will always be some degree of sexual objectification. However, I think that in a culture where everybody has a strong sense of being a sexual subject (the way most men typically do by default), this is largely harmless.

This is brilliant; clear, and expressing something that badly needs saying. There is just one thing I would be inclined to propose as a change:

I think as long as you have an openly sexual culture, there will always be some degree of sexual objectification. However, I think that in a culture where everybody has a strong sense of being a sexual subject (the way most men are taught to think by society), this is largely harmless.

Most male chauvinists do not arrive at that position by independent reasoning. They get that way by osmosis. We need to add the assumption of sexual subjectivity to women, not remove it from men.

If you could isolate any ‘hard-wired’ aspects of sexuality, Laurie would be the first to call you ‘heteronormative’.

Er, but that’s just wrong. The hard-wired aspects of human sexuality aren’t heteronormative; gay and bisexual people are also part of “normal” for human sexuality.

It is precisely because our society tries to impose ideology on sex, defining several things which are entirely naturally occuring (and in some cases are spectacularly difficult to avoid) as “wrong”, that our society has produced generations of fucked-up kids.

Sex, like electricity, can be best viewed as information transmitted, rather than work done. When we teach them anything but shame, we teach children to view sex mechanically, rather than communicatively. There arises this idea (which you clearly share) that “hard-wired” == “straight”. It really doesn’t.

The best statement one can make with any safety is that among our species, in this cultural context, to be straight is typical. All variations on the theme of sexuality are ‘normal’, including ones that I personally think are 100% wrong. [1] Our society tries to limit normality not to one option from a list, but to one “option” from a continuum. Comparing Apples to apples; it’s a mistake.

[1] The non-consensual variations, specifically. I can’t argue that rape isn’t normal, but I can still argue that it’s bloody well wrong.

Look at it another way. At least you CAN use your sex appeal if you want to. What does a young male wannabe journalist do?

Mostly, he relies on the security of knowing he has three to four times the chance of acquiring an editor’s desk than any female competitor, just for having a cock. I will admit that this statement is more true of the generation before Laurie’s, but while fading as we get further from the 1950s, that undercurrent of unwarranted assumptions is definitely still a problem.

This, on the other hand:

In a productive environment, you can’t afford to hire people on the basis of sex appeal.

is blatant crap. I can think of professions [1] in which sex appeal/personal presentation and charisma are legitimate criteria at hiring. Then there’s the vast number of professions where it isn’t, but is still used as a screening process. Blond, posh and size 8: these are first-cut criteria in use at city-PA recruitment firms like Tiger. Long before the actual executive decision is made, the recruitment firms have already culled the cuties out of the dross for you. [2]

You really calling the pharmaceuticals industry an “unproductive environment”? Or the Big Oil firms? Or Parliament?

… Hmm, I may have just shot my argument in the nadgers with that last one.

And this:

Actually, I think you ought to respect people’s own experiences on the matter, both the bad experiences born of desperation and the good experiences born of choice and a desire to make cash much faster than otherwise would be possible. Who are you to judge how someone makes use of their own body without even asking their opinion?

is quite clearly deliberately obtuse. Laurie was, obvs, pointing out that misogynist polemic is flawed in using those women who are able (usually through privileged starting conditions) to operate as sex workers and enjoy it, as a stick to batter those who are trapped by poverty, drugs or violence into a life without sexual agency.

Some women like sex work. Most women who do it, don’t. These are both anecdotal statements from personal experience which, afaict, are also recognised as broadly true for the Western world by the professionals in the field. Sex work in our current social economy is demeaning because even when men are paying enough to respect what they buy, the axioms of our sexual system are so tilted towards male gaze and pleasure, and away from female agency and sexual self-determination, that even for those who enjoy it, the profession is demeaning.

The demeaning is being done by society at large, not by Laurie or by the happy sex workers.

In fact, by people like you and me. And David Cameron. And Julie Bindel. And ABp Williams, and the Pope, and Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin.

[1] Mostly jobs which rely on charisma and interpersonal skills. Like many roles in the tertiary industrial sector, which dominates our economy.

[2] This is partially anecdotal, in the sense that I have sources, who worked in the industry within the last 5 years, but are not happy to be named. I have a much longer list of sources for the general attitude, but for the specific practice of keeping a file of posh, slim blondes and a file of ‘unemployables’ I’ve got fewer.

No wonder they want to cut back the BBC.

There does seem to be imported vulgarity of quite an extreme nature – apparently American kids are much younger mentally than us Europeans and also obviously have more cash so they tend to start shagging and popping it on the internet as a way of validating themselves. The porno industry in the US is much more mainstream than anything over here – it may just be that kids are more down with the zeitgeist than bloody old giffers like me.

If you could isolate any ‘hard-wired’ aspects of sexuality, Laurie would be the first to call you ‘heteronormative’.

Human sexuality is as divorced from reproduction as writing poetry is from shouting ‘Look out – tiger!’ (or the Paleolithic quivalent).

Judging by the other comments on this thread it seems you are in the minority in finding anything coherent in Laurie’s post.

Perhaps YOU can explain what a ‘deodorised dialectic’ is because to me it looks like word salad.

Is there a correlation between big words and the strength of the argument you are making?

Why do you think the editors of Nuts should be prosecuted for hate speech? Is it for any specific thing, or for the type of magazine it is? If it is the latter, in what way is that not censorship?

FWIW I agree with your general sentiments in the article.

And what is this ‘raunch culture’. You talk about it as if it is obvious, but it isn’t. I am pretty sure I don’t live in a ‘raunch culture’ and I don’t think my daughter does either.

Um, I’m quite capable of seeing a prostitute or a porn star as somebody who I might want to get my kit on with AND see her as a full human being with a life outside of what she’s performing at the moment. I’m quite capable of holding more than one thought in my head.

Laws aren’t bad per se, but legal overreach and mass criminalization campaigns most certainly are. Legally punishing someone *does harm*, and the greater the punishment, the greater the harm. Hence, punishment needs to be justified by its prevention of an even greater harm. If this isn’t demonstrated, the law isn’t justified.

This is particularly true when you have you have cases like this where there is a complete lack of broad consensus as to whether a harm is being done.

And in the case of somebody doing sex work, I think if they’re doing it with informed consent, I don’t think its any business of a third party to say the sex worker is being harmed even if they don’t know it, and justify punishment of so-called sexual exploiter on that basis.

This is a fairly core liberal idea which was sort of what allowed us to all stop bashing each other over very personal things like religion and sexuality. It was this sort of idea that kinda what allowed the Enlightenment to get started and, in some ways, contributed to us having much more prosperous lives than before. Limited government, rule of law etc.. Any of this ring a bell with you?

Very simple rule of thumb: ask the supposed ‘victim’ if they think they are an actual victim. When it comes to complex things like prostitution, sometimes the people involved will say they are, and other times they will say they aren’t. But if you don’t even ask them or you ignore their opinion, then you are not recognising their most basic human capability, which is to interpret their own experience and make the final decision on what they can do with their own bodies.

I half-agree with you here. I think the idea that there’s some kind of sunshine and flowers sexuality buried beneath the deforming influence of patriarchal capitalist culture is a bit utopian. Likewise, when I hear people use the phrase “healthy sexuality”, I reach for my proverbial gun, or, at least, I really want to know what their definition of “healthy sexuality” is.

I disagree with with the other half of your statement, in that it seems to fall back on hard social constructionism, basically saying that there is no sexuality independent of social context. And while that’s true to a point, I think its also pretty well-established that there are aspects of human behavior, including human sexual behavior, that are hard-wired. Its the whole reason people are even capable of sexual arousal, whoever or whatever they happen to attach that attraction to. I think that’s why certain sexual fetishes and attractions come up time and again cross-culturally.

Basically, I think society can channel sexual behavior away from its most anti-social directions (eg, punishing rapists), but can probably never get rid of a broad range of urges that some might consider distasteful. Hence, I think things like BDSM, porn made with fully consenting performers, swinging, and the like are a good way of channeling what might be otherwise destructive sexual expressions into ones that are entirely consensual and harm no one.

Who are you to judge how someone makes use of their own body without even asking their opinion?

Oh sorry, I forgot. Laws are bad. The legal system has no right to judge against men who sexually exploit women. Who is it to judge?

I like your sentiments here and I think much of what you write is a much-needed corrective to the moral panic around media sexuality. (Although looking at the current politics of the UK in this regard, you unfortunately may be a voice crying in the wilderness.) However, I think you concede a bit too much when you talk about the “harms of raunch culture”. Basically, this is a buzzword introduced by Ariel Levy, which is basically who Natasha Walters seems to draw heavily on. (Her book isn’t available where I am (the USA), so its hard for me see if she’s really contributed anything new here.) I will say this much about the grain of truth under Levy’s writings about “raunch culture” – that too many young women don’t have a clear idea of their own sexual self-interest and that being *sexual* for one’s own good is more important than being *sexy* for others. (This is something that Susie Bright has been pointing out for a while now.) I suppose this is what you’re getting at with the idea of “self-objectification”.

Where Levy and other “raunch culture” critics absolutely lose it is that they start to equate any form of sexual culture they have a distaste for – porn, cake parties, boi culture, or whatever – with an externally-imposed “raunch culture” that needs to be cleared away before “authentic” sexuality can prosper. They also seem to think that in an “authentic” sexual culture, objectification will cease to exist (or will have been driven out of existence), which I think is a presumptive idea. I think as long as you have an openly sexual culture, there will always be some degree of sexual objectification. However, I think that in a culture where everybody has a strong sense of being a sexual subject (the way most men typically do by default), this is largely harmless. I think gay men’s culture is very good example of sexual objectification and sexual subjectivity existing side-by-side.

Actually, I think you ought to respect people’s own experiences on the matter, both the bad experiences born of desperation and the good experiences born of choice and a desire to make cash much faster than otherwise would be possible. Who are you to judge how someone makes use of their own body without even asking their opinion?