Oh – won’t somebody think of the children?!?

What Shatterface said.

Oh for world free of humourless, moralising authoritarians running around with their “Ban it” hammer.

‘Some argue the Sun isn’t really aimed at kids, so it’s not really the same issue. But it’s culturally acceptable for adults leave it around kids of all ages in cafes, schools, hairdressers, and even at home.’

I love that *even* at home, as if the home is the last place someone should get to decide what they leave lying around!

This isnt about protecting children, any more than Cameron is ‘protecting’ his kids from Lilly Allen. This is about adults feeling uncomfortable about sex. Its about people who only have sex while their kids are over at their grandparents lest they are ‘traumatised’ by the sounds of grunting and moaning.

Shatterface – what do you think of the images in this post that are on display in shop windows? http://www.joannasusie.com/?p=148

Good post Emily.

‘This is about adults feeling uncomfortable about sex. Its about people who only have sex while their kids are over at their grandparents lest they are ‘traumatised’ by the sounds of grunting and moaning.’

Eh? How do you come to this conclusion? Bizarre!

Cameron is right to raise this. Like the above comments, I value liberty. I want liberty and choices for my kids. I’d like the choice for my children to be able to go in corner shops without being exposed to the porn of ‘Nuts’, ‘The Sport’ and ‘Zoo’. Their covers are pornographically explicit and at child height. Commercial interests taking precedent over child welfare. Tackling page 3 is a good point but starting with the front pages is more pressing for those concerned with the issue.

Shorter Matt G:

I value liberty unless you are doing something that I personally dislike, in which case the value of liberty approaches 0.

Falco: This isn’t about the awful PC Brigade (whoever they are) wanting to ban everything. It’s about wanting the government to be consistent in what it’s doing. If Cameron is going to scream “Think of the children!” because Lily Allen said a thing, he ought to be screaming it at his buddies at News International as well.

Cameron’s missed a trick here: Lily Allen’s lyrics are eminently Conservative. From the workshy unemployed (“Alfie”) to “broken Britain” (“LDN”).

I remember the unsettled and ashamed feeling in seeing such soft-porn in newspaper rags

Me too. Especially when I got an erection in public………..

Censorship or attempts at sexual engineering won’t work.

Deal with it.

is this a complaint about inconsistency on part of Cameron, or a plea that children be protected from sexual imagery? or both?

are we sure that the path to being sexually well adjusted is to have your parents treat sexual imagery like the plague?

Falco and Shatterface – Do you agree with age restrictions on films, computer games, cigarettes etc?

The answer is obvious, of course he won’t. Murdoch holds a lot of power over him.

If Cameron is going to scream “Think of the children!” because Lily Allen said a thing, he ought to be screaming it at his buddies at News International as well.

Um, that’s a fairly spectacular misrepresentation really. He said that Lily Allen was “slightly unsuitable” for his six year old daughter. Which given that she sings about blowjobs, taking cocaine, getting your kit off (ironically) for the papers and so on doesn’t seem terribly controversial to me.

Not sure whats cause and effect with this. I loved Page 3 when I was of a tender age and it was the only naughtiness I could get my hands on. But I still grew up to just think of it as cheep and cheesy. I just grew out of FHM/Page 3/Nuts – particularly grew into seeing how nasty it was to women (and men too).

The pictures used in that link supplied are different. They are clearly wrong on a massive scale, and much more indicative of the problem. Such as seeing pictures in every high street store showing models that look so thin as to be ill.

Before (or at least at the same time) you start on Page 3 and things aimed at men though, I think you need to go for those women’s mags that are far worse.

The ad campaign linked at 4 is genuinely weird.

Since the human body in its natural state is obviously shameful, we should genetically modify foetuses to be born with clothes on. More evidence that the Puritans unfortunately never died out. They just metamorphosis into a different form every generation and bore the rest of us senseless with their moralising. If you don’t like the Sun, and who could, don’t buy it. If you do not like the magazines on display in a shop, go in another shop where they are not on display. If you don’t approve of padded bras for seven year olds, don’t buy them. It is after all parents who are buying stuff like padded bras.

I know I remember the unsettled and ashamed feeling in seeing such soft-porn in newspaper rags on the floor when I was too young.

That gave me a chuckle, thanks. Hope your ok, if you need to talk about Im here for you

There is something bizarre about a main-line UK newspaper using semi-naked women as a major marketing strategy for the past 40 years.

On the other hand I don’t think it’s a massive issue.

However, Cameron is clearly being inconsistent if he claims to be ‘halting the sexualising of children’ whilst not opposing the Sun on this issue. Of course, there is absolutely no danger of Cameron standing up to Murdoch on this, or any other issue.

Moreover the ‘sexualisation of children’ is in many ways a perfect right-wing political issue. All Cameron has to do is say that he’s against it. I suspect he probably is. I also strongly suspect he’ll do nothing about it. And at the next election, he can make the same claims and win the same votes and still do nothing about it.

It’s very cheap but effective politics.

AFZ

Call me Dave won’t upset his boss Rupert Bear. Just like Blair he is Murdoch’s yes man.

‘Shatterface – what do you think of the images in this post that are on display in shop windows? http://www.joannasusie.com/?p=148‘

I think the image of the pretty boy in the foreground sets an impossibly high standard in male grooming and I will probably become bulemic in response. I just can’t help it, I have no will of my own. Please, please protect me.

The genuine question is why people persist in buying The Sun when they can watch videos of blowjobs on their mobile phone.

Yes, you make some very good points which are difficult to disagree with. In my view the sexualization of women has no place in a newspaper although it is debatable whether you could call The Sun a newspaper.

As you point out it influences children who are exposed to this soft porn. A lot of the articles that appear in The Sun and News of the World could be considered porn. Kids shouldn’t be exposed to this sort of thing and to be honest, neither should adults. It wouldn’t happen in China so why here?

I invite you to write an in depth article on the subject for my website.

Frankly I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a child seeing a p3 girl, in the sense that there is nothing wrong with a naked human body. I hate the legitimisation of the shame that accompanies sexuality (esp female sexuality), or even simply nakedness. I find the whole idea of ‘but a CHILD might see it!’ a bit weird. Well, so what? Half the population has a pair of tits. Did you know that on average that’s one tit each? Horror! In arguing that we should protect children from images of nudity, you add to the existing prurience that surrounds sex, IMHO.

The issue with p3, and porn in general – which I don’t think is made clear enough here – is that it forms part of a culture which seeks to objectify women. I think that’s what you’re getting at when you refer to glamour models; i.e. that p3 is a significant factor in convincing girls they’re not good for anything other than to be gawped at; but I think it needs to be made clearer in this article.

The problem that needs to be tackled, when it comes to these types of images of women, is not nudity and sexualisation per se; it’s the fact that – inherent within the sexualisation – is an assumption that women are only good for sex; that they are ornamental bodies for the pleasure of men, and not human beings.

That’s evident even within the language we use to frame the issues: women are sex objects, men are sex symbols. Behind those phrases are the assumptions that a woman is simply an instrument for sexual pleasure, but for men, sexualness (if there is such a word) is merely symbolic and cloaks a whole host of other human attributes.

Phew! Sorry – felt this post got a bit Mary Whitehouse and had to say something.

Also, Lib Con, delete the poppy FFS!

Solution: penises on page 3 every other day. Sorted.

[In case of an irony failure, I don't actually advocate doing that. But I'd be interested in the defenders of page 3 have to say about it..]

Ellie Mae:

The issue with p3, and porn in general – which I don’t think is made clear enough here – is that it forms part of a culture which seeks to objectify women. I think that’s what you’re getting at when you refer to glamour models; i.e. that p3 is a significant factor in convincing girls they’re not good for anything other than to be gawped at; but I think it needs to be made clearer in this article.

*Sigh*

If you want to ‘do something’ about porn, then you should have said so: hiding behind ‘sexualisation of children’ is just lazy and dishonest.

Moreover, if you want to ‘do something’ about porn, then stop picking on ‘Page 3′ and say so. Better yet, see if you can come up with a strategy that will somehow ‘do something’ about the stuff you don’t like while somehow preserving the stuff you do (you are in favour of women freely choosing some form of erotic expression and/or employment and/or entertainment, aren’t you?).

If you think that Cameron’s ‘doing something’ about ‘page 3′ is more important than the rest of the Sun’s pernicious agenda, or Murdoch’s malign influence in the British media, you’re not seeing the bigger picture.

If you also think that young girls are so gullible as to see ‘page 3′ and think ‘there’s a career path’, then not only are you overlooking the educational achievements of lots of young women these days, but also the way in which other influences – including feminism – have on kids. Perhaps they take inspiration from Cheryl Cole, Rebecca Adlington, or their mum instead. Even better, fight a campaign for better sex education in schools, which could include recognising that porn is not the same as a sex education video.

If you want to re-run the feminist sex wars, and get into a row with other feminists about how men and women and expressive their erotic imaginations without resorting to stereotypes, let alone sexism, then good luck: it can add to the ’1980s deja vu’ pile alongside unemployment, a recession and a royal wedding. Meanwhile, other (feminist) women will get on with the business of producing porn that women (and men) might like, and might even pass some form of feminist ‘objectification’ test.

I’m no fan of either the Sun or ‘Page 3′, but this post isn’t really about either of those things. If it wasn’t ‘Page 3′, it would something else (lad mags are one obvious example). It’s about the repeated conflation of sexism and sex that occurs in a certain kind of feminist thinking, which usually leads to a disingenuous argument for banning (heterosexual) smut. If you really want to complain about the porn/newspaper interface, I suggest targeting Richard Desmond and the Express Newspaper group – but then they don’t have topless photos of Diana. Yet.

“penises on page 3 every other day.”

The dicks are on the politics pages each and every day.

Umm, now, where was I, ah, yes: look the “sexualisation of children” isn’t about whether children find out, note or see that sex is a part of human life. The sexualisation of children is about turning the children themselves into sexual objects.

Having naked paps in a newspaper is no more about sexualising children than telling them where babbies come from is….or letting them see breast feeding in a cafe is going to turn them all into food critics.

As opposed to the pink spangly hot pants for the eight year old set, along with boob tube for the tits they don’t have really is the sexualisation of children.

As to Cameron and Lily Allen? You did note that he said that “he” limits “his” children’s exposure?

Not that he thinks Lily should only be allowed to sing for the over 45s? By law?

Well, when the United Nations rates the UK as having the unhappiest children in the world: our country needs to do more to protect childhood. I think confusing arguments about censorship with dominant commercial interests exploiting and degrading women doesn’t help. This isn’t about celebrating the beauty of the naked human body..it’s pornography. There is a difference.

That’s evident even within the language we use to frame the issues: women are sex objects, men are sex symbols

where on earth did you get this idea from? who is the “we”? If the “we” is people in general, the media, then you’re dreaming. The standard journalistic phrase for a female sex symbol is er.. sex symbol. Google “being a sex symbol” and see for yourself.

If the rest of your argument is correct – concerning what the choice of words means – then after correcting for your factual error, we must conclude that when it comes to women, “sexualness …. is merely symbolic and cloaks a whole host of other human attributes”

which is of course true.

The original post (cleverly written in the same way as the Sun, with one or two line paragraphs so there is no room to make anything other than bold statements) claims to be about child sexualisation. All well and good, and a worthy thing to campaign about and discuss (even if the concept of childhood being held up here is perhaps a social construct rather than a reality).

But the only mention of child sexualisation is the beginning. After this the focus is on page 3, which might be the sexualisation of adults, but is certainly not about children (kind of by biological definition, considering what the principle feature of page 3 is…). No evidence is produced showing page 3 causes child sexualisation; in fact, the only actual evidence other than misrepresentations of Mr Cameron’s views is the writer recounting her own discomfort at viewing page 3. Although she then contradicts this by saying some girls mights see glamour models as role models. But the role here is not of sexualised child, but of sexualised adult (and there is the question of whether the author and her ilk have the right to deny choice to girls about role models anyway – surely repressing expression of sexuality is strongly anti-feminist?).

So in effect that author is saying that David Cameron should do something about page 3 because it is as bad for children as Lily Allen lyrics (i.e. probably not a problem with sensible parenting), but is somehow trying to make this look like an issue by labelling in child sexualisation, when the actual issue being discussed is about adults (and the subtext is about freedom of expression versus the right of children not to be discomforted). I assume this is because the writer believes page 3 contributes to the sexualisation of children, but can’t be bothered (perhaps because of the writing format they selected) to provide their argument for this assertion, because otherwise this was just a piece of lightweight political fluff designed to make the Conservatives look inconsistent but merely making the author look stupid.

(As you might be able to tell, I am not impressed – this piece would fail as an A-Level politics answer.)

‘Well, when the United Nations rates the UK as having the unhappiest children in the world: our country needs to do more to protect childhood.’

Yes, that’s just why children in the UK are the most unhappy in Europe: tits on page 3. Many is the time I’ve seen children wailing in the streets. What’s wrong Jimmy, Dad on the dole again? Mum still waiting for her hospital appointment? Granny froze because she can’t afford heating? Worried you’ll never be able to afford to go to University? Ah, I see: a pair of breasts in a newspaper.,.Diddums!

‘I think confusing arguments about censorship with dominant commercial interests exploiting and degrading women doesn’t help. This isn’t about celebrating the beauty of the naked human body..it’s pornography. There is a difference.’

Its about censorship, pure and simple.

Why are female nipples so offensive, but not male ones?

Shouldn’t feminists be fighting this discriminatory cultural oppression of female body parts?

“this was just a piece of lightweight political fluff designed to make the Conservatives look inconsistent but merely making the author look stupid.”

And it does make the conservatives look inconsistent and, the fact that you can’t see the inconsistency makes you look stupid.

sally,

If you read my comment, you might see why I say there is no inconsistency. Still, I take it by focussing on the “because otherwise” option, you believe this, and do not support my assumption (which is the thing I believe) that the writer believes that the logical link she does not make exists.

Still, if you want to explain to me what I have missed which makes me stupid, feel free. I would be delighted to be corrected.

i not only let my (under 10) kids listen to lily allen, i introduced them to her. she is one of the best female lyric writers to come out of the uk in the past decade. i find her refreshing and thoughtful and sometimes silly and thats all to the good, even if i think she was a bit of an idiot about downloads.

kids dont need protection from swearing and blunt/honest discussion about sex. they do need to have sexism and lifes sometimes unfairness and weirdness and all that acknowledged by the adults in their lives. kids dont need protecting from page 3 but they should encounter and understand and think about what it represents – which in my view is objectification and dehumanisation of women in order to make money from insecure men with superiority complexes.

we dont worry about nudity in this house, nudity and nipples arent the issue. objectification, dehumanisation and oppression is the issue. upskirt shots on the front page of the sport, the abysmal covers of nuts and zoo, page 3, all of it supports and enforces oppression for the shallow purpose of making money from fools. the people who buy into it are morons – those who pay for it and those who happily pose for it and imagine it a ‘career’ – but people are allowed to be morons, you cant force them to be otherwise. however, neither should the rest of us be forced to put up with this repressive bullshit either – and it is repressive, it dehumanises and thus represses our potential.

i can choose not to look at this stuff when its put in packets and stacked on the top shelf, and the morons can choose to take it down and buy it if theyre so desperate and lacking in imagination. its like smoking – if people want to do it thats up to them, but they dont have any right to expect me to take on the stink of it as well.

Page 3 is tasteless and tacky but I certainly wouldn’t ban it. Each to their own.

@ 34

“Still, if you want to explain to me what I have missed which makes me stupid, feel free. I would be delighted to be corrected.”

Good luck with that. I have an inkling that your logical flaw, against all the evidence, will turn out to be that you’re a tory brownshirt troll in league with the Lie Dems and, oh, I don’t know, Sauron.

Leave those pornographers alone folks. Haven`t they delivered us one of the freest societies in the world?We should be proud of having the highest rate of sexually transmitted disease and teenage pregnancy and single parent numbers in the developed world.

No liberal conspiracy here when it comes to premature sexualisation..we were always world leaders at turning kids into prostitutes…it`s “market forces”!

We don`t want women modestly dressed in burkas ….we want them crawling in the gutters pissed out of their tiny minds and gagging for a shag!

It`s civilisation…it`s freedom…ask Victoria Climbie and Baby Peter what East Enders BBC Britain did for them!

Nurse!

Anony…what your kids would benefit from is protection from you!

Time for your medication Mr Guevara?

Who Cares?

Pardon my reversion to the thread topic about protecting children from early sexualisation – which seems to me to be an important issue.

I’m unclear why we should pick on the Sun rather than the other tabloids and the influence of page 3 of the Sun is surely trivial compared with what’s easily accessible on the web.

While it is very easy to avoid encountering porn on the web, it is equally easy to find it in abundance using the web search engines. The question is what to do about that fact.

… a tory brownshirt troll …

Yes, only a Nazi could disagree with you, “Guevara”. How old are you, 12?

@ 44

“Yes, only a Nazi could disagree with you, “Guevara”. How old are you, 12?”

I’ll forgive this one as you’re obviously fairly new here and it’s an understandable mistake. Watchman is challenging Sally to give him a sensible answer; I’m pointing out that the answer he’s likely to get is some personal attack probably calling him a Tory, a brownshirt or a troll, because that’s what Sally always does when she disagrees with someone. I’m not calling him that myself, hence “against all evidence” in my post.

@41

You cannot be seriously blaming pornographers for “having the highest rate of sexually transmitted disease and teenage pregnancy and single parent numbers in the developed world” and public drunkeness and Baby Peter or, for that matter, crediting them for the freedom of society. And I’ve never heard anyone say that child prostitution is “just market forces”, and I really doubt I would on this reasonably socialist site. As for women being”pissed out of their tiny minds and gagging for a shag!”… sigh. Women are stupid and sex is evil, so we should wrap them up in burkhas for their own good. Is that it?

#46 Chaise
Closest I’ve come to seeing child prostitution justified as market forces was when I stumbled upon “PUA’s” and their idea of the “sexual marketplace”. Or in other words, nowhere fucking near this site. Anyway just wanted to say good job on calling out Jim on his aversion to female sexual desire, it’s the difference between slut and stud after all.

ah jim, my kids think im brilliant . theyre pretty much the happiest and nicest kids ive ever met, so im doing something right. probably its the effort i make not to parent like any of the models i rejected myself when i was a kid. not that im perfect, but these days im pretty confident that what we do is working out really well. thanks anyway!

Shatterface,

“This is about adults feeling uncomfortable about sex. Its about people who only have sex while their kids are over at their grandparents lest they are ‘traumatised’ by the sounds of grunting and moaning.”

Page 3 topless totty are not “sex” unless you believe that women represent sex?

Also: No. 46.

[…[sigh. Women are stupid and sex is evil, so we should wrap them up in burkhas for their own good. Is that it?

Interesting use of the word WE.

Anony….may you and your children always love cherish and respect each other.
I was too busy/preoccupied as a social worker so the estrangement from my children during their early years has never quite been repaired….however much I try.

We abandon children into the uncertain hands of fate and whichever troubled or happy soul happens to bring them into the world…then we teach them about their culture by exposing them to Corrie and East Enders and Straw Dogs….no wonder our decadent pathetic culture is in moral and emotional chaos!

There`s a better standard of debate on this thread…..liberal conspiracy may be worth reading after all.

“Interesting use of the word WE.”

What on earth does that mean?

@47

Cheers. As you point out, I’ve never seen anyone complain that men are “gagging for a shag.”

jim, ive heard too many parents speak with regret about feeling they missed too much of their own kids childhood, and my own parents skipped most of mine. the models for parenting we have arent great, we’re all still experimenting to find out what good parenting is imo. actually i think we’re still experimenting to find out what being a good human is.

You keep creating unneccessary and misleading dichotomies…..I am not complaining about women gagging for a shag in the sense of criticising women. The fact that the largely american media constantly portray women as desperate people/housewives “gagging” for the attention of men is a MALE fantasy endlessly promoted in what I believe is a very destructive media.
Watch a documentary about Joan Rivers or Jordan (or practically any woman!) and the constant refrain is that a woman`s self worth can only be related to her sexuality and most often to remaining adolescent in appearance and in her mentality.
If it was being done exclusively to black people or muslims …for example…there would be riots.
The male fantasy is that women are behaving like this because it`s natural behaviour ….and nothing to do with structural power imbalances in society or the endless grooming of the male oriented media.

50. jim evans

‘ no wonder our decadent pathetic culture is in moral and emotional chaos! ‘

Ah, our society is decadent and in moral decline meme. Pops up every so often. Well more like every year of recorded history. What we need is a great leader to turn back the tide of decadence and restore moral standards in our culture.

The desire to control others seems to be hardwired into some folks brains.

‘ The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. ‘ Adam Smith

@55
If that is the case Jim, then why is it that in the past decade vanity problems that traditionally only affected girls are now increasingly also affecting boys? Such as eating disorders, surgical enhancement and harsh anti-ageing treatments.
The overall “problem” may very well be the comodification of the human body and sex, but I would argue that the portrayal of female sexual desire in a positive light has actually helped equalise the benefits & drawbacks a little.

It is worth remembering that the old patriarchal systems are very keen on women being “virtuous” and “pure” and not having sex at all, unless it’s with her husband, preferably for breeding purposes.

Emily – D-Cam is reported as saying (in the tele item you link to) “A Conservative Government would take the TOUGH action needed to help families and build a society in which we stop treating children as adults.”
So have you aligned yourself with ‘tough’ tories who fear that poor old parents can no longer cope with “padded bras and Lolita beds” ……. or indeed the Scum, if we accept your analysis?

Incidentally I have been dead against the Scum since these headlines 20 years ago
http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/history/images/sundrain.jpg

Irrespective of perceived threats to teeny boppers I must admit I have never really understood the page 3 thing – I wonder if any other country is so sad that it needs a staple diet of topless women in their daily newspaper?

Oh – and it goes without saying that most parents are now more or less forced to work all the hours god sends in order to keep a roof over their head – a precocious child having a crafty glance at “Jenny from Swindon” is probably the least of their worries nowadays?

Irrespective of perceived threats to teeny boppers I must admit I have never really understood the page 3 thing – I wonder if any other country is so sad that it needs a staple diet of topless women in their daily newspaper?

In Germany there is a paper that puts them on page 1 (Bild).

[60] Lots of sport, check.
Celebrities, check.
Scantily clad women check.
Sexy motor car ads, check.
http://www.bild.de/

I fear you are right, ukliberty, this is not just a British disease?

a&e charge nurse, I recall similar newspapers and magazines in every European country I’ve visited (not saying it’s right, or wrong).

Richard and cyclux ..you both make excellent points but the moral maze in which we raise young people of both sexes still seems to leave them at the mercy of some pretty uncivilised demoralising influences…now are we going to sit around playing clever silly buggers thinking up smarter-than-thou liberal ideas …or do something practical and constructive about the brutalising exploitive Americanisation of our culture?
Yes…I know no middle class career path could conceivably involve talking positively about censorship…. but if you think this is an uncesored free society just try challenging the mythology imposed on us by our London elite about issues like the one party state we have to call a democracy or our so called freedom to.leave the EU or part comany from American foreign policy or barmy neo-liberal economic beliefs.
The truth is we live in an authoritarian society that limits our freedom of choice and expression to a quite considerable degree…..and challenging the media`s power over us is most dangerous of all …as Mary Whitehouse discovered.

63

Mart Whitehouse?!

Are you for real? The answer to our problems includes the National Viewers and Listeners Association? Her failure to stem the tide of permissiveness was doubtless all a plot of the neo-con ascendency… nothing to do with the fact that she was an out of touch dinosaur then…?

Look Galen…for about forty years we have been fed this BBC orthodoxy about media luvvies being the font of all wisdom…moral,social,political etc….and anyone who challenges this orthodox liberal supremacist idea is roundly ridiculed and satirised into oblivion…… while any lewd brainless tart or psychopathic gangsta that represents the BBC celebrity ideal is worshipped and promoted as a role model…with the results that any honest objective person can see for themselves.
Now all this honesty from me must be horrifying to the muddled metropolitan mind….but just take a moment before you pile in with the usual tripe about my supposedly right-wing character and mental instability and realise that you are simply repeating what was done to Mrs Whitehouse by the degenerate public school creeps who ran the liberal media at the time….and I think she had a point whereas they probably hated her for being lower class.
Of course we have to do something about our decadent society before the totalitarian religious/right wing crazies step in repeat history in thr nastiest of ways.

@ 55

“You keep creating unneccessary and misleading dichotomies…..I am not complaining about women gagging for a shag in the sense of criticising women. The fact that the largely american media constantly portray women as desperate people/housewives “gagging” for the attention of men is a MALE fantasy endlessly promoted in what I believe is a very destructive media.”

That’s not what you said, though. You blamed porn for making women want sex (and for being pissed out of their “tiny minds” in your charming phrase). You didn’t say this was a false impression caused by media and entertainment, you said it was real and bewailed it.

I’m sorry, but the evidence does seem to point to unthinking and puritanical sexism on your part.

65

Well even my muddled metropolitan mind (altho whether deepest darket blue Sussex counts as metropolitan is a moot point I reckon) can see that calling up the ghost of Mary Whitehouse is likely to cause people to guffaw rather than take you seriously.

Any germ of a real point you might have tends to go out the window as soon as you start on about “orthodox liberal supremacists” (can I be a Reformed instead..? the dietary laws are easier….) and the other conspiracy theory rantings you are wont to pepper your diatribes with.

People didn’t hate Mary Whitehouse for being lower class, they thought she was a priggish philistine who wanted to censor things and tell them what to do.

I don’t have to go on about your “supposedly right-wing character and mental instability”… I think people can make their own judgements from the content of your posts.

I realise that I am fighting very entrenched views…which I shared for years myself….but can you at least try to look back through your posts and see a common denominator of prejudiced thinking along the lines of….”let`s look through this Evans chaps post then ignore any substance and look for an Aunt Sally to take exception to”….and then respond with something along these lines…
“Anyone who even mentions XYorZ is not worthy of an audience in this great Liberal Sonspiracy Star Chamber….so off you go….horrid person… because I have all the answers and can`t be bothered explaining them to rubbish like you!”
Whereas you could trawl right through this website and not find a realistic and practical idea or solution to any of the issues you claim to be addressing.Lot`s of sarcasm and an occasional positive-sounding but unrealistic idea..but that`s it.
Well Galen….what is your contribution to this debate? What bright ideas have you got?
And we ALL know the answer SFA!!

“Well Galen….what is your contribution to this debate? What bright ideas have you got?”

Evans, YOUR contribution so far amounts to “women are idiots and it was better when we oppressed them”, “pornography is the cause of all life’s ills” and “anyone who disagrees with me is some kind of liberal extremist who refuses to listen to any other views”.

All of these are demonstrably incorrect, so perhaps you should look at yourself before demanding that Galen be constructive.

68

We’ve seen the character of your considered views on this and other threads: approval of the BNP and IRA and barmy conspiracy theories about Soros and how the CIA controls the world.

Don’t expect to come on to an avowedly left of centre site spouting that kind of crap and not be seen for what you are. I mean Mary Whitehouse? Seriously? It’s beyond parody.

Any serious point you do have to make is bound to be drowned in hoots of derision after that…. sarcasm would just be too good for it.

Of course, you could just try being less of a wing nut and post on Conservative Home where no doubt you’d fit right in.

@68

“And we ALL know the answer SFA!!!”

Super Furry Animals? Not quite sure what the Welsh avante-indiepopsters have to do with the above discussion but it makes about as much sense as some of Mr Evans statements.

~

Anyhoos… Worstall’s witticism aside, does anyone have any arguments as to why there shouldn’t be pictures of men with their cocks out on page 3? After all, if having women with their breasts out is perfectly fine and dandy I see no reason not to introduce some gender equality.

71

I suspect the English are much too buttoned up to accept that…. tho it might be worth seeing just to watch Mr Evans and his ilk explode in rage at the end of civilzation and the degradation of it all!

I do remember an advertising campaign in Germany for a men’s cologne which used naked men, and the ads were all over the place….. but they do things differently there…!

There is a huge double standard involved I reckon…. another thing to blame the Christians for, all that Catholic guilt… so many of the church fathers totally lost the plot where sex and nakedness were concerned!

“Worstall’s witticism aside, does anyone have any arguments as to why there shouldn’t be pictures of men with their cocks out on page 3? After all, if having women with their breasts out is perfectly fine and dandy”

Yes.

Cocks are primary sexual characteristics, as are labia, vaginas etc. Breasts are secondary sexual characteristics: the equivalent in men is usually held to be the beard.

So we’ll get all upset about nekkid tits in the papers when we start censoring images of the Archbish of Canterbury, shall we?

I seem to recall that the Sun once had a “page 8 mate” feature which was essentially page 3 for women. Cept bum, pecs and abs rather than bum and breasts. So everything but cock, like how page three is everything but fanny. Does that come close to an answer Mr S. Pill?

Also I might have outed myself as a former Sun reader, in my defence, I was a teen at the time.

As a matter of interest have any of you got a worthwhile job in our big society?Or am I talking to the Jack Straws and Mandelsons and Tony Blairs of the future?

[71] are the kids ready for ‘Helmut from Hartlepool’?
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071107063330/psychology/images/4/4b/Flaccid-erect.jpg

[75] A&E Charge Nurse.

@75
Please define “worthwhile”.

“Please define “worthwhile”.”

He can’t. No dictionaries in trolltopia.

“Or am I talking to the Jack Straws and Mandelsons and Tony Blairs of the future?”

I wouldn’t be surprised by Sunny going for a Labour seat. I’ve stood for UKIP.

Other than us two, no, I think everyone else here is a proper hard working type in the real economy.

You didn’t really stand for UKIP did you? You seem too grounded for that.

@ 81…yup, euro elections. I was also one of the party press officers. At the time, some 30% of the entire press office in fact, in the election where we came second nationally.

80

“I wouldn’t be surprised by Sunny going for a Labour seat. I’ve stood for UKIP.”

That’d be a “no” then?

82

You must be thrilled at the recent results then:

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/11/19/labour-make-massive-gains-in-3-local-elections/

Honestly, you do seem like quite an intelligent chap (even if I disagree with practically everything you post….) but UKIP? Really? Any close examination of the kind of people this party elects as leader is all the evidence people need that UKIP are simply the Monster Raving Loonie Party des nos jours, with a slightly less eccentric dress sense.

75

“As a matter of interest have any of you got a worthwhile job in our big society?Or am I talking to the Jack Straws and Mandelsons and Tony Blairs of the future?”

As a matter of interest, why would it matter? Whether we were rocket scientists or road sweepers wouldn’t make any difference would it?

Speaking for myself, I doubt my future lies in the direction taken by any of the three you mention…. but then unlike them I’m not a crypto-Tory.

@ 85: I’m a member of UKIP because I agree with the basic premise. The UK should not be part of the EU.

In fact, I’m more extreme even than that: I think the very existence of the EU is in itself a bad idea.

Thus I’m a member of the only political party that represents my views.

In just about everything else I’d be an Orange Book Liberal: but as I regard the EU as the most important political issue, I’m where I am.

This is how we’re supposed to choose political parties, right? On the basis of policy?

86

Fair enough; I suppose in some ways it’s good to find something you feel adequately represents such a strongly held view. Being an anti-EU orange booker must be a bit like being a left wing Gaullist.

One of my old lecturers described himself as a wish-washy Liberal with crypto-Marxist overtones, which I rather liked.

And of course, the more people who vote UKIP, the more harm it does the Tories…so keep up the good work!

@ 86

“This is how we’re supposed to choose political parties, right? On the basis of policy?”

Well, it’s fair enough to support UKIP on the basis of their attitude to the EU, but the payoff is that you have to align yourself with a group whose policy-making strategy seems to be “we support whatever would get the biggest cheer from a group of unintelligent drunks.”

Muslims BOOOO!
Pubs YAAAAY!
Tax BOOOO!
Queen YAAAAY!
Abbanazar BOOOO!

That sort of thing.

88

…that made me spit my coffee out!

I quite like the analogy though: if the C of E is the Tory party at prayer, there is something pleasing about the vision of UKIP being The Dog and Duck at full bray.

@ 88…..it’s also true that in a small party like that (with, as you point out, a limited number of those going beyond populist measures) there’s an opportunity to get things into party policy.

For example, between Mark Wadsworth and myself (no, really) we’ve pretty much managed to get the tax and benefit system sorted out. Whack the personal allowance up to the minimum wage level, thus lifting all of the working poor (by that JRF measure) out of the tax net. Simple, universal, benefit system akin to a cbi. LVT…..

As we at the Adam Smith Inst (and my two roles are entirely separate) like to say, it’s our job to be howling in the wilderness for some time, until everyone realises quite how sensible the idea is and everyone forgets it was us that started it.

Like, for example, the London Congestion Charge. Yes, it was Red Ken who implemented it but it was us who nurtured it (before my time of course) for decades. It was actually originally from Sir Alan Walters, Maggie’s favourite economist.

On the subject of Muslims: biggest cheer I’ve had at a UKIP meeting was when asked “is Islam a threat to our way of life?” and my answer was, no, small groups of violent thugs/terrorists are not, whatever their motivations. Whether the bomb attacks (which are of course an unmitigated tragedy for those directly involved) are done in the name of the Caliphate, the proletarian revolution, Free Ireland or some form of white nationalism, the danger to our way of life is in our reaction.

To give up Habeas Corpus, double jeopardy, jury trial and so on would be to destroy that way of life ourselves.

As I say, biggest cheer I’ve had at a UKIP meeting.

91

Good news. Though even a broken clock is right twice a day.

@ 89

“the C of E is the Tory party at prayer”

I’ve not heard that before. Rather good.

UKIP’s a slightly strange party. I’ve been cornered by the obvious fanatics, arguing that the EU is the culmination of the Holy Roman Empire/Napoleon/Hitler’s fantasies, that we really must switch to Distributionism (a form of facism light popularied by Chesterton and Belloc, foundation of Phillip Blond’s “Red Tory” ideas), that Social Credit (the economy is just like a hydraulic engine, an idea created by, would you believe it, a hydraulic engineer) and so on.

And a very much larger majority of the party members who really are quite simply worried/upset/motivated by the idea that the English settlement, this social and economic freedom embedded in the Common Law tradition (you know, this idea that only those things which the law says are illegal are illegal, rather than the Roman Law idea that the law must detail what you may do rather than what you may not) is at risk.

I agree that you can argue to what extent it is and even whether it’s a good or bad idea that it is. But for a lot of them that is the motivating factor.

@ 90

I’m not criticising you personally here – it’s true that you’ll get no satisifaction from the major parties on your position on the EU – but most UKIP positions do seem to be essentially childish (whether that’s because the people who run it think that way or they want to appeal to that sort of voter, or both, is beyond my ken). I honestly think that there’s a general tendency to judge issues by the headline rather than considering the entire debate.

@ 91

Well, good for them. I don’t think UKIP is inherently racist (although it is probably quite attractive to people who are racist in a low-grade, casual kind of way). I think it’s more that they’ll be inclined to buy into the “traditional Brit as victim” myth: the sort of people who assume any non-denominational celebration in December must be designed to appease Muslims.

For example, take this nice little pile of rabble-rousing bullshit: “It may sound ridiculous that a local council bans Christmas lights in favour of ‘winterval lights’ so non-Christians are not offended, but this is another example of ‘Cultural Marxism’ at work.” (http://www.ukip.org/content/features/186-the-curse-of-political-correctness)

Lie about WInterval to get people’s blood boiling, then blame it on the bogeyman in your paranoid head. Nice.

94

Interesting that although it’s UKIP, rather than EIP, there has always seemd to be a somewhat inchoate little Englander (meant in the the original Victorian laissez-faire, lack of foreign entanglements sense) whiff about UKIP.

As a Scot I’d say the Majoresque idyyl of warm beer, cricket on the green and spinsters cycling to evensong isn’t that likely to play well outside the English heartlands; and of course Scots law is Roman law, and therefore superior to it’s Sassenach counterpart

Perhaps “England” would be better off out of the EU and realising it’s true place in the second division alongside Spain and Poland in the second division. Whether they could do a Norway or Switzerland is more open to doubt.

@94

“you know, this idea that only those things which the law says are illegal are illegal, rather than the Roman Law idea that the law must detail what you may do rather than what you may not”

Please. UKIP would ban the veil and pass legislation that would allow them to block the building of Mosques. They are not liberal.

The most amusing part to me is this:

“Political correctness is also trying to pervert our values, for it paints criminals as victims, routinely undermines the family by promoting promiscuity ”

But I’ll not go into why…..

‘Richard and cyclux ..you both make excellent points but the moral maze in which we raise young people of both sexes still seems to leave them at the mercy of some pretty uncivilised demoralising influences…now are we going to sit around playing clever silly buggers thinking up smarter-than-thou liberal ideas …or do something practical and constructive about the brutalising exploitive Americanisation of our culture?’

Wow, prudery and racism all in one. Very ‘progressive’.

AliceRubberFeet:

“This is about adults feeling uncomfortable about sex. Its about people who only have sex while their kids are over at their grandparents lest they are ‘traumatised’ by the sounds of grunting and moaning.”

‘Page 3 topless totty are not “sex” unless you believe that women represent sex?’

Then you’ve just blown the entire ‘sexualisation’ argument.

Thats quite the most self-defeating argument I’ve EVER seen.

99

Mr Evans has form shatterface; apparently it’s all the fault (variously) of not taking Mary Whitehouse seriously, George Soros, the CIA, an international capitalist cabal, and some giant space lizards.

OK…I might have made one of those up….

@ 99 Shatterface

“Wow, prudery and racism all in one. Very ‘progressive’.”

And knee-jerk anti-intellectualism. You forgot knee-jerk anti-intellectualism.

“Thats quite the most self-defeating argument I’ve EVER seen.”

She appears to be one of those feminists who demand that everyone uses words in the way they do and are obsessed with finding deep and incriminating revelations in people’s casual use of terminology.

Up there somewhere in the comments thread, she replied to me saying “that’s a very interesting use of the word WE”. That was it, I shit you not. I had to resist responding along the lines of “Well, that’s a fascinating use of the word THE”…

So it’s no surprise if she thinks that Page 3 portrays women as sex objects while having nothing to do with sex.

If I am guilty of prudery I am not guilty of racism….though i am guilty of culturism…and dislike the way prehistoric so-called religious/fascist ideas are celebrated by the childless thought police whose pitiful ideas permeate this website. It`s like debating with secret policemen around here.
Constant politically ignorant ad hominem abuse and not a serviceable free thinking mind anywhere to be found.
Have you got children? Do you do anything socially useful for the money the BBC pay you?

99

Some collected “wisdom” from Mr Evans:

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/11/06/why-the-bbc-strikes-deserves-public-support/#comment-194223

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/11/05/good-riddance-woolas-found-guilty/#comment-193797

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/11/08/why-coalition-plans-to-force-people-into-unpaid-work-will-flounder/#comment-194087

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/11/14/lefties-stop-bloody-fighting-each-other/#comment-197763

Anti-intellectual!!!!! YOU creeps are not intellectuals….do you seriously imagine this is some sort of brains trust you have here?

Thanks for compiling my collected works Galen 13….if you had brains you might be dangerous!

104

Oh come on…. as ad hominems go, painting the (probably fairly diverse) posters here who have attacked your rantings as ..what was it…. “childless and in the pay of the BBC”? What IS that about?

(For the record: one kid, not on the BBC payroll, socially useful occupation, free thinking enough to see through the conceit that a Cultural Social Democrat = National Socialist)

“YOU creeps are not intellectuals”

What did you do your masters in?

@ 106 Jim Evans

“Anti-intellectual!!!!! YOU creeps are not intellectuals….do you seriously imagine this is some sort of brains trust you have here?”

Um, when I said “anti-intellectual” I didn’t mean “anti-me”, because I’m not that arrogant. I was talking about this: “now are we going to sit around playing clever silly buggers thinking up smarter-than-thou liberal ideas ”

That is very much, as you put it, “Anti-intellectual!!!!!”

Social work Planeshift…twenty seven years of thankless front-line social work having to listen to creeps like you lot smarm and oil their way upstairs safely far away from the underclass you profess to care about……but couldn`t really care a damn about.
Now let`s find out what Guevara and Galen and Planeshift do by way of useful employment….if anything?

@ 104

“thought police”,”secret policemen”

Do you have even the slightest clue what these terms mean? Hint: it’s not “anyone with the temerity to disagree with Jim Evan’s paranoid and bigoted opinions.”

110

Come to think of it… dissing intellectuals is like infringing der rights an stuff, an mite give dem issues. Innit.

Che….thank you for making a half sensible point…yes…my remark could be interpreted as anti-intellectual by someone who thinks that the internecine sqabbling on this website constitutes something worthy of the description intellectual.
So I apologise.

@ 111

OK, but I want to hear and judge your criteria for “useful employment” first, because otherwise they’re going to conveniently disqualify anything that I or the others do for a living.

And when you lot are not signing on….you are………?

114

Jim, given the details of your little compendium above, a half-sensible point would seem rather a lot to ask in your case.

111

“Social work Planeshift…twenty seven years of thankless front-line social work having to listen to ….[insert diatribe here]”

Nice to know that our caring professions are staffed with such clear thinking, visionary progressives…… errrrrrmmmmmmm……

Yep…no ideas …no jobs….it`s obvious really…after all during my working life I wouldn`t have had the time or energy for this waste-of-space website and it`s “intellectual” grotesques.
Well I`m off on a sabbatical to see if I can get my son into a craft business before his job at the Post Office is axed to keep you parasites in Special Brew and wank magazines. Toodaloo!

119

See ya… wouldn’t want to be ya..!

Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on your (hopefully permanent) exit will you?

I’m truly curious, which ideas celebrated and promoted on this site fall under the umbrella of “pre-historic so-called religious/fascist”?

121

I was wondering that too… I reckon he was using the BNP equivalent of that site that spits out randomised Daily Mail headlines… you know the thing, you click and it comes out with “MUSLIM GYPO IMMIGRANT PAEDO ATE MY BABY”.

@ 199

LOL, it thinks everyone that disagrees with it is unemployed.

See ya, you ignorant fucktard.

123

Social work though… imagine that sad collection of prejudices and psychotic delusions doling out advice and comfort – and he had the effrontery to go all “broken Britain” on us!

@ 124

It’s terrifying. Then again, he is full of bullshit, so hopefully he’s lying.

Fucking hell Jim, you have an argument with a grand total of 3 commenters, declare the whole website to be stuffed full of jobless special brew drinkers and flounce off without so much as a hairtoss. Apparently, you’re after an “intellectual” discussion. Good luck with that. I’ve an inkling you’ll need it.

@ 126

I also like how he deduces that we’re jobless as he, as a worker, doesn’t have time to go on this website and, say, argue with three people at once.

Let’s face it: he’s paranoid-delusional and deeply stupid. We should probably have just left him be in the first place.

‘Yep…no ideas …no jobs….it`s obvious really…after all during my working life I wouldn`t have had the time or energy for this waste-of-space website and it`s “intellectual” grotesques.
Well I`m off on a sabbatical to see if I can get my son into a craft business before his job at the Post Office is axed to keep you parasites in Special Brew and wank magazines. Toodaloo!’

Pretty much demonstrates how pro-censorship arguments reflect middle-class anxieties about the working class.

PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

No: 100, Shatterface.

“Then you’ve just blown the entire ‘sexualisation’ argument.

Thats quite the most self-defeating argument I’ve EVER seen.”

You are really not getting the ‘sexualisation’ thing are you?

Page Three represents men’s interpretation of female sexuality whereby women represent SEX through a male lens.

Please, do keep up Cynthia.