Parents, when emotional, sometimes regret deciding to be parents and other great surprises

I’ve been quiet today because I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the great feminist DOS attacks of the moment and the long long long threads discussing them: who’s responsible, what they were reacting to, whether what they claim actually occurred, who’s right, who’s wrong etc etc etc. One of those threads is currently running at 1000+ comments.

Short summary:

• Womensspace, a website founded by radical feminist (and notorious successful ex-fundamentalist litigant) Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff aka Heart, has been shut down due to DOS attacks.
• Heart has discussed this on her blog, which is run on a separate site.
• At least one and maybe more script-kid “hacker” forums have bragged about the coordinated DOS attack on Heart’s website and the websites of several people associated with Heart, and some people with an axe to grind over this incident have also sent Heart and commentors on Heart’s blog hate-mail and comments threatening rape and murder.

Filed under: cyberbullying, netgeek, reproductive freedoms, sexuality

Hey, we can say it

An attack has been made on the Australian media from the front page of Life Decisions International (LDI), whose domain name is the far more accurate fightpp.org (PP being the USA’s Planned Parenthood, the family planning organisation that offers comprehensive sex education and pregnancy services including abortion for those who choose it). The LDI are upset that somebody noticed an association between them and serial ministerial bungler Kevin Andrews.

Australian Media Shows No Regard For The Truth

It is not unusual for pro-abortion activists to use their allies in the media to attack pro-life leaders and lawmakers. But some in the Australian media are taking the practice to a whole new level. LDI has issued a response to an attack on an Australian lawmaker.

When we go to the response, the target of our media’s attack is made more explicit (the weird hyphenation of some words is in the original):

Australia Media Shows No Regard For Truth In Attack On Pro-Life Minister
8.6.2007

WASHINGTON, D.C.–It’s nothing new. Pro-abortion activ-ists work with their allies in the media to attack pro-life leaders and lawmakers. The most recent vociferous attack is against the Honorable Kevin Andrews, a Member of the Australian Parliament and Minister for Immigration and Citizenship.

“It is obvious that some pro-abortion zealot was in the United States or was searching the Internet in an effort to find something that could be used to attack Mr. Andrews,” said Douglas R. Scott, president of Life Decisions Interna-tional (LDI). “They eventually discovered that Mr. Andrews and his wife, Margaret, are members of our Board of Advi-sors. To pro-abortion activists, one may as well be a mem-ber of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Filed under: Politics, culture wars, ethics, religion, sexuality

Two sides of the same coin

Great comment in a thread over at Feministe about yet another book calling for more sexual modesty (from women, of course):

This seems like a great time to focus on re-directing the debate away from regarding ‘raunch culture’ and ‘modesty’ as opposites (or worse, attitudes we must choose between), and towards acknowledging them as two sides of the same coin. Both treat a woman as a commodity, the function of which lies in being a man’s sexual receptacle, the only difference being that the former places the value on recreational, the latter on procreational sex.

In raunch/porn/hyper-sexualized culture the most valuable woman is the one the most men want to have sex with the most badly. A woman who is not desired, or who removes herself from the competition, is treated as valueless. In abstinence-glorifying/purity-ball-attending/burqua-wearing/genital-mutilating cultures a valuable woman is one who is likely to bear a man offspring that he will not doubt is his.

Both treat a woman’s own sexuality as at best inconsequential, at worst a threat. Both regard a woman as property to be valued according to her sexual usefulness. Our priority should be to insist that mainstream discourse recognise this, and stop trying to hoodwink us into treating the positions as either/or.

Very succinct analysis, Orlando. Egalitarian sexual relationships can’t happen if the culture continues to commodify either procreation or recreation re sexuality.

Filed under: sexuality

So, is it OK?

crossposted at Feministe

Jessica, Amanda, Twisty and Violet Socks (and Melissa too!)have all written about this article: Is it OK to Demand Anal Sex?.

The picture accompanying the article is odiously twee and threatening simultaneously, and as virtually every respondent noted for starters, when is it ever OK to demand any kind of sex? (The title mysteriously changed to Is Anal Sex a Deal-Breaker?)

The particularly repellent men interviewed openly admit that their pursuit of anal penetration from casual partners is about strutting an achievement in front of their mates: the achievement of persuading women to “give in” and agree to behaviour that they will find painful (at least initially) and which is regarded by the men themselves as degrading. (Language from here on NSFW – Not Safe For Work – comprehensive sexual education lies ahead).

Filed under: crass, education, relationships, sexuality

Are you in on the joke?

Guest post by blue milk (who knew there was so much to say on feminist motherhood?) where this is being cross-posted.

Spare a thought for advertising executives. Imagine trying to write a TV advertisement for chicken? Actually wait it gets worse, the client wants you to write a TV ad that will have everyone talking about their chicken? Your annual bonus is riding on it. You’re not feeling very inspired at the moment, maybe you missed out on the Grange this year, and you’re scratching for ideas. Looks like you’ll have to fall back on the oldest trick in your advertising text book.

Recently I posted on an Australian advertisement for Nando’s chicken featuring a busy working mother wanting chicken so badly that she has to wear a fictitious Nando’s patch to control her cravings. OK its novel, but not enough to get anyone talking about Nando’s right? Well, here’s the catch – the Mum works as a stripper – where to hide that unsightly patch? Fear not, Nando’s also does a line of fictitious gum to beat the cravings. Oh its hilarious and did you see her great tits, that’ll have the Dads paying attention? Laugh, laugh, drinks all round, we’re getting that bonus this year.

Filed under: consumerism, sexuality

Sex ed – the facts

Further to Lauredhel’s post about a UK judge’s strange views on the sexual precocity of a 10 year old girl, which became a discussion on young people and sexuality (and the negatives of viewing adolescent sexual experimentation through a lens of adult sexuality), I’ve just become aware of this terrific website from the UK, from sexual health charity Brook. As parent to two kids in their tween-to-teen years, such websites are of great interest to me, and I suspect to many other parents.

Brook Advisory Centres – commonly known just as Brook – is the only national voluntary sector provider of free and confidential sexual health advice and services specifically for young people under 25. Brook is a registered charity, and has 40 years’ experience of providing professional advice through specially trained doctors, nurses, counsellors, and outreach and information workers to over 200,000 young people each year.

They have an excellent set of information pages (based on leaflets they supply to young people around the UK): Contraception, Emergency Contraception, Pregnancy, Sexually transmitted infections, Abortion, Your Body. They also have a comprehensive section on the rights of young people regarding sexual matters.

I really like the way they’ve laid out the information so clearly and simply. In Australia accurate information is a little more complicated because of different State laws regarding various aspects of sexuality and reproduction: Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia coordinates policy statements for the State Family Planning organisations linked to on their homepage, and each State organisation has Factsheets/Brochures explaining how various State laws affect sexual health matters as well as the basics of sexual health education.

Filed under: activism/charity, health, sexuality

Simple changes could end discrimination for thousands of Australian couples

This press release from the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), dated 21 June 2007, has largely gone off the media radar due to Howard’s Indigenous Emergency plan hogging all the limelight:

Changing the definitions describing de facto relationships in relevant federal laws could help end daily discrimination suffered by more than 20,000 same-sex couples in Australia, according to a report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), tabled in Federal Parliament today.

The Same-Sex: Same Entitlements Report, being officially launched in Sydney tomorrow by Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes AM, found that 58 federal laws denied same-sex couples and their children basic financial and work-related entitlements available to opposite-sex couples and their children.

“As one man told us during our Inquiry – same-sex couples are first class tax-payers but second class citizens – and we have certainly found this to be true,” Mr Innes said.

Filed under: ethics, law, moral panics, sexuality

What about the sex workers?

I want to examine two points I’ve noted are repeatedly raised by anti-feminists, and both ignore certain realities of sex work.

The first argument is against the idea that the gender gap in pay either exists, or, if it does exist, the argument goes that it is justified because men’s work is more dangerous than women’s work. I don’t deny that labour statistics show that men are more often maimed or killed in the workplace. There are standard arguments about how sexist institutions discourage women from entering dangerous and well-remunerated professions, but I don’t want to go there. I want to discuss the one dangerous yet [ETA: reputedly] well-remunerated industry in which the overwhelming majority of the workers are women: the sex industry.

My question is: are sex workers in countries where prostitution is considered a crime included in the labour statistics?

Filed under: economics, moral panics, sexual violence, sexuality

So that’s where at least some of those crazy ideas came from

Feminists and Breakfast Cereal, from Zenobia. A summary can’t do it justice, just read it.

Filed under: food/drink, history, sexuality

Unimpressed

The Gawker has jumped the shark. “LOLGayz”, FFS. Othering, anyone?

Filed under: crass, interblog, sexuality