Nonce Sense

Lots of fuss about Chris Langham, after his conviction for 'creating' kiddy porn, although he got off the charges of actually having under-age sex. As one is obliged to do these days, I must first state my position on this. As Mr Langham once apparently said, I like children, although I couldn't eat a whole one. Actually that's not true. I don't really like children. They're nasty, smelly, annoying creatures who seem to do little except demand things and put sticky wrappers into your hand when you're not expecting it. I have one of my own. I know.

In other words, I'm not a paedophile, and I don't really understand people who are. I would no more want to have sex with a child than I would want to screw my car. This may come as a shock to the powers that be who believe that all men are latent peadophile rapists, just waiting for their perverted lusts to be triggered by a picture, but that's the way it is. I'm just not interested in children.

However, I was swimming this morning at my local pool when my eye chanced on an attractively pneumatic black woman frolicking in the water. Mmm, nice, thought my lizard brain. Not that I would have done anything about it, being happily married and a geek, but any man who says he doesn't look is a liar. Then her mum got into the pool and I realised that she was about 14. I was discreetly leching at an under-age girl. That makes me a paedophile, surely?

Well, not in Spain or Japan, and possibly not in Germany, or a host of other places.

It seems to me that whatever the legal age of consent is, someone who wishes to have sex with someone else who is pre-pubescent has something wrong with their brain. From an evolutionary perpective I can't think of any way in which this would be a useful adaptation*. They're just broken.

This is completely different from someone who wishes to have sex with someone else who is post-pubescent, but below the legal age of consent in their particular locality. That's entirely normal behaviour. Healthy young women are the ideal mate, from an evolutionary perspective. They are strong, fit and fertile. Society recognises this by encouraging females to try and look younger to get a partner. Boob jobs, cosmetics, hair dye are all ways to appear younger, and appeal to a male brain evolved to look for reproductive fitness, i.e. youth.

However, in the eyes of the law, they are just the same. This seems silly to me. I appreciate that we have to infantilise our teenagers in order to educate them sufficiently to be members of our complex western society. And I've blogged about Rousseau and the noble savage before. Even so, lumping people who are normal, but have transgressed their society's taboos in with people with broken brains seems wrong. The former need a slap on the wrist, the latter need treatment.

Fixed age of consent laws will always throw up anomalous cases, but it's generally for the best that schoolgirls get on with their homework without having to fend off men trying to get into their pants, so generally I support them. However, lumping everyone into the category of sick perverted paedophiles just isn't helpful. As with everything else in life, the reality is more nuanced.

* just because I can't think of it doesn't make it true, of course, but until I read otherwise, I'm sticking to it.

** the title comes from the fantastic Brass Eye 'Paedogedden' special.

UPDATE: someone on the cif thread pointed me here, with the statistic that 25% of adult males fancy children. That seems a bit high to me, and I suspect that what happens in the lab doesn't transfer into the real world in this case.

Fisking the Extreme Porn Bill

This really follows on from my last post, but it was getting a tad unwieldy so I thought I'd split it. Plus writing sensibly was beginning to annoy me. These are the government's supposed reasons for bringing in the new law. Let us now peel back the foreskin of ignorance, and apply the wire brush of vitriol to their proposals.

Extreme Pornographic Images

802. The Government believes that these clauses constitute an interference with Convention rights under Articles 8 and 10 but that for the reasons set out below this is justified as being in accordance with the law, and necessary in a democratic society for the prevention of crime, for the protection of morals and for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

This is bollocks. The government admits that it is a breach of human rights, but hopes to get away with it. On moral grounds. God I loathe people who believe that they have a right to impose their tired old morals on others. The grounds for banning something should be demonstrable harm. Not just because its objectionable. Which leads us to:

803. The material to be covered by this new offence is at the most extreme end of the spectrum of pornographic material which is likely to be thought abhorrent by most people.

So fucking what? All sorts of things are abhorrent to each and every one of us, but that's no grounds to make pictures of them illegal. Unless you're a moralising cunt like John Beyer.

It is not possible at law to give consent to the type of activity covered by the offence,

Oh yes it is! under the Sexual Offences act 2003 you are allowed to give oral sex to an animal, you are allowed to fist your wife, or give your lovers breasts or genitals a good thrashing. Distasteful? maybe. But not illegal. Fucking liars.

so it is therefore likely that a criminal offence is being committed where the activity which appears to be taking place is actually taking place.

This is nonsense. Given that the bill includes the idea that images that are acted or fake are prosecutable, it is entirely likely that no criminal offence is occurring in a majority of cases.

The House of Lords upheld convictions for offences of causing actual and grievous bodily harm in the case of Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 which involved a group of sado-masochists who had engaged in consensual torture. The threshold that the clauses have set is very high, so while those taking part might argue that they had consented to it, such consent is not valid at law.

This was a truly disgusting piece of legislation, in which a group of gay men were engaged in a bit of consensual BDSM, and were jailed for it. One of them died in jail. Gay clubs were raided for years, and the BDSM scene is harassed because of it to this day. For the government to regard this as a good thing shows what a bunch of moralising bastards they really are.

804. In the case of images of staged activity , the Government believes that banning possession is justified in order to meet the legitimate aim of protecting the individuals involved from participating in degrading activities. This is also the case with images of bestiality, which while involving harm to animals can also involve the non-consensual participation of humans who are harmed in the process of making the images.

Ah, here we come to the actual reason. The government regards these paraphilias as "degrading". No wait. They believe that acting in a production depicting these acts is degrading, whilst in most cases actually doing them is not. Ludicrous inconsistent fuckwits.

805. The Government considers that the new offence is a proportionate measure with the legitimate aim of breaking the demand and supply cycle of this material, which may be harmful to those who view it.

This entire paragraph is hearsay, with no scientific backing from any source. It will not break the supply and demand cycle, since the rest of the western world will go on supplying and demanding it. This material may be harmful, they say except that evidence shows exactly the opposite. Banning this material will be harmful, as it will increase the rate of sex crimes. How many women need to be raped or murdered before the government bothers to read the studies? Lazy, ignorant, stupid mendacious cunts.

Irrespective of how these images were made, banning their possession can be justified as sending a signal that such behaviour is not considered acceptable. Viewing such images voluntarily can desensitise the viewer to such degrading acts, and can reinforce the message that such behaviour is acceptable.

There is absolutely no evidence that support these statements. However, contrary to my previous statements the government is not being inconsistent. They really do hate BDSM, fisting and all the rest. I'd just like to know what fucking business it is of theirs what people get up to in their own homes. The BDSM movements motto is "Safe, Sane, Consensual". I wish it was the governments motto.

806. The Government considers that the restrictions on this material also achieve the aim of protecting others, particularly children and vulnerable adults, from inadvertently coming into possession of this material, which is widespread on the internet.

Don't be so fucking stupid. England is the only country enacting this legislation. They may not even have it in Scotland. It'll all be up there, just the same. Unless, of course you want to use this as an excuse to start censoring the internet. Just like Saudi Arabia, China and all those other models of democratic freedom. You authoritarian fuckpigs.

Even More Extreme Pornography

So, the UK government has released the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 with the promised legislation on Extreme Pornography in sections 64-67. I've blogged on this before here and here. I know it came out a while ago, but I haven't had a chance to study it in detail until now. And guess what? It's even worse than they suggested in the consultation.

As always the legislation itself is boring to read and hedged about with legalese, but the notes are rather easier to read. The nub of it is as follows:

If you have pictures that the government doesn't like, of perfectly legal acts between consenting adults, you may be sent to prison for up to 3 years, and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life. You can be branded a nonce and locked up with all the other paedophiles, rapists and murderers, just for the sake of a few harmless pictures of legal acts.

So what sort of pictures doesn't the government like now?

Well, firstly they have to be pornographic. An image is “pornographic” if it appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Secondly they have to be “extreme”. An image is “extreme” if it depicts:

(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.

The first thing to notice, is that in all cases these images only have to "appear to be real". In other words, it doesn't matter if it's just acting, or completely fake. The second thing is that many of these acts are actually perfectly legal to perform (including giving an animal a blowjob, curiously enough).

Images the government wants to criminalise:

Rape (a)
Torture (b)
Necrophilia (c)
Bestiality (d)

In actuality, images that are likely to be criminalised include:

Breath play (a)
Fisting (b)
Anal intercourse (b)
BDSM involving the parts listed in (b)
Sleepy sex (c)

There are probably a lot more. Perhaps interested readers will suggest a few and I'll list them.

As I've said before, you personally may not be into any of the above things. But a lot of people are. Around 5% of the population are into BDSM, and about 25% of the gay population. In England that's around 2m people. Around 10% of the population like a regular bit of back-door action. That's another 4m potential criminals. Even if not many are photography enthusiasts, that's still an awful lot of people.

And there's simply no point to this. The government themselves admitted that there was no causal link between Extreme Porn images and criminal activity. No other western democracy wants to ban images of this sort, and numerous studies have shown that the free availability of porn actually reduces sex crimes.

This legislation will, by the governments own admission protect no-one, criminalise many law-abiding people, and increase the number of sex crimes in England. It will also encourage the Police to burst into peoples houses at dawn to confiscate their computers, and provoke more censorship of the Internet. Still think that it has nothing to do with you?

There are other articles worth reading on the subject here and here.

The governments offical line on this is here, and this debate is pretty representative of the lack of understanding of this issue by the powers that be. References can be found in my response to the initial consultation.

More Extreme Pornography

So, the UK government has deigned to respond to the petition about violent pornography. And what is the result? Well, pretty much nothing. They're still going to press ahead, despite the majority of responses to their consultation being against the proposal. They say they're simply updating the Obscene Publications Act (which is a lie), and are still going to criminalise the possession of pictures of completely consensual and legal acts. Frankly I wonder why they bother with the pretence of consulting the public, just to annoy them by ignoring the results.

And while we are on the subject of thought crime, google has seen fit to delist Inquisition 21st Century. This site, amongst other things, campaigns on behalf of the victims of Operation Ore, which must be one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in recent times. PcPro wrote about it here and here. Literally thousands of people were falsely branded as paedophiles on trumped-up charges. Apparently Operation Ore Exposed is bringing a class action against the police. Now the government wants to bring pictures of consensual BDSM under the same regime. Expect many more miscarriages of justice. And remember, don't be evil, kids!

UPDATE: the Yorkshire ranter has posted this article discussing the latest developments in Operation Ore. H/T to Chicken Yoghurt

UPDATE: As the group (class) action began Google re-listed the site. Fishy, huh?

Unforeseen Consequences

Unless you've been living on Mars, or at least outside the UK, for the last couple of weeks, it will not have escaped your notice that someone has been murdering prostitutes in the the Ipswich area. With a blog titled "Sex and Death", I could hardly fail to comment on this, albeit a bit late.

Matthew Parris has written an excellent article about it here, in which he lays the blame fairly and squarely at the current laws on prostitution.

The important point to take from this is that whenever governments make a law prohibiting something, there will be unforeseen, and often undesirable, side-effects. By making brothels and advertising illegal, they force women to work on the streets, and by making drugs illegal they push up the price and force addicts to commit crimes to feed their artificially expensive habits. That's what the International Collective of Prostitutes think, and they should know.

In this case, the murdered women would not have had to hang around on street corners, making themselves easy targets for a maniac, if the law had been different. It's a pity the lawmakers aren't able to see this.

Extreme Pornography

Here's a cause that is close to my heart, and incorporates both sex and death nicely. The death was that of Jane Longhurst, a schoolteacher in Brighton, England. Ms Longhurst was strangled with a pair of tights by a man named Graham Coutts, a sales rep and neck fetishist.

Coutts claimed that her death was accidental, and had been caused during a bout of breath play while they were having sex, a practice that he had performed with previous sexual partners. He hid the body for 5 weeks and then burned it, which didn't help his case much.

Another thing which seems not to have helped his case much was his predeliction for web sites showing images of asphyxial sex and strangulation which was brought up during the trial.

He was duly sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 30 years. You can read the local paper's version here.

However, when referred to the House of Lords, the conviction was judged unsafe, as the option of finding him guilty of negligent manslaughter hadn't been offered to the jury in the first trial. The trial has therefore restarted. You can read the pop version of it here or the official version, here. The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine.

Enter Mrs Liz Longhurst, mother of the deceased. Mrs Longhurst firmly believes that it was the violent internet porn that Coutts was interested in that caused him to murder her daughter. Mrs Longhurst duly set about lobbying the government to prevent people in Britain from looking at these sort of images on the web. She even presented the government with a petition with 50,000 signatures on it, agreeing with her.

So far so good.

The British government responded with a consultation on a new law which would outlaw images of sexual violence, necrophilia and beastiality (a.k.a Extreme Pornography) on the web. In essence it proposes a prison sentence of up to 3 years for even looking at an image of this type, with worryingly vague definitions of what 'this type' of image might be. Even if it's legal to actually do. Even if its been faked up, or the participants are acting. Even if it's you and your wife.

So what's wrong with this?

Firstly the consultation document is deeply flawed. It asserts that there is no causal link between viewing images of Extreme Pornography and actually performing illegal acts. It then proposes to make them illegal anyway.

It consistently and deliberately proposes an equivalence between Child Pornography and Extreme Pornography, when none exists, as a justification for the new law.

Lastly, even though the majority of responses to the consultation were against the proposal, the government claims that most people were in favour of it. Mind you, the government won't actually post the responses on the web. My full response to the consultation can be found here.

Now you may not be the sort of person who is interested in necrophilia, beastiality or sexual violence. To be honest I don't suppose anyone is interested in all of these. But a lot of people are interested in BDSM. A 1981 study from Indiana University states that 4.5% of the straight population are into BDSM, 26% if you're gay. In Britain, that's around 2 million adults.

A lot of them will have pictures of their activities. If this law goes through, all these people, who have harmed no-one, and merely engaged in lawful, consensual sex will be threatened with having their homes raided, their computers seized, their liberty removed, and their names permanently on the sex offenders register. This matters, even if you're not personally interested in Extreme Pornography.

Mind you, If you're John Beyer of Mediawatch, you think this doesn't go far enough. That's a whole other story.

Lots of discussion about this on the web. A group of concerned citizens have started up Backlash to give the government a spanking. Other good starting points are the activism board on informed consent, and I like melonfarmers.

Update: Today is Blogging for Backlash day, and this post is linked on their site. Check out all the other blogs and discussions.

Why Sex and Death?

Because it's the basis of all good literature, and of all human life. Some of the main topics of this blog will be evolutionary psychology, terror management theory, and how they relate to the religious impulse. And that's all about sex and death too.

I don't promise to stick to these topics, but they'll probably be recurring themes.