Culture

The milieu through which we swim

Prostitution: regulation, exploitation and death

prostitution is literally killing women, by murder more than any other cause, and a whole heap of people simply don’t care.

No other industry with a comparable mortality rate is unregulated by the state, and in none of those industries would the workers be allowed to sign away their basic health and safety guarantees in order for more pay. Employers who try to coerce miners or firefighters to go into work without adequate safety measures are quite rightly prosecuted and socially condemned, yet the workplace death rate of those professions combined does not match just the homicide rate amongst prostitutes, let alone the death rate once drug overdoses are taken into account.

Hurrah for librarians

If you are restricting access to information, they will notice during the course of their normal duties, and they will let the world know, and then you will look like censoring buffoons. In February, in line with various other information-stifling… Read More ›

Misogyny hurting men

Here’s an example of misogyny hurting men — because the ultimate put-down of a man is to equate him to a woman. If we fight [for] the idea that being a woman is not something to be sneered at, we… Read More ›

Bloody hell

FIRST PRIZE! The first time I have ever won any prize in a school raffle. Of course it was an Easter fundraiser that didn’t announce the winner until a week after Easter. That’s somehow totally apt.