I haven’t written about the matter here until now because I’ve had to sort out my feelings on this one: as someone who grew up in the social nudist movement I hate the way that nudity in any context has come to be automatically associated with pornography, and yet I see the necessity of ensuring that minors are not exploited for sexual imagery as well.
social change
News from the ACT
I’d much prefer it if the news about the passing of the law making same-sex civil unions legal was getting half the press that the kangaroo cull is getting. I’m much more interested that at least one of the tiers… Read More ›
Lazy journalism: cutting and pasting and blaming
The Australian has gotten very lazy indeed. In their opinion section they now have a feature they call “Cut & Paste” where all they do is quote disjointed segments from op-ed articles originally published elsewhere – I wonder whether they… Read More ›
Arsehats of the week
The people posting the image below in discussion forums in response to a new California Supreme Court ruling that laws barring same-sex couples from the institution of marriage are unconstitutional (specifically, that they violated the Californian Constitution’s guarantee of equality)…. Read More ›
More complacent denigration
crossposted at LP Last year Paul Norton wrote with some sadness and much asperity “Is David Burchell brain-dead?” Referring to the particular column which prompted the post, Paul contrasted ex-communist Burchell’s stance with the positions taken by anti-communist Robert Manne… Read More ›
Dissect this
Superficial analysis, thy name is “When can I call myself a feminist again?” by Caille Millner She’s embarrassed by the dinosaur doyennes of the US Feminist Second Wave engaging in activism for the upcoming election, and so she’s throwing the… Read More ›
The decline of parenting skills
Image Source: davide mio by marcuzzo Nearly One-third Of US Parents Don’t Know What To Expect Of Infants ScienceDaily (May 4, 2008) — Almost one-third of U.S. parents have a surprisingly low-level knowledge of typical infant development and unrealistic expectations… Read More ›
Parliamentary Pinkification Panic: the Spanish “Zapettes”
The Spanish ministry has suddenly shot to gender equality, and you know what that means, don’t you, Hoydenizens? It’s fashion week at the Telegraph! The female Spanish and French ministers, individuality-free and named as appendages of the men in charge… Read More ›
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.
Why are caesarean section rates increasing so rapidly?
[image source] I just placed this comment at Andrew Leigh’s blog, but I thought I would open up the floor here. Commenter conrad asked about the rapid increase in cesarean section and birth intervention rates in Australia: Just out of… Read More ›