stavvers

Lesbian sex: IT’S A TRAP! (apparently)

AskMen.com is one of the darker corners of the internet. I last turned my fire on them for presenting pick up lines to run away from really quickly, but this time they’ve excelled themselves with an article entitled “SCIENTIFIC FACT: HOW SHE TRICKS YOU INTO CHEATING“.

So, how are these conniving bitches tricking men into accepting infidelity? Apparently, by fucking women. Twitterer @cwhelton has illustrated this conjecture admirably.

According to “science”, apparently men are far more likely to accept a woman partner’s infidelity if she cheats with a woman rather than a man. AskMen offer this scientific analysis:

Research shows that part of the problem is that the male’s perception of two women getting it on is erotic, and envisioning themselves joining the party is like the double rainbow of sex fantasies.

Out of morbid curiosity, I hunted down the original study, “Sex Differences in Response to Imagining a Partner’s Heterosexual or Homosexual Affair”, which can be downloaded from the author’s website. The study takes an evolutionary psychology tack, and the AskMen article is therefore an instance of the “human centipede” approach to science reporting: regurgitating a shit study into even shittier shit.

The authors hypothesised that men would be less likely to forgive a female partner if she cheated on them with a man than with a woman, because of the risk of her getting pregnant from a heterosexual affair. They weren’t really sure about women’s responses.

To test their hypotheses, they administered a survey to some students, in two parts. In part one, they were asked to imagine a scenario wherein a partner was cheating in either a same-sex or heterosexual affair, and then quizzed on how likely they would be to forgive the partner. As a point of comparison, they were asked if they had ever experienced infidelity and whether they forgave the partner. In this section, they were never asked if it was a same-sex or heterosexual experience of cheating, which sort of blows any real-world significance of the results right out of the water. Also not asked: whether the participants were heterosexual or somewhere on the queer spectrum. Also not asked: anything to do with why they would forgive or not forgive the real or imagined partners.

On the whole, women were less likely to forgive infidelity than men. This was probably skewed by more than half of the male participants saying they would forgive a female partner who cheated with another woman (although only 22% would forgive cheating with a man). The results skewed the other way with the women participants: fewer would forgive a partner cheating with another man than with another woman.

In their discussion, the authors return to banging the pregnancy drum, an analysis that their own results don’t really support: if it were entirely down to risk of pregnancy (and all the childrearing shit that evolutionary psychologists obsess over), then, surely, women would also be more likely to forgive a same-sex affair.

It gives me great distress to announce that AskMen’s analysis of the experimental results–lesbian sex is hot–is actually a better analysis than that provided by the authors of the study. There are a lot of societal prejudices at play here: lesbian sex isn’t seen as “real” sex by many heterosexuals (poor them), while sex between men is still subject to a lot of stigma. Lesbians are hot; gays are icky.

This attitude pervades not just the Normals with their tedious concerns about cheating, but also the poly/open relationship community: it is still far more common to see men with harems of women, men defining terms of their relationships wherein women may only play with other women, and the dreaded Unicorn Hunters. It’s everywhere, and it really needs to fuck off.

With some better science, it might be interesting to get to the bottom of why so many are squicked by gay sex but turned on by lesbian sex. And then we can make the myth die forever.

Tip of the masochistic hat to @syn who found the AskMen article.

Support CeCe McDonald

CeCe McDonald is a young African American trans woman. Last year, she and some friends walked past a bar, and two cis white women and one cis white man began to hurl abuse at her. They used racist language. They told CeCe she was “dressed as a woman” to “rape”. One of the aggressors smashed a glass into CeCe’s face, causing serious facial injuries. A fight broke out, involving more people than just CeCe. What happened is not clear, but the white male aggressor was fatally stabbed.

CeCe was arrested, spending much of the last year in solitary confinement in a men’s prison “for her safety”. She was repeatedly misgendered by the media.

Two days ago, CeCe was sentenced. Under pressure, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. She has been sentenced to 41 months, which she will have to serve in a men’s prison.

CeCe’s case lays bare some of the pervasive prejudices which permeate USian society. This bright young woman’s gender is accepted by neither the legal system nor by her aggressors. The abuse she received on basis of her gender is the same old tired shit that needs to die: the myth that trans people are disguising themselves as women to rape is perpetuated by right-wing zealots and radical feminists alike. It’s all just unacceptable bigotry. Likewise, the legal system have given CeCe two options: to serve out her sentence alone in solitary confinement, or to live at risk as a woman in a men’s prison. These are not choices.

The colour of CeCe’s skin plays a role. In the USian prison system, people of colour are disproportionately represented. The abuse CeCe received at the hands of her attackers and the legal system alike is related to her race. That she ended up pleaing guilty to a lesser offence for a shorter sentence is hardly surprising: this is all part of a coercive “justice” system.

In all this, though, we must remember that CeCe McDonald is not a political symbol, a synecdoche of a corrupt system. CeCe McDonald is a person who is suffering, and there are things that we can do to help her. Forty Shades of Grey is organising two letter writing campaigns: one to write to CeCe to let her know that she is not alone in the world, and one to the bastards who put her in prison. Please read her post and follow the links. Please support CeCe McDonald.

How Prometheus could have worked: an attempt at salvaging a train wreck

Warning: this post contains major spoilers for Prometheus. If you haven’t seen Prometheus yet, don’t bother.

I love the Alien films. Both of them. I therefore spent the best part of this year buoyant on little guffs of excitement that its prequel, Prometheus, was on its way and OHMYGOD IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME. I was delighted that Ridley Scott was back in his rightful place doing an Alien film and OHMYGOD IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME. I yelped with glee on discovering its cast consisted of some of my favourite actors all together in the same film and OHMYGOD IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME.

About half an hour into actually finally getting to see Prometheus, the crescendo of crushing disappointment began. It had absolutely none of the subtle brilliance of its predecessor. It was trying to do too much, far, far too much. It was an incoherent arse-splatter of special effects with a bunch of cardboard characters doing stupid things that made no goddamn sense whatsoever.

Ultimately, perhaps, its biggest undoing was its budget. Alien was magnificent due to its shoestring budget forcing it to be all about reaction rather than action. Aliens, while more a straight-up action flick, managed to be great as it was still within the constraints of the special effects of its time.

Meanwhile, Prometheus felt like Ridley Scott looked at his cheque and said “OHMYGOD THIS IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME! I’m going to have a jars of alien-juice and aliens in someone’s eyeballs and a man possessed by zombie-alien-rage and some aliens that look a bit like snakes and an alien in someone’s tummy and gigantic white different aliens and a massive fuckoff facehugger and fuck it, let’s show a whole alien because we can do it with CGI and it definitely won’t look shit.”

Well, Ridley, thanks to all that, your film was a complete pile of shitting arses. And the CGI alien did look like shit.

The thing is, though, there were ideas in that film that could have worked. There were scenes that could have worked. Had Scott been constrained, he might have actually had to think about ideas rather than various high-budget body horrors happening to people we didn’t really care about.

In a conversation with Mediocre Dave–who possibly humoured me in any attempt to salvage that film because I paid for his cinema ticket–I began to think about how it could work. I will sell this pitch to Hollywood for a complete refund of our cinema tickets, a written apology from Ridley Scott for Kingdom of Heaven, and an evening in the company of Michael Fassbender. It will be much better and much cheaper than Scott’s Prometheus.

The premise remains the same: Noomi Rapace and her boyfriend who is probably a famous actor too find another cave painting and persuade some rich dude to let them go to a far away planet to find their ancestors. On this ship are also Idris Elba and Charlize Theron and android-Fassbender (who was by far and away the best thing about that film), and the rich old dude, who can actually be played by an old dude, because I’m not sure why they bothered with covering Guy Pearce with prosthetics. We don’t need to worry about any of the rest of the characters, and Old Rich Dude isn’t hidden away in a box, there in the open, having co-opted Noomi Rapace’s misson for his own, like he did in the film except without some shitty attempt at a plot twist.

Several themes will be explored in this version of Prometheus, many of which I suspect Scott was attempting at doing if he hadn’t got all overexcited by the myriad ways he could literally ram xenomorphs down people’s throats. It will explore patriarchy, a robot’s attempt at understanding human emotion and the perils of curiosity.

We’ll keep the scenes of the android studying languages, playing bicycle basketball and learning to be human from old films, because they were cool. The aesthetic of the ship, though, should be less swish, as should all the technology: recall this is taking place before Alien, after all. We don’t need any fancy drone-ball things. And when the humans wake up, it would be nice if they could establish some relationships with each other.

So then they all get to the planet, and Noomi and Boyfriend and Space Stringer Bell and Robo-Fassbender go and explore the big creepy Ancestor-Cave. Old Rich Dude and Charlize Theron stay aboard the Prometheus, with Old Rich Dude barking orders of where to go and Charlize Theron being pragmatic. Our characters have a poke round the cave, realise it’s terraformed and start taking off helmets while Charlize Theron perhaps suggests that this is a terrible idea.

But they do it anyway, probably with Old Rich Dude egging them on.

Down in the caves, they realise Something Is Terribly Wrong and the ancestors are all horribly deaded, and the water’s moving, and they get the fuck out of there. Unfortunately, by some accident, Boyfriend ingests some water.

Back on the ship, everyone’s very disappointed, except Robo-Fassbender who is kind of baffled by this. Crucially, though, they never leave the ship again, thus radically reducing the film’s budget and adding some dramatic claustrophobia. Also, this neatly does away with the utterly ghastly “meeting the creators” theme which never works, as is beautifully explained here.

In this version of Prometheus, Noomi’s infertility and the impact it has on her relationship with her boyfriend is better explored and discussed in more depth than a few lines before they have a misery-fuck. In general, there’s a lot more character development and dialogue other than “AAAUGH IT’S BREAKING MY ARM”. But, nonetheless, Noomi and Boyfriend have their misery-fuck.

Trapped miles away from any safety, Boyfriend realises Something Is Horribly Wrong when he notices Alien Eyeball Worms. Naturally, everyone freaks the fuck out over this (except, probably, Rich Old Dude, who is fascinated and curious), and pop him in Magical Medi-Pod, which gives him a once-over and reckons he’s all right. Charlize Theron is sceptical about this. Boyfriend and Noomi are terrified. Space-Stringer just wants to get the fuck out. Robo-Fassbender is politely baffled by mortality and sickness.

Naturally, Boyfriend gets progressively worse, and our characters continue to freak the fuck out as Something Is Dreadfully Wrong. Eventually, this all culminates in him shoving Noomi out of the way and getting flamethrowered by Charlize Theron. Who then airlocks him for good measure, which obviously rather upsets the people who are closer to him.

They check themselves for contamination, and Robo-Fassbender announces Noomi’s pregnancy to Noomi, who, of course, freaks the fuck out. Robo-Fassbender is befuddled, knowing about her upset about her infertility.

Off she goes to the Medi-Pod which is only configured for treating men, and therefore cannot give Noomi the abortion she desperately needs. With the right set-up, this can suddenly be metaphorical for patriarchal access to medical care: my Prometheus has already shown a bit of men exerting their dominance with Rich Old Dude and Boyfriend. And obviously, it’d be better set-up than what I puked out in a late-night blogpost. So she goes for the excruciating abdominal surgery and attempts to immolate the facehugging foetus.

Unfortunately, all this is in vain, as the bastard gets loose and crawls around the ventilation ducts generally causing a menace. We never get a good look at it, we don’t want to.

Ultimately, our characters realise what they have to do. Their ship lacks weaponry, and they can’t survive to tell their story because that’d fuck up the rest of the Alien canon. They discuss this. Perhaps Robo-Fassbender with his confused emotions proposes it. Eventually, they take the decision.

The film ends with the ship exploding and the “last transmission of the Prometheus” playing in voice-over.

In this slice-and-dice, I attempted to preserve as much of Prometheus as possible, while hacking out the very worst. Were I to cut any further, it would be two minutes of Robo-Fassbender walking round a spaceship.

Nationalism is sexy (for small values of “sexy”)

As London prepares for the Jubilee, it begins to resemble Nuremburg, albeit with a flag with far worse Gestalt than the original. Flags are draped everywhere. Bunting crosses streets, gold-trimmed flags hang vertically from lampposts, windows and police watchtowers. If it’s static, they stick a flag on it. Even if it moves, they’ll probably find a way of bunging a flag on it.

Capitalism and nationalism often make comfortable bedfellows, so it is hardly surprising that manufacturers of cheap tat with a tacky Union Jack on it stand to make a killing. It should also come as no surprise, then, that this flag-waving nationalism is trying is best to find its way into our bedrooms–and, in some cases, our cunts.

Perhaps the guiltiest party in this is Ann Summers, who are still falling over themselves to be the worst sex shop in the observable universe. In their flagship Soho store, posters proudly proclaim they are celebrating “60 YEARS OF GIRLS ON TOP”–a tragic misunderstanding of the difference between The Queen and queening. They encourage customers to put on Jubilee-themed Ann Summers parties, standing to win a bit of wine and a special edition Jubilee vibrator if they take over £200. Their limited edition Jubilee vibrator, incidentally, looks like this. Were it not for the name “Diamante Jubilee Bullet”, one would never know it had anything to do with the Queen. It’s like they had a stock of low-grade bullets and needed to get rid of them by any means necessary.

For the more overtly nationalistically-inclined, Ann Summers offer a Union Jack bullet, which apparently no handbag should be without. I’m glad we’ve cleared up the matter of what the Queen carries in that mysterious clutch of hers, then. Incidentally, I use the term “jack” rather than “flag” not to troll the pedants, but because there are no clear guidelines as to which one to use when the symbol is flying between someone’s thighs.

For the nationalist who prefers better quality vibrators, with more power and the possibility of insertion, I’m afraid I couldn’t find anything. Likewise, I am not aware of the existence of any butt plugs, which means puns about anal nationalism will not be forthcoming. However, for nationalists who find their sex lives enhanced by adornments, there are plenty of options.

First up is the “sexy pout lip transfer“, which turns a minor erogenous zone into something resembling a BNP rally. It’s a niche fetish, but someone’s probably into it. That, however is not a sign of the apocalypse. This is:

For the lucky people who do not know what a vajazzle is, stop reading here. Preserve that beautiful innocence. Basically, a vajazzle involves removal of the pubic hair and replacing it with stick-on gems. In this case, gems celebrating the Queen’s amazing prowess at living for a really long time. This product comes from Lovehoney, who generally sell a mix of low-end fetish wear and mid-range dildos, and I’m thoroughly disappointed in them as their USP is “a bit better than Ann Summers”.

If you want your nationalistic vajazzle slightly less seasonal, never fear. You may also adorn your cunt with these Union Jack hearts, which look frighteningly similar to coasters made by small children.

BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ, you cry? Unfortunately, there don’t seem to any nationalistic products catering to men. Perhaps we really are celebrating 60 years of girls on top?

It’s not all bad, though. For the next round of bread and circuses, the discerning gentleman may like to demonstrate his support for the Motherland with this:

That right there. The Olympic Cock Ring. I would be far more in favour of the Olympics if the opening ceremony consisted of Boris Johnson and four LOCOG representatives getting in to that contraption. Given that the vendors of the product are no longer selling it, I suspect that the Olympic branding lot have issued a swift C&D, and somewhere a designer of patriotic sex toys is rotting in a police cell.

Nationalism and sex. We have moved on slightly, perhaps, since the days of cheesecake girls painted on bombs, but not as much as one might think. It is sexy-lite which is sold to us draped in flags, the socially acceptable high-street sexy which is more about appearances than pleasure itself. It is the sex of More Magazine rather than anything else.

This Jubilee weekend, why not riot instead?

Update: @MediocreDave has brought to my attention some nationalist-sex I have missed: Zoo Magazine’s “DIAMOND BOOBILEE“. Between the disembodied tits and the fact the headline was clearly written by a six year old, I have three words: Fuck. This. Shit.

Sheila Jeffreys, RadFem2012 and the imaginary trans conspiracy

For those not in the know, in July a conference entitled RadFem2012 is supposed to be happening, with headline speaker radical feminist–and noted transphobe–Sheila Jeffreys. The conference is open only to “women born women living as women”, a clunky way of saying “no trans people”.

Kickass feminist and activist, the thoroughly inspirational Roz Kaveney recently wrote a takedown of this particular branch of radical feminism, rightly likening it to a cult (although arguably there are also fascistic overtones to the radfem party line on this issue). If you haven’t read it yet, please do. It’s utterly brilliant.

Sheila Jeffreys has responded to Roz’s excellent piece with an argument with so many holes it would be better suited to function as a colander. Again, this piece is worth reading, though for the exact opposite reasons to the one above. Jeffreys’s entire argument hinges upon the idea that it is only trans people who could possibly ever object to this particular murky brand of transphobia.

This is, of course, patently untrue. I’ve written myself that transphobia has no place in feminism, and I’m hardly the only one. One does not have to be trans to care about the rights of trans people. One simply has to be free from bigotry.

Jeffreys claims persecution from the trans community in the form of utter horrors such as glitter bombing and captioned photographs. Perhaps the most stark example of the hideous persecution faced by poor Jeffreys and her transphobic ilk is that Jeffreys claims the RadFem2012 conference venue to have banned her from speaking, citing evidence of her hate speech that she believes to be entirely reasonable. Throughout, notably, Jeffreys can only blame a shadowy cabal of trans people: the idea that cis allies may have in any way been involved simply fails to occur to her.

This line of thinking is not unique to Jeffreys. In the past, coming up against a transphobic radfem who I will not name because I’m utterly terrified of her, I received a string of tweets saying “sorry you’re male”. It simply did not enter this person’s imagination that anybody but a trans person could care about transphobia.

For cis feminists, there are three major reasons to fight transphobia coming from those who are supposedly on our side. The first is a moral one: we should be against misogyny and hatred in all forms. Second, we must fight gender essentialism. And third, we must stand up for bodily autonomy.

Trans people are more likely to experience violence, sexual or otherwise. Trans people are more likely to be excluded from areas of public life. A large group of women are more vulnerable than others, and in their ignorance (at best), the transphobic radfems ignore this travesty: in the case of RadFem2012, and many other instances, they are actively partaking in exclusion.

Gender essentialism is something we have fought against for years, and I had honestly hoped that it would be at least mostly dead since the publication of Delusions of Gender. Alas, no. The radfems obsess over chromosomes and what genitals a person might have and testosterone levels as if it means anything. They view trans women with an almost McCarthyist suspicion, believing that they can never be anything but men infiltrating women’s spaces. All because of a peculiar fascination with biology in an age where such essentialism is largely discredited.

And finally, bodily autonomy. This is a fundamental aspect of feminism which is ignored by the transphobic radfems, who believe the surgical and medical interventions some trans people undergo to be inherently wrong. Jeffreys couches it in the language of concern-trolling, claiming it to be a “human rights violation”, yet, surely, having the right to do whatever the hell you want to do with your own body is the basic human right?

It is curious, then, that the men’s rights activists and the radfems do not make good bedfellows: both position themselves against these feminist struggles. In her piece, Jeffreys even uses the same argument tactic as the MRAs: all she wants, she says, is to have a debate (the irony of excluding trans people from this debate is apparently lost on her).

I am not alone in thinking that transphobia and feminism are diametrically opposed ideologies. The shift in feminist thinking is firmly on this side. Jeffreys and her ilk are anachronistic curiosities, though loud and dangerous. The trans conspiracy Jeffreys fights is non-existent: in fact, she is attacking a foe far bigger than she can possibly imagine.

We are in the majority, we who reject transphobia. We must continue to be vocal in our rejection of this dated and frightening rhetoric.

The solution to millennia of patriarchy? Confidence building, apparently

Beloved readers, I have some news for you. The BBC is dead. It was not a good death, nor a dignified one. In its last breath, it rasped “Are women their own worst enemy when it comes to top jobs?”

Yes. According to some talking heads, the only thing stopping women from getting top jobs in politics, business and even the sodding army is women. Not other women, mind. When we don’t succeed it’s entirely our own fault.

Chief talking head Emer Timmons, who has been promoted eleventy bazillion times and is CEO of the Entirety of Space and Time reckons there are few lifestyle obstacles and it has to be down to the individual. Cherie Blair, whose career includes picking the wrong side in a land dispute involving dispossessed people, concurs and spouts the dreaded “30%” statistic, the proportion of female board members which would supposedly magically transmute capitalism into a functional economic system.

But what of the very real issues facing women, such as the fact that they are still expected to care for children? Not to worry, Timmons reckons there’s oodles of free childcare, presumably going on in the same alternate dimension where the only problem facing women is their lack of confidence and there are actually fucking jobs happening.

I wish I were misrepresenting this article, but sadly this is what the BBC have actually seen fit to publish on their website. It is so far from the reality of most women’s experiences, and thoroughly insulting to boot.

It represents the same line of thinking that pervades Tory feminism, right libertarianism and many other unpleasant ideologies: the shifting of responsibility on to the shoulders of the individual. It is a means by which the privileged can entirely absolve themselves of playing any part in an oppressive system, and as an added bonus can feel good about themselves for earning the position they were probably always going to get anyway.

The fact is–as the closest thing to voice of reason Averil Leimon points out in the article–the world isn’t a meritocracy. Unfortunately, Leimon’s solution to this is the same as the rest of the article: confidence and a go-getting, can-do attitude. This is woefully insufficient when we consider the convergence of factors which can hamper a person: class, race, disability, gender and so on. Were millennia of discrimination simply overcome with a bit of a swagger, kyriarchy would have never happened in the first place.

The pervasive stereotype of a confident professional woman still remains–in the year fucking 2012–a ballbreaker, a bitch, a devil in Prada. While we’re up against this, all the confidence in the world cannot shatter the glass ceiling.

Of course, discrimination is only part of the story, and the lack of confidence is a real problem, although it is not the only factor keeping women down. The root cause of this lack of confidence is not due to the individual, but, rather, an effect of living in a system wherein the odds are already stacked phenomenally against us. It creates a negative feedback loop. This is not our fault: we are not our own worst enemy. Patriarchy and kyriarchy are.

The thing is, this article also betrays a staggering lack of imagination when it comes to aspiration: to the people quoted, it all boils down to just getting a job and earning a lot of money. What of, instead, working somewhere less well-paid but offering a greater degree of satisfaction? What of happiness and personal fulfilment and self-actualisation? What of abolishing the entire sorry concept of wage labour entirely?

The BBC’s death throes represent just about everything that is wrong with kyriarchy, neatly packaged in an uncritical bundle. I shall not weep at its funeral.

Reasons not to trust police witnesses (that aren’t because they’re bastards)

It is a feature of the legal system that an arresting officer will often end up testifying in the court case. It is also a feature in our legal system that the police don’t always tell, as they are supposed to, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have seen court cases wherein police evidence has suggested the defendant has somehow managed to magically be in two places at once, charging a police line from both ends while simultaneously fabricating a complicated full face and head garment. I have seen court cases where video evidence has revealed that rather than assaulting a police officer, the defendant was assaulted by police officers.

The usual explanation put forward for these “minor inconsistencies” is that the police are a bunch of corrupt, vile pigs. While this may be true, science suggests that they can’t help but misremember.

In a study entitled Witnesses in action: the effect of physical exertion on recall and recognition [paywalled, alas], police officers were tested for their ability to recall details following physical exertion, similar to the sort of activity that a copper might encounter while arresting someone. In short, their ability to remember what happened or recognise a suspect was sorely diminished.

The participants were 52 experienced police officers, mostly male (which reflects the make up of the police force). Half of the participants were asked to beat up a big heavy bag of water–a slightly unnatural task, but presumably the university ethics panel refused to allow the researchers to use students as beating material. After this task, all of the participants went to raid the trailer of an imaginary “known criminal”, where they encountered a living room full of weapons, and an angry stooge yelling at them.

The police officers who had beaten up water recalled significantly–hugely–less about the stooge than those who had not exerted themselves. The exerted participants often could not identify their suspect from a line up.

Now, while this task is somewhat unnatural, it certainly casts damning doubt on the credibility of police evidence: arrests tend to happen after the arresting officer has been physically exerted in some way, and often in a rather aggressive fashion. Why, then, would the police lie in court rather than say “I don’t remember”?

Again, they might just be a bunch of filthy, corrupt pigs, but there may be a more benign reason for police officers saying something that is diametrically opposed to the realms of plausibility. A classic psychology study from the seventies can shed light on this. Loftus and Palmer studied the effects of leading questions, and found that it was very easy to manipulate participants’ memories of a situation by simple phrasing of questions. On watching videos of traffic accidents, participants could be lead to estimate a far greater speed for the accidents if the question involved the word “smashed” rather than “contacted”, and recalled seeing broken glass where there was none depending on the wording of another question.

If police officers have a fuzzy enough memory of a situation, a lawyer asking just the right questions can persuade their minds to fill in the blanks and begin remembering things that did not happen.

The author of the exertion study summarises her research by saying:

“The legal system puts a great deal of emphasis on witness accounts, particularly those of professional witnesses like police officers. Investigators and courts need to understand that an officer who cannot provide details about an encounter where physical exertion has played a role is not necessarily being deceptive or uncooperative. An officer’s memory errors or omissions after an intense physical struggle should not unjustly affect his or her credibility.”

I disagree. This absolutely should affect their credibility. We need not necessarily feel angry at the police, but every judge, magistrate and potential juror in the country ought to know that the police account–with its added weight of credibility as it comes from a person with higher social status–is likely to be flawed and possibly outright untrue.

As for those who have found themselves on the wrong end of police untruths in court, is it still worth suing the officers when it may not be their fault? Absolutely. This sends a clear message that if the officer does not remember something they should say so in court. They should be aware of the shortcomings of their own memory, rather than this being used as a tool for implicating people in crime.

The system has capitalised upon these quirks and inconsistencies in human memory for too long. This needs to end.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance use evolutionary psychology: apparently their opposition isn’t getting laid

The Taxpayers’ Alliance are hardly famed for their intellectual analysis of situations, but this one takes the piss-soaked biscuit.

Those who oppose tax cuts for the rich are apparently suffering from sexual jealousy because the rich people get all of the best women. I am not making this up. Here are some select quotes I could be arsed to type out from page 92 of their latest report:

The successful hunter gatherer knows better than to resist the theft and he still garners some rewards–in terms of gratitude, prestige and sexual affairs–for his success. Among hunter gatherers, even the tiniest inequality is translated into more babies.

…

It was the still same in early agricultural societies: the man with with the most corn or cattle had the most wives or concubines. And it is still true today: even in an age of working women, sexual continence and gender equality, the man with the most money still gets more sexual opportunities than the man with the least money. Ask them.

So no wonder we dislike inequality. No wonder we want to tax that money off a Vanderbilt before he grabs all the best women.

…

Who can really think that when confronted with all the middle-class benefits that flow from the taxpayer? No, at least it’s partly plain old sexual jealousy at the root.

This is actually a report that was actually commissioned and published, and I promise I haven’t just cherry-picked quotes to misrepresent their argument. It actually is that.

Now, it’s hard to begin deconstructing an argument as plainly stupid as this, so let’s all take a break to laugh until we shit ourselves. Once this is done, let’s pop on some clean pants and talk about how risibly wrong the TPA are.

The big glaring elephant in the room is that evolutionary psychology is almost entirely complete bollocks. It is largely speculation based on “these ancient people did this, and we do something similar SO WE EVOLVED IT AND IT’S NATURAL”. It is often used to justify existing inequalities, as it is being applied by the TPA.

The TPA are using the typical evolutionary psychology justification, but with a twist. They are actually more open about their lack of evidence than most evolutionary psychology papers: they suggest “asking” a rich man if he is having more sex than a poor man. I think we can all sing in chorus that the plural of anecdote isn’t data, but seeing as the TPA have decided this is sufficient evidence, I will point out that I have had sex with nine people since the beginning of May and science says that the TPA publish these reports specifically to piss me off because they’re jealous of the sheer quantity of orgasms I have.

To damn the TPA with faint praise, it’s kind of gratifying to see that at least they don’t pretend that the rich are mostly men–in fact, given the wording of the report, it would seem that all of the rich are men. It’s also nice to see that on planet TPA, gender equality exists, presumably because all the women know their place in servicing the super-rich in harems while pointing and laughing at anyone without a diamond-encrusted helicopter.

Now I think about it, the TPA exist in the same dystopian universe as Catherine Hakim.

It’s interesting to note that at no point do the TPA acknowledge that this sex-surplus of the rich might boil down to the fact that they can afford to pay for it. By evolutionary psychology standards, actually, there’s some “evidence” to suggest it’s the most generous men who get the most sex.

So, basically, the TPA have, as always, commissioned a report that is complete and utter fuckwitted bollocks, and the only saving grace is that most people will never be bothered to read through a 400-page report to read this shit.

Hat tip to Political Scrapbook for highlighting this and @MediocreDave for making sure I saw it and kicked off.

Hollande’s Honeys: putting women back in their place.

New French president Francois Hollande has been making quite a splash and in his first few days in office hasn’t yet revealed himself to be a crushing disappointment. He has taken steps towards gender equality by making sure that half of his cabinet are women: something which should not be a surprise, given that half the population are women, yet under patriarchy this is not the norm. I’ll give props to Hollande for this: he’s meeting transitional demands admirably. Next up, abolishing hierarchical power structures, I hope.

Meanwhile in the UK, right wing bog roll The Daily Mail has reported on this story rather poorly. I will not link to the article, but here’s a taster from the beginning of an article entitled “HOLLANDE’S HONEYS: NEW FRENCH PRESIDENT UNVEILS HIS CABINET OF BEAUTIES”:

Carla Bruni has only been out of the Elysee presidential Palace for a matter of days.

But already a new line-up of glamorous political beauties is threatening to make the French former first lady a distant memory.

Newly sworn in French President, Francois Hollande, last night unveiled his cabinet, led by a bevy of young, stylish Mademoiselles.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the article is largely photographs of women’s legs with commentary on how their looks. I would really, really recommend not reading it, as this summary I have given is completely accurate and every time you look at the Mail a baby penguin dies.

The title “Hollande’s Honeys” echoes the “Blair Babes” of the nineties, which makes it ghastly enough in and of itself. It also fails at alliteration: are we meant to voice the silent “h” in “Hollande”, or are we meant to drop the “h” from “honeys”? Most importantly, though, it is sexist as hell.

Words like “babe” and “honey” manage to simultaneously sexualise and infantilise the target. They attribute characteristics of saccharine femininity, yet are also almost always used to cast the target as a sex object. While regional variations of the words apply, the intention behind the the Mail’s label is clear: look at these sexy little things doing politics! Isn’t that cute? Let’s all have a furtive wank over what they’re doing.

The fact of the matter is that Hollande’s “honeys” are highly unlikely to have been appointed as a bit of popsy, and are actually capable grown women who have successfully managed to smash through the glass ceiling and into positions of political power. Rags like the Mail, dedicated to preserving patriarchy at all costs simply cannot handle this and feel obliged to throw these women back into their place. It reminds us that women can’t be successful: we are sweet little things who walk the tightrope between whore and Madonna, teetering in our heels as we wait to be told how pretty we are.

The appointment of a cabinet which is somewhat representative of the population (at least, in terms of gender; race, disability, etc seem to be as neglected as usual) is big news: a wedge has been driven into a crack and it might just be possible to wriggle it open and smash down the wall of patriarchy. The Mail can’t let this happen, so it pretends to celebrate the success of these women by turning them back into the delicacies that they believe them to be.

If I had my way, this woman would be dead (according to her)

Meet Rebecca Kiessling. Kiessling was conceived in horrific circumstances: her birth mother was brutally raped at knifepoint. Her mother sought an abortion, and, because it was illegal, ended up giving the baby for adoption. It is a very sad story for both the unnamed woman, and for Kiessling herself.

In her struggle to process the circumstances surrounding her birth, Kiessling has become a vocal spokesperson for the anti-choice movement, speaking out to make abortion illegal, in particular attacking “the rape exception”, a watered-down anti-choice position which suggests that abortion should be available for rape survivors. She uses the following rhetorical device to make her point:

Please understand that whenever you identify yourself as being “pro-choice,” or whenever you make that exception for rape, what that really translates into is you being able to stand before me, look me in the eye, and say to me, “I think your mother should have been able to abort you.” That’s a pretty powerful statement. I would never say anything like that to someone. I would say never to someone, “If I had my way, you’d be dead right now.”

It is a very emotive argument, and thoroughly fallacious. To counter it, I am going to use as ludicrous an example. In the following scenario, I have travelled back through time to late 1984, and my mother–who, by the way, is a happily married woman impregnanted by the conventional means of happily married monogamous couples by my lovely father–is considering an abortion, because she doesn’t want a kid right now. The embryo inside my mother will become me, and I know this. So what would I do? Would I look her in the eye and say, “go on, mum, kill me, you big killy murderer”? Would I wave around pictures of foetuses and pray aggressively in her face? Would I ask Margaret Thatcher to ban abortion?

No. I am pro-choice, so I would respect that choice the woman who could have been my mother made, and I would respect it as I dissipated into the time-void. I wouldn’t be dead. I’d have never existed at all.

Because that’s how choice works. I don’t want Rebecca Kiessling dead. I want a world wherein any woman can make the choice to terminate a pregnancy. I do think Kiessling’s mother should have been able to abort her, just as I think my mother should have been able to abort me if that was the choice she made.

It must be horrible for people like Kiessling to find out that their existence is the result of a brutal attack. Nobody should have to go through it. Not Kiessling, and certainly not the woman who gave birth to her. Yet Kiessling’s proposed solution–banning abortion–would lead to the suffering of millions more women, forced to carry pregnancies or endure dangerous illegal abortions. The violence inherent in taking away a safe option for women is stark: with what she is proposing, Kiessling endorses a different kind of invasion of women’s bodies. She would be better placed throwing her energies into building a world where rape is not possible.