Sex - more issues

It turns out I do have something to say in response to Insight, SBS 5/8/09. I will conveniently skip the first half hour of the program. Jenny Brockie did an excellent job hosting the show. However, a panel (or group) chat show can only be as good as it's panel.

Unwanted sex. This was the issue that occupied the second half of the show. I was laughing quite often during this segment. To clear up, we are talking about sex under regular coercion. It was agreed on the show that alcohol had a factor in reducing consent. (Amazing insight, hey?) The male gender studies representative actually said that if a guy was drunk, he should sleep it off & try for sex in the morning. Hell, I'd probably still be a virgin if I followed that advice. It was a very distant comment. The kind of advice you'd hear from your parents - they mean well, but just don't get it.

The program entered the boring blame game. Who is to blame for unwanted sex? Yawn. A poor approach that will never answer any substantial questions. Not interested in that angle. I will say this. It is the most common outcome to entirely blame the 'victim'. However, the 2nd most common outcome is to entirely blame the 'offender'. Clearly, something is missing.

The most entertaining part of the show was listening to the stories of unwanted sex. It was an amazing trigger point. Jenny could have asked any female in the audience & got a similar answer. It was an Oprah moment. Stories came out in a confessional manner. 'I didn't want to seem like a prude. I didn't say no, but I didn't say yes.' 'The next day he acted all normal. He had no idea anything was wrong.' Jenny- 'So when did you tell him?' 'Never'. Spare me. I would have had more compassion if she was talking about the time she removed a splinter from her finger.

The topic of 'If one doesn't say no, does that mean yes?' was raised. My short answer to this question is YES. Sex is not a verbal contract. The less one has to say, the better. This really sounds like a US Christian University. I've soiled myself laughing at propaganda material that has been released in the past. 'Is it OK for me to touch your hair? Your leg? May I kiss you? Can I fondle your breast?' A common thread runs through here. If I followed these rules, I would also be a virgin. Cannot be even remotely good advice if that is the case.

Back to unwanted sex. I put it to you that every female over the age of 20 has 'indulged' in this activity. (yes, yes, discount virgins etc ye technical objectors.) Some stats were pulled out. Can't remember exactly, but something like 25%-50% of year 12 girls have had unwanted sex. Mostly, we would be talking about a 'relationship' ie boyfriend & girlfriend. I have no problem with the stats. Sounds about right. I have a big problem with the interpretation. Feminists are the poorest interpreters of statistics in the world. Everything is pumped towards a desired objective.

To a feminist, the unwanted sex issue leads straight to a patriarchal society etc blah blah. I have a very interesting article in the pipeline re: Patriarchy vs Matriarchy. Stay tuned. If you are a blind feminist, rest assured that you will not like the article. No more of this to be said directly in this article. Needless to say, I have no empathy for this angle. It is bogus.

Unwanted sex is a day-to-day part of life. Join a nunnery if you would like to get away from it. Bettina Arndt has offered some excellent points on this topic. Naturally, she was crucified for doing so. An entirely familiar pattern has been followed time & time again. Plain, vanilla common sense replaced with some wacky, dire ideology. At least it gives me something to write about.

Frank Sinatra Throws "Two-Bit Hooker" Insult

Historically, this incident is often looked at as a sure sign of Australia's backward nature. It is often talked about as something that could never happen again. And pigs might fly.

History never repeats. I tell myself before I go to sleep

This is from a press release for the ABC TV series 'The Way We Were' in 2002:

"The media had a big part to play in many of Sinatra's tours, and much is made of his "bums and hookers" jibe in 1974.

Sinatra's insult came after a series of mishaps no doubt deeply wounding to his ego. At Tullamarine no one met his plane, he was driven into town in the wrong car, and at Festival Hall the singer had to push his way through the media throng to bash on the stage door before he was allowed inside.

It is hard to imagine today the outrage that followed Sinatra's so called attack on the press. Film from the time details what became a national incident with a union blackban on Sinatra's plane, and phone calls from then prime minister Gough Whitlam."
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This is from a press release for the film 'The night we called it a day' in 2003:
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"He may have been rude, sexist and stuck in his ways on his bumpy tour of Australia in 1974 but, film-maker Paul Goldman tells Tom Ryan, that doesn't mean Frank Sinatra was all to blame.

Paul Goldman's new film is about a pig-headed man who refuses to say sorry. The time is 1974, the man is Frank Sinatra (played by old easy rider himself, Dennis Hopper), and he's made himself a tad unpopular on his tour of Australia with a throwaway remark that's likened a pushy female journalist (Portia De Rossi) to a hooker. The newspapers are all over the story, the unions have turned bolshie and he's stuck in his hotel suite with his entourage , including wife-to-be Barbara Marx (Melanie Griffith), but with no room service and no way out.

But he (Paul Goldman) is also struck by the irony that he was being offered such a story after the controversy surrounding his previous film, 'Australian Rules'. An adaptation of 'Deadly, Unna?' - the novel by his friend Phillip Gwyne about football and racism in a small Australian township - it created a storm of protest that left him emotionally bruised.

"I'd just spent three months saying sorry myself," Goldman explains. "Australian Rules was a very traumatic experience for me and a lot of other people associated with it. Quite a few of us were scarred by that film. I spent so much time in front of the press and at Q&As being attacked by the indigenous community and by the white community for making that film that I felt I was being hounded.

"One minute I was being accused of being racist; the next minute I was being accused of being assimilationist. I found myself genuinely wanting to say sorry but I was also wanting to say, 'I'm sorry you misunderstood me'. So there was also some resonance for me personally in what was happening. I thought to myself, 'I know how Frank feels'."

Yet another Sex Scandal. This time the Navy.

Sex Scandal - modern dictionary definition - a sex scandal is an incident involving anyone who is not yourself. One need only have some vague knowledge of the people involved. Any acts undertaken may be happily classed as a sex scandal. ie if your parents do it one lonely night - it is a sex scandal.


Read Navy Sex Scandal news article

Well, seems like regulation lad's behaviour here. The dumbos offended by this have perhaps a little bit of eye-opening to do. To use the vernacular, they need to be educated.

men can only be highly civilised while other men, inevitably less civilised, are there to guard and feed them George Orwell

Issues - seperate boats for men & women? Possible, but I think the greater problem would then be getting enough naive chicks to sign up for the navy. Most would not want to be sailing on a 'dyke boat'. So, in lieu of recruitment, the most obvious ways of avoiding a 'scandal' are to be ignored. Being in the presence of these 'sexist brutes' is actually a selling point for recruitment.

Instead, we must pretend that such behaviour is abnormal. The usual dial-a-quote:

I don't believe these men should be able to serve at sea anymore because they're not reliable, they can't be trusted, they don't respect women and these are not the kind of men that we need defending us.

Just piss off Women's Forum. I actively hate your banal spokespeople. As usual, judgement on sexual behaviour followed by a dive into the soft & squishy realm of their dire sensibilities.

Wait for the PM to weigh in. Predictable fool.

What the hell, I may as well espouse some of my sexist views. The life of a female sailor/soldier etc is worth more than the life of a male sailor/soldier etc. This is not a complaint, it is a belief of mine. I am open to discussion on this point, however I accept it as fact.

Witness the Jessica Lynch scenario from some years ago. A female soldier was captured, and it was the most urgent business to rescue her. She was held far above other captive soldiers, from the same capture or not. There are some clear & obvious differences between male/female captives. I needn't bother going into the reasons. I am saying I agree that she should be held higher. (there are some facinating revelations out of this event - much of which has only been vaguely glimpsed. In a few years we will hear more)

However, acceptance of this argument leads down some other paths as well. It reminds me of 'Saving Private Ryan'. The movie exposed brilliantly the folly of rescue operations during war. Several lives were sacrificed in the name of one. The family was on the verge of losing all of their sons from the war. It was therefore deemed an important mission. It was Spielberg. The point was overstated in the movie, perhaps sappily so. However, it was still a good point.

Another side issue is women in the front line of war. Something I disagree with. Hypothetically, if the 'dyke boat' existed, it would be strictly back line. eg communications from 100's of kilometres back. Brings to mind another great war movie 'Glory' about a black American garrison in the civil war. They became victims of their own tokenism. The commander (white, forward thinking) volunteered them for the most frontal division in an attack. They were massacred in the name of 'Glory', their own & that of others. (fantastic movie, even better than SPR)

Which leads to the presence of women in the armed forces whatsoever.
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Kruddster couldn't resist. However, he shows amazing restraint by his standards.

"These alleged behaviours are disturbing but it's important to get to the facts of it all," he said.

"We'll await the investigations by the chief of Navy to establish all those facts."



THE Royal Australian Navy is paying for women sailors to have breast enlargements for purely cosmetic reasons, at a cost to taxpayers of $10,000 an operation.

Defence officials claim the surgery is justified because some servicewomen need bigger breasts to address "psychological issues".

"Just as there are in civilian life, there are some females who feel their breasts are too small and if their breasts were bigger, they might be more of a 'normal' woman," Mr James said.

"If they were lacking in self-confidence, this might provide the measure of self-confidence that would help them tackle their wider job. "

Would fake breasts be worth more or less in the ledger? ............ less
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How many of these women actually slept with the bounty hunters?

None, I’d bet. In which case, why all this fuss?

Or is the answer “plenty”? And then we must ask: why haven’t those women been sent home, too?

Doesn’t this just confirm what rugby league star Matthew Johns found after the ABC outed him as a beast for having had group sex with a willing fan - that a woman’s yes no longer means yes?

In the Andrew Bolt blog, the main comment by nay-sayers is such:

The sailors were not kicked off for having sex. They were kicked off for betting on it. The issue is not sex.

What if the bet was to make someone pick their nose? A detailed ledger on this activity would not result in suspension. So, sex is a major part of the 'crime'.

It wouldn't matter whether or not sex was undertaken. It is about the crude act of betting on it.

Yes, some may regard this as juvenile behaviour. It doesn't change the fact that a moral argument is being used, yet bloody again, to justify termination of employment etc. I cannot respect that line of argument.

Please don't tell me that if there was proof of sex that extra punishment would not be delivered. We are forced to dance the dull dance - it was the male sailors who coerced & tricked the female sailors into it (choose your own desired level of consent here - already we've heard that 19 year olds are minors, where does it stop?). Grow up. (acceptance of the dance also leads to the false conclusion that females only offer sex for a relationship - and end up getting cheated out of the relationship after. Grow up immediately!!)
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What happens to women in the military should convince us & them that equality is no substitute for liberation. Armies are crazy places, where masculinity contorts itself into conscientious inhumanity ... Unofficially, senior officers have enjoyed the right to subject their male inferiors to ritual sexual abuse and humiliation. The recruits had the choice of enduring the traditional unofficial ordeals in silence or get out ... Soldiers are not supposed to treat each other in atavistic and cruel ways, any more than they are supposed to rape enemy womenfolk, but they do.

In 1997 a Pentagon panel recommended that men & women should be trained separately, live apart & serve in different units. How often, when and where women-only units would see active service is anybody's guess Germaine Greer

Equality - I spoke their word - as if a wedding vow - Ah, but I was so much older then - I'm younger than that now Bob Dylan
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Poll result:

Should the Navy have mixed gender upon it's sailing vessels?

Yes - 4, No - 0

Thankyou for voting.

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