Category Archives: BLOGGERY: politics, religion & brain purges……

Legal Facepalmery

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I like the police. We’ve always got on rather well. However, here’s an example of some terrible, terrible police work from some chaps in the Met who – unforgivably – involved the News of the World.

Here’s the story by Diane Taylor from the Guardian website:

‘Sex workers and their support groups have condemned a police operation to “out” prostitutes even when they have not been convicted of any crime.

Six street-based sex workers in Newham, east London, were named on the Metropolitan police website. Police posted their photos, full names and dates of birth.

In a second case, two Polish women who were selling sex from their home in Aldgate, east London, were raided by City of London police as part of Operation Monaco.

Operation Monaco was launched in May 2009 but police have admitted that just one charge of controlling a prostitute for gain has been made, as well as 52 charges for placing cards in phone boxes advertising sexual services.

Police took photographs of the Polish women, who were not charged. Last Sunday, photos appeared in News of the World. The women said they were distressed by the police raid and the lack of warning that their pictures would appear in a tabloid newspaper.

“Why have the police done this to me?” said Vicky, one of the two. “I work as a childminder and a cleaner and do some sex work to make ends meet. I pay tax and national insurance and am not doing anything illegal. A lot of people know me, and even though the News of the World blocked out my face I’m still identifiable by my hair, clothes and jewellery.”

The women lodged a complaint with the newspaper, which removed their images from its website.

“The police were looking for money and found £50 from a customer,” she added. “We never use drugs and are always sober when we’re working. The police kept asking us over and over again if we’d been trafficked. We haven’t been, and we signed a piece of paper to say that.

“If the police continue to behave like this, none of the women doing sex work will speak to them if they do have information about any crimes. I think they have been watching too much Diary of a Call Girl.”

Georgina Perry, the manager of an NHS sex work project in east London called Open Doors, said: “I’m very disappointed with the police. They can’t go around asking the community to police vulnerable women. It encourages vigilantism.”

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: “I suspect this is part of a pre-Olympics clean-up in east London.”

A Met spokesman said the asbos against the Newham women had been used as a last resort because they were persistent offenders, and that decisions to publicise the identities of people issued with asbos were made on a case-by-case basis.

“Association of Chief Police Officers guidelines clearly state that working with the media on operations can assist in the prevention and detection of crime.”‘

Source here.

Feedback Loop: Extra Virgin

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Occasionally, the way I indulge my urges – mainly rambling diatribes here, or acts of violence in sessions and fetish clubs – provoke interesting responses by email. With permission, I will post some of the best on the blog.

Here’s the gentleman Lujan’s reply to last month’s “Extra Virgin” post:

“You are making a special point I know. But wondering if you have heard of the meaning ‘virgin’ may have had in the ancient world? Some people argue it meant “Not owned by a man” or `free’. As `dominant’ might be an extreme of `free’, I think its not surprising that you dream of our most sacred virgin. Also explains perhaps all those virgin Goddesses like Athena etc. I think it meant that they were powerful, free figures, not owned by patriarchy, or pre-patriarchal. That makes Mary even more special to us, a clue where she came from.  So perhaps she is more inspiring than some think, in her unassuming yet subversive way. Mary Mother of God. Our greatest monarch Elizabeth I, no stranger to sex we’re sure, most defiantly a Virgin Queen in the true sense of the word.

Winston Churchill described Joan of Arc as the most impressive person to have lived in the last 1000 years. Pretty hard to think of anyone, ever, to match her courage, leadership and compassion. In France she is the `Virgin of Orleans’. She may have been a sexual virgin, but certainly was the virgin of pre-history, the independent goddess like woman, owned by no one. She remains the youngest person to have commanded a nations armed forces. A 17 year old daughter of a farmer, commanding France’s nobility & patriarchy’s elite . Dealing the decisive blow at Patay that destroyed the English chances of conquering France, ending 100 years of pointless patriarchal warring. Sorry to go on, but certainly makes me think about the ancient, and probably sub-conscious power of the title Virgin, and of its ongoing meaning. If we can overlook patriarchy’s corruption of the word, it stands for greatness, and its true root meaning is probably `free’, and subconsciously we may well be remembering that.

Interesting also in the context of one of your other blogs, about how we love to diminish the sacred feminine . Still today men strive to dismiss The Maiden’s achievements, to dismiss her as mad. History must not recall that a 17 year old woman beat men at their favourite game, and crushed the ambitions of England in France.

Such a shame Virgin lost its underlying meaning today. But thrilling to think of its subconscious power and meaning, and what it might mean in our dreams, or your dreams.”

Read the original “Extra Virgin” article here.

In Your Facebook

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Alarming piece from Jezebel.com:

‘According to Dr. David J. Ley of Psychology Today, Facebook has started deleting several “pages of several women and female sexuality organizations,” including the page of Self Serve, “a women-owned and run sexuality resources center.”

The women at Self Serve, Ley writes, had their page deleted after they posted an informational video about labiaplasty. The video, Ley notes, “has a heartfelt message, urging women to love their bodies as they are, and not to give in to mutilation to fit an unrealistic, and uncommon ideal based upon porn,” but apparently triggered the organization’s page removal from Facebook due to the fact that it contained pictures of vaginas. The context, it seems, was unimportant: the fact that vaginas were being shown was enough of a justification for Facebook to delete the page. Ley also notes that the page of sex columnist Violet Blue was also deleted, even though she “had worked hard to comply with Facebook’s rules. She was given no advance notice and no explanation of why her page was deleted.” Ley wonders if perhaps these deletions are indicative of a larger, scarier issue: that the site is intentionally targeting, and removing, women-run celebrations of the female body and female sexuality…’

Full article here.