WillWybrow.com

There has been some discussion online about this Julie Bindel article in the Guardian about a book by Gail Dines that’s been going on over the past few days between some acquaintances of mine, and I was reprimanded for making a sarcastic comment about it because of how trivially wrong I felt the main point covered in it was, so I’d like to just write a little thing about it.

The idea raised in this article that I felt was most forceful and most wrong was the claim that watching pornography can make people commit sexual assault.

At this point I don’t think it matters whether one thinks that pornography or the sex industry is demeaning and exploitative to those in it or whether one thinks it’s empowering and freedom of expression or whether you don’t really know or care either way. It doesn’t matter if you’re pro- or anti- pornography, I still feel my exception to this is justified.

I found this point offensive for two reasons: firstly, it diminishes and marginalises the responsibility of anyone who commits a sexual assault on another person by suggesting that there was some reason or justification for it. “I saw it in porno and thought it was okay” would never legitimise any act of violence, sexual abuse, rape, misogyny or misandry against another person and it’s completely irresponsible to even suggest that the ’cause’ of rape is anything but something wrong with the person committing the act. There’s no excuse for it. Nobody would ever excuse a murderer from his or her actions for them using a defence like “I saw it in a video game,” so why should the influence of watching pornography even come into the equation when looking for the motivation of someone to commit rape? It just shouldn’t.

Secondly it greatly exaggerates the impact of the media on people’s behaviour and even attitudes and suggests that some (or most? or all?) people can’t tell the difference between something they see on their TVs or computer screens and what goes on in real life. Maybe my faith in people is misplaced but I’d like to believe that the majority of us do know that on-screen crime/violence/sex is not comparable to reality. I’d like to think we’re more than just suggestible lumps of amorphous clay ready to be moulded into likenesses of whatever is beamed into our eyes. People do know what’s right and wrong behaviour and what are right and wrong attitudes to have.

There are honest ways of highlighting the terrifying and heart-wrenching prevalence of sexual assault without trying to explain it away as a by-product of the sex industry, and I think (again, without requiring anyone to take a stand pro- or anti- porn) that lumping the two issues together is both misleading and unhelpful to dealing with the problem.

It would probably be a fruitless and very tiresome (if not never-ending) effort to list ALL the things that could do with being shaken up around here. So for the moment I am going to settle for this very brief but presently high-profile list of some shit that needs changing.

1. Decriminalisation of Drugs

   I am sure I don’t need to link you to any of the number of articles online about the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal. Google it if you want to. This, from the TIME.com article about it:

   “Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research [into its success]. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

   In light of the news about the mephedrone deaths that have just happened, the government will inevitably end up adding it to the list of banned substances, like they did with synthetic cannabinoids at the end of last year. That they still have to keep banning the new ways people find to get themselves high suggests that people are going to try it regardless. The only real way we can increase the safety of those who do choose to try it is by regulating the quality of the drugs sold (so that they’re not cut with rat poison) and to fully understand through scientific experimentation the effects so any short- and long-term effects can be made clear through education. Legalising the old-school drugs that everyone knows about will cause users to gravitate towards them. They’ve been more extensively studied than these new ‘legal highs’, so that bodes better for education and treatment of ill-effects and addiction.

2. Libel Law Reform

   In case you haven’t been keeping abreast of one of the most (if not the most) high profile libel lawsuits of late, Simon Singh was recently accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association. He wrote that any chiropractic practitioner who claimed to be able to cure things like colic in babies was lying, with plenty of demonstrable evidence showing it to be ineffective. As well as in being counter-intuitive to assume that spinal manipulation can solve all your problems. While with any reasonable set of laws, the chiropractors would have no hope of achieving anything from suing someone with stacks of scientific evidence to back up their claims, actually suing someone for libel is no longer about who wins or loses. Because of the incredibly dramatic cost of being sued for libel, often the accused has no choice but to back down and not fight if the accuser is financially well-endowed. With a relatively small cost to a corporation, it can silence any individual or small organisation it wants to with the threat of expensive legal action, and thus hide any of its wrongdoings. The Libel Reform campaign seeks to raise awareness with the ultimate goal of getting this changed. And while it might not benefit the majority of people directly, it is a freedom of speech/censorship matter that needs to be addressed and corrected lest it remain an affront to liberty forever.

3. The Digital Economy Bill

   Sometimes I think Lord Mandelson doesn’t see things the way the rest of us do. His perspective on certain subjects is so skewed, I think maybe he might benefit from some psychiatric evaluation.

   Even if he passes the lunatic test, though, this doesn’t make his Digital Economy Bill any less insane. Mandelson wants to be given unlimited power to amend copyright legislation. He wants rights holders, via the courts, to be able to disconnect people suspected of filesharing without requiring any proof. He is willing to deny internet access to whole households to punish (and that’s punish, not rehabilitate or force repayment from) copyright infringers. There has also been a clause added that says ISPs would be obligated to block access to certain websites that facilitate copyright infringement (which could even include YouTube and possibly Google), but again this seems to only take place at Mandelson’s command.

   I’m also interested in the overlooked modifications to Nominet. It’s a kind of nationalisation of the service for registering domain names in the UK. Might not mean much to most people, but putting more of the internet in the hands of this government unnecessarily (Nominet is functioning fine as an independent body at the moment and can’t possibly benefit from being under government control) is an unmistakably bad thing. Some of us have registered domain names and don’t want ownership of them revoked at the whim of Lord Mandelson.

That’ll be all for now, I think. I will do some more when I get back to my chat logs and assemble all the ideas I came up with when Chris put me on the spot yesterday evening with all the policies I’d have if I formed a political party.

Sometimes I really do wonder about the people in this town. I was walking outside not an hour ago and I heard a loud pair of middle-aged men talking. I rounded the corner and one of them at least had a can of something cheap in his hands, and the words I caught were: “…but a woman burping is abhorrent.”

At this point, two things went through my head. First: what could they possibly have been talking about to lead up to that point? Had they been having a whole conversation centred on disgusting bodily functions? The second was: how can someone this moronic use a word like “abhorrent”? To further add to my confusion, when he went on with his point to say the same about “a woman farting,” I’m pretty sure he pronounced it “apparent.”

As I sadly was not walking in the same direction, the conversation rapidly faded out of earshot with this little gem: “you don’t want a woman to be all like *retching noise* and scratching her bum. A woman should be a woman, you know?” to which his walking partner silently assented.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be fun to pretend to go along with people like that, to see just how far their stupidity reaches. Chime in with something casual yet bigoted like “and what about them blacks, eh?” or anything along those lines. Poking fun at them feels like the only way of coping, because, when you look at the fact that people holding these views exist, if you don’t shrug it off with laughter, the despair will start to set in and you’ll realise that even though there are six billion people on the planet, being a decent person amongst them is pretty fucking lonely.

I was watching a film just lately, and one of the guys in it told one of the girls in it that she was beautiful, or whatever, and she said thanks and whatever, they hook up or something and live happily ever after. I guess that’s how these things work in film. Oh yeah, before we go any further, this is my warning that nobody is going to agree with what I’ve got to say because, like a lot of my ideas, it’s just too different and will undoubtedly be expressed badly. But even if you do agree in theory, I don’t imagine you will in practice. Hell, I’m not ever going to think about this in a real-life situation, so I don’t expect anyone else to.

Breakdown of a Compliment

When Person A says something flattering about Person B’s looks, Person A can be saying a number of things. The first and most obvious one that comes to mind is that the “compliment” Person A is paying means literally that Person A finds Person B to be visually appealing through whatever it is between people that facilitates that reaction. It doesn’t matter if it’s innate or learned through “society’s standard of beauty” or something like that. What Person A could be saying is that he (for the sake of argument, let’s say Person A is male and Person B is female) likes the way Person B looks through no action on Person B’s part.

Person A might also be making a point about Person B’s specific appearance at that point: “you look nice today” for a (weak) example. Coming across in this instance is the implication that Person A has recognised the fact that Person B has either deliberately or inadvertently made a difference in her appearance and Person A approves.

Person A might also be saying that he finds Person B to be attractive even though most people wouldn’t. I wanted to avoid saying the word “objective” here, because I don’t think there is an “objectively” good-looking person, but there are people that an overwhelming majority of peers would consider attractive, and there are people that an overwhelming majority of peers would consider not attractive (plus, obviously, the whole range in between). If Person A is sincere when he pays his compliment to Person B, he is saying that even though most people think Person B is unattractive, she happens to be to Person A’s personal taste.

For the sake of the argument, I am going to make two assumptions. The first is that people cannot actively choose which physical traits they find to be attractive and which ones they don’t. I don’t think this is too far from the truth, and while taste may change over time, I feel it is largely out of the control of people themselves. That first assumption now lets me make my second, which consists of me lumping together my first scenario (where Person B is “objectively” attractive) with my third scenario (where Person B is not “objectively” attractive, but is to Person A’s personal taste) under the heading of Inadvertent Attraction, and leave scenario two (where Person B has made an effort) as Deliberate Attraction.

So, in this film, the line was something like “you have really pretty eyes,” it doesn’t matter about the specifics. This line fits into my category of Inadvertent Attraction — it wasn’t through any effort on Person B’s part that Person A liked her eyes. Given this, her next line, “thank you,” doesn’t entirely make sense. A compliment is praise or even congratulations for something, but if it’s a compliment for something that isn’t deliberate, why the thanks afterwards? Person B didn’t choose to have nice eyes, so the compliment doesn’t deal with her. The compliment goes to whoever is responsible for Person B being attractive to Person A. Which is nobody.

What am I saying? That nobody should pay each other compliments anymore? No, of course not. They’re nice things to say, and everyone wants nice things said to them and about them. But I am remarking on the realisation that Person B doesn’t get to say “thanks” afterwards. Nothing nice has been said about her, just the unchangeable circumstances that mean Person A likes Person B’s appearance. Person B can’t really take pride in having an arbitrary facial arrangement any more than I can take pride in being white. It’s just genetic make-up that we have no control over.

Of course, the thanks may have only been out of polite courtesy, and that’s maybe how it is the world over. But people flush with pride when they hear something good said about them — I know I do. I just wanted to say to everyone that, on paper, it’s just incorrect to be proud about such things.

Then we get into murky waters with things like nice hair or make-up, which can be part Inadvertent and part Deliberate, and then there are things which are totally Deliberate, like picking clothes or picking perfume. Paying a compliment to deliberate choices people make to please each other is like saying “good job, I approve.” In this society where having free will is an assumption we all live by (even if it’s not true), we are allowed to be proud of the choices we make. So that’s fine.

But good-looking people, beware. I’m on to you.

The film was Hitch, if you were wondering, and it was quite enjoyable.

Give it up, bitch.

You might have read about Laura Williams recently, the eighteen-year-old who got pregnant with conjoined twins, and against all advice, decided not to end the pregnancy, but to give little Faith and Hope a shot at life.

Ok, fair enough, you’re just a little girl who has filled her head with fancies and dreams about the inner strength of your babies, but come on. Not only is it completely irresponsible, but it’s completely inhumane. Why bother letting the children live out a terrible and short existence when you can easily and painlessly abort them?

Well, go ahead with it then. Let your babies get beyond the abortion limit. Then it becomes murder.

Ok, all the moral and ethical piss aside, let’s have a look at the delicious poetic justice at work here: the doctors advise to abort the children, the defiant mother keeps the babies. She names them Faith and Hope to show off how much she believes (without evidence) that her babies can survive in the face of all the experts that predict otherwise. One dies at the start of December in the operation to seperate them, and the other dies on Christmas Day from being too fucking weak. So you’d think the mother would have no more hope or faith like this. Gracefully accept that you make a stupid decision and back down. But no, “if I had to do it all again, I would,” she says. What?! You would kill two more babies? WHAT?! Hello? Did you miss the part where you fucking just lost two babies named Faith and Hope?! Hello?!?!

You can read the story on BBC News, but they put a horrible spin on it where it makes that stupid bitch look admirable for being so stubborn and foolish, but anyone with an independent thought in their brain, especially if they’ve followed the story, can see that all Laura Williams’ steps were the wrong steps, and her defiance to the end of this fisaco is unworthy of admiration in the same way that blind faith in an imaginary god should be criticised and ridiculed.

I’m pretty angry at the BBC for being so biased.

…but Relentless prices up?

It’s a bit of an economical mixed bag. I was enjoying it when a can of Relentless was cheaper than a litre of petrol. Fuck petrol! Though the fact that it’s getting cheaper is probably a good thing. It’s less than 94p per litre at my local supermarket, but they put Relentless Inferno up about 10p just a few days ago! Nightmare!

But I went to 24 hour Tesco on campus yesterday night and bought some where it was still under £1. It’s good.

I don’t think I am being affected very much by the, ah, “credit crunch.” Things still seem to be costing the same as they always have. And, as usual, it’s easy to spend too much. Especially with my housemates; they don’t really realise that students aren’t meant to live in comfort and luxury. They’re supposed to buy all the cheapest things possible and barely live on them. It’s a nightmare when other people come back from shopping and ask for my money. They didn’t ask what I wanted to put my money towards…

Oh well, got a little bit of cash coming soon enough (in time for the holiday season, in fact), and maybe a little pocket of cash as gifts from Santa. Money is a bitch, but it’s the only path to true happiness.

Yeah, I donated to a fucking CHARITY.

How selfless am I?

Have you ever stumbled across something so utterly ridiculous that you are certain it is a joke, only to realise with dawning horror that these people are completely serious?

Arch-conservative White Supremacist Christians are hindering the social, technological and intellectual progress of the free world. I give you: the Conservapedia - a right-wing, authoritarian collection of pro-Christian, pro-racism, pro-fascism, anti-Common Sense propaganda spread by pompous egotistical middle-aged men who, for all their complaining and rigidity, are doing as little as they can to help the world, because driving for what they want is, as their self-imposed label implies, conservative regarding true progress.

The collection of sourced articles and original essays is riddled with distaste for anything in the world changing. Acceptance of multiculturalism or homosexuality, for example, is rare and delightfully disguised under layers of elegantly spun prose. It is unashamedly biased, despite hypocritically advocating and claiming otherwise, and I think that it might just be the ultimate collection of the worst views in the world. It might not, though… I can’t speak for the whole world here.

I’d advise giving this one a miss if you’re looking for some unbiased, neutral information. The massively successful Wikipedia, although it has its flaws, is still your best bet, whether it’s a casual interest in something you know little about, or the starting point for a more serious endeavour. You can’t place restrictions on the sources of true knowledge, or you exclude too much of what nobody has enough of.

Or, just hit the alternative, where if it’s there, it’s whacky and if it isn’t, make it up!

It seems to the Chronicler that these days, it’s difficult for people to get anything right at all. Especially when it comes to how people have invented, developed and otherwise handled “casual” relationships.

Nowadays, it’s ‘cooler’ to be casually involved with a member of the opposing gender than it is to be in a real, meaningful, loving relationship. And the recent increase in the popularity of the term and concept of a “fuck-buddy” doesn’t help matters.

I place the blame at the door of feminism. Women have been pushing for equality for years and years and socially they have a pretty much equal standing. They integrate into groups of mixed-gender friends and this encourages the detrimental casual attitude towards men. Suddenly, the modern woman has male friends who have no interest in romantic intimacy. And she has no interest in that either. Add a few decades and we’re watching the world sink deeper and deeper into desensitivity and immorality as our sexual inhibitions as a culture begin to fade. We look to the institutionalised religions here to lead the way back from the brink of depravity, but they’re so wrapped up in depraved acts of their own that they don’t care - no amount of hypocrisy is going to destroy the foothold they’ve gained in the world.

So we have a country with a more liberal and open approach to sex - this has to be a good thing, right? Talking about things will surely lead to spreading knowledge and experience that will make people wiser, right? And that, in turn, will reduce things like sexually transmitted infections or illegitimate (including underage) pregnancies, right?

Such would have been the dream-like reality that only a perfect world could endow. The opposite happened; people decided that if it’s ok to discuss these things, it’s ok to do them too.

So, these independent women of the world started getting ideas that if they could have a casual friendship with a man, they could have a casual relationship too. Which, of course, leads inevitably to casual sex, precisely the reverse of what was meant to occur.

We who take relationships seriously are a dying breed. One day, we’ll be outcast, outdated; we’ll be labelled as old-fashioned or worse: wrong.

Then, of course, it’s “better luck with the next social revolution, old man.”

As promised, dotben.

As a general rule, I don’t stand by the effectiveness of a democratic system where everybody, no matter how uneducated or corrupt, gets an equal voice in a system. But then there are the days when it pays off, and I realise that things aren’t so bad after all.

For example, I was present during our Students’ Union’s Annual General Meeting. Some liberal hippie fool wanted to open up the Union’s doors and arms to members of our beloved British Nationalist Party and actively invite those racist pigs into our university to let them address the students, the entire body of which is sourced by about 120 countries, 116 of which are not part of Britain. The indicative vote taken at the time showed a slim majority tending towards keeping blacklisted speakers from being invited and endorsed by the Union.

I am not against free speech. I heavily endorse an individual or group’s right to express whatever they want - otherwise there would be people outspeaking against this very website. But the defence I use whenever people voice their misgivings about the unsavoury nature of this site is: if it bothers you, don’t read it. I believe that such a policy is best for everyone, because it provides each person with a choice.

Were the Union to invite speakers from the BNP on to campus, it would lend them both credibility and support. It says to them “it’s ok to publicly broadcast these views,” which will undoubtedly be interpreted by some as “it’s ok to have these views,” and the message on this part couldn’t be further from the truth. Judging someone because of their race is almost universally agreed as unacceptable, and it doesn’t have any real arguments in its favour.

I don’t think that, as a university that is striving to become one of the top internationally accredited academic institutions worldwide, I feel that inviting the British Nationalists on to campus to our Union, a place that’s supposed to provide a good service and fair treatment for all students, we’d be denying that policy.

And to all of you weed-smoking, jobless, transient, liberal, bleeding-heart hippie scum who think that by barring them from campus we are somehow restricting “free speech,” to start with I will say a giant FUCK YOU, followed by a more coherent and logical argument.

The BNP have more than enough freedom. They can canvas people in the streets, they can go to people’s houses and talk racism at them for hours if the people are interested. But if they aren’t, why should their representatives in the Union permit and invite the BNP onto campus?

Furthermore, any of you who say that it would be a great opportunity to shout them down is heavily ignorant. Students generally aren’t motivated enough to get up and shout them down, and the few that might be will not want to, simply because it means they’d have to show up to the speech and put another tally on the total. If people were passionate enough to want to ask difficult questions and really put the speaker on the spot, they’d actively seek out the speakers they wish to protest against and do their whining there. The same goes for those people who actually want to hear what said speakers have to say. They are not needed here and they are not wanted here, and our students should not have to suffer being insulted.