Daily Archives: 4 November, 2010

Do women enjoy sex?

by suzannahrobinson

Stupid question right? They hate it, everyone knows that. Or at least Stephen Fry seems to.

He recently voiced the opinion that straight men feel that women are “disgusted” with them, and the latter only engage in sexual acts in order to secure and maintain relationships.

Is this a regressive step? Historically the ideal woman has been one without sexual desire, one who will remain loyal to her husband and bear only his children. Stephen Fry is paying a massive compliment to an entire gender in the eyes of organised religion and archaic morals.

So that´s alright then. But where does it leave straight men? Or, supposing there is such a thing, lesbians? Their ideal partners are “disgusted” by them, and since there are no “straight cruising areas” they have to put up with relationships in order to secure regular sex.

Cruising areas have chiefly arisen within the gay community because of a lack of provision for more traditional ways of finding a partner, such as nightclubs. Now that there is, in this country at least, a thriving LGBT nightlife, many gay men and women will choose to meet in a bar rather than “a churchyard” or “Hampstead Heath”.

Fry said “I feel sorry for straight men”. I do too, not because they can´t get women to have sex with them, but because the system is wrong.

The rules of society dictate that women are not allowed to enjoy sex or access it freely. They must wait to be wined, dined and otherwise spoiled, unless someone extraordinarily good looking/rich/popular comes along and impresses them enough. The effort and expense involved with all this leads to less sex for straight men and straight women, it becomes more of a big deal when it does happen, the resulting pressure means it happens even less and we comfort ourselves with the idea that women are frigid and men are rats.

Suzy

“New”, “old”, it’s all the same to this kind of politics

by maxattacks

As you may be aware, I’ve always been a somewhat of a critic of the Coalition’s version of “new” politics, often sounding, feeling and looking like much of the “old”. Well he’s some more of it!

We’re all very aware of Cameron’s (DC) “Webcameron” (that bastion link to the plebs), well the woman who organised it along with the Tories personal photographer of DC have both been added to the Civil Service Payroll on a short term contract. Now at times of large austerity, isn’t it a tad unfair and hypocritical that the PM decides to employ quite literally, some of his mates? It’s irrelevant whether they followed Civil Service procedure and code correctly, the message is blatantly clear, austerity for you and new jobs for my chums.

It’s also the fact that when asked about this at PMQs by Miliband, DC replied ”engage in the issues”……..you’ll find this is an issue now DC of hypocracy. Yes, fair enough you’ve cut the communications budget, but it still doesn’t excuse your actions. Think DC, people can tell the difference between the “new” and “old” politics.

Max

The unusual conversion of Lauren Booth

by suzannahrobinson

Cherie Blair´s sister, the journalist and activist Lauren Booth, has recently converted to Islam. I´ve been following her progress with interest through her articles and interviews.

Her conversion has been one of overwhelming spiritual experience rather than intellectual conviction, but she is slowly working through the Qurán and learning to pray five times a day. She refers to lifestyle changes as a welcome relief, her children are enthusiastic about her new modest dress, her father´s alcoholism makes her more than happy to give up drinking, and her ongoing divorce makes it fairly easy to avoid dating.

Her political interest remain centred in the Freedom for Palestine campaign and in changing the way the West looks at Islamic societies. So it´s a shame that she´s brought feminism into the ring to defend herself against media attacks, because I don´t think she understands much about it.

Leaving aside her jibes about the cultural ignorance of white middle class women and women who consider themselves “liberated” [sic] but spend a long time on their appearance, she declares that most of our ideas about women´s roles in the Middle East and Islam are entirely wrong, and biased media coverage has led to this false image of opression.

While the Bible and Torah, when followed to the letter, result in reduced women´s rights, the Qurán goes further, in condoning disciplinary action towards and a form of ownership over wives. Naturally as an educated wealthy single woman living in a mainly secular society she is unlikely to suffer from any ill effects of these guidelines, but her conversion cannot be regarded as progress for the western woman.

Her impression of equality in the societies she visited fail to convince. She describes with delight her experience of bossy or cheeky behaviour from women as evidence of liberation, in the same way that someone mugged in Edgbaston might talk about moving to Ladywood. Her anecdotal evidence about women students and men who do housework count for nothing as soon as the going gets tough.

In everyday life we don´t notice our freedoms. In most countries rights don´t become obvious until we find ourselves without money, protection or physical strength. As soon as we´re out of our comfort zone it becomes blindingly obvious that without the sexual, legal, human rights that women enjoy in Britain and the social norm of being able to do things alone without suspicion, we are not truly safe, or truly respected.

Suzy