Ms Naughty looks at porn for women, feminism and sex in general
A story about “anal tears” and rough sex injuries in teens has become an assumed truth, despite it being based on anecdotal evidence. This makes it “panicdotal” – using anecdotes to incite a moral panic. Read More …
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a “porn for teens” site? I mean, let’s just ignore the fact that it’s illegal for people under 18 to look at porn and instead imagine something that better reflects the reality we’re now in, where kids do look at porn and there’s not much we can do about it… except educate. Read More …
You may have already seen this video by sex advice columnist Dan Savage. In it he and his husband urge gay teens to ignore the bullies at high school because life does get better. Today I also watched this very moving speech by Texas city councillor Joel Burns, discussing his own experiences of bullying and the happy life he’s led since high school: The “It’s Get Better” Project has now Read More …
This morning I read an opinion piece by Natasha Walter in The Times Online called How Teenage Access To Pornography Is Killing Intimacy In Sex. The headline is pure moral panic but I was surprised to find that this extensive article actually contained a real attempt to be vaguely balanced in its anti-porn argument. Normally these kinds of pieces are all hysteria and generalisations and Dworkin-style feminism. This one went Read More …
Psychology Today has a great article which nicely debunks the whole hysterical idea that children are in danger from sexual predators while online. It refers to the 278 page report by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force which looked at vast amounts of data about whether children were regularly solicited for sex online (as the hysteria would have us believe). The task force, led by Harvard researchers, looked at reams Read More …
So this week has seen Clive Hamilton come out hyperventilating in support of the ill-considered mandatory internet filter – originally his idea, by the way. His arguments are flawed in a lot of ways and I recommend the excellent Somebody Think Of The Children blog for further analysis. To be honest I’ve been trying to stop thinking about it because it, and the comments section, inundated with nonsense as a Read More …
Behold: Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies, the Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States. That’s a whole lotta capital letters, but if you skimmed over that last bit it didn’t matter much. The main thing is that a bunch of online companies and government bodies got together and tried to determine Read More …
Here’s a nice pic for Friday just to make things feel a bit huggy around here. A few links and news to blog about. Pinup Bettie Page has passed away. RIP Bettie. Lynn Barber has an excellent piece on sex for women back in the 60s. It’s one of those timely reminders of what feminism did for women and why we shouldn’t ever forget how things used to be. After Read More …