Tiger slug sex
After an unfortunate typo resulted in a search for 'bungee humping', I feel I have to share this:
When the striped tiger slug finds a mate the two of them ascend a vertical face - such as a tree trunk - and find a perch. Both then create a strand of mucus from which they dangle in mid air - a molluscan bungee rope, as it were. They then entwine and display bright blue sex organs.
Now comes the tricky bit. Tiger slugs are what are known as true hermaphrodites - they exhibit male and female sexual characteristics at the same time (rather than consecutively, as with the field slug).
Each tiger slug is extremely keen to pass on its sperm, but neither wants the aggravation of bearing the eggs. So each slug, suspended on their bungee, is furiously trying to fertilise the other. When one of them successfully offloads its sperm it then attempts to prevent the other from doing the same by biting off its sex organ.
Suddenly match.com seems less daunting.
Update: Asymptotia has imagery.
My house, my rules
What's this drivel about 'my house, my rules'? Where does this idea come from?
There are currently bonkers people on the radio, discussing how their 20-year-old daughter isn't allowed boyfriends in her room when back from university. 'My house, my rules' is the usual explanation, which of course isn't an explanation at all, but doesn't even make sense in itself. You don't own your kids. Maybe you can impose rules while they're effectively grown up but still under 18, but 20? Get a grip. If there are actual reasons, spell them out. But you don't get to declare yourself sovereign of your own little territory - who said you could do that? How silly.
I suspect the real reasons are 'sky-fairy says no' or 'I don't want to acknowledge my daughter is growing up'. Not brain surgery. Here are some of the other meaningless justifications:
- It's about decorum.
- My parents never let me.
- I was brought up this way.
- I just don't think it's appropriate.
- I don't want to think about it.
- I'm a single mother and I'm very aware what people think of me. (srsly)
I also like the mother who, when she visits her daughter's house, demands the boyfriend sleep in another room. 2009, people.
And this is all discussed on Radio 2, at midday. The daughter in question must be mortified - poor woman.
Max Mosley and liberal attitudes to Nazis
The other week I had a fairly heated argument about Max Mosley. I didn't blog it at the time for reasons that will become obvious, but since he's in the news again, why not.
For those who don't know, Max Mosley is head of something to do with Formula One, and was filmed having a(n allegedly) nazi-themed orgy with five prostitutes. At one point he apparently had his head checked for lice, which is a reference to concentration camps. Many many many people are disgusted, unsurprisingly, and many many many people think he should lose his job, and amongst these are some very liberal people.
So here's the thing, as I started arguing it. He may well be a nasty piece of work. He may be sympathetic to the Nazis. He may be an anti-semite. But until he does something, in the course of his job, that expresses any of these attitudes, I don't see the grounds for sacking him. Having a nazi-themed sex orgy may be distateful to many people, but isn't actually illegal. It's also not part of his job description, and was done in private (until the News of the World got hold of it, anyway). So how can it be liberal to demand he lose his job?
But the above isn't really an accurate reflection. Prostitution is clearly illegal, for a start, and doing something illegal is a fair reason to lose your job. Pragmatically, I see plenty of other problems. I wouldn't want to know the guy, and he probably needs mental help. I think there are suggestions he has behaved badly in his job, too.
All fair enough. I'd got off to a bad start in what had started as a casual discussion, as I hadn't explained myself properly. I wasn't actually intending to defend the guy in reality. I was really arguing about Hypothetical Max, and the general liberal principle.
Let's say they're Theoretical Prostitues, who are free and happy in their job and are treated properly by all their clients1. Let's say he has done nothing wrong job-wise, and there's no reason to think he will. People may react still differently to him in this world, but they shouldn't. Nobody has been harmed, and his fantasies are all in his head. You can't say 'people at work will react differently to him so his job will be affected', as that's the point - should people act differently towards him (at work, if you want to shun him personally, sure)? (In Theoretical World people think things through before speaking).
I thought this would calm the situation down, but the person I was arguing with still disagreed. They said he should still suffer. When pressed, their argument became, essentially, the Nazis were really, really evil, and expressing any kind of desire or sympathy relating to them is unconscionable. I was even warned not to blog it, as I would 'upset a lot of people'. Which is bit of an overestimation of my readership, but since we're in theoretical land anyway, I'll bite.
Let me just stress again that I am not defending the guy in actuality. I am also not trying to trivialise Nazis, or people's hatred of them. I'm just confused.
I was surprised that somebody I consider (very) liberal reacted so badly, and the vehemence of their argument took me by surprise. I really, really pissed them off, and I'm wondering what I'm missing. It may be a case of 'there are lots of more important illiberal problems to work on before we get to this kind of thing'. But, still.
What do you think? I'm not defending liberal principles with a flaming sword, here, and I'm fully prepared to be convinced. But I don't yet see the argument, and I don't see the harm in discussing it, either...
- I doubt Theoretical Prostitutes really exist, but that's irrelevant [↩]
We were a bird
Shortlisted passages from this year's Bad Sex Awards. This is my favourite, from Boy Meets Girl1:
Her hand opened me. Then her hand became a wing. Then everything about me became a wing, a single wing, and she was the other wing, we were a bird. We were a bird that could sing Mozart. Her beautiful head was down at my breast, she caught me between her teeth just once, she put the nip into nipple like the cub of a fox would.
Was that her tongue? Was that what they meant when they said flames had tongues? I was hard all right, and then I was sinew, I was a snake, I changed stone to snake in three simple moves, stoke stake snake, then I was a tree whose branches were all budded knots, and what were those felty buds, were they antlers? were antlers really growing out of both of us? was my whole front furring over? and were we the same pelt? were our hands black shining hoofs? were we kicking? were we bitten? We were blades, were a knife that could cut through myth, were two knives thrown by a magician, were arrows fired by a god, we hit heart, we hit home, we were the tail of a fish were the reek of a cat were the beak of a bird were the feather that mastered gravity were high above every landscape then down deep in the purple haze of the heather were roamin in a gloamin in a brash unending Scottish piece of perfect jigging reeling reel can we really keep this up?
It's so much more silly than the explicit stuff. Norman Mailer wins the most horribly memorable simile award with '[the penis] was now as soft as a coil of excrement'. Ew.
- according to the Guardian, anyway - it's possibly Girl Meets Boy [↩]
Trying to have sex with a bike might be odd, but is it criminal?
Here's a headline you don't see every day:
A man caught trying to have sex with his bicycle has been sentenced to three years on probation.
He was staying at a hostel in Ayr and got caught in the act when cleaners unlocked his door and walked in. I admit to finding this particularly entertaining:
Stewart had denied the offence, claiming it was caused by a misunderstanding after he had too much to drink.
"I'm sorry, your honour, in the dark the BMX looked just like Kelly Brook". Said a spokesman.
But, seriously, how is this a crime? He was charged with:
a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex
WTF. Was this person not in a room on his own? And could they sound any more Victorian?
Weird as it may be, what's the actual problem here? It's not even a slap on the wrist, the guy is on probation for three years and is now on the sex offenders register. That's going to completely mess up the guy's life, which seems vastly disproportionate. Maybe there are more details that make this less pleasant; from the information given it seems arcane and ridiculous.
Sergei Morozov wants couples to take the day off work to have sex
I can't see this working in the UK:
The governor of Ulyanovsk region in Russia is offering prizes to couples who have babies in exactly nine months - on Russia's national day on 12 June.
Business owners are never going to permit a full day. Maybe a twenty minute shag break?
Three dubious moral judgments
One: the coming of the Lord
You know how it's been raining recently? Do you know why? It's because God hates the gays. It is. The Bishop of Carlisle says so:
"The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God's judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."
He expressed his sympathy for those who have been hit by the weather, but said that the problem with "environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate".
How broken does your brain have to be to believe this drivel? I could write plenty more, but Ophelia is better than me:
Funny god these bishops believe in. Arbitrary, whimsical, cryptic, absent-minded, brutal, sloppy, and stupidly vicious. We'd better hope it doesn't exist. Oblivion is vastly preferable to being bossed around by a petty shit like that for eternity. Funny that the bishops seem to find it attractive. (But not really funny at all of course, since it's merely a projection of their own petty shitness.)
Perfectly put. The Archbishop of Canterbury has of course been quick to disassociate himself from the remarks and to emphasise the inclusive nature of...oh, wait, never mind.
Two: it's icky and I don't like it
A mother has frozen some of her eggs for potential use by her daughter, who has a medical condition that will render her infertile. This is apparently ethically dubious because of 'identity problems':
Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, expressed sympathy with the family, but could not support storing the mother's eggs.
She said: "The psychological welfare of the baby itself has to be the principal concern.
"Such a baby would be a sibling of the birth mother at the same time as the direct genetic offspring of the grandmother donor.
"In psychiatry we are hearing more and more of children suffering from identity problems, and specifically a condition called 'genealogical bewilderment'. Could it possibly get more bewildering than this?
Fertilise with the grandfather's sperm? It's not really that complicated. Just because the child wouldn't quite fit with either of the usual definitions of 'child' or 'sibling' doesn't mean anything - it's just something new. I'd want to see strong evidence of psychological problems before denying anyone the chance of happiness through having children, if that's what they want. As it happens, 'genealogical bewilderment' was posited as a possible problem with adoption, but doesn't appear to exist. It's tempting to suggest that critics are just scared of things they don't know how to classify, but who knows.
Three: the EU is a porn merchant!
The EU created a channel on YouTube. The most watched video is 'Film Lovers Will Love This!'. There's a bit of a fuss as it shows:
men and women having sex in different ways and places, and ends with the words, "Let's come together".
I'm always happy to suffer for my website, so I watched it. It's mostly clips from Amélie. It's cut very quickly, there's no nudity, and it's pretty funny - I thought it was actually a decent advert. Conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris does not:
They do have an image problem but I think cobbling together 44 seconds of soft porn on the internet is not a brilliant way of solving it
Dude, that is to soft-core porn as a monkey is to Jeremy Paxman. Take a look at the top-shelf of the nearest newsagent, and get a grip. Wait, that sounded wrong, although it might actually help. Meanwhile, Labour MEP Gary Titley (stop it) said:
European films are about more than a quick slap and a tickle. It is bonkers that this clip gets so much attention.
I like this. I picture the two MEPs cornered by a reporter, trying to think how they should respond. The Labour MEP pretends not to understand why a video vaguely showing people having sex is popular. The Conservative MEP pretends he thinks it's disgusting. Over to people who will at least say what they really think:
A Polish MEP from the conservative League of Polish Families has accused the commission of using "immoral methods" to promote itself.
Is all sex now immoral? Somebody should tell them everything's fine in this case: all the actors were married.
European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said there had been a flood of complaints from Poland about an intimate scene between two men
It's the gays again. Not content with making it rain, they're now trying to...er...promote the EU. Infamy! What does Martin Selmayr have to say about it?
Fuming at what he called "quasi-religious bashing of the very important cultural diversity we have in the European Union", he said the lovemaking clips were excerpts from award-winning films, and that the commission was proud of the EU's rich cinematic heritage.
"The European Union is not a bible belt, we believe in freedom of expression and artistic creativity," he added.
Go Martin Selmayr! Let's not mince words, it's not 'quasi-religious bashing', it's just religious bashing. Find me all the atheist 'family values' groups, and I'll change my mind.
It's a good job I'm beyond moral reproach, isn't it?
All sex Thursday
Abstinence-only sex education, much favoured by the Bush administration, doesn't work:
WASHINGTON — Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.
Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students _ 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.
Their response?
Officials said one lesson they learned from the study is that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior.
Yes, that's certainly the obvious lesson. Is there any non-religious reason to think that casual, safe sex is a bad thing? Other than the obvious problems with 'safe'?
Closer to home, a 'sex theme park' will open in London later this year. It has, disappointingly, 'no rides'. Not even a bouncy castle. Or a carousel. Or a log flume. It does, however, include plenty of attractions designed to get you in trouble:
The theme park will include life-sized silicone-made models [?] which visitors can touch to discover erogenous zones.
People will also be able to build their ideal partner from a series of body parts
The aim of the park is to "give you all the information you need to become a fantastic lover". I think letting already-attached men build their ideal partner might guarantee them no sex for a long time.
And, since we're on the subject (kinda):
Not really all that safe for work.
Books and blogs and miscellany
Last night I went to a friend's birthday party at a Chinese restaurant, tonight I was in a Harvester for pre-dance socialising and eats, and tomorrow I'm going to my grandparents' for a meal. It's almost like I have a social life, sometimes.
Sorry it's a little quiet around here at the moment. I'm fairly busy, but it's not just that. When your blog is an outlet for whatever's going through your head, it becomes tricky during times when your thoughts are revolving around things you can't really blog about. Good grief that was a badly composed sentence. I apologise unreservedly for that sentence. There's not much I don't blog about, one way or another. Is nothing bad. Apologies, this is uncomfortably close to being a tease, which wasn't the intention. I shall stop.
Things that need mentioning, in greater detail than this:
- I have now read Scepticism Inc. and The Great Gatsby.
- I finally entered a whole bunch of my books into LibraryThing (I have a lot of Michael Connelly). I feel like it's not a very deep collection, and I am in a battle with the part of my brain that is worried people will laugh at the lack of serious / classic tomes. I will not start thinking like that. A random selection should appear on the front page's blogroll.
- Match.com asked me to complete an insane survey that was obsessed with sex, for example '[i]f you were to sleep with someone before you were ready, what would be the reason you would do that?'. Answers included "[i]f I felt I was losing interest in them so they no longer 'counted' as a potential soul-mate", which took me about five minutes to even understand. I like questions that create hypothetical situations then ask how I got into them.
- I bought a red nose! It is made of foam. I want to do something for Red Nose Day. Two years ago was the beard incident. Hmmm.
- I don't really know who Russell Brand is. I've come across many thirty-second clips, but have never seen him present/appear in anything, and have no idea what he's like. Apparently I'm the only person in the country for whom this is true.
- The writer of Severance has a good blog.
- As does the editor of New Humanist magazine.
- This afternoon I realised that floating swans look a bit like dead cows if you turn your head sideways:
- Running From Camera is great. Put camera on tripod. Set timer. Run like hell.
- Darwin Day is coming up.
- I missed National Gorilla Suit Day.
- I should also mention the holiday for people with not enough problems.
Plenty for me to catch up on, there.
The Sunday Times exposes an anonymous blogger for no reason
I've been reading Girl With a One Track Mind for a couple of months. It's an anonymous blogger's accounts of her sexual thoughts and experiences. I admit it's a little sexy - I suspect women talking about sex is always appealing to men - but mainly it's just fascinating. I've never particularly followed this kind of sex blog, but the quality of writing sets GWaOTM apart. With grace and wit 'Abby Lee' writes of a world completely different from mine, which is exactly the kind of thing I like to read.
Some months ago she was given a book deal for collected blog posts, and the resulting tome was published a week ago. Last weekend The Sunday Times took it upon themselves to expose her real identity1, and in so doing demonstrated their complete lack of journalistic standards. From a recent post of 'Abby's':
I have been in hiding for the last seven days, scared to go out, because I don’t want to be confronted by the journalists pursuing me or have more ‘paparazzi’ shots taken, like that secret, hidden, shot of me last week. This isn’t just my paranoia speaking: photographers have been camped outside my home, and also my parents’ home, ever since that despicable article which named me was printed.
Journalists have also been contacting people from my past – even the vaguest acquaintances of mine - and offering them money to talk about me, or provide photographs of me.
Ugh.
There was no point to the original exposé by The Sunday Times; in fact the article is simply wretched. It insinuates that the book is a fiction, makes a snide comment about the standard of the writing, and is at pains to point out that 'Abby' worked on the Harry Potter film set, because clearly sex = corrupt = contagious. But worst is the supposed moral high ground it takes and invites the reader to share.
The book will reignite the debate over female “raunch culture”, sparked by Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy’s book about the eagerness of young women to indulge in sexually overt behaviour. Levy argued “raunch” was corrupting women rather than empowering them.
The rest of the article seems to assume the veracity of this argument.
[Abby], whose mother is a Hampstead-based psychotherapist, is said to be an ardent feminist but she does not hide from the potential ambiguities of her situation.
Firstly, what does her mother's profession have to do with anything? Secondly, from what I know of Female Chauvinist Pigs the argument is hardly applicable. Being sexually active is not part of the argument that the 'raunch' culture of Girls Gone Wild and Legs Eleven, and women who (supposedly) strive to be the sexiest rather than the most accomplished, are betraying feminism. There's a definite undercurrent of 'sexual promiscuity = slut' about this article; my feminist knowledge isn't great, but I'm pretty sure this is exactly the kind of backwards attitude feminism fights against.
With such a shameless interest in sex it is no surprise [she] has gone to great lengths to try to conceal her identity.
Shameless? You could argue the literal meaning of the word, but it's clearly meant to be read as a moral statement; one that is, imho, both completely ridiculous and thirty years out of date.
[Abby] declined to comment when contacted this weekend. But she happily signed for a bouquet of flowers when told they were from her publishers.
I don't know what this is supposed to mean. Is she obviously an attention-seeker, unashamedly signing for flowers like that? Turns out that the reporter sent the flowers with the sole, and successful, intention of snapping a picture.
It's a pointless, purely destructive piece of writing. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of exposing somebody's anonymity, to do it for no reason whatsoever is simply vindictive, and I thought The Sunday Times was supposed to above this kind of crap. If you want to see a far more reasonable article, 'Abby' has an interview in today's Guardian.
- tagged with 'nofollow' [↩]
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
