Go Away, 'Batin.

A few years ago I parodied the last government's determination to ban things with a proposal to ban masturbation. David Cameron is trying to make this a reality- with moves to make people apply with their full name and contact details as they ask their ISP if the can watch pornography. Not child porn, but consensual adult porn.

Forcing people to make details of their private sexual behaviour known to their broadband providers is intrusive to an extent that is hard to overstate.

Cameron says it's about protecting the children, but his obsession with stopping teenage boys having a wank looks positively Victorian and is downright creepy. At least the Victorians turned their anti-masturbation zealotry to invent good stuff like Cornflakes.

Now And Then

Daily Mail, 19th of April:

God only knows what the long-term effects of regularly viewing online  pornography will be on our children and teenagers, because this generation is the first to be exposed to it. 

But most of us have a pretty good idea: a distorted view of sex and human  relations is probably the least of it.
.....
Surely what all the providers should be doing is requiring anyone wanting access to online porn actively to opt in to these deeply degrading services.

Plainly, there’s no substitute for parents keeping a vigilant eye on their children, especially their internet use.

But if the industry won’t regulate itself to deal with this deeply corrosive social menace, it must be forced to do so.

Daily Mail, 14th of May:

An 'absolutely stunning' photograph of Madonna posing naked on a bed while smoking a cigarette has sold for nearly £15,000.

The sum is three times the estimate placed on the image that was taken in 1990 during the period when the singer had bleach-blonde hair and dark eye make-up.

It is a black and white photo and Madonna has her breasts exposed and just a white sheet covering her pudenda while she lies on a bed.

 

Complete with picture of course.

Think Of The Children

No I am Pornacus.

Actually I'm not and want to keep the site work safe for now but I approve of the idea.

The government's proposal to ban porn from ISPs is probably the worst idea they've come up with yet. Whilst I can appreciate why they want to keep pornography out of the reach of schoolchildren- after all teaching kids about felching in sex education classes is much less fun when the element of surprise is lost it is a very slippery slope to be on. If the government can ban ISPs from delivering porn it isn't much of a stretch to suppose that they will soon be banning other stuff.

Moreover it isn't just bad because of what it may lead to, but bad in itself- like most adults on the internet, including I am 100% sure the minister behind this idea, ED Vaizey- I sometimes look at websites that might be classified as pornographic (and cruel to penguins but that's an issue for the RSPB). I don't want to have to write to a government agency to ask for permission to continue my viewing habits. There is zero evidence that pornography is harmful despite numerous attempts to find such a link.

The presence of Ed Vaizey at the heart of this is interesting, he was for a long time one on of the Conservatives' self proclaimed social liberals. He probably still is. Yet it is clear that he doesn't have socially liberal principles from his actions here, instead socially liberal is a euphemism for socially fashionable- a means for ingratiating themselves with younger urban voters rather than a principled stand.

Avid Porn Consumer Applies For Job At BBC

I don't particularly object to Jacqui Smith applying for a "top job" at the BBC especially if she takes advice on programming from her husband.

The Jacqui Smith Porn Poll Result.

Astonishingly most people think that I am shameless exploiting the Jacqui Smith porn scandal!:

Are some bloggers covering the Jacqui Smith porn scandal excessively in order to bolster their site traffic?

A) Yes they are, the scandal mongerers. 3 (7%)
B) Yes YOU are, you shameless c**t: 24 (61%)
C) No they are covering it appropriately: 7 (17%)
D) What Jacqui Smith porn scandal?: 5 (12%)


Update; Jacqui Smith's porn obsession knows no bounds!

New Poll About Jacqui Smith's Porn.

I'm interested to see whether some bloggers have been covering the Jacqui Smith porn scandal in such a way as to encourage hits, perhaps by including 'Jacqui Smith' and 'porn' in the title of every post, or by referring to the alleged titles "Raw Meat 3" and "By Special Request".

Let's Not Dwell On Jacqui Smith's Porn Shame.

Instead let's remember some of the serious initiatives she has promoted during her tenure as Home Secretary, such as this one earlier this month:

Jacqui Smith to tackle 'sexualisation' culture

Good luck with that.

Jacqui Smith's Porn.

I really don't know what to say:

The Home Secretary is to pay back parliamentary allowances claimed for pay-per-view television services, reportedly including two adult films.

Jacqui Smith said she "mistakenly" claimed for the TV package while billing for an internet connection.

The Sunday Express claims the £67 Virgin Media bill included two 18-rated features viewed last April.

Ms Smith was not home when the films were viewed, sources told the BBC. She lives with her husband, Richard Timney.

How are we supposed to trust the government with data protection if the Home Secretary can't even keep the fact that her husband has been watching porn secret?

Update: Can I suggest that everyone adopts Daniel 1979's term for this story- "Wankergate".

Junk Science & Political Ideology.

The search for the pathological conservative is one of the great missions among a certain part of academia. James Q Wilson comments on a certain aspect of it:

Another challenge is politicized assessment of the genetic evidence. Ever since 1950, when Theodor Adorno and his colleagues published The Authoritarian Personality, scholars have studied right-wing authoritarianism but neglected its counterpart on the left. In his study of identical twins reared apart, Bouchard concludes that right-wing authoritarianism is, to a large degree, inherited—but he says nothing about the Left. This omission is puzzling, since as Bouchard was studying twins at the University of Minnesota, he was regularly attacked by left-wing students outraged by the idea that any traits might be inherited. A few students even threatened to kill him. When I pointed this out to him, he suggested, in good humor, that I was a troublemaker.

Indeed.

In more 'pathological conservatives' news the New Scientist reports- "Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers". This is based on a study which find that some of the more conservative states (based on voting) have higher rates of porn channel subscription, using this logic you could conclude that blacks in the US are overwhelmingly Republican because the states with the highest proportion of African-Americans are overwhelmingly Republican (ie Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana etc).

Furthermore it isn't as if more detailed evidence on porn consumption and political preference isn't available and the evidence from the US shows that 32% of Democrats have watched a X-rated movie in the past year compared to 26% of Republicans (and this is before carrying out any correction for the sex of respondents) confirming that the biggest wankers are indeed on the left.

(via)