"I'm not naive. I know why men watch pornography"
I know plenty of women who watch it too, including my girlfriend, my ex-wife, my flatmate...
If she thinks it's just men, perhaps she *is* a touch naive after all...
Jacqui Smith 'shocked' to discover we're drowning in sea of porn
Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has professed herself "shocked" at the availability of porn on the internet after investigating the issue for a radio documentary. Which raises the question of what exactly she thought she was cracking down on during her time in charge of law and order. Smith famously left her job as Gordon …
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's whacky
Why has her head grown enormous but her hair is perfectly average?
And what was that pose on #bbctw last week? She didn't know what to do with her hands. She doesn't come off as cuddly, attractive, personable. That's why her husband sort the cool solace of one and zeros.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iADOrCEV82Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NieBC4o7k
She should have been retired and not somewhere nice.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 12:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not really awash with porn
Since she did not discover any porn during her time in office, the claim of being awash with porn is completely unfounded.
the equally useless Virginia Bottomley also claimed that european broadcasters were 'beaming a tide of pornography into our homes'
Grow up Jacqui, you were completely unaware of any porn on the internet
UNTIL YOU WENT AND LOOKED FOR IT !
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:16 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: Not really awash
My thoughts exactly. If it is only found when you go looking for it, can it really be considered a threat to those who don't want it, such as Home Secretaries? Seems to me that she has drawn precisely the wrong conclusion from her experiences. Still, she has a telly program to sell now, so perhaps *that* explains her new-found "shock".
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:17 GMT Graham Marsden
@UNTIL YOU WENT AND LOOKED FOR IT !
Ah, but you have to remember that it's just *knowing* that it's out there which is the problem!
People like Wacky Jacqui simply *cannot* bear the idea of others looking at things they don't like, hence the desire to pass the legislation like the Dangerous Pictures and Dangerous Cartoons acts.
It's laughable that she says "The internet service providers need to take more responsibility." err, no Jacqui it's *YOU* who needs to take more responsibility and understand that everyone else *also* needs to take responsibility for what they (or their children) look at. We don't need your Nanny State saying "We think this is bad for you, so *you* are not allowed to see it".
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 13:39 GMT Is it me?
Sadly
It's not just Jacqui but all politicians, in that and many other respects, and as we move to a more and more presidential style of politics, the more we will get one persons vision of what we can and cannot see and do, and the less our political representatives will have minds of their own.
Be aware that Jacqui may have one view of the Nanny State, and Theresa has another, and that will always be true. When a politician rails against the Nanny State, it's only because it isn't theirs, be they Nick, David, or Milliband the younger.
JC
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 12:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ah, so she's sexist too
Quote: But she insisted, "I'm not naive. I know why men watch pornography. But I think greater availability on the internet is worrying, the way porn is seeping into the mainstream."
Im afraid naive is exactly what you are, Jaqui, because you still apparently believe that only men watch pornography. I know its difficult for your "innocent" brain to comprehend, but sometimes, women enjoy pornography, and even sex, too. I know, crazy isnt it.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 12:58 GMT John Sturdy
More evidence of how far from this planet MPs are
How does someone so far out of touch with reality get into a position of such power in a supposedly representative democracy?
Or is there really such a large pool of such naive people, that it is in fact representative for some of them to get into government?
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 12:58 GMT seanj
Smith...
Jaqcui Smith is a nobody, a has-been - a barely has-been at that. Why anyone would give airtime to this hypocritical, thieving waste of taxpayer's money (not to mention waste of air, carbon and space) is beyond me.
Flames - fire pits are what's needed, fire pits with heat exchangers that will keep children from disadvantaged families warm in winter. She always harped on about "thinking of the children", well now she can make a real difference.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:01 GMT Jedibeeftrix
The authoritarian tendencies of Labour
""The internet service providers need to take more responsibility. I don't agree with the argument that if we restrict anything available on the internet we'll turn into China.""
The authoritarian tendencies of Labour stand out markedly from the libertarian bent of the coalition, and given how unpopular all the big-state nannying is has the potential to utterly bury them at the next election.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:51 GMT Pete 2
A different sport
No, but talking b@@@@@@cks is. Sadly we didn't decide that in time to get it into the olympics (we already have a world-class stadium for it, too). If we had, we'd have won gold, silver and bronze in every possible combination of the event: Mens, Womens, mixed, team events, short-distance, long-distance and relay. Not forgetting long b@@@@@cls, high b@@@@@cks, pole-b@@@@@cks and triple b@@@@@@@cls(!!!) too.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:12 GMT James O'Shea
She's done the impossible
She's gone and made a statement so stupid that not even Sarah the pit bull bitch/mama grizzly/whatever vicious blood-swiling animal she fantasizes about next would utter it. And Sarah is the current Gold Standard for political idiocy on this side of the Atlantic, eclipsing by a significant margin both GW Bush and Dan 'Potatoe' Quayle. Combined. Jacqui has zoomed right past all other possible claimants to the throne, including Christine 'the witch' O'Donnell. (Who, for the record, must have been adopted. No Irish lass could ever be _that_ stupid, not even when blind staggering drunk.)
Congratulations, Jacqui. Once again Britannia rules.
Paris, 'cause even Paris has more sense.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:12 GMT The Alpha Klutz
"the way porn is seeping into the mainstream."
I find that shocking too, the way advertisers use sex to sell their trashy products.
Or the way in which trashy shows shamelessly use sex appeal to get people sat in front of the TV watching those adverts.
"I don't agree with the argument that if we restrict anything available on the internet we'll turn into China."
Why is everything measured in terms of China or Hitler? Because you're not-quite-Hitler(TM) yet it's okay. I have a strange idea: why don't you forget about China for two seconds and start thinking about Britain? You know, freedom and all that shit? Some of us know people who died for it.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:12 GMT Adrian Challinor
Jacqui Smith 'shocked' to discover
...that we are drowning in a sea of free porn on the Internet.
"...If only my B**st*rd husband had known this, he would not have paid for some pay-per-view, I wouldn't have claimed for it, and I would still have my job!!!!! Damn all this free stuff,. WHY DID NO-ONE TELL ME!!! ...."
Paris, because if you have to ask, you should not be reading this.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:14 GMT PatrickEB
Jacqui Smith tries to blame porn...
Really? She and hers husband watch some porn and she claims it on her expenses.
Now she's decided that if it wasn't so easily available, they wouldn't have done it.
Sounds so much like a self-righteous failure to take personal responsibility.
I've no problem with ISPs being forced to 'attempt' to restrict the traffic in illegal pornography (child pornography for instance) but if something is legal to trade in, then it has nothing to do with the ISPs.
Smith should take personal responsibility for what happened and stop trying to externalise the issues as if they belong to someone or somebody else.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:12 GMT JohnG
We know what's good for you
"The internet service providers need to take more responsibility. I don't agree with the argument that if we restrict anything available on the internet we'll turn into China."
No - the ISPs should simply provide connectivity and avoid any participation in efforts to filter what we can access. That Smith cannot see what is wrong with censoring the Internet is evidence that she should never have had the role of Home Secretary in a western democracy. Her former constituents have made it quite clear that they (like the rest of us) have had enough of her policies and questionable expense claims by electing a Conservative in her place.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 14:55 GMT John Smith 19
@Intractable Potsherd
"Though I'd quite like to see Ripley taking the nutter apart with the exoskeleton...
... but would that be counted as porn?"
Well....
Under Wackinesse's violent porn law if it's got a BBFC certificate the answer is no.
But
If it's a lovingly crafted (and anatomically accurate) depiction of the action you plan that would make it a "realistic" depiction of violence against a women, the answer is yes and you'd be completely busted.
Of course if you posted it on YouTube and carefully avoided any mention of character names or back story (to avoid DMCA take down requests by the copyright holders) it could stay visible *indefinitely*.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Parental responsibility
I have to explain to my kids that there's stuff on the internet that they shouldn't access until they are adults (and take some measures to back up the message), I also have to explain about right and wrong and not to steal.
A pity Jacqui's parents didn't deliver the same message.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:32 GMT Loyal Commenter
An open letter to Jacqui Smith:
Dear Jacqui,
Despite your proselytising and assumed moral superioriry, sex is, always has been, and will always remain a natural part of human behaviour. Therefore an interest in sex is both natural and healthy.
The converse, namely your attempts to engender a sense of shame in people who express their natural tendencies is both unnatural and, to myself and many others, somewhat sinister.
Whilst there is undoubtedly a large amount of pornography available on the internet, much of it for free, in most cases to find it, one must go looking for it. Even a Well Known Search Engine does not return pornographic results unless explicitly set to do so.
Might I suggest that if the existence of such material causes you such offence, you can easily avoid the possibility of experiencing any and all such matter by taking a sharpened pencil and inserting it carefully into the centre of each of your eyeballs in turn.
PS, my contempt for you knows few bounds. My reason for this is a follows: In general most people will take exception to having the moral viewpoints of others inflicted upon them. For the sake of the children, and every other living thing on this planet, please stop trying to inflict your own poorly formed moral viewpoints upon others. Some people might actually listen to them, which many others would see as damaging to society. Society tends to form its own moral framework independent of those who shout their beliefs loudly.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:17 GMT HFoster
*applause*
I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head.
I regularly wonder why the hell we're still adhering to Victorian shame morality (i.e. their knee-jerk response to Roman-era sexual imagery found at various archaeological sites, including Pompeii, which led to a swift kibosh on images of nudity - which had until then been relatively acceptable), considering how much we claim to be a more thoughtful society now.
I'm not saying porn should be on CBeebies or the like, but treating it as something dirty to be ashamed of is, IMHO, more dangerous than accepting it.
And you're spot on - as a society, we need a healthier attitude to sex and sexuality. It might help curb STI's and unwanted pregnancies if we have the balls to say to the younger generation, "this is what's going to happen to your body, and these are some of the possible consequences. Be in control."
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:32 GMT Oliver 7
Still fail
Jacqui, oh Jacqui! With each utterance you reveal yourself to be a bigger fool than we all took you for anyway. Having spent your time in office attempting to restrict and track people's activity on the Internet and passing draconian laws on pornography, the irony of seeing your husband exposed as a consumer of porn and yourself as a fraudster was hilarious.
However now, having supposedly studied the phenomenon of Internet pornography, it is clear that you didn't have a clue what you were legislating for whilst in office, still have no clue about pornography (an exclusively male pastime?) and, furthermore, have drawn all the wrong lessons from your newly acquired knowledge (e.g. your inherent acceptance that unqualified censorship is OK). The only relief for the rest of us is that you no longer have any ability to affect people's lives.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:32 GMT brokensocialsteve
If she's looking for something to be outraged about...
Why not try music videos.
A lot of those videos basically are soft core porn now and are on all day and night. The sexualisation is depicted as aspirational with women as objects and something to be obtained and owned. Kids get plonked in front of the tv all day and take these things in.
Porn is honest about what it is, there is no dressing it up (well there is sometimes). Everyone knows it's taboo and not a true reflection of how life is and how people should act. You know it's wrong, you hide it away, but enjoy it. That is the difference.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:14 GMT Argh!
Except....
"Everyone knows it's taboo and not a true reflection of how life is and how people should act."
Except that increasingly it seems that teens especially and young adults *don't* understand that porn isn't reality and it's a direct concequence of this woman and her ilk that demonise porn and try to *make* it taboo.
So instead of being educated about what it is and it's place and function children find it by stealth and sneakyness and that only makes it more attractive and removes the possibility of any kind of adult or societical guidence that might promote understanding.
Porn isn't "taboo" just a natural function of human sexuality but like anything else you try and ban it only makes it more attractive.
OK some of it is pretty icky but that's personal taste and to my mind anything that's done between consenting adults is their business and that of anyone interested and everyone else can choose to ignore it. I suspect if politicians would stop being quite so sanctimonious and chest beating for cheap votes the country would be in a better state. "Not china"? Too late dear, we're already a good portion of the way there... and "Shocked to discover...."? Has she *heard* of the interenet? Or even Avenue Q? There's a reason for the famous song "The Internet Is For Porn"......
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 10:00 GMT Goat Jam
The FAIL is for you
Where was MTV mentioned? Oh, that's right, it wasn't.
Where I live, saturday and sunday morning TV is inundated with tarts wearing underwear doing pelvic thrusts at the camera while miming to appalling "music" with liberal application of pitch correction to compensate for the utter inability to sing.
I'm no anti-porn nut, but the values espoused in those music videos are those of the gutter. It's not just the cheap sexual imagery that permeates them it is the whole appeal to the lowest common denominator that really makes cringe.
The whole thing just reeks of cheap and nasty and is amjor contributor to the stupidification of our young people.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:34 GMT CD001
You know what...
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But I think greater availability on the internet is worrying, the way porn is seeping into the mainstream.
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Fuck the web - Playboy is a brand now - ok, it's not hard-core intawebz pron downloaded from the States, Japan or wherever but you can buy Playboy just-about-anything now.
You're worried about porn "seeping into the mainstream"? Look at the pre-pubescent girls wearing Playboy t-shirts or documentaries on "Girls of the Playboy Mansion" or whatever - one porn brand at least is already about as mainstream as you can get.
Mind, not that I expect better from the heinous, Stalin-worshipping little cave-troll.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 10:00 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
Sir
There is a show that is put on telly that offends me if I ever happen across it and it's much, much worse than some dodgy internet porn.
It's that thing in the states where they dress little children up as porn stars and get seedy looking judges to decide which one they want to take home with them, or something.
Subverting the minds of the young is a far more worrying trend than some gods to honest penis pumping action. And you Jaqui, the fucking retard, Smith - are managing to damage not only children, but adults too.
Actually this is just another long-winded way of saying fuck off as well, so I'll leave it at that.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:51 GMT Graham Bartlett
@Jacqui: "I smell a pork barrel"
I have to say I've never heard it called that before. Although given the nature of the internet, I wouldn't be surprised to find there was a barrel-shaped one.
I'm also curious about the items mentioned in the article, but being as I'm at work, I'm really not going to Google them.
(That's not a penguin - I've just got the edible paint out...)
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
"shocked" at the availability of porn on the internet
She should check the availability of porn on her own family computer. I wonder if her son has downloaded anything that contravenes Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.
Any one know how old Jackie Smith's sons are? I wonder if there should have been any parental control on their access.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:16 GMT Vladimir Plouzhnikov
All this has happened before...
Time for a new cover of that Deep Purple's song:
Jacqui Smith is a hypocrite
She does all the things that she tells us not to do
Selling filth from a corner shop
And knitting patterns to the high street queue
She paints roses, even makes them smell good
And then she draws titties on the khazy wall
Drowns kittens just to get a thrill
And writes sermons in the Sunday Chronicle
How did you lose your virginity, Jacqui Smith ?
When will you lose your stupidity, Jacqui Smith ?
Jacqui told Internets not to write such trash
Said it was a waste of public money
She made a fuss, they made apologies
But everybody thought the show was funny
When the nation knew you'd had children
It came as such a surprise
We really didn't know you'd had it in you
How you did it we can only surmise
How did you lose your virginity, Jacqui Smith ?
When will you lose your stupidity, Jacqui Smith ?
Jacqui Smith, you're not alone
But you're a long way behind our times
What we do in full frontal view
Is more honest than your clean-up mind
What I'm saying, Jacqui Smith is
When you can spare a minute
Go find your friend the porny Lord
Dig your self a hole and jump in it
How did you lose your virginity, Jacqui Smith ?
When will you lose your stupidity, Jacqui Smith ?
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:53 GMT Neil Charles
I heard a quote once
Along the lines of, "If politicians knew what it was like to ride a high powered motorbike at speed on a country road, they'd ban it tomorrow."
I'd really like my politicians to be normal, but failing that I'll take as out of touch and unaware of what the rest of us are up to as possible please.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13:59 GMT Matt Hawkins
Jacqui please just go away
Ah poor Jacqui. She is so innocent.
Not innocent enough to avoid working the system for financial gain. Not innocent enough to avoid charging the tax payer for her premium TV services. How is a premium TV service required for her to carry out her duties as an MP?
Sorry Jacqui but no one cares what you think.
The only shocking thing on the internet would be if her husband released a Paris Hilton style video of them together. That would have me burning my router.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 10:11 GMT Annihilator
Well if Stephen Fry said it..
It must be true then! Not to mention though, that in the same episode (as I was yelling "bollox!" at the screen) he mentioned "the web" and "the internet" as the same basic thing..
I can well believe that 70% of email traffic is spam, but I'd be amazed if email made up more than 5% of all net traffic. Web is around 45%, P2P is about 30%.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:14 GMT Mark Olleson
Big difference
There's a humungous difference between the kind wares on show at Erotica - intended for use by consenting adults for sexual role-play - and pornography - where concerns definitely exist about the exploitative relationship between the talent and the producers.
She really has just proved how unsuitable she was as a Home Secretary.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:15 GMT RussellM
The real expenses issue?
Surely she didn't lose her job because of the pay-per view movies - she was cuaght fiddling her expenses for a second home?
"Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed £22,948 in 2007/08 in taxpayer-funded allowances for her second home, official figures have shown."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5077162/Jacqui-Smith-expenses-claims-total-157631.html
If I stole £22,948 I would expect to be charged with theft and convicted. I wouldn't expect to be able to hide behind a £10 charge for movies.
Russell
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Interesting Turn of Phrase
It's a bit weaselly of Jacqui to say that she "knows why men watch porn". Why doesn't she tell us what she knows?
Or is that an attempt to appeal both to the extremists (who know that men watch porn because they hate and want to subjugate women) and the centrists (who know that men watch porn as a healthy sexual release but might still be influenced by an argument that too much availability of porn could be harmful)?
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 14:47 GMT Dazed and Confused
Chicken or egg
Is porn creeping into the main stream, or in main stream creeping into the "pronnet"
Didn't much of the public internet get paid for by pron surfers?
Weren't most of the early commercially successful websites (ones that made money rather than hoped they'd make money in the future) devoted the pron.
Didn't these guys sort out the idea of secure payments over the pronnet.
Sure there were things in the net before pron, alt.sex was not the first usenet group. But before alt.sex.pictures the whole of usenet was a tiny but then in about 1988 the picture group arrived and the size exploded, disks filled over night and bandwidth upgrades had to be planned if you wanted to take a complete feed.
Back in the 90s I read an interesting article about this phenomenon in the Torygraph while stuck on a plane. The jorno compared this with the invention of home video, moving pictures, photography, printing, art. In all these cases "sex" rapidly became the fastest way of funding the creative process. There was a ready market that would accept poor quality and pay high prices in the early days just because it was the only thing on offer.
Wacky Jacki of course missed all this. She wouldn't know anything about it because she's obviously never bother to use the net first hand. I can't believe anyone can use the net for long without either coming across a site that has been filtered by a setup someone else has setup for her or viewed a site that El Reg would classify as NSFW.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 10:00 GMT Goat Jam
It's true
Women gain their power over men through restricting and controlling access to "what men want".
When other women give it away for free it reduces the value of their own sexuality in the marketplace.
The irony of course is that it was feminists who spent decades trying to turn women into men and men into women and as a result we have things like the "Girls Gone Wild" video series where sad, unfortunate college girls get drunk and bang strangers on camera for no financial gain (that I am aware of).
I would love to see Wacquie's face while watching GGW vids, it might be as funny as the "Two Girls One Cup" reaction vids that were all the rage a few years back.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 15:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
This is what happens to disgraced politicians
The clever ones become management consultants, lobbyists, all-expenses-paid public speakers or world peace envoys.
The others become media pundits and personalities. Well at least she's not quite as ghastly as Neil and Christine Hamilton (who mercifully seem to have gone away now).
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 15:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
too dangerous for the proles
"Why she is worried is less clear – apparently we were awash in smut during her time in office, yet it was not enough of an issue to have even crept onto her radar. One member of her family has admitted to using porn, while another clearly knows what is out there, yet in her words remains "very well-adjusted"."
There's no inconsistency here; "do as we say, not do as we do", is a Labour mantra, after all, nanny knows best.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Jaquie, you're looking in the wrong place.
Pixel-poon bashing by some increasingly irrelevant, irrevocably indoctrinated[1] paleo-feminist is the least of our worries. After 13 years or more of Marriage 2.0, eat-cheat-leave, responsibility free entitlement narcissistic ego boosting, crap education, PUA slimeballs (the rise of Roissy et al), guilt free hedonism (with liver failure and STDs), the promotion of an infantile culture, I give you: BrokeNCYDE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8F5YSA1Oz0&feature=channel (NSFW)
That is what is in your childrens face, right now. In comparison, it makes the rightly reviled mini-pops look wholesome, and the Sex Pistols positively quaint.
[1] Alliteration always amuses adaptable adherents, although often offends outraged ossified opinionated oiks.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:17 GMT Graham Marsden
" I don't agree with the argument that...
"... if we restrict anything available on the internet we'll turn into China."
Of course not, Jacqui, just like you never agreed with *anything* that didn't fit with your own personal set of prejudices and bigotry, but you still thought that your personal tastes ought to govern what everyone else is allowed to see and read...
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
as bad
As bad as the old witch was we just have to be glad she's not a patch on the guy running Tokyo at the moment whose completely disconnected from reality but very popular with "right thinking" Tokyoites.
Read about the man, he has similar dreams as uk politicos (making drawings illegal) though he draws the line at porn and junior idol industry, they're fine (Yakuza money anybody?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintar%C5%8D_Ishihara
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 16:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Eh?
"The internet service providers need to take more responsibility. I don't agree with the argument that if we restrict anything available on the internet we'll turn into China."
Responsibility for what exactly? Does she have some sort of maximum porn quota in mind? Should their be a maximum of 10 porn sites and the ISPs ban any others?
If she walked into a sex shop it sounds like she'd be expecting three magazines on a table and nothing else.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 22:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Sounds promising
ISPs could be responsible for blocking porn which isn't whitelisted. To get on the whitelist you just need to apply for a special license. There would of course be an administration fee, renewable annually. And it may be necessary to inflate the cost by many orders of magnitude over the next few years to fund the growth of the licensing body. And as that body grows, its chief or director or whatever it likes to call itself would have to be paid a higher salary. I think we should suggest this to Jacqui and ask her who should be in charge of the scheme.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 22:26 GMT John Smith 19
@Chris Harrison
"All Jackie has to do is come up with a way so that every time someone clicks to see some pron online there is a 1% chance they'll get a picture of her in the buff instead."
Now that *might* work in most cases. But remember on the interweb there's a site for *every* interest.
Somewhere there *is* a site with a section devoted to Polaroids and caps of her Wackiness
Liberally decorated with......
Probably best not to dwell on it.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 20:34 GMT Bernard M. Orwell
...try to shut me down on MTV...
"Under Ms Smith, domestic violence was redefined to include giving your spouse verbal abuse. She confessed on television that she had verbally abused her hubby over porngate."
Now, I am NOT a Jaqui Fan (being human and reasonable in essence), but I will point out that she didn't author any such bill. She did, however, chair a panel entitled "Ending domestic violence against Girls and Women" that strongly implied that all domestic abuse was carried out by men and that young boys couldn't be considered as victims of abuse.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/27/papadopoulos_women_review/
The event I think you are referring to, fellow commentard, is that recently a high court handed down the judgement that 'emotional abuse' was to be treated in the same way as 'physical abuse' when it came to domestic violence. In the case in question the man was found guilty of domestic abuse because he shouted at his wife. A lot. Other factors that are now considered as 'abuse' are denying your partner money or criticising them (unreasonably).
http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/general-coffeehouse-chat-514/news-current-affairs-topical-discussion-12/525361-shouting-counts-domestic-violence.html
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=12684
(both genders represented for reasons of fairness and balance)
Personally, I wonder how long it will be before looking at a woman is considered sexual harrasment....
.....oh...wait....
http://www.ivillage.co.uk/sexual-harassment-and-the-law/83339
So, according to UK Law we can now no longer shout at, speak to without consent, criticise, refuse to give money when asked for it or even look at women.
Take note, chaps. It's the LAW.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 20:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Why is this her business again?
Really. If people want to watch porn (as long as it's not produced by violating someone else's liberties), then they should be able to do so.
Governments very easily forget we pay them to be there so solve our problems, not to invent moral standards for us.
Who's her to decide that porn is good or bad? It's the right of people to watch, or not, whatever they want, without a Nanny State controlling it.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 20:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
BBC - slaves to the Fingerwagging Tendency?
You could tell from the moment the BBC trailed this polemic what sort of a programme it would be. Does anyone really expect Jacqui Smith to have an epiphany and come out (Fnarr fnarr) in favour of Smut For All?
What I'm starting to smell is the BBC pushing an anti-individual liberty agenda. When did you last see a "documentary" on the BBC fronted by someone who thinks porn is a good thing? Or even a matter of individual choice? We've had fly-on-the-wall Vice squad, various exposes (sic) of the soft porn film industry, even lately why oral sex is dangerous...
Some time last year the BBC website started asking people about "their experiences with legal highs". I wondered what the Home Office wanted to ban - it turned out about 6 months later to be mephedrone. Since then we've had a rash of minor soap stars doing the "Reefer Madness" thing.
It's the process Chris Morris satirised so well a few years ago on C4. Strangely enough those programmes don't seem to have featured in the repeatorama that is Freeview.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 20:53 GMT RW
A amusing side issue
Suppose, just suppose, that in an attempt to purify the minds of decadent, sex-obsessed, and kiddy-diddling Britons, HM Gov issues a ukase to the effect that depictions of illegal acts are themselves illegal. Hence, kiddy porn (well, a lot of it, I would guess) is made illegal on objective grounds, but pictures that merely excite and disgust the Jacquis of the world aren't. All good, no?
Ah, but what about Hollywood films filled with depictions of illegal violence?
I rest my case.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 20:54 GMT Jonski
Meh
"I'm not naive. I know why men watch pornography. But I think greater availability on the internet is worrying, the way porn is seeping into the mainstream."
1) Yes she is.
2) For the same reason that women watch it?
3) It was always mainstream, just not publically admitted. Pron has been around as long as civilisation has, or longer.
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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 20:56 GMT John Smith 19
Watch out. Vaizey is a disciple of Ms Smith
Thinks ISP's should be "Responsible", not "dumb pipes" etc.
As for this documentary let's see.
Authoritarian and disgraced ex Home Secretary dumped by her constituency and busted for hubby trying to claim renting a porno on her expenses discovers...
There's a lot of porn on the internet.
Some of it you can get for free.
Up tight somewhat repressed people who go to an exhibition devoted to sex aids, swinging and porn show are likely to see things that might shock them.
Water is wet. The sky is Blue. Boiling water at sea level is hot.
I don't think I'll be tuning in to this.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 10:00 GMT SteveMD
Irrational twit
Smith would not know the real world if it bit her. The extreme porn ban and the dangerous cartoons act were two of the most irrational knee-jerk pieces of badly thought out and unjust laws ever pushed through parliament. She dealt a massive blow for female equality, proving that women ministers can be just as irrational, arrogant and plain wrong as their male counterparts.
As for her "innocence", testimony to a commons committee on this very subject provided clear evidence that with increases in access to hardcore porn there has been, in every place such records have been examined, a corresponding decrease in sexual assaults.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 15:26 GMT John Smith 19
AC@10:28
"Reminds me of the old myth about Queen Victoria banning homosexuality amongst men but not women because "Women don't do that.""
I think male homosexuality was made illegal under Disraeli, who could not quite work out how to explain to a women with 10 children, presumably a fairly active sex life and a husband with a pierced c**k that some women did not *like* men at all. OTOH explaining that men not having sex with women could *endanger* the future of the Empire was a much easier sell.
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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 11:46 GMT Dave Bell
Here we go again.
There are certainly aspects of porn which need attention.
Is censorship really the only available tool?
It's possible that some of the questionable aspects, such as the apparent attitude to women, arise from there being an audience that will pay for it, and just eliminating the porn will not change that attitude. It will still get passed on as part of the package of "manly" behaviour. And some of that was around in the far more constrained days of "Page three of The Sun".
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
