First, they came for the perverts

Credit where credit's due.

I haven't written anything here for some time because of work commitments. But finally, I've spotted a story that's just made me determined to create the time.

It appears that Robert Stewart, a 51-year-old Scot, has been convicted of having sex with his bike. Yes, that's right. He was frotting away with the aforementioned vehicle in the privacy of his hostel room, when two cleaners knocked on his door. Presumably he didn't hear them, because he didn't answer. So they went and collected the master key – yes, his door was locked – and entered, only to find him having fun with the, er, bike.

They were so appalled – well, wouldn't you be – that they told the manager. Who was so appalled that he told the police. Who were so appalled that they arrested Mr Stewart and charged him. The Director of Public Prosecutions was so appalled that he was sent to court, where the judge and jury were so appalled that they convicted him and sentenced him to probation and signing on the Sex Offenders' Register.

Were it not so serious, it would be hilarious.

His room was locked. A bike is an inanimate object – just like a dildo or a butt plug. There is no law against shagging a bike. He was interrupted.

The Sex Offenders' Register is for keeping tabs on child abusers and rapists in order to protect the public from them – not someone who is interrupted when they're having a wank with a bike in the privacy of their locked room.

And what does this case say about privacy? If the cleaners interrupted him while he was having a more traditional wank, would he have been prosecuted then? If this was a hotel and two guests, on waking, decided to have sex and were so engaged with their fucking that they didn't hear the maid knocking, and she let herself in and saw them 'at it', what happens then? Do they get prosecuted and popped on the register if she's shocked?

Apart from simply being a stupid, stupid over-reaction to a situation, at a time when the UK is the CCTV capital of the world – in urban environments, you can expect to be photographed around 300 times a day (you'd expect us to have no crime) – at a time when the UK government is pushing ID cards and there is talk of a universal DNA database, this makes a statement that the law does not respect your privacy. You have no right to privacy. It's bleedin' Orwellian.

And all this at a time when the government continues to insist that consent means nothing, since you can be prosecuted for being spanked or spanking someone consensually (even though you can consent to getting in a boxing ring and hitting someone and being hit yourself).

What's really being perverted here? Justice?

If you can’t beat it – censor it

In case you’re not familiar with the story of Roy and Silo, these are two male penguins, living in New York zoo, as a couple. For some years, keepers had wondered why they hadn’t produced any chicks, but it took a vetinary check to confirm that they were both male.

And, after unsuccessfully trying to hatch a small rock, they were given a fertilised egg to look after, subsequently raising a baby penguin called Tango.


Now it seems that someone thought that this was a charming story and they sat down to write a little cartoon book about it, aimed at young children. Could anyone possibly be offended by such a tale of avian love?

Well, true to form, some parents in the Mid West have been complaining about the presence of the book in school libraries. There have been calls for it to be removed or put into ‘mature’ sections or for it not to be able to borrowed without a letter of consent from a parent.

These people must be really, really scared.

Presumably, the idea that homosexuality can occur in the animal kingdom, outside of humanity, is terrifying for people who view it as unnatural and against God.

Mind, this is the country that is going to play host to the world’s first Creationist museum – did you know that dinosaurs and man lived side-by-side? Scientists can’t tell how old bones are, you know, so they’re just inventing stuff when they say the world is older than 6,000 years. So there.

Perhaps we should simply be relieved that those objecting to the tale of penguins haven’t actually resorted to burning copies of the book. Presumably that’s just necessary for Harry Potter’s adventures.

All about Eve

What is it with religion and sex?

Fear, perhaps? Fear in particular, of women...

All the 'big three', monotheistic, Abrahimic religions have misogynistic aspects; many of their leaders continue to preach anti-women and anti-sex messages to the faithful, as well as using political clout to attempt to influence the lives of non-believers as well.

Yet puritanism is growing, particularly in Islam. Where puritanism grows, people find ways for outlets, as an article in Der Spiegel shows. But as the writers illustrate, puritanism also produces results other than frustration.

The common thread is women and female sexuality. It needs to be repressed. Women are to blame for 'The Fall' – Eve tempted Adam with the apple (knowledge). You want to keep men obedient and faithful? Then keep them ignorant. And you know, it's not a man's fault if he can't resist the temptations of a woman – so she wears a veil or a burka to stop the man being tempted.

Not that such an idea is unique to Islam; after all, it's not that many years ago that, if a female rape victim was prepared to press chanrges and go to court, she'd be treated as the criminal – her sexual history (if any) would be scrutinised and blamed; the question of what she was wearing would be analysed to see if she provoked the assault.

Christianity, of course, likes its women to be a bit like the Madonna – although a dose of the whore helps, if only for the sake of maintaining (and increasing) the numbers of the faithful. Ideas of monogamy and marriage and anti-abortion and anti-contraception (some of these varying across the Chritsian sects) help to avoid the faithful woman's inner whore escaping too much.

To (slightly) paraphrase Bertrand Russell: "religion... has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

Or, as the Spiegel article points out, it's downright immature and unhealthy.

Blair's Catholic mafia outed at last

Well, it seems that Ruth Kelly has finally shown her true colours.

Who cares about her position as equalities minister, her spiked garter must have been getting particularly tight of late, as she’s now put the brake on further anti-discrimination legislation being implemented.

It appears that Kelly (plus her deputy, the religious Meg Munn, and her boss, the religious Tony Blair) want to allow discrimination – as long as it’s by religious groups, against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

The legislation would stop religious bodies refusing services to anyone on the grounds of sexuality so, for instance, a religious hotel wouldn’t be able to turn away gay clientele; but Blair’s Catholic mafia are not only worried about that sort of thing, but also that it might mean issues such as ‘faith schools’ (current woolly euphemism for religious schools) not being allowed to block gays and lesbians using their premises on the grounds of sexuality, if they receive public funding.

It’s been said before, but what was going on when Kelly was handed the equalities post? A member of crackpot fringe sub-sect Opus Dei, which (together with the mainstream Catholic church) has extremely negative views on homosexuality, how can she possibly be fully committed to promoting and implementing legislation that’s aimed at ending discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals?

Nietzsche would be rolling in his grave – or perhaps this is inevitable if we’ve ‘killed God’? With the middle religious ground cleared by the advance of secularism, does this mean that the extremists can fill that void?

One thing’s certain – if we think that the only religious nutters are Muslims, then we ignore a serious danger within. Of course, the current trend of making Muslims in general scapegoats for a whole host of problems is the perfect smokescreen to push through an increasingly religious-influenced agenda.

Fundamentalists of any variety, religious or political, are dangerous.

Huge progress has been made in recent years on sexuality equality. Let’s not allow the loons to hold back further progress.

Blogging for Backlash

Today is blogging for Backlash day.

The British government remains determined to push through its ridiculous and ill-concieved legislation, On possession of extreme pornography.

To be as brief as possible. The plan for this new came out of the case of Graham Coutts, who was convicted of the murder of Jane Longhurst. Coutts was apparently rather fond of 'violent' porn and this was blamed for his partner's death – apparently by strangulation. However, Coutts had a long history of breath play – witnesses in court testified to around 200 occasions on which he had safely indulged this interest – it certainly predated his viewing of 'violent' internet porn.

This last summer, senior judges suggested that the jury in the case should have been offered a manslaughter charge. In other words, they accepted the possibility that Coutt's defence – that it was a game that went wrong – was at least as possible as murder.

Last year, the government started its consultation process into the proposed new law, which would make it an offence to view porn for the first time. But the consultation was massively flawed. The initial document from the Home Office admitted that no evidence exists linking viewing any kind of porn with violence toward women and children, but still pushes forward, apparently in the name of 'protecting' women and children. Apparently, even if a woman consents to make an "extreme" porn movie, she needs protection.

There's nothing about men in the porn industry needing protection – which illustrates just how paternalistic this planned legislation is.

But there are many other problems. The Home Office hasn't defined what will constitute "extreme" porn. During the consultation, suggestions materialised that the Home Office may be considering basing its banned list on the list of subjects that the British Board of Film Classification deems too 'heavy' for 'R' rated films. This includes watersports and, of course, female ejaculation, since the BBFC doesn't believe that this exists and anything claiming to be female ejaculation must really be pissing.

Nobody has yet explained why watersports are so dreadful that scenes need censoring – but then logic has no place in any of this.

Of course, one of the other problems is what would happen if you accidentally opened or downloaded images that were banned, and the police came calling.

Then there's the privacy issue, which comes up because of the Human Rights Legislation.

Of course, it's all a good distraction from the almighty cock-up (so to speak) of Iraq.

Get informed, get involved and tell others.

A shameless act of self-promotion

My first collection of short stories has just come out in its second edition. For anyone who can read German, it's 10 SM, bisexual stories.

It's available direct from the publisher or from Amazon in Germany.

The first edition had a few reviews on German SM sites – and was very well received.

I'm hoping to find an English-language publisher – so if anyone reading this knows one or is one, then please don't hesitate to get in touch.

The collection includes stories about female submissives and Dommes, in straight and all-women situations. In other words, it's the best of most possible worlds.

Having started life as a series of self-exploration exercises, responses from a few readers suggested they might be worth more than that. And when they were picked up by a German publisher, I was more than happy. Indeed, what a thought: exporting SM porn to Germany!

For anyone who takes the literary plunge and buys it – enjoy! I'm sure that you will.

Is this the world we created?

"Find me somebody to love" – but not in Zanzibar if you're gay. And not if you want to celebrate what would have been the 60th birthday of the late, great Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

Homosexuality was banned on the Tanzanian archipelago just two years ago (there's progress for you) and local Muslims attempted to get Saturday's beach party in Mercury's memory banned, since it would apparently have given local youngsters "the idea that homosexuals are accepted in Zanzibar," explained a spokesman for the association for Islamic Mobilisation and Propagation (Uamsho).

"We have a religious obligation to protect morals in society," he continued.

You see, this is what's such a piss-off about religions: the religious seem to think that they have some sort of monopoly on 'morals' and can define and enforce them for others. The phrase 'personal faith' means little to them, because they never happier than when they're making sure that they don't keep their faith personal.

Some people wanted to have a beach party to celebrate an artiste who died 15 years ago. So what? Are the religious so insecure in their beliefs that they need to fight absolutely anything that they don't like, even though it in no way materially threatens them (or, presumably, their god)?

Roll on the day when superstition finally dies out.

And happy birthday Freddie Mercury; you would have been 60 today – an entertainer for whom the word 'great' would not have been an exaggeration.