Thread 25 Starmer - Cheers for a falling out among thieves

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5338688-thread-24-starmer-casting-the-net-wider?

Clapping instead of shouting hear hear doesn't seem a bad idea.

Not convinced. They're both reflections of a performance, rather than an undertaking.

I studied in Germany for a year and remember being taken by surprise when everyone started banging their desk with pens to thank the teacher at the end of the lesson

Not everything unEnglish is better 😀

You have highlighted some of the issues and I agree with you about simplicity wherever possible.

As for who is paying and who is selling, it should apply as much to a man paying for a so-called rent boy, for example.

As for who is paying and who is selling, it should apply as much to a man paying for a so-called rent boy, for example.

I take it you are writing the assumption that women can't pay for sex into law ?

Yes it should be kept in simplicit terms. It's not beyond the wit of humankind to do this.

Well, you do it then.

Yes.

That’s working on the Queen Victoria principle and why it was never illegal for women to practise lesbianism.

Which I believe is a myth. But as always, a useful one. You can learn a lot about a society by the myths it tells itself.

Whilst I totally have sympathy for the principle that all people should be protected from the deprivations poverty and abuse create and exploit. I am very sceptical it can be done with a single big beautiful bill that uses primary school notions of humanity to enforce a particular strain of morality.

I've rather grown up in the shadow of the notion that if there is one thing worse than a man or men telling women what to do, it's a woman or women who do the same. If ever you wanted an example of the past being a different country, then that may be one.

This may be one for FWR, but it is a more general political debate too.

This also seems like an excellent idea;

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bertin-report-choking-ban-b2772974.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002d8t4

Nigel Farage to Sara Pascoe: "I don't find comedy funny".

Explains a lot.

The problem with banning things is that it simply doesn't work. Moreover it simply ups the money in <whatever> for those that don't care.

If I were a really really cynical politician with an endless capacity for greed, then rather than do any useful work, I'd simply find a sympathetic cause in a sphere where the solution is seen to be a "ban" of some sort. Maybe disposable vapes.

Then, whilst the press do all my marketing for me, I'd make sure that all of my retail and commercial interests are aligned with the banned items. Testing kits, retail units, courses for enforcement officials etc etc.

Beware those that would ban - it's rarely for your sake.

On violent strangulation as sexual entertainment, I’m okay with that being banned. While it will never be complete, it will mean you can prosecute people for possession, much the same as bestial or child abuse material.

The number of cases where men actually strangled their partners and claimed it was a consensual sex act has gone up considerably. I have never heard of a case the other way around. If this negates a few appetites or makes it less available I think it’s a good idea. Some sexuality is violent and sadistic; this stuff is the evidence of the market boom in violence towards women being packaged to a mainstream audience.

Why is this not already illegal ?

from :

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/pn/pornography/

Extreme pornography
It's illegal to possess 'extreme pornographic images'.
This is material that's 'grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise obscene', and that 'explicitly and realistically' shows:

• life threatening injury

Unfortunately “life threatening injury” may not cover all forms of choking or strangulation, leaving the possessor to make an argument that possession of material where say a woman is held by the neck strangled briefly, then released, then strangled again, would be lawful. That is not life threatening, but it is sadistic

Absolutely.

And yes you’d be amazed at the arguments possessors of unpleasant pornography have; most of it based on the ability to consent to violence on your person and filmed consensually.

These bans negate that, just saying the image is illegal.

So basically, we were lied to when the law was introduced in the 90s (or was it 80s ?).

Righty ho.

I don’t think anyone was lied to; but the argument is that “breath play” which is what strangulation is sometimes called in pornography means that this argument that strangulation is not life threatening has entered criminal law as a kind of “defence” to behaving in a way that would to the reasonable observer be life threatening; that is sadistic or sadistic motives which seem to be accepted as a form of human sexuality. That it gets traction in courts tells you a lot about the misogyny present in British society. It’s the mainstreaming of BDSM that makes this particularly complex - a lot of people will say “breath play” is not violent strangulation or a violent criminal offence.

Personally I can't see any downsides to banning the depiction of women being strangled as part of sex "play".

It’s an issue that goes back and forth as BDSM groups complain about criminalization - the law was introduced on extreme pornography after Graham Coutts, a breath play fetishist, who murdered a special needs teacher called Jane Longhursr by means of what he called consensual strangulation- he also had a large collection of strangulation pornography.

Coutts was obsessed with strangulation pornography; the extreme porn laws we have now are a result of Jane Longhurst’s mother campaigning; given the mainstreaming of “breath play” it’s pretty clear the law was ineffective.

There is a definition of serious injury used for those in road crashes which could be used- I think it is something along the lines of the level of hospital treatment required.