the teenager who sold her virginity to the highest bidder to fund her further education

[pottycock]

I can't decide whether this is very sad or quite enterprising. A bit of both I think.

What did amaze me is that a medical professional endorsed her virginity at a press conference!

story here - warning, it's in the DM!

Oh my god - are the Fawcett Society honestly telling women that "Fundamentally, rape is not an expression of desire or sexual attraction, but of power and violence."??

Announcing this as a statement of fact rather than an unflalsfiable assertion, that has been qualified by Brownliller herself years ago?!

This just paints feminism as being even more a floundering ideology than I had already feared.

""The trouble is tht younger women are being raised with the idea that they are essentially equal to men.2

The TROUBLE is?? Can you hear yourself? This was the goal of feminism. You have it. Why does everything good and positive always get turned around? It's like a pathology.""

Er, she did say "idea", the goal of feminism is that equality will become the reality and that is certainly not the case now.

Completely agree with cory further up the thread. Am also a bit amused by this homogenous "Christian church" where the members all believe exactly the same thing and all have priests.

What exactly is 'equality'? Are all men equal?

My god, it's sad.

And did the doctor who so carefully checked her hymen (FFS!) carefully check this freaks man's HIV/STD status?

What I don't understand is why does "feminism" have to be about only one issue.

Broadly speaking, I agree with Vittoria and others who maintain that a woman who chooses to sell her body for sex (and does it in a situation that genuinely is a choice) is fine - I would see it as no different to a female model or a strong man using his body to build a house for money. I don't think we should see sex as being intrinsically different in this context.

However, I think the view that feminism shouldn't also address issues of unfair pay, continued workplace discrimination, women's rights in other countries etc is unrealistic.

In fact, if you believe that a woman who chooses to sell her body to a man who chooses to pay is a basic win for feminism, then surely it's clear that a woman who has no choice over how she is treated in the workplace or who she marries is a basic failure of feminism to really impact society?

Vittoria, are you seriously suggesting raping 80 year old women is an expression of sexual desire? It's about power, control and showing them who's the boss.

I do think Vitoria's attitude fully demonstrates the me, me , me generation.
She thinks that because she hasn't come up againt sexism in all it's vilest forms that feminism is outdated and that the battles have been all fought and won.
However the figures are massaged, every lawyer knows that rape cases are much harder to secure conviction for than any other offence. Most women and men see that as blatant sexisim. Most men and women who have never been raped, nor know wnayone who has see that for what it is. But the me, me generation refuses to engage with anything that is not on the personal and so refuse to accept.
As for women in the media - there may well be women journos and lots at the lowere levels of pubishing ( which is shit pay) etc but editors of Newspapers, producers of news programmes, MDs of publishing houses ie those with real power in the media ? Not many.

I think that anyone paying for sex is degrading and abusive.
It's nothing to do with seeing women as poor little victims; offering yourself to someone for money is pretty low for either sex.
I do not believe that there aren't negative psychological implications for any of those involved

Dittany, for women who were pimped I can well see where it can be described as akin to being raped. And I suppose that you were saying that in the context of human traffiking etc, given the rest of that paragraph, BUT as many others have said, this is not about a women pimped, she has made this choice ffs, why is she such a passive little victim in your eyes? THAT is not feminism, to regard women as poor creatures!!!

Winebeforepearls He did have to have a certificate to say he was free of STIs. I know that could be falsified, but it was a condition that SHE set.

Vittoria I am also a student from a working class background, perhaps it takes making choices to further your own position in the world to be able to see that it is an exercise of power to do so,

"Vittoria, are you seriously suggesting raping 80 year old women is an expression of sexual desire? It's about power, control and showing them who's the boss."

Who the heck mentioned 80 year old women. last time I looked the massive majority of women who were raped were under 30!

Litchick - where do you get the informationthat I have not come up against sexism and/or discrimination in any of it's forms? It suits your argument to think so thats all.

This is all tyipcal of the way feminism is very chgoosy about the evidence that is out there. And while they bury their heads in the sand funding has ended for women's studies undergraduates, rape crisis centres are closing. But no - blame it on everyone but feminismn itself. So many of the arguments on here depend on either conflation or wild extraoplation - Slug's last comment to me being a prime exmple.

I am not bothered that old school feminism bury's its head in the sand. It leaves room for something else to take it's place. Something that actually means to do something an dnot simply rage against the machine.

StewieG;smum - "Anyone who thinks feminism isn't a valid political ideology does not understand what rape actually is and how it affects those who are raped as well as their families and friends."

Please don't fall for the misrepresentations of mine and others posts. Feminism had a goal - the amelioration of women's lives. Today that is now the amelioration of feminism, and it's own hegemony, it's old ideology. It is no longer a progressive movement boiund to help women. It is only interetsed in helping itself - and actually - that costs us a great deal.

Dumping the word 'feminism', becasue of iot's totalitarian baggage, is not the same as abandoning the fiught for women's rights. Quite the opposite in fact.

Brownmiller wrote Against Our Will in 1975. She herself has said that actually, she didn;t really mean that sex was only a crime of power - yet the Fawcett Society don't seem to have heard that little nugget.

This is precisely what I mean about 'feminism' beind the opposite of a progressive movement and a turgid ideology.

" Actually some rapists do target older women because they are weaker than a fit 25 year old. It is part of their sexual deviance." Do you know how rare these attacks are? They are in the Home Office Crime Survey. Go and look! To say that the fact 80 year old women are raped falfifiues the fact that young women are raped in their thousands to every pensioner, and that this has nothing to do with the fact that they may be more desirable, is like saying just becasue 2 in every 1000 babies are born without limbs falsifies the fact that the 4 limbs is the not just the norm, but the template.

Asd for sexual devience - the men who rape old women and prepubeseant kids do have a deviance, a psychological pathology - the magority of men who rape women of child bearing age have no such pathology. Rape isn't a pathology. It is immoral. But it's not a disease.

Vittoria you are using a lot of words but not actually making any actual point

You need to work on the point part of it

Totally anti-feminist and pro-women!

LOL MP. The degree of willful myopia here is very telling.

Dittany, why would you think I was a man?

You DO sound like a man

I thought that as well

Have you checked?