Sexy Kids

http://www.mumsnet.com/campaigns/let-girls-be-girls

This blog post has taken me ages to write, so it’s kind of “old news” now. Sorry about that, I’ve been busy cycling and reading about cycling and talking about cycling and obsessing about cycling for some time and it’s pushed any other thoughts to the back of my head.

My main point is that I don’t believe kids are being sexualised any more than they were 20 years ago. I see pictures of semi clad “grown up” ladies in ridiculous heels on telly and billboards and in the gossip and lifestyle pages of newspapers, I’m not denying that. I see photos of Suri Cruise and Piper Palin in heels and I think “Yikes, that’s probably not healthy for growing children,” same as everyone else does. I also think “What stupid parents,” but then as someone who isn’t a parent, I fully accept that it’s their decision how to dress their dolls kids, not mine.

In an ice-cream-sale-in-hell kind of way, I agree with David Cameron that it’s a social responsibility not a state one. If parents are buying their children sexy clothes, then that’s their business, and mine to shudder at the apparent lack of taste. If adults see children in sexy clothes and think “PHWOAR” then it’s a problem with the adults, not the children. A kid in make up looks exactly that, a kid:

"Mummy, buy me that new iPhone now or I'll grow up to make tough decisions about your retirement."

I grew up seeing images like this:

Madonna whore complex?

And this:

Free pasties for everyone!

I knew all the words to Push It by Salt ‘n’ Pepa as a toddler, and it’s now a karaoke classic.

When you learn to talk and that some words get a bigger reaction than others, you use those words more often. Words like “Wanker,” “Div,” and “Bumface” will continue to delight me as long as I live.

So Mumsnet’s “Let Girls Be Girls” campaign seems a bit unnecessary to me. I haven’t seen any children wearing heels or mini skirts or even make up – except for rare special occasions like weddings, when everyone is expected to wear uncomfortable and often distasteful clothes, and I haven’t seen any shops selling them recently. Ok, so just because I haven’t been browsing the children’s sections of popular clothing outlets in the last 10 years, it doesn’t mean they’re not selling this filth flarn filth. But if that’s the case, it should be up to all the responsible parents to boycott those shops and let the other shops reorder the bestselling-non-sexy stock. Isn’t that what supply and demand is all about?

IIRC, Tammy Girl (my favourite place to get clothes as a kid) sold a thong for children as young as 5, which sparked Miranda Sawyer (I think) to make a documentary on it a few years back. I remember it because I’d been shopping with my mum a few days earlier when she jokingly asked me if I wanted a thong to go with my training bra (which I hated wearing) – you might be pleased to know that I flatly refused. Despite being the girliest girl I know now, I certainly wasn’t as a child. As it happens, I don’t enjoy wearing thongs as an adult either. It’s comfy pants or nothing in case you were wondering. Ooh err.

Children sometimes like doing things that make adults frown. Whether it’s refusing to eat anything except ice cream or saying naughty words or heaven forbid wearing something that would have been inappropriate when I were a young lass (my mum never let me wear anklets, saying they were “For women of the night”). Children have always been children, and pushing our own insecurities/concerns onto them on a matter as trivial (IMO) as whether we think they look too sexy, before they even have a notion of what “sexy” means, could do more damage to how they grow up than if we just let them be kids.

Or have I missed the point?

If the issue is about seeing semi naked women everywhere, then yeah. I’d like to see an equal number of sexy men on billboards and adverts and in national daily publications. If it’s about promoting unrealistic ideas about sex and sexuality, then on that we agree, but that doesn’t seem to be the focus of Let Girls Be Girls.*

*On a side note, what if those girls want to be boys?

Why women have sex: EXPOSED

She doesn't look bored anymore

Good afternoon!

What a weekend it’s been. I went out on my date, it was a very pleasant afternoon at Kew Gardens, I highly recommend it as a fun day out. You can get 2 for 1 on tickets if you both get there by train. I’m going clubbing with my mum on Friday, so the drama that is my social life will continue. The chances of me pulling are rather slim because 1) I’m going clubbing in Croydon and 2) I’ll be out with my mum.

Today’s blog post is another dissection of a Daily Mail article. It was so much fun last time that I thought I’d give it another go… This one’s called “Why women have sex: To relieve boredom, win favours… or to stop a headache” and from that title alone, I can tell it’s gonna be a good one

I did a bit of digging around and I found this marvellous questionnaire (pdf format), which seems to be the research for Cindy Meston and David Buss’ book. You can also click here to read the accompanying information about the study that was handed out along with the questionnaire. The book won’t be released until September 29th, so I can’t really comment on it, but having a quick flick through the potential reasons is rather enlightening.

Of all the reasons listed, my absolute favourite has to be:

147. I wanted to keep warm

I can just imagine the scenario:

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

“Err… not particularly”

“You might get cold…”

“Really? Oh I hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, go on then. Climb aboard.” [or something equally as sexy]

There are loads of gems. I may print out this form and use some of the reasons as song ideas:

131. It seemed like good exercise

It shouldn’t “seem” like good exercise – it IS good exercise, it’s SEXERCISE!

7. I wanted to feel closer to God

For anyone that hasn’t either shagged to *that* song, or at least slow-danced to it, I highly recommend it. I went to see Nine Inch Nails earlier this year and the only criticism I could give was that they didn’t play it

23. The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex with him/her.

… So that I could sell my story to the highest bidder! How exciting. To think I didn’t need to spend all these years building up the necessary administrative experience to earn less than the UK’s average wage – I could have just shagged someone famous. Doh!

Well, that’s  all very nice. Some of it isn’t as nice, like:

169. I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease (e.g., herpes, AIDS)

Umm… I really hope that this doesn’t happen often. That’s rather worrying…

Romance and passion, it has to be said, comes rather low down the list, according to a new book.

One woman even admitted to having sex just so her husband would put the rubbish out. 

Now that is what I call blue-sky thinking: “Darling, you put the rubbish out and I’ll tweak your prostate”.

Utterly spiffing stuff.

‘Research has shown that most men find most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all,’ conclude the authors, both psychology professors at the University of Texas.

Is that true? I’m not a man so I can’t speak for them, but I am one of those women that does not find most men sexually attractive. I get mild crushes on the odd bloke now again, the ones that make me laugh or the ones with uber-cool hair – I’ve never met a man who can make me laugh AND has really cool hair. If I had to draw a graph, it would look something like this:

moar funny pictures

Sorry, I’m getting a bit carried away with cheezburger.com. Where was I…? Oh yes, I often wonder if men just have lower standards? I might have to blog about that at some point. Back to the Daily Mail article on why women have sex:

… most have selfish motives, with financial or material rewards a major factor behind many sexual encounters.

In one survey of students carried out by the researchers, nearly one in ten women admitted to ‘having sex for presents’. 

Hmmm… it doesn’t specify whether the presents were offered before or after sex, so how can we really know what their precise motivation was? The only time a boyfriend has ever bought me a present was when he went on holiday for 2 weeks just before my birthday. He was so tired from jetlag when he got back that by the time we did get round to spending time together, it was my birthday – I was getting loads of presents regardless. In fact, I suspect that if I’d held off a little longer, I’d probably have got a lot more out of him.

“Nearly one in ten” means that technically over 9 out of 10 women don’t care about presents. That could be one of the most damning assertions for an inexperienced man. How would you get a woman to have sex with you? Presents probably won’t work. You’ll just have to ask nicely buy the book.

The research concluded, perhaps predictably, that women are attracted to tall men with a deep voice, who smell good.

I really can’t argue with that. A bad stench is somewhat of a deal-breaker.

A symmetrical body also helps, since it is a genetic indicator of health and suggests he will give his lover strong children.

Sadly, the only man I know of who has a symmetrical body is Dr Who, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t exist in real life. If he’s reading this though, I live just south of London, get in touch

However, those who don’t live up to this ideal can take some comfort. Their lower level of testosterone may win over the ladies too, because it suggests they are less likely to run off with another woman.

Oh that’s very reassuring. Don’t worry if you’re not tall, dark and handsome with good levels of personal hygiene. You’re more likely to cherish whatever you can get.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this article, but I have to add that it would be nice if, for a change, they printed some genuinely useful tips for men and women. Like “Communicate with your parter to find out what turns them on rather than rely on the dodgy representation of a survey carried out on the other side of the world” perhaps? *Sigh* We live in hope.

Women and ethnic minorities at Skeptics in the Pub (London): Follow up

Good morning all,

As promised, I wrote an email to Sid Rodrigues, who currently runs the London Skeptics In The Pub:

Did you know that of all the speakers at SITP, nine have been women, and only two speakers have been non-white (yourself included)? How are speakers chosen? Is this something you are aware of, and has it ever been addressed before? I only ask because the audience is extremely diverse, so I found it surprising that the speakers didn’t reflect this as well. Do people get in touch with SITP and request to do a talk, or do you actively look for speakers?

He sent me an absolutely brilliant response:

Hi Carmen,

 Thanks for the email. I’ll try to give you a comprehensive reply, so please bear with me if I go too far in depth, but I think it’s important that I do.

 I’ve been the main organiser of London SitP since we moved to the Penderel’s Oak in September 2007. We had a sort of Kabal [sic] of thirteen people who offered to help out with organising SitP after Nick Pullar moved to Hungary in May 2007, but for practical reasons it was easier to have one main organiser and have anyone volunteer to help out where they could and put in suggestions for speakers I could invite to SitP. On the 12^th February 2008, at an official meeting, the remaining Kabal officially voted to disband themselves and leave all the organising to me, with Norman Hansen being the main volunteer in setting up the room for each event – which he still does as well as being the sound engineer. More recently Tracy King, Tessa Kendall, Shalinee Singh, Phil McKerracher and Mark Duwe have volunteered to the door duties to keep the pub (and us) from breaking the fire regulations of the cellar bar.

The speakers come from several sources, suggestions from people (which are fairly rare), from me and some legacy speakers which were suggested by the Kabal a while back. I know that the list of speakers is heavily biased towards white males, and I do make an effort to try and invite speakers who are not the stereotype. Unfortunately, for several reasons, it’s not always easy to arrange them. Mainly being down to schedule conflicts and distance, but also it seems like scepticism is dominated by white males.

 Here’s the list of speakers and who suggested and/or invited them while I’ve been involved.

 Start of Kabal

May 17^th 2007 – Mike Heap (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

June 21^st 2007 – Julian Baggini (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

July 19^th 2007 – Timothy Good (invited by David Allen Green)

August 30^th 2007 – Victor J. Stenger (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

September 18^th 2007 – Richard Wiseman (replacement speaker for a last minute cancellation, Richard volunteered himself at the last minute)

October 16^th 2007 – Emma Louise Rhodes (invited by Chris French)

November 20^th 2007 – Chris French (replacement speaker for a last minute cancellation, Chris volunteered himself at the last minute)

December 11^th 2007 – Mark Vernon (invited by Chris French)

January 15^th 2008 – Nick Pope (invited by Chris French)

Official end of Kabal

February 19^th 2008 – Matt Smith (replacement speaker for a last minute cancellation, Chris French invited Matt)

March 18^th 2008 – Andy Lewis and David Colquhoun (suggested by “Mojo” form the UK Skeptics forums.)

April 1^st 2008 – Simon Singh (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

April 15^th 2008 – David Allen Green (David volunteered himself)

April 21^st 2008 – Phil Plait (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

May 6^th 2008 – Mahlon Wagner (Mahlon suggested himself))

May 20^th 2008 – Richard J. Evans (suggested by David Allen Green)

June 17^th 2008 – Ciaran O’Keeffe and Steve Parsons (suggested themselves)

June 24^th 2008 – S. Fred Singer (invited by Mike Hutchinson)

July 21^st 2008 – Terry Sanderson (suggested by Muriel Fraser)

August 11^th 2008 – Doug Ellison (suggested by Simon Perry)

September 15^th 2008 – Ben Goldacre (multiple suggestions from various people)

October 13^th 2008 – Paul Taylor (invited by Norman Hansen)

October 20^th 2008 – Jon Ronson (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

November 17^th 2008 – Neil Arnold (suggested themselves)

December 8^th 2008 – Chris French & Nick Pope (suggested themselves)

January 19^th 2009 – Rebecca Watson (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

February 16^th 2009 – Nick Davies (first suggested by “Mojo” form the UK Skeptics forums, but had multiple requests)

March 16^th 2009 – Matt Parker (suggested by Duncan Casey)

April 27^th 2009 – Richard Wilson (multiple suggestions)

May 20^th 2009 – Edzard Ernst (multiple suggestions)

June 22^nd 2009 – Bruce Hood (multiple suggestions)

July 27^th 2009 – Paul Sims & Caspar Melville (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

August 17^th 2009 – Aubrey de Grey (invited by Sid Rodrigues)

September 21^st 2009 – David Aaronovich (invited by Neil Denny)

 One speaker (who was a woman) asked to be removed from the list of past speakers.

 I’ve left off “An Evening with James Randi & Friends”, as it was not in a pub and was not solely organised by myself, but it did feature: James Randi, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Chris French, Susan Blackmore and was hosted by Richard Wiseman. I’ve also left off Simon Singh’s Rally as it was organised by David Allen Green and The World Conference of Science Journalists – Troublemakers Fringe, as it was put together by Ben Goldacre, Petra and Vaughan.

 I recently put together a survey for speaker suggestions and these where what the audience at SitP suggested. I’ve removed duplicates.

 Evan Harris

Simon Singh

Petra Boynton

Jon Ronson

James Randi

Brian Cox

Stephen Fry

Tim Minchin

Richard Dawkins

Novella brothers

PZ Myers

Simon Hoggart

Ian Rowland

Anyone on the line-up for TamLondon who hasn’t spoken at SiTP before + Derren Brown

Christopher Hitchens

Robin Ince

Robert Rankin

Marcus Brigstocke

Salman Rushdie

Nick Clegg

Terry Pratchett

Lionel Milgrom

Sam Harris

Daniel Dennett

Dr Karl

Neil Shubin

Donald Prothero

Adam Savage

Michael Shermer

AC Grayling

Francis Wheen

Marcus Chown

Richard Wiseman

Paul Davies

Miichio Kaku

Steven Pinker

Brian Dunning

Lewis Wolpert

Steve Jones

Stewart Lee

Penn & Teller

Bill Bryson

David Attenbrough

Oliver James

Stephen Law

Muslim preachers

Charlie Brooker

 So, as you can see, there is only one woman on that list (and with the exception of “Muslim preachers”), Salman Rushdie, Simon Singh and Miicho Kaku are the only ethnic minorities there and none of them are black.

 Here are my suggestions for future speakers who are not white males. I can’t guarantee that all of them will be available, but I’ll give them a go. Tell me what you think?

 Susan Blackmore

Jenny Rohn – LabLit

Tracey Brown (or anyone from SaS)

Kenan Malik

Iszi Lawrence

Christina Martin

Ophelia Benson

Heather Couper

Claire Fox

Natalie Haynes

Susan Jacoby

Josie Long

Ziyad Marar

Kathryn Olmsted

Anne Quesney

Mary Roach

Rose Shapiro

Arianne Sherine

Tracy King

Rosie Waterhouse

Donna Dickenson

Fern Elsdon-Baker

Manjit Kumar

 Also, I changed the format of SitP after I was given the reins. I wanted it to be more friendly and open, so I followed a friends advice which can be found here:

http://www.nycskeptics.org/node/111

 Best,

 Sid

How lovely is that? I took the liberty of linking each speaker in with their websites (or wiki pages, or reviews if there was no home page available). A great list, thanks very much Sid!

He also sent me two more emails straight away – one with details of the Boston Skeptics in the Pub (run by Rebecca Watson):

I forgot to add that Rebecca does run the Boston SitP and even though they’re still in early days they have a bit of a skew on the gender of their speakers too. I think they’ve had two out of 14? So, it seems like sex of the organiser doesn’t have a major effect on the speakers gender or ethnicity.

Mike the Mad Biologist
Marc Abrahams
Patty Pieniadz – F
Blake Stacey
Sid Rodrigues
Samuel Moulton
Andreas Mershin
Tim Farley
William Lobdell
Bruce Hood (-ish)
Jon Rosenberg and Jeffrey Rowland
Shulamit Moed – F
Jonathan McDowell

Quickly followed by demographics from a recent survey emailed to a few members of SITP:

Almost forgot.
I’ve got some demographics from the survey too. They’re a bit straw-polly and may be a bit out, but it gives a good indication. I hope.
Male: 72.6%
Female: 27.4%

18-29 years old	27.4%
30-39 years old	23.6%
40-49 years old	20.8%
50-64 years old	25.5%
65 years and over	2.8%

some high school	0.9%
high school graduate	1.9%
some college	6.6%
trade/technical/vocational training	5.7%
college/University graduate	40.6%
some postgraduate work	9.4%
post graduate degree	34.9%

Protestant	1.0%	1
Roman Catholic	0.0%	0
Jewish	4.2%	4
Muslim	0.0%	0
Atheist	85.4%	82
Agnostic	8.3%	8

Most were non-theists or other.

White	98.0%	97
Black	0.0%	0
Asian	2.0%	2

Hope that’s helpful too.

Sid

I’d like to point out that I am one of the two Asians, and the basement of The Penderel’s Oak pub is fully booked for every London SITP, with a maximum of 250 people, and I know of a few people who cannot always get on the list because it is full. So my verdict is that of the 99 people who may have added themselves to the mailing list, 97 of these are White, and 2 of them (possibly Sid and myself?) are Asian. So there is still a gap between the number of people in attendance and the number of people willing to fill in a form.

It would make me happy if a survey was done more often, perhaps if more people were to fill it in, we would get a clearer idea of the demographics? If you have ever been to London SITP, I am fairly sure it’s not 97% white (unless, of course, some ethnic minorities are lying about their ethnicity)!

Sid’s suggestions for female and BME speakers is brilliant, so all that is left is to get them to give us a talk!

See you tonight

Carmen x x x

Harmless fun

Is that a hose in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

A friend of mine asked me earlier if she thinks that sometimes I give men the wrong impression. My response was “Yes, frequently.” For those of you that haven’t met me, I am an extremely flirty person. I can’t help it, male or female, if I think you’re a nice, intelligent, funny, (dare I say good looking) person I will inevitably flirt with you, although I just think I’m being my usual friendly self. No, clearly not, I’m FLIRTING.

Sometimes, but not often, someone will mistake my flirting as a serious sexual attraction to them, failing to notice that I treat everyone in the same way. When this has happened, I do my best to be diplomatic. If possible, I will use humour to diffuse an otherwise awkward moment and I always hope that we can remain friends. That said, there seems to be an underlying assumption that because I’m a single female, I must be sexually attracted to someone if I’m being nice. I wonder though, that when someone says something like “I’m shy, I misread your flirting as sexual attraction”, what they’re actually doing (whether they realise it or not) is shifting the blame for their error onto you. Granted, some men are shy, but I don’t like shy men. So bugger off and take responsibility for your own actions. Buy a book.

[Edit: There is such a thing as a "golden mean" between shy and complete wanker. Somewhere there is where the perfect man or woman for me lives]

Today’s post has been inspired by this blog here. Forwarded via Twitter by Naomimc, I wasn’t expecting to be that bothered. I’m at work, it’s been an easy day, but reading it became very unsettling. I’ve had a very brief look into a few statistics and it’s quite shocking. Before I continue, I should point out that I’m not a statistician, so if anyone could correct me on any details it’d be greatly appreciated. Neither am I some kind of man hater. I have been subjected to a few sexual assaults, some more minor than others, but each time it has made me angry, scared, and violated. I suppose, as a woman, I do have an agenda (could I get away with saying an “agender”? *groan*!) in that I would love it if nobody ever got raped again. That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? No one would feel scared to go out on their own, no one would need to avoid certain places after dark, no one would need to worry that a well fitted dress or shirt would make you look like you were ‘up fer it’.

The first place I looked at was a study done by the Home Office. Worryingly, 1 in 10 women between the ages of 16 and 59 have been raped. This figure drops to 1 in 20 if she has been raped more than once. If you have the time, please read that report. I may be preaching to the choir a bit here, but it’s 2009 and although things have improved, they could be a lot better. 32% of rapes in this study were perpetrated by the woman’s partner and 22% acquaintances. And yet only 6.5% of rape cases end in conviction.

I live in Croydon, which is a bit of a hell hole in places. On Sunday, someone asked me to “Get ‘em out”. I wasn’t dressed provocatively – I was in a slouchy grey t-shirt, purple leggings, and a cardigan. No make up, hadn’t really done anything with my hair. When I had to walk back the same way to get the bus home, the same group of men were still there so I insisted we cross the road to avoid them (I was with my clarinet teacher on the way back). This group of men had been drinking, they were hanging outside a pub, it’s what lads do, yeah I get it. But I don’t know any women who would be flattered, or produce any positive emotion from the phrase “Get ‘em out”. What were they trying to achieve?

When men honk their horns at me as I walk to my office, what are they expecting? When someone wolf whistles me in the street, do they think I’m impressed? I just found a sweet little answers page about this, but I can’t help but wonder: If men honestly don’t think it’s degrading, and they’re not trying to be rude, why do they get so offended when other men wolf-whistle at them?

That’s enough ranting for now. Don’t rape your girlfriend/boyfriend/altar boy. It’s not cool!