links for 2009-01-01
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"I took my chances. I still remember the morning I went to meet an old teacher of mine for coffee over at a bookshop a few weeks later, and triumphantly announced, 'I’m not pregnant!' The woman at the table next to us gave me a dirty look. I scowled right back. I was so happy. I wasn’t going to treat an unplanned pregnancy as anything other than an unplanned pregnancy. The possibility of it was not 'joyful' to me, and I was not going to pretend otherwise.
I wonder where the dirty look woman is in the world today. I wonder about the nurse that called me a slut. I wonder why it was so damn important for these two individuals to show their disapproval, try to keep me in line, try to make me feel ashamed: I was not their daughter, I was not even the daughter of a friend. They didn’t know me."
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"The most intriguing and possibly exciting news, however, is that Martin is still proposing that a free wireless Internet service be implemented, but without the filters and with more open access/net neutrality requirements. The basic speed offered would be modest (768kbps), but under the rule proposed, the winning bidder would be forced to allow any device or application to be connected to the network, and there would be timetables for getting access available to end users (50% within 4 years; 95% by the end of the 10-year license period)."
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"In the nearly ten years I've been working in the sex industry, everyone I've met has had an opinion about my work. When it comes to prostitution, everyone has an opinion. Moreover, everyone feels entitled to their opinion, and sure it's based on some sort of reality about the sex industry – even if the limit of their knowledge is seeing the hooker get shot in the first reel of the movie to get the plot going. Indeed, there seems to be some sort of inverse correlation between the ignorance of the speaker and the vehemence with which they hold their opinion.
So it is with the laws being proposed by the Home Office today. Well-intentioned they may be, but they are entirely out of touch with the reality of working in the sex industry, and they would know this if they had chosen to listen to sex workers themselves." -
"So what do we do with this? The danger that prostitution may be pushed underground is real and it’s effects are seen in Scotland. The advantages of decriminalisation are shown in New Zealand (h/t to HangBitch). It would seem logical to talk about what is most adventageous to sex workers. All barring one of these examples above are sex workers working on the street. These examples of what’s been happening in the UK this year is on the tip of the iceberg. God only knows how many sex workers have been sexually assaulted these past few years in England and Wales.
So do we, British society, talk about decriminalisation? No. We talk about definitions, semantics. 'Sex worker' or 'prostitute'. Is it work? We talk about the ickiness of prostitution as though that justifies all these crimes against women. We debate the morality of it, is it right to sell sex? We place ideology above the safety of these women."
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Ha!! I love this. All of them are spot on. And I have two to add to the list, although one is a phrase, not a word: "meh" and "[x] like whoa."
Jan 01 2009 07:30 am | Category: del.icio.us links
| 3 Comments »
Meh.
:P
I saw “the vajayjay” and freaked thinking you were linking to Oprah. Now, there’s MY word that should go on the banned list!
Totally agree w/ you on that one!
I’ve loathed that word since the first time it was uttered on Grey’s Anatomy. It irritated the hell out of me right from the start because I don’t believe a doctor would use a stupid euphemism for a body part.
Well, now that Google is censoring real medical words like “clitoris,” from safe searches, we have to resort to euphemisms in order to discover our own anatomy, don’t we? Can “vagina” be too far behind? *rollseyes*