Inverness, Intimations and Ireland

Good evening from a very quiet LL towers. Boy cat is snoring and farting gently on the footstool beside me and La Princess is at a sleepover, (I did suggest some diazepam for the parents concerned but was met with a weak smile, I know the feeling.) I've had quite a mixed week really, firstly I was in Inverness for a couple of days and my hairy Highlanders didn't let me down, I had a whale of a time. From there I had to arise at 6am on Wednesday, (I have witnesses) to scoot down the A82 to meet S. When I say scoot, it was a four hour drive fuelled by lucozade and some very dodgy looking own-brand caffeine tablets, but I made it to Kennacraig, from where we left for Islay. It was my first visit there and I thought it was simply beautiful. The picture above was taken from the boat and is of Jura, when we sailed by.


Also this week, Dr. Brooke Magnanti, did a rather brilliant interview with The Telegraph, link here. I loved this quote -
"Her new book, The Sex Myth, fuses her personae as research scientist and sex worker. And it’s good: powerful in its exposé of knee-jerk reactions and shoddy science, social or otherwise. The chapters challenging feminist assumptions about pornography and the sex trade look likely to prove constructively controversial." Good, because that is exactly what is needed, an intelligent and well thought out challenging of society's accepted norms from an academic who can underpin and substantiate her work with real statistics.

Interestingly, the journalist concerned spoke to Dr. Magnanti about a lady who was "outed" insofar as she was exposed as having accepted cash for sex, although in fact she was underage, so it was actually rape. She had this to say - "Her exposure a couple of years later provoked an animal savagery among her peers and she felt forced to leave. I think of her often, appalled by the loss of potential that I hope she has been able to confound." Could there be anything more appalling than ostracising and casting out a child victim of rape, whether or not money changed hands ? I don't think so.

Dr. Magnanti had this response for the journalist -

“So be an ally. In terms of how you’re treated by the law and how you’re seen by society, there’s a lot of similarity between being a sex worker now and being gay 20 years ago. And what really changed that was family, friends, members of the public coming to know people who were gay. We need people like you who say: 'I myself am not a sex worker, but I do not object to their existence’.”
“If you want to identify a population that has been consistently discriminated against, it is up there with racism, with religion. There is the assumption that, once you have crossed this line, you never go back and that it says something about you as a person and your ability to do other things.”

Well said, that lady.

I'm off to Ireland with J for a week come Monday, it will feel very strange travelling around Southern Ireland without visiting family, but I don't think The Mother would appreciate meeting for afternoon tea when I have J on a lead and in full gimp regalia. Actually, I think she'd find it kind of fascinating, it would be more about what other people would think, which reminds me of that rather brilliant quote from Fr. Ted -

"DOWN WITH THAT SORT OF THING."

LL xx