alexsarll: (magneto)
[personal profile] alexsarll
The Shiny New Laptop informs me that the House Beautiful is on the periphery of numerous hotspots, but none of them have a strong enough signal to connect. So, until I sort out an actual internet contract, it's still libraries for me. Oh well.

Thanks to all who came to the birthday drinks on Wednesday; I hope you all had fun, and I know I did. Particular gratitude to [livejournal.com profile] moleintheground and [livejournal.com profile] angelv for hosting an impromptu aftershow, and to the former for a very memorable performance as Dylan covering Kanye on Hip Hop Karaoke. Yesterday I surfaced in time for my second visit in a week to the Fly (I never did blog the Indelicates show, did I?), where I was surprised to note that, at a crowded Pretty In Pink, I knew almost none of the punters even by vague sight recognition. London can be such a small world at times that now I'm more surprised when it's not.

Have seen only headlines and summaries of the proposed new rape law, so forgive me if it's not quite as stupid as it appears, but from what I have seen - dear Lords above and below, such idiocy! I appreciate that there are issues regarding the conviction rate for rape, and that they need to be addressed, but to say that any drunk woman is de facto incapable of consent...well, for starters you're comparing women who've been drinking to children, which seems something of a step backwards. And how drunk is drunk? Past the driving limit? Past the government's absurdly puritanical 'recommended daily limit'? Because it hardly seems likely to enhance respect for the law to decide, at a stroke, that the vast majority of the country's adult population have been either rapists or rape victims since they became sexually active. Or in some cases, both - because how does this affect homosexuals? Is it simply an attempt to enforce the idea that, in straight sex, it is always the man who wants and the woman who only reluctantly or drunkenly consents? Are two men who go home drunk together somehow guilty of mutual rape, or two women of mutual sexual assault because lesbian sex still doesn't count? Or is the law simply not concerned with what the gays get up to because it's only protecting decent people? Unless the front pages are totally misrepresenting this proposal, it's obscenely wrong-headed.

Off to the howling desert of South London once this is done, for the Freaky Trigger pub crawl, then again tomorrow, for Brixton Tubewalk. This may well be my last post of 2006, in which case - good riddance, you toad of a year.

Date: 2006-12-29 02:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] p-dan-tic.livejournal.com
for the record - lesbian sex does now count but only if they use dildos

Date: 2006-12-29 02:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Is that so? I suspected that recent Sexcrime Act had something to say on the matter, but guessed that looking it up on a library computer would at best prove fruitless.

Date: 2006-12-29 03:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pippaalice.livejournal.com
Is that really actually true???

Not all lebians like that type of thing I wouldn't have thought...

Date: 2006-12-29 03:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
But then, not all gay men like bumming either, so lots of them aren't actually having sex in the eyes of the law.

Date: 2006-12-29 02:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] apiphile.livejournal.com
Date rape law is going to be hell for my sex life because I don't sleep with people when I'm sober. :(

Date: 2006-12-29 03:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Well, quite. And you're hardly unique in that; as [livejournal.com profile] beingjdc once sagely observed, "Americans have dates, the British have alcohol."

Or should I say, 'How terrible for you to have been a rape victim on a regular basis, however do you cope?'

Date: 2006-12-29 03:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] apiphile.livejournal.com
Absolutely, and I discourage anything that suggests "changing my mind" is equal to "being forced to the floor and having my insides torn up".

Not regularly enough.

Date: 2006-12-29 03:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Well, quite. And this suggestion, even if it never gets to the legislative stage, is doubtless encouraging plenty more jokes along those lines up and down the country. Which is helping to deal with the genuine problem of rape how, exactly?

Date: 2006-12-29 08:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] apiphile.livejournal.com
Precisely.
From: [identity profile] blanche-carte.livejournal.com
Indeed; I have heard remarks of wonderment as to how it's possible to consent to anything when sober...
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
I have done it occasionally, but more in the interests of experimentation than anything else.

Date: 2006-12-29 03:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kiss-me-quick.livejournal.com
My thoughts exactly.

Date: 2006-12-29 03:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pippaalice.livejournal.com
Well you know us wimmin, completely incapable of making a decision sober let alone drunk. Sigh.

Also what lizzy said...

Date: 2006-12-29 03:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] missfrost.livejournal.com
I totally understand what you mean about going out and not recognising anyone.

Date: 2006-12-29 04:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mylifebythesea.livejournal.com
Didn't know you were into Thackray. Well done.

Date: 2006-12-29 04:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] p-dan-tic.livejournal.com
barry's into anything that sounds a little rude

Date: 2007-01-02 01:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
That one really didn't work.

Date: 2007-01-02 01:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] p-dan-tic.livejournal.com
that's what she said

Date: 2007-01-02 01:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Yeah, first I heard was when JDC put 'Castleford Ladies' Magic Circle' on a CD, but then there were odds and sods around the place until I saw those two BBC4 programmes about him, when I decided I needed more. And then what should I find in Fopp but a 4CD box set of the EMI years for £25. How could I refuse?

Date: 2007-01-02 05:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mylifebythesea.livejournal.com
I do love On Again, On Again.

I really hope that the series he did in the 60's where he roams around talking to the bright young things of London town while looking confused is still in the archives.

Date: 2007-01-03 02:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Well, from the look of those BBC4 shows they do have an awful lot of archive footage of him, but I'm not sure I recall anything fitting that description. Still, if you've seen it, presumably it must be?

Date: 2006-12-29 05:31 pm (UTC)
innerbrat: (sex)
From: [personal profile] innerbrat
I can't find a link to the new laws on BBC news, but will keep looking.

Date: 2007-01-02 01:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
Yes, I had a quick search on there but nothing doing either. Which could of course indicate that it was just a standard Standard scare story; I do hope so.
(deleted comment)

Date: 2007-01-02 01:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
DO IT!

Yes, this was from the same box. I'm still only two discs in but isn't it splendid?
(deleted comment)

Date: 2007-01-02 01:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com
...which was the other thing I bought in Fopp on that trip.

Stop stealing JDC's habit of stealing my life!

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