GINGER MASSACRE. BEN ROBOT

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Youtube pulled this short film because of issues with violence. It's no worse, I don't think than a Tarantino film -- and it's making a serious point...

FUCKING DEAD PEOPLE

I’ve been thinking about writing a piece on necrophilia for a while now. But I didn’t know if I was emotionally strong enough. It disturbs a lot of people; it disturbs me. It’s a tough one.

Is necrophilia a fetish or a perversion? A lot of what turns folks on, bewilders me but I try to understand. I’m not here to pass judgement. This piece is going to try and explore, what is a strange, haunting, taboo topic. So let’s not be squeamish; we’re going to talk about fucking dead people.


And because it’s tough, that’s not a reason not to talk about it. I think it’s a good reason to talk about it. Google is always a good place to start, so that’s where I went. And going on what you can find on the Web, with just a basic search; there’s a helluva lot of folk, curious and wanting to know more.


Are they all shouting “disgusting” and running away? It seems not; they’re intrigued. Reading about it; writing about it.


From the Web.


“Sigmund Freud maintained that our deep childhood experiences (or lack of them) affect our adult lives in a profound way. In other words, when people are highly functional in their childhood experiences, this mirrors their adult reality, and when adult people are highly dysfunctional as children this, too, mirrors and mars their adult experiences.

There seems to be strong indications to support this concerning necrophilia. The list of necrophiliacs seems to clearly support Freud’s viewpoint. Here is a brief list: Ed Gein, Jeffery Dahmer and Albert Fish. All of these personalities had horrific childhoods, felt abandoned, felt rejected and felt worthless. According to Dr. Jackson it is the perverted and extremely aberrant feelings of loneliness, rejection and abandonment, this feeling of total isolation, and total inability to connect to another human being that propels necrophilia.

As disturbing as this approach might be for some, in a nut shell what is being said here is that the necrophilia evolves to a state where the surest and easiest way to have total control, total acceptance, and total success in relating to another human being tragically descends to the point that the human being which is to be the object of intimacy is, of all things, a corpse.”


From the Web again.



“Erich Fromm, the psychologist and philosopher considered that necrophilia is a character orientation which is not necessarily sexual. It is expressed in an attraction to that which is dead or totally controlled. At the extreme, it results in hatred of life and destructiveness. Unlike Freud's death instinct, it is not biologically determined but results from upbringing. Fromm believed that the lack of love in the western society and the attraction to mechanistic control leads to necrophilia. Expressions of necrophilia are modern weapon systems, idolatry of technology, and the treatment of people as things in bureaucracy.”


It’s described as “the highest taboo,” worse than rape, paedophilia, bestiality; the law in the United Kingdom says that fucking a corpse is very definitely illegal.


From Wiki;


“In the United Kingdom, sexual penetration with a corpse was made illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. This is defined as depictions of "sexual interference with a human corpse" (as opposed to only penetration), and would cover "depictions which appear to be real acts" as well as actual scenes (see also extreme pornography).
As of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, it is also illegal to possess physical depictions of necrophilia, electronic or otherwise. Necrophilia-pornography falls under the governmental description of extreme pornography, of which, possession is classed as illegal under the aforementioned act.”

So in the U.K. you’re not only breaking the sexual offences act law, you’re going to be hauled up for possessing “extreme pornography” as well.


In the United States, there doesn’t seem to be a blanket law covering the whole country. The law varies from state to state. As of May 2006, there is no federal legislation specifically barring sex with a corpse. Here’s a few examples of how the states differ in their application of the law.


In Arizona, It is unlawful for a person to engage in necrophilia. A person engages in necrophilia by:

1. Having sexual intercourse with a dead human body.
2. Having sexual contact with a dead human body, other than the contact normally required to store, prepare, disinfect or embalm a dead human body according to standards of practice in the funeral industry.
1. "Sexual contact" means any direct or indirect touching, including oral contact, fondling or manipulating of any part of the genitals, anus or female breast by any part of the body or by any object.
2. "Sexual intercourse" means penetration into the vulva or anus by any part of the body or by any object or masturbatory contact with the penis or vulva.
F. A person who violates this section is guilty of a class 4 felony.


In California, you can get up to eight years in prison, for the act of necrophilia. In the state of Georgia, you can get ten years in prison, for the same offence. In Nevada it’s considered a Class A felony with a maximum penalty of life in prison.

But necrophilia is there. It’s in the stories that we tell each other, from Classical Greek and Egyptian Mythology, to the Victorian Gothic. It’s in Fairy Tales and it’s in Popular Culture.

In the Greek legend of the Trojan War, the Greek hero Achilles slays the Amazon queen Penthesilea in a duel. Upon removing her helmet and seeing her face, Achilles falls in love with her and mourns her death. The soldier Thersites openly ridicules Achilles and accuses him of necrophilia. Achilles responds by promptly killing Thersites with a single blow. (In some traditions, Thersites' accusation is not unfounded—Achilles was so stricken by Penthesilea's beauty that he could not control his lust for her, even after her death.)


In Egyptian mythology, we are told of the myth of Osiris and Isis. It tells of the god Osiris, who had inherited his rule over the world from his ancestor Ra. Osiris was murdered and dismembered by his jealous brother Set, a god often associated with chaos. Osiris' sister and wife Isis reassembled Osiris' body and resurrected him so that he could conceive an heir to take back the throne from Set. Osiris then entered the underworld and became the ruler of the dead, while Isis eventually gave birth to his son Horus. Once grown, Horus fought and defeated Set to become king himself. Set's association with chaos, and the identification of Osiris and Horus as the rightful rulers, provided a rationale for pharaonic succession and portrayed the pharaohs as the upholders of order.


So the template for necrophilia is there, in our oldest stories. Mythology gives us permission to explore those dark ideas, that for most of us, never see the light of day.


And what about our current obsession with vampire stories? Starting with Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, are they not a fantasy about a physical union with the un-dead?

And as for Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights, he sure as hell didn’t dig up Cathy’s body to gaze on her beautiful face.

And there’s so many more. In Cormac McCarthy's Child of God (1973), the protagonist Lester Ballard finds a dead couple in a car, and carries the female corpse back to his cabin to engage in sexual acts with it. After losing the corpse in a fire, he begins murdering women to create dead female sex partners for himself.

Georges Bataille's gruesome novella Story of the Eye ends with the main characters performing perverse and sacrilegious sexual acts on a passive priest, who is raped and strangled to death as he climaxes. After murdering him, the characters continue to perform sexual acts with his dismembered eyeball.

Edgar Allan Poe once described the death of a beautiful young woman to be one of the most beautiful images. (By this, he was not saying that it is a good thing for young women to die; to him melancholy and pain were sources of beauty.) Also, his poem "Annabel Lee" includes, towards the end, possible necrophilic imagery. As does his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Oscar Wilde's scandalous play, Salome, based on the Biblical story of a Judean princess who performs the Dance of the Seven Veils for the Tetrarch, Herod, in exchange for the head of John the Baptist. When Salome finally receives the Christian prophet's head, she addresses it in an erotic monologue that has highly suggestive necrophiliac overtones.

And coming closer to today’s literature.

In Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon, (1977) Macon Dead is explaining to his son Milkman that he is disturbed by the relationship that his wife Ruth had with her father, Dr. Foster. Shortly after Dr. Foster's death, Macon caught Ruth lying naked in bed with her father's corpse, while sucking on his fingers.


In Canadian author Barbara Gowdy's short story "We So Seldom Look On Love", a funeral parlour employee learns how to make the penises of recently dead men erect, and she commits sexual acts on the corpses until she is caught. In 1996, the story was adapted into the film Kissed.

Can’t leave out Fairy Tales either. Some Commentators like Marina Bychkova read the story of “Snow White”, as having a necrophiliac theme. Disney has sanitised it, just as he has done with “The Sleeping Beauty.” In a much older version of the story, the handsome Prince doesn’t just kiss the sleeping/dead princess, he rapes her.


Janine Ashbless’ excellent necrophilia story, “Montague’s Last Ride,” in her “Cruel Enchantment” collection is quite stunning, and yes, it’s arousing too. The dead person and the necrophiliac are complicit. I think that’s what makes it okay -- no one is defiled. I’m left with the feeling that nothing in the lives of these characters, can ever go back to normal. Insanity, will always be hovering. But it happened.

I still don’t know whether necrophilia is a fetish or a perversion. Certainly the sub-text in the Sigmund Freud statement, and the quote from Erich Fromm, seem to see necrophilia as something that needs to be “cured.”

So I’m lost for a proper conclusion.


How would I feel if a relative of mine who had passed, was “played” with? I would not like it at all. I would be distressed, incensed, livid. But, as I’m not likely to come across a necrophiliac any time soon, that’s as near to making it personal as I can get.

VIVE LES VOYEURS by ALEX SEVERN

Alex Severn sent me this great story that he wrote "ages ago" Previously published in Forum UK.





I was never going to refuse an offer like this, was I?


A chance to see my oldest friend in her apartment in the South of France, an opportunity to get away from all the work pressures and deadlines, just for a few days.

So there we were, stretched out on the sunloungers, between the glass panelled doors and the edge of the gardens. Knowing that they were communal, that they didn’t belong to Mandy alone didn’t even diminish my feelings of luxury and decadence.

We’d had too much wine, looking back I should have realised that, but it was hot and steamy and we were catching up on our shared past………….It was Mandy that wouldn’t let the subject drop and if I’d been sober, I would have been really sharp with her, told her not to push it but if you can’t share a secret with a friend as good as Mandy, well…………..

So, I admitted that, yes, I did like to touch myself sometimes, I loved to feel my own pleasure, let my fingers play between my lips, make myself come. I didn’t do it a lot, well, maybe a couple of times a week, and I was relieved when she said it was more like three or four times for her. I suppose I was reluctant to admit it because it almost seemed like it was an admission that I had to please myself because I couldn’t get a man to do it for me, but if you saw Mandy you’d understand when I say that if a woman built like that needed to do it, who doesn’t?

She looked even better now that when we were at school and she was every schoolboy’s fantasy then. She has this thick jet black hair, big, soft brown eyes and the body! Her boobs are full and firm, her stomach still flat and the recently acquired jewel in her navel seemed to be pointing to the spot where all our male classmates would have died to explore. This day, she was wearing a very brief lime green bikini and I couldn’t help but notice a few black, tight curly hairs peeking out from the strip of fabric that passed for a thong. I remembered being half way between embarrassed and fascinated by the pin - up mags that one of the boys would leave around sometimes. After all, it was seeing that one magazine with the blonde with her legs splayed apart, whilst the eager young man knelt before her, his mouth fastened onto her pussy lips that reassured me that my desire for a man to explore me in the same way was nothing unusual.

When we heard French voices, Mandy dragged me into her apartment, a bit too roughly I felt. What was the problem, we were sunbathing with our bikinis on, so what if we were seen by anybody else coming into the garden?

When we were the other side of the glass doors, I saw the owners of the voices.

A young couple, no more than teenagers, I guessed. She was as typically French as you could get, not unlike a teenage Mandy, maybe not quite as well endowed up top, but with full lips and that strong, black hair. Chic and classy looking, she was wearing a light summer dress and floppy sandals but her companion was something worth seeing. Fairer than most of his compatriots, he was lean but his upper body was well muscled and tanned. In the heat, I could see beads of sweat forming on his chest, which was naked. He had on a pair of silly baggy shorts, but they made me want to see him without them, the view I had made me feel he would have an athlete’s body. Stop it, Deb, I told myself, you must be 15 years older than him. Laughing and chattering, he suddenly grabbed his partner and wrapping his arms around her, began to kiss her tenderly but powerfully, and she was only too happy to co-operate.
Cute though he was, a feeling of embarrassment swept over me and I said to Mandy

“ Let’s pull those curtains across, we don’t want to be accused of being a couple of peeping toms”

Mandy laughed.

“We can see them but they can’t see us, the glass is tinted like that. This is a regular thing for them, the boy is paid to keep the gardens in shape and this is his little helper, sort of . Believe me, it’s a show worth catching”.

“You mean you’ve watched them snogging before”? I was as amazed as I was indignant, to think that my Mandy got her kicks by spying on young lovers………

But as I opened my mouth to protest, I saw the boy practically rip her light dress off to reveal that that was all she had been wearing. We must have been only a few yards from them, behind our safety barrier, and I could plainly see her nipples harden, her back arched towards him as they both stood there. He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her to a kneeling position, and then eased himself to the same level. I watched, hardly breathing as he took her right nipple in his eager mouth and then let his left hand glide between her legs, stroking and coaxing her. Her pussy was completely shaved and I could see her lips opening at his prompting. Her mouth dropped open in a gasp of pleasure but she found the strength to break away and gesture him back to his feet. Still holding my breath even though I knew they couldn’t hear or see me, I thrilled to see her pull down those shorts to free a massive erection, jutting towards her mouth. This was wrong, every bit of me cried out, I should be turning away, leaving them to enjoy their own privacy, I must persuade Mandy to stop watching as well, I turned to her and………….

Mandy had taken her lime green bikini top off and was feverishly massaging her huge nipples with eager fingers. My head switched from the two scenes like two sides of a tennis match, I saw the girl now with his cock deep inside her mouth, sucking, licking, God knows, maybe even biting him whilst his faced showed just what ecstasy he was going through. Briefly, she pulled her mouth away and I saw her tongue glistening with his juices and with a wave of pure undiluted lust, I witnessed just how big his shaft was. As she grasped his tight, brown balls in one hand, she ran her tongue up an down his lengthy, teasing him a little before swallowing him again and right then, I would have given anything, done anything to have him inside me, pushing me open and exploring me with his cock. My head jerked back to Mandy who was sweating and panting now. She groaned with excitement and I automatically turned to see the girl outside now positioned on all fours, her pert bum tilted upwards ready for what she so desperately wanted. As he knelt down behind her, his rock hard cock jiggled against the cheeks of her bum, and I felt the wetness between my legs start to flow. But as I turned back to Mandy, to protest at least a little that we shouldn’t be giving in to this temptation, I saw a sight that made me shiver all over.

Mandy had sat back onto a huge wicker chair, now completely naked. Her fingers were frantically rubbing her clitoris, her lips were swollen, almost bloated, even from where I was I could see the folds of her labia contracting and expanding. I felt a surge of desire and longing coursing through my own pussy. She licked her fingers and tasted her own flowing juices, my head was spinning and I turned again to see the French girl now riding on top of the boy. Jiggling up and down on his shaft, she began to finger herself at the entrance to her mound of pleasure, sometimes catching his thrusting cock as she did so, which just heightened the feverish pleasure that was sweeping over both of them. He was getting even bigger and looked even harder, Christ I wanted to feel that thick bulging shaft between my legs and I felt my fingers move to where I wanted him to be but then I felt something else.

Mandy had moved behind me and I felt her ease off my top and discard it roughly.

“Mandy, what the hell…..”

I felt her fingers massage my nipples but I didn’t want this, I never wanted a woman to touch me like this, I…

Then, oh God, I felt her damp lips flat against the fabric of my bikini bottom, but I didn’t feel it for long as Mandy slipped it off me and brought her long fingers up to my by now gaping open lips. Still transfixed by the girl sliding up an down the boy’s still hard pole, I heard Mandy whisper in my ear

“Nice to have someone else play with you, isn’t it?”

She had two fingers inside my opening and I felt my juices oozing onto her fingers but what made me want to scream, beg for more was the other finger rolling the hard nub of my clitoris around, squeezing and teasing, whilst her other hand had turned my nipples to bullets. I fell forward, waves of orgasmic pleasure shooting through my pussy, and as I moved my head back upwards, I felt my pleasure shiver and tremble like never before. My eyes were closed now and suddenly the feel of her fingers had gone but when I opened them I was rewarded by the sight of Mandy sat in front of me, her legs wide open, her thick bush glisteningly damp. I knew what she wanted and I wanted to give it to her. I dived forward, my mouth fastening onto that gaping velvet opening. She jacknifed with pleasure as I devoured her lips and ran my tongue around every inch from her tangled hair to her soaked lips. I wanted to explore every inch, every luscious fold of her luxurious pussy. Her long legs circled my neck and I knew she wouldn’t release me until she had got every ounce of satisfaction from me. Just as I felt I was about to drown in her hot juices, she came, gloriously and violently and she eased my mouth away, panting for breath. At the same moment, we both glanced outside, to see that the couple had gone.

Mandy smiled at me.

“They come here every day. Nice to see a young couple so uninhibited, isn’t it. Then again, it’s nice to se that you’ve lost some of your inhibitions, too, Deb.”

And as the words were out of her mouth, my nipples went into them, and as I felt her fingers start to probe my wetness again, and my lips begin to melt with anticipation for her, silently begging for more, I knew the afternoon was only just beginning.

I found this lovely poem on the Web -- a dedication from a submissive woman to her Master. It’s anonymous -- so apologies to whoever owns the copyright. I would have asked for permission to publish, had I known whom to contact.

i find pleasure, joy, and fulfilment from being submissive
to my Master in a loving relationship.
i am not weak or stupid. i am a strong woman,
with firm views and a clear concept of what i want out of my life.
i do not serve out of shame or weakness, but out of pride and strength.

i will look to my loving Master for guidance and protection, for never
will i be more complete than when He is with me.
i know that He will protect my body, my mind, and my soul
with His strength and wisdom.

He is everything to me, as i am everything to Him.
His touch awakens me and His thoughts free me.
Only in serving Him do i find complete freedom and joy…
His punishments may be harsh, but i accept them thankfully,
knowing that He has my best interests always foremost in His mind.

if He desires my body for pleasure, i shall joyfully give it to Him
and take pleasure myself from knowing that i have brought Him happiness.

However, the pleasure of the flesh is but one facet of O/our relationship.
The love, the trust and sharing, the words spoken and felt,
those are all parts of this relationship.

My body is His, and if He says i am beautiful, then i am.
No matter what i look like to others, i am beautiful in His eyes,
and because of that i hold my head high.
if He says i am His precious jewel,
then i am that…a beautiful, sparkling gem.
if He says that i am His pet, His slut, His whore, then i am that..
as wanton and dirty as He wants me to be.

My mind is His, to expand, to explore, to know only as He can.
i have no secrets from Him… for secrets are a thing that would
keep me from being more perfectly His.
Secrets would put a wall up between my Master and myself…
and i do not want walls.

His lessons are not always ones i would seek on my own,
but they are lessons He has decided that i need, and so i learn from Him.
My soul is His, as bare to His touch as ever my skin could be
when i kneel naked at His feet.

Never a moment goes by when i do not feel His presence,
be He miles away or standing over me.
if i were to ever displease Him, His displeasure would be a blow to my soul,
worse punishment than any lashes could be.

The anguish of my soul that i feel when i disappoint Him
is harder to bear than any physical anguish i feel.
i am grateful that he cares enough about me to spend
His time and energy so freely on me.
i have the easier job, to feel, to experience,
to let myself go and abandon everything to Him.

i am His pleasure and His responsibility, and He takes both seriously .
i am a submissive woman.

i am proud to call myself that, my submission is a gift that i do not give lightly,
and can only be given to the One who can appreciate that gift and return it tenfold.

Only to my Master who has that strength, will i give myself fully,
because i am strong and proud.
i am a submissive woman.


~Author Unknown

RICHARD DAWKINS CALLS FOR THE ARREST OF THE POPE!

From The Sunday Times


April 11, 2010

Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI

Marc Horne

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.
Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.

Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.

They have commissioned the barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens, a solicitor, to present a justification for legal action.

The lawyers believe they can ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against him or refer his case to the International Criminal Court.

Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.”

Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said: “This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."

Last year pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a British judge to issue an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli politician, for offences allegedly committed during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza.

The warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the UK
.
“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens.

“Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”

LIFE OF BRIAN & THE NEW MESSIAH

Thank you Chris, for passing this wonderful piece on to me!!

Food Activist's Life Becomes The Life of Brian.

"After food activist and author Raj Patel appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, things seemed to be going well, until he began to get inundated with emails asking if he was 'the world teacher.' In events ripped straight from The Life of Brian, it would seem that Raj Patel's life story ticks all the boxes necessary to fulfil prophecies made by Benjamin Creme, founder of religious sect Share International. After the volume of emails and inquiries got worse, Patel eventually wrote a message on his website stating categorically that he was not the Messiah. Sure enough, 'his denial merely fanned the flames for some believers. In a twist ripped straight from the script of the comedy classic, they said that this disavowal, too, had been prophesied.'"






LIFE OF BRIAN is a parody of Hollywood, blockbuster religious films. It’s a satire of organised religion. It’s the Pythons at their most playfully subversive.

I thought I’d watch it again, after a gap of many years and it’s lost none of it’s charm -- it’s delicious irreverence. I couldn’t help thinking of poor Raj Patel and his dilemma of being hailed as the new Messiah. What’s the guy supposed to do? He’s told them he’s not the Messiah, but just like Brian, he is told that his denial is part of the prophesy. His denial confirms that he is the Messiah.

Poor Raj. He needs Brian’s mum! “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”

Here’s what the BBC had to say about LIFE OF BRIAN.


A beautiful film, a perfect comedy, and a gentle triumph of silliness over pomposity, self-importance, and intolerance - "Life of Brian" could be the best British comedy ever.

In Judea, a mother tends her newborn child. Lo, from the east three wise men appear to pay tribute to the infant - but they want the stable next door: this is Brian Cohen not Jesus Christ! Rolling forward 33 years, Brian joins the People's Front of Judea, a wannabe terrorist cell out to undermine the occupying Romans. Brian gets roped into their plot to kidnap Pontius Pilate's wife but they run into another terrorist gang on the same mission and everyone is captured while squabbling among themselves.

From the opening scene and the belting Shirley Bassey-esque score, this is Python par excellence. This is the "Catch 22" of cinema, and in its politics, like Joseph Heller, the Python crew refuse to spare anyone. Always threading in and around biblical stories, the plot never contradicts or denies the Bible, it just pokes fun at the hangers-on, charlatans, and pompous officials that organised religion often attracts.

This playful subversion is hilariously shown in the scene where Brian escapes from the Romans by posing as a preacher. At first he is mocked by a crowd of jaded messiah seekers, then they seize on a bizarre interpretation of his words and proclaim him their Messiah. Brian denies it, only to be told "I say you are Lord, and I should know. I've followed a few."


Listverse reports that The Life of Brian, is a 1979 comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team. It tells the story of Brian Cohen (played by Graham Chapman), a young Jewish man born in the same era and location as Jesus Christ who is mistaken for the Messiah.

Protests against the film were organized based on its perceived blasphemy. On its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils, some of which had no cinemas within their boundaries, or had not even seen the film for themselves.

In New York, screenings were picketed by both rabbis and nuns while the film was banned outright in some American states. It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as “The film so funny that it was banned in Norway”). One of the most controversial scenes was the film’s ending: Brian’s crucifixion. Many Christian protestors said that it was mocking Jesus’ suffering by turning it into a “Jolly Boys Outing”.

M.CHRISTIAN'S BACHELOR MACHINE

Yes, M.Christian's wonderful collection of futuristic erotica, is scheduled for re-print!


It's a joy to re-read these stunning stories, but M. Christian has a lot to answer for! His Bachelor Machine zaps the reader with a selection of wildly erotic short stories, set to raise the blood pressure and increase heart failure statistics.

This is futuristic pornography. The sleaze of porn is there, combined with the mysterious worlds of galaxies never before dreamed of. M.Christian’s imagination is really, beyond belief.

The gloves are off, taboos shattered in this daring collection of futuristic fantasy erotica. If your taste in fantasy is hobbits, noble deeds and happy endings these stories are probably not for you. If you're up for a challenge, if you can run with Metropolis meets nine and a half weeks, meets dark, vintage erotica, then the Bachelor Machine will give you the fix you need. M.Christian's stories are superbly written and well crafted. Can the sensation of spinning rotation be erotic? When it comes from M.Christian’s keyboard; yes! As I read, I am constantly pushed into the giddy, whirling position of inter-galactic voyeur, leaving me shattered and spinning, helplessly, with a glorious, life threatening attack of vertigo.

Following my post on Pornography (which I am now not so pleased with) you might want to check this out.

So thank you Oatmeal Girl for telling me about Remittance Girl's fantastic post about Rape Fantasy! You can read it at www.remittancegirl.com

PORNOGRAPHY AND THE LAW.

So, I’m mulling over ideas for my blog. Just a short essay, I thought. I want to get back to writing my Erotic story; it’s liberating me and keeping me young.

Then, I started to wonder -- am I writing Erotica or Porn? Is there a difference? There must be.

So why not an essay to try and decide? Should be easy; find out the legal definition of Pornography, here, in the U.K. Perhaps in the U.S. too. Discuss where I’m coming from. Find out a few celebrated opinions; for and against.

But I discovered, right away, it wasn’t going to be straight forward. There doesn’t appear to be an absolute definition for Porn.

In the “Obscene publications act 1959” they have a “Test of obscenity”.

“For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.”

The Americans say more, but they don’t seem any clearer than the Brits. From the “Free Dictionary, on-line.”

“The representation in books, magazines, photographs, films, and other media scenes, of sexual behaviour, that are erotic or lewd and are designed to arouse sexual interest. Pornography is the depiction of sexual behaviour, that is intended to arouse sexual excitement.”

Are you any clearer? I’m not. I’m not getting it. Considering the law in the U.K. is celebrated for its plain and unequivocal use of language, this surprises me. The only phrase that stands out to me is “deprave and corrupt”. Whom is being depraved and corrupted? Are Pornographers proselytising folk out there? Dragging innocent people off the street to make them a part of their depravity?


And the Americans aren’t much help either. I know that some of the stuff that I write “arouses sexual excitement.” The same with my writer friends. I remember reading THE BRANDING by Oatmeal girl. It seemed to come from a very dark place; as did DARK GARDEN by Remittance Girl. Janine Ashbless’ stories too, M.Christian’s and Jude Mason’s. Are we all unwittingly writing Pornography? Breaking the law? Or is the phrase “intended to arouse sexual excitement”, a get out clause? If it isn’t our “intention to arouse sexual excitement.” It’s certainly our intention to write a good story. We just happen to “arouse sexual excitement” as well.


I still want an absolute definition for Pornography. No-one’s giving me one.

I found this on the web.


“There is no legal definition of Pornography, which is very confusing! The law applies to the Internet in the same way as it would apply to any other type of media. What is illegal off-line is illegal online.”


“Pornographic material is considered legally ‘obscene' if it is judged to have ‘a tendency to deprave and corrupt' the intended audience. (Obscene Publications Acts 1959 & 1964, as amended). This normally applies only to the most violent and degrading adult pornography. It is currently an offence to ‘publish’ obscene material. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 has introduced a new offence of being in possession of 'extreme pornographic material'.”


There’s that phrase again; “deprave and corrupt”. But at least the article is going a little way further, talking about; “the most violent and degrading adult Pornography.”


They still don’t say what. It’s left to my lurid imagination.


Then I found this;


"Pornographic material which depicts necrophilia, bestiality or violence that is life threatening or likely to result in serious injury to the anus, breasts or genitals has no place in a modern society and should not be tolerated," says a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice. (BBC News 2008)


At last, some words I can understand. I mean, this is important. Some stuff I want spelling out.


I’m feeling more secure. I’m being given some guidelines. What I, and a lot of writer friends publish has to be classified as Erotica. We don’t write about the stuff the Woman from the Ministry talked about. Therefore we are not Pornographers.


That’s right, isn’t it? Well isn’t it?


There have been a number of high profile cases brought against various individuals over the years, brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions.


From the Web again;

1960: the “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, obscenity trial (found not guilty)

1971: the “Schoolkids’Oz” obscenity trial (found guilty, overturned on appeal)

1976: the “Inside Linda Lovelace”, obscenity trial (found not guilty)

1984: the “Gay’s The Word”, prosecution (charges dropped)

1991: David Britton’s "Lord Horror" prosecution (not prosecuted - banned under the
act, but later overturned)

2009: Darryn Walker found not guilty under the Obscene Publications Act for posting a story entitled "Girls (Scream) Aloud", a fictional written account on an internet erotic story site describing the kidnap, rape and murder of pop group Girl’s Aloud.



“A defence against the charge of obscenity on the grounds of literary merit was introduced in the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The OPA was tested in the high-profile obscenity trial brought against Penguin Books for publishing “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (by D.H. Lawrence) in 1960. The book was found to have merit, and Penguin Books was found not guilty — a ruling which granted far more freedom to publish explicit material. This trial did not establish the 'merit' defence as an automatic right; several controversial books and publications were the subject of British court cases throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s.”


They continue;


“There is a substantial overlap between legal erotic literature and illegal pornography, with the distinction traditionally made in the English-speaking courts on the basis of perceived literary merit. Purely textual pornography has not been prosecuted since the “Inside Linda Lovelace” trial of 1976. In late August 2005, the government announced that it plans to criminalise possession of extreme pornographic material, rather than just publication.”


But what’s really going on here? These are surely just fantasies; stories that we tell ourselves. Images and words to allure us and arouse. We’re grown ups, we know the difference between illusion and reality; don’t we? What is the government so afraid of that they need to censor our dreams -- and our nightmares?


Well according to the law, we do need to be shielded from certain types of Porn. Some people apparently can’t separate their dreams from the real world. The vulnerable do need to be protected from predators. Eminent men and women, report that viewing extreme, explicit Porn, can influence minds that are already disturbed.


Everyday news reports are loaded with stories of violent attacks, brutal rapes even murders. Whether the paedophile Roy Whiting, had viewed Porn before sexually assaulting and murdering little Sara Payne, we don’t know. Neither do we know if the Soham killer, Ian Huntley, had ever viewed Porn, before he murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.


But children have to be protected from the violence of sick minds, as do women and men from the perpetrators of domestic violence.


Is there any proof that Porn aggravates the urge to do harm? That viewing it, or reading it, can make folk forget that they are right thinking human beings? That they are unable to distinguish between right and wrong? There’s a lot of opinion that Porn is an unhealthy trigger and can push people over the edge into a dark world.


There are also opinions that state that viewing Porn does not act as a trigger at all. The urges to commit sexual and violent acts, are inate in these people. Already in the psyche of the potential perpetrator.


Several years ago, Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It later emerged that her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused and violated. When Graham Coutts was jailed for life, Jane Longhurst’s mother, Liz, began a campaign to ban the possession of such images.


Supported by her local M.P. she found a listening ear in the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, who agreed to introduce legislation to ban the possession of “violent and extreme Pornography.”


“This was included in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill which will get its final reading this week and will get Royal Assent on 8th May (2008).”(From BBC News. 2008).


I think that’s all enough to be going on with. At least I understand now what people mean when they talk about “extreme porn.” I had an idea, but I didn’t really know when I started out writing this.


Was I naïve? I don’t know. What I do know, and am very sure of is that I, and my writer friends, write Erotica. And, as Janine Ashbless said to me when people talk about Porn and how it should be banned. What they usually mean is; “Erotica I don’t like.”


It’s real, it’s scary and it’s out there. Really, it is. Perhaps the laws do need to be tighter -- perhaps, in the name of democracy the laws should be relaxed. As usual, as with any passionate debate, I find myself agreeing with the last person who has spoken.


One thing I did learn very early on, when I first started writing Erotic stories, is that there are areas which I will not, cannot venture into. I remember reading a castration story on the Literotica website. It made me want to throw up. So did a lot of things I’ve read, putting this essay together.


But a lot of stuff makes me want to throw up. Some years ago I read Joseph Conrad’s novel; HEART OF DARKNESS. That made me want to throw up. So did the film; PLATOON. Neither the book, nor the film are Pornographic.


Still made me want to throw up.


Clearly, we can’t add “what makes billierosie wanna throw up” to our still, much needed absolute, definition of Pornography.


Sometimes all I can say is; “I don’t know”.


I still don’t know -- so I’m going back to the cosy world of my Erotic story.


Burying my head in the sand? Yes; for now. But I’ll be back, thinking some more, when I’ve caught my breath.


(Thanks to Fulani and Janine Ashbless for their support and for giving me the ideas to put this essay together.)


Take a look at these ideas from well known commentators below.


From The Guardian. September 2006

Joan Bakewell. Broadcaster.


“Mrs Longhurst is to be congratulated on the success of her crusade. It shows that individuals can still be effective. But I see problems ahead. The first concerns the difference between reality and simulation. Will looking at images of gross brutality that have been acted out, without real harm, really be prosecuted? If so, we could be back to the case that beset The Romans in Britain, the stage play that included a simulated anal rape, which Mary Whitehouse tried to have banned.
Secondly, I would prefer to prosecute not those who look at the images, but those who put them there in the first place. This should be possible: making and distributing extremely violent pornography is already illegal. So why can't we censor the images that are produced, removing them from the internet, before they reach their intended audience? Surely if China can stop liberal ideas from reaching its people, Britain can keep extreme pornography from a much smaller population?
The idea that pornography causes murder is hard to prove. My television series Taboo tried to demonstrate the link. But the truth is that many people can watch films of cruelty and degradation without harmful effect. That said, extreme pornography degrades women and brutalises men, which is why I think that removing it from the internet would be the best way forward.”


Julie Bindel, feminist campaigner and journalist.


“For those of us who know how much harm porn does - to the women raped and beaten in its production, and the men who consume it and start to see women as meat - the proposed new law against violent pornography provides a glimmer of hope.
There are, of course, people who have never encountered extreme pornography, can't really imagine what it could be like, and therefore can't see why we need this law. Twenty-five years ago I watched a snuff movie with other anti-porn activists, journalists and special film-effects experts. One of the activists had gone into a porn shop in England and asked if the owner had something "really extreme". He gave her a film of a woman in South America being raped, tortured and murdered. As a finale, her hand was sawn off. By that time it was only the feminists left in the room, the others having run out to cry, or throw up. We knew what we would be seeing, because we had heard about it from activists in the US who were fighting the same battles.

We had proved that snuff existed (the film experts verified that there were no camera tricks to depict the sawing), and one of the journalists wrote copiously about the issue, urging police to take action. Nothing happened.

Since then the internet has allowed men to film themselves abusing women and children, and to distribute these images to thousands of people worldwide, within minutes. For a woman whose rape and violation is now a piece of entertainment, she has to cope with the knowledge that the record of this may well outlive her.

Earlier this year, I did some research for a film company on violent porn, and found an image on the internet that haunts me. It was a photograph of a dead naked woman in a ditch, who had been beaten and seemingly raped. Her flesh crawled with maggots. Some men will find that picture sexually arousing. Those men need to be stopped from creating the demand that encourages the murder of women simply in order to satisfy their grotesque desires.”

Holly Combe, member of Feminists Against Censorship.


“One of my main concerns for victims of genuine abuse is that their abuser is prosecuted, not whether somebody looked at the evidence and became turned on. I would also suggest that anyone who commits a serious crime is unlikely to put the results all over the internet, and that many of the sites likely to be affected by the new laws would actually be showing sexual activity between consenting adults. The government seems to be making the point that some sex acts are so wrong that individual consent doesn't count and that it is the place of authority to dictate our sexual preferences or place limits on them.

I would also add that even the original consultation paper for this bill openly states that there is a lack of evidence to support claims about the links between viewing porn and engaging in non-consensual, abusive behaviour. In my view, the proposed law potentially absolves killers who enjoy violent porn of responsibility for their actions.
The bottom line is that the majority of people aren't into BDSM [bondage/domination/sado-masochism] and that means it's all too easy for most of us to say, "It won't affect me if you ban that" and allow this bill to pass into law. But if we let the government tell us what we can and can't look at, who knows what they'll be able to achieve in the future?”


Jeremy Coutinho, chair of Object.


“Obviously these proposals are "a good news day" for women's human rights. They plug a legal loophole whereby the distribution and sale, but not the possession of violent material, was illegal.
Simply closing this loophole, though, does not in itself address society's attitudes towards women, which are still extraordinarily sexist and allow rape, sexual assault and discrimination to flourish. The mainstreaming of a porn aesthetic and outlook is now endemic.

So, for instance, in Virgin Airline's executive lounge at JFK, the introduction of urinals shaped like women's mouths was only abandoned after massive protest. Then there was Zoo magazine's "dictionary of porn" which described abusive porn such as "pink eye" (ejaculating on to a woman's eye ball). Zoo is sold without age restriction as a "lifestyle" magazine, often for as little as 60p.

Or take the Sport "newspaper", which described the sex life of Jane Longhurst's murderer as "an adventurous romp" on a page crammed with graphic adverts for sex chat lines and hardcore porn.

While I welcome this bill, the mainstream objectification of women has to be tackled too if the government is really serious about women's human rights.”


Bonnie Greer, playwright.


“The creation and use of pornography is as old as humankind. In the 18th century, pornographic novels were used to spread ideas that later became the foundation for the Enlightenment. Ulysses, arguably the greatest novel of the 20th century, was called porn. So was Manet's Olympia; Goya's The Naked Maja; Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

While snuff imagery, female mutilation and gynaecological surgery is not my idea of entertainment, these sites are usually made by adults and consumed by adults and it is as important to protect consenting adult behaviour as it is to protect children, the aged, racial minorities, and the disabled. While any decent human being can sympathise with a grieving mother, particularly in the face of an especially horrendous crime; we can allow neither her, nor 50,000 petitioners, nor a government that has lost its way, to criminalise legitimate, private, adult behaviour. The arena of adulthood must be allowed to exist for the sake of democracy.”