YOUNG women who want to have casual sex - maybe even casual sex with footballers - could learn a lot from the guy who taught me how to ride a motorbike.

Jack* loved mounting powerful machines. He threw a leg over every chance he got. But the veteran biker never kidded himself about the dangers of the road and passed his pessimism on to his students.

Expect the worst, he told us. Prepare to brake at every intersection. And never, ever assume car drivers will respect your rights as an equal road user. "Is it fair?" he'd say. "Of course it isn't. But what's the point of saying 'I had the right of way' if you're lying in hospital in traction?"

Jack's defensive riding message - that sometimes safety trumps self-righteousness - makes sense when it comes to young women and sex, because it acknowledges the risks without (a) shaming, blaming and defaming the victims or (b) attempting to enforce unrealistic prohibitions.

As we all know, the moral conservative approach to female sexuality is that it is too powerful and dangerous to be messed with outside of marriage. From high school scripture teachers to Islamist extremists, the argument is the same: women's sexual magnetism is too strong and men's self-control is too weak. To preserve the delicate social equilibrium, therefore, ladies must be locked safely away and men must be forgiven if they lose control after exposure to too much bare bosom.

This, of course, is highly offensive to all sexes. Women are not dangerous social bombs who should be accessed only by specialised male technicians wearing safety gear in the form of wedding certificates. Amazingly enough, it is also quite possible for us to go drinking in micro skirts and have absolutely no interest in being the patty in an NRL sexual burger.

Men, meanwhile, are more than meat puppets whose penises click on to autopilot at the mere mention of female flesh. For chaps to claim they are held hostage by their biological urges is an appalling deflection of responsibility.

To return to a motorcycling metaphor, if men are busted speeding on a feisty Yamaha R1, they can't blame the bike no matter how hot it looked, getting about with its cross plane crankshaft hanging out the way it was.

Still, in the light of yet more sorry footballing sex scandals, I can't help thinking that the popular alternative to the moral conservative position, the one promoted by raunch culture extremists, has its flaws, too.

In an ideal world, women would be able to do whatever and whoever they wanted and damn the consequences. Like motorcycling, however, casual sex has dangers as well as thrills. The numerous nasties include diseases, drop-kicks, double standards and scary new recording devices.

(Back in the good old days, sexual regret only lasted a weekend and we were the only ones who remembered the dire details. Now, thanks to the rise of porn-sharing websites, our Saturday night swinging-naked-from-a-chandelier mistakes have the potential to haunt us forever, and the entire world - not just the rest of the footy team - may be watching through the bathroom window.)

Telling young women to go cold turkey on casual shagging is unrealistic and taking things way too far towards the Taliban end of the spectrum. But, like L-plate motorcyclists, they need to know that keeping safe means learning how to ride defensively.

If Jack was instructing young women in the ways of the sexual speedway, he wouldn't mince words. He'd issue a blanket ban on alcohol and say go easy when revving on unfamiliar roads or machines. He'd tell them to enjoy their sport but never ever to assume that other punters would respect their rights as equals (especially if those punters happened to have ovoid balls and quads the size of Kombis).

It isn't fair; and it certainly doesn't mean that women who come a cropper are in any way asking for it (bad things can happen to even the safest of speedsters). But pretending casual sex is hazard-free is as dangerous as pretending it's somehow possible to put a stop to it altogether.

* Jack's name has been changed.

[via The Australian]

I attended the filming of Q&A at ABC studios on Monday night and of course the discussion centred around the rise of a new Prime Minister and a female one in Julia Gillard.

At one point the question was posed of whether gender was an issue to consider, of course imagine my chargrine expression when the response from all members of the panel was a firm no. 

Perhaps it was the way the question was framed, but probably not. 

I was then utterly astounded. Within minutes they were making jokes that alluded to Tony Abbott and various other members of both parties being sexually attracted to Ms. Gillard.

If the gender issue is truly dead, then why are people still able to comment about her as a (shudder) sexually appealing woman, yet politics being gender blind?

In the words of another famous female Australian politician...

please explain?

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Apparently under the effect of one too many drinks she performed 18 consecutive blowjobs according to witnesses at the event. One of them recounts 'she was screaming 'i turned 18 and now i can do whatever the fuck i want'".

In the end, the girl totally lost control and after the 18 consecutive blowjobs she started feeling ill, resulting in her being hospitalised and having her stomach pumped  

gazzetino.it, click view for more information

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Following that, James Anaya, a special envoy from the UN Human Rights Commission, publically came out and said the policies of the intervention were ‘racist' and that they broke many of the articles of ‘the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples'.

One of the clearest Articles broken reads:

Article 19: ‘States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them'

How embarrassing. International condemnation and refugees in a first world country.

Yet, White Australia is silent. Most of us can reconcile that it's a far away problem, with people we've never really connected with. We might feel bad occasionally but at least we don't steal the children anymore.

And, even if it is bad being Aboriginal at least the intervention is something, at least we're doing something.

And for most of us that's it, it's just a problem we can push further into the back of our minds, and a people we can push further toward the extinction our ancestors always wanted.  . . read more

Atkinson, who has the right to veto the lifting of a national ban on video games rated too violent and extreme for consumption said he has received threatening notes from gamers.

"I feel that my family and I are more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me."

Currently Australia has a ban on adult or R rated games, where interestingly movies with the same themes of violence, language, nudity and drug use are allowed.  And is the only country in the Western democracy that doesn't have an adult rating system in place.

Perhaps he feels introducing an adult R+ rating would increase the sort of anti-social behaviour we see in these games, because isn't it true that all gamers including myself are 2D assassins just looking for a good excuse to blow people to smithereens?  . . read more

Schwartz then explained the side benefit of this finding -- that if boys know pornography will make them gay, they'll never touch it, taking advantage of what Schwartz sees as a natural homophobia. "And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he's going to want to get a copy of Playboy?" he said. "I'm pretty sure he'll lose interest. That's the last thing he wants!"

By Eric Kleefield - written for TPM, click view for more information  . . read more

The mainstream media, including the often impressive Radio National, continue to characterise the CIA’s interrogation techniques as “enhanced” or “harsh”, rather than “torture”.

Not a single Australian judge, politician or journalist has publicly disclosed the CIA’s core mission: orchestrating terror.

99% of the Australians remain blind to the horrors of daily life in Gaza and ignorant of Israeli war crimes. The illegal use of white phosphorous still burns the bones of toddlers in Palestinian hospitals, but the media is deaf to their screams.

The morality and legality of using bomb laden Drones to assassinate inconvenient citizens in far away places has never been questioned by Australia’s military chiefs.

These same chiefs are unable to offer a satisfactory explanation for our invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

The militarisation of the world keeps spreading and the natural world disintegrates, while old farts in Lear jets lament the loss of the ashes. . . read more

The Blair House is tradidionally used by the President-Elect in the lead up to the inauguration and the Obamas has asked to be moved into the Blair House earlier so their two young children could start at their new school on the first day of the new term but have since been booked into the Presidential Suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel.

Comments from various blogs have not been complimentary:

"What would possess Howard to not at least publicly offer up his stay at Blair House to Obama. Then Obama could graciously say no thank you. By keeping his reservation and being silent Howard showed himself to be not that bright of a person and one can understand how he would pal around with george in an illegal war or two.
It would not be above george to threaten Howard with not giving him the medal if he didn't stay at Blair House and it would not be below Howard to respond to the threat in the way that he did, sort of like a cowering dog. The Aussies must really be proud of their guy. Any body got a shoe." - Conrad C. Elledge

"George couldn't make this idiot stay at the hay-adams?" - Joe"no doubt Howard is receiving the honor for driving his country's currency into the abyss." - Urbuhlship

"Ah...the administration that live and died by the belief that loyalty trumped competence, clarity and every other imaginable factor-hands out a last few favors to the brown nose gang of three.
With the former prime minister of Australia getting the nod to stay in the Blair House-instead of making way for the incoming President.
How fitting. G'day-as they say-down under." - Don Duval

"Handing out medals by the dozens to his supporters is about the only thing this president seems capable of actually doing. What is the cost to the U.S. taxpayers to bring these guys to Washington so ding-dong in chief can hang a goofy medal around their necks, or pin them on their jackets, or whatever one does with them? At least the national medal budget will likely be significantly reduced after January 20th." - Bill . . read more

Up to 2,000 pigs are infected with the swine flu which is believed to have been introduced by workers on the property. It is worth noting that unlike the pigs, the workers when they have fully recovered will not be slaughtered.

Key veterinary adviser, Dr Ian Roth says groups of pigs can be cleared during the quarantine period but only after meeting stringent protocols and inspections.

"The piggery will remain in quarantine, but when pigs have fully recovered, when they're completely healthy and at least seven days [have] passed, then those animals will be able to go for slaughter," he said, without any concession to the ethics involved.

Lucky pigs!  . . read more