Sexuality

So I Lied, So Sue Me

'08/12 Election, Abortion, Parenting, Sexuality, Women
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I know I said I’d do nothing else on Palin but I just came across this post at Cornell Professor Michael Dorf’s personal blog.

While decrying the GOP’s vetting procedure Dorf makes a point I’ve not seen anywhere else – the massive disconnect between evangelist Palin’s professed anti-abortionism and her having amniocentesis while pregnant herself:

….one acquires the information available through an amniocentesis only at the small but real risk of terminating the pregnancy. This is why younger women are generally not offered an amniocentesis at all — the risk of miscarriage is too great to justify the procedure. For a person in a higher-risk category (an older woman, for example) who either will or might terminate a pregnancy on the basis of a positive result, this risk might be worth taking. But for a person who will not abort no matter what the result is, it would not appear to be. This makes me think that, at least for the moment that she decided to have an amniocentesis, Sarah Palin considered having an abortion.

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“For now you can still buy a Beemer with your dignity intact. The question is, should you?” *

Capitalism, Fashion in Action!, Feminism, Media, Parenting, Sexuality, Women
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A used beemer, that is.

Why so? Thanks to Egalia at Tenessee Guerilla Women for drawing my attention to this sick little ad campaign for BMW:

As it’s described in Salon:

Broadsheet: [A] beautiful young woman — presumably naked and lying in bed — wearing a come-hither look and a crown of blond curls. In small print scrawled across her bare shoulder, it reads: “You know you’re not the first.” As your eyes drift to the bottom of the advertisement — and the top of her chest — you learn that it’s an advertisement for BMW’s premium selection of used cars. Used cars, used women — get it?! And, finally, there’s BMW’s slogan in the bottom right-hand corner, which takes on a whole new meaning: “Sheer Driving Pleasure.”

I’d also add – how old is that girl? 13? 14? She could be 18; but even so the aim is to make her look pubescent, yet still available.

The air of innocence suggests virginal chastity, yet the pose of passive abandon says ‘here, take me’. The makeup is deliberately designed to accentuate the dewy skin, pouting mouth and cherubic curls of extreme youth; yet the direct gaze gives an implicit promise of sexuality. It’s all very carefully done and just to make sure you get the message, it’s made explicit in the slogan. “You know you’re not the first”. Oh well, that’s all right then. Lech away at the child.

No doubt BMW’s marketing droids are aiming for a discrete demographic – and from the message sent by this ad, I’d say that’s the repressed-paedophile-with-aspirational-tendencies-in-a-boring-job-that-doesn’t-pay quite enough-for-a-posh-car market segment. I bet the research people found their target audience goes on holiday in Costa Rica or Thailand as well; but what I’d find even more interesting is the range of media this ad’s been placed in. That would tell us even more about whether BMW sees their customers as potential paedophiles or not. But on the content of that ad alone, I think that were I a second-hand beemer driver, I’d be just a tad insulted.

[First spotted by Copyranter.]

* Jeremy Clarkson, The Sunday Times

WTF?

Bloody Lawyers, Sexuality
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Max Mosley has won his privacy case against The News of The World – the judge held that Mosley’s S&M frolics with prostitutes, whatever their unsavoury nature, had ‘a reasonable expectation of privacy’.

I cannot get my head round this decision. Whatever else, when you pay for sex it isn’t private, any more than paying for a newspaper or using the internet is. I have a reasonable expectation that my email and browser history is private too – but it’s not, any more than paid for sex is.

Prostitution is a public transaction for money and hence can have no reasonable expaction of privacy. What’s more it’s illegal in some circumstances. This decision is just another drawing of the veil of secrecy over the moral bankruptcy of prominent people.

I never thought I’d say this but I’m on the side of the News of The World. I hope they appeal.