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Did anyone doubt that my first post back would be about a rape-related issue that is considered “controversial”? If not, you know me well.

This makes me very happy.

. . . Well, almost.

You see, the British Home Office has released this campaign to fight the sex trafficking industry — and from what I can tell, I love the concept (I have a practical criticism later). But, nowhere can I find the full text on the poster or an image large enough to make out the small text myself. As the Home Office has received my criticism before for some pretty terrible anti-rape ads, I’d like to know the full text before I sing its praises. If you find it, please send it on! I’ll be looking for it over the next few days; just be aware that my opinion is subject to change or expand on that basis. But here’s what we know:

Posters will appear in clubs and pubs from Monday warning men against paying for sex in brothels with exploited or trafficked women.

The posters, which will be piloted in men’s toilets in Westminster and Nottingham, will say “Walk in a Punter. Walk out a Rapist”.

They are part of a six-month home office review into tackling the demand for prostitution, which began in January, and aim to point out that trafficked women are forced into selling sex, and that forced sex is rape.

“So if you pay for sex with a trafficked woman what does that make you?” the posters ask.

They also urge Johns “if [they're] man enough” to call Crime Stoppers if they come across something suspicious.

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Popularity: 15% [?]

UPDATE: The Guardian has removed O’Hara’s blog post about the Johnny Vegas incident and Vegas has filed a complaint. This does not surprise me, actually, as Britain has very strong libel laws and the post called the actions “sexual assault” in the title even though he was not charged or convicted of anything. Personally, I don’t think that this means the incident did not happen. The facts are supposed to be in dispute, but this will be the case with any crime. Again, I’ve seen no one dispute the sexual assault — I have seen disputes over whether or not penetrative rape took place. I also haven’t found a statement from Vegas about the incident, a statement from the woman who was allegedly assaulted, or a statement from O’Hara in defense or retraction of her article.

Of course, I feel that I made it clear in the blog post that he has been neither charged nor convicted of any crime. And I stand by everything I said, in the context of an opinion about what the nature of these actions would be if they occurred, and so long as its recognized that the opinion on this specific instance was based off of an eye-witness account that was corroborated and printed in a major international newspaper. I am reopening comments, but will absolutely close them again if things get out of hand like they did last time.

Warning: I personally found this to be very upsetting and triggering.

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Popularity: 41% [?]

A lot of what I’ve been writing about lately seems to fall under the category of wholly unsurprising and yet still utterly depressing. Here’s another one for the files:

Just like in the good old U.S. of A. (and Australia), a new poll shows that in Ireland, large numbers of citizens think that women are at least “partially responsible” for rape (note: this is a cached page. The Irish Examiner, which helped conduct the study and has the most comprehensive info about the results, is currently experiencing problems with his website. I’ll put the proper link in later if I notice the page is back up).

* More than 30% think a victim is some way responsible if she flirts with a man or fails to say no clearly.

* 10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.

* 37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.

* One in three think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.

* 38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.

The results also show that defence barristers, looking to swing the deciding three members in every 12-person jury, can exploit misgivings in certain demographics about the perceived responsibility of female victims.

Dramatic differences in empathy towards victims based on age and social class are revealed. Gender, however, had little impact.

In every category, widowed, divorced and separated people took the harshest view on the role of the female victim, compared with married or cohabiting couples.

The results of the poll support the results of the ground-breaking Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) report in 2002, which found 15% of the population believed a raped woman was not an innocent victim.

A few notes are necessary, here.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

A defense attorney has yet again made a highly offensive argument about how a victim was advertising her desire to be raped by her choice of clothing. But this time, instead of just saying “oh well,” or “tsk tsk” or “everyone deserves a defense no matter how misleading and unethical,” a government official is actually doing something about it (emphasis and brackets mine).

An MSP is demanding action from the legal profession after a lawyer used the way a teenage sex assault victim was dressed as a defence for a client.

Iain Smith also brought up the 15-year-old’s sexual history and said she was not vulnerable.

His client, Rikki Tainsch, was given three years probation for plying the girl with drink then attacking her.

SNP MSP [Scottish National Party Member of Scottish Parliament] Roseanna Cunningham has lodged a parliamentary motion calling for such comments to be banned from the courts.

Tainsch, who had never met the 15-year-old before the day he attacked her, took her to his home in Tibbermore, Perthshire, in August last year.

He then gave her enough vodka and Irn Bru to make her violently sick.

She went to bed feeling unwell but woke to find the 24-year-old assaulting her.

During the trial at Perth Sheriff Court, Mr Smith said the teenager had been “scantily clad”, wearing shorts, black boots and a white top.

He also stated: “There was a suggestion the girl had been sexually active before.

“I don’t think it is fair to say this was a very vulnerable person.”

Damn straight these kinds of comments should be banned from court. I’ve made this argument more times than I can count (you’ll find many examples under the slut-shaming and courts gone crazy categories). Thank you, thank you, thank you Ms. Cunningham. If it hasn’t been made clear yet, she really is a bad ass:

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Popularity: 53% [?]

A man in London has just been arrested on charges of drugging and raping women he picked up in his taxi cab. Though there are countless published stories about the case, the information is exceedingly limited in all of them. Here is the gist:

Up to 35 women may have been drugged and raped by a London taxi driver, police said on Monday.

Thirty women have come forward after a man was arrested last Friday in southeast London on suspicion of rape.

Police were initially investigating five attacks in which victims were picked up in a black cab near Oxford Street, King’s Road or London Bridge.

The suspect is accused of attacking his passengers after offering them spiked glasses of champagne which he said were to help him celebrate a lottery win.

The most recent reported attack took place on February 5 after a 33-year-old woman was picked up near London Bridge Station.

“Every case is being linked,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

Knowing full well that the Mirror is about as far from a reputable news source as you can get (don’t worry, the facts are the same in every story), I chose to use their article particularly because of the confounding nature of the first sentence. “Up to 35 women.” Well, 35 women in total have come forward. And instead of reaching what I would deem to be the logical conclusion — that if 35 have already come forward, just think of how many others there are — the Mirror has apparently determined that when 35 women come forward with rape allegations, that’s the definitive total, and at least a few have to be liars.

It’s funny, because it seems to be a theme recently. No, not just calling rape victims liars, since that’s pretty much a theme of living in the world as a woman. I’m talking about women being raped in cabs — and then having it implied that they are liars or to blame for the assaults.

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Popularity: 23% [?]

Again, I’m issuing a trigger warning as strongly as I can. I’ve written about a hell of a lot of disturbing, disgusting cases of rape and gender violence. And this easily ranks among the most repulsive.

. . .

A man is in court for the 2005 rape and murder of a young model. I just discovered the case this morning, and reading through the back stories has me just about physically ill. His defense? That yes, he raped her corpse, but that doesn’t mean he killed her.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

Abortion has long been a highly controversial topic in Italy, with its large Roman Catholic population. But an outrageous move by law enforcement officials has recently made things a lot more heated — and just in time for a national election.

The controversy over Italy’s 30-year-old law legalizing abortion stirred up demonstrations this week in its defense, with Health Minister Livia Turco among the protesters.

The demonstrations were touched off by an incident in a Naples hospital on Monday.

Acting on an anonymous tip that an abortion had been performed later in a pregnancy than the law allows, police officers entered the hospital and interrogated a Neapolitan woman, identified in the news media only by her first name, Silvana, immediately after the abortion and reportedly while she was still under the effects of anesthesia. They seized the aborted fetus.

Carmine Nappi, the chief of obstetrics at the hospital, likened the police intrusion to an anti-Mafia raid. “We’ve had countless complaints, we’re a hospital, but never a blitz like this,” he said by telephone on Thursday.

On Thursday evening, protesters gathered in several Italian cities. In Rome, a few hundred women and some men, many holding signs that read, “Silvana, we’re all with you,” stopped traffic in front of the Health Ministry. Ms. Turco praised the turnout. “We’re defending a law that is close to us,” she said.

On Friday, a group of women staged a sit-in in front of the Naples hospital.

An internal investigation at the hospital determined that the woman, 39, had terminated her pregnancy during the 21st week, within the 24-week limit set by the law, after tests disclosed that the fetus could have significant abnormalities.

I can hardly wrap my head around the concept that something like this actually happened.

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Popularity: 18% [?]

Despite all the talk of unexpected pregnancy and abortion centering around a woman’s “responsibility,” men do actually play a role in conception. In fact, it’s a pretty important one (the guy doesn’t have to be there, but at some point a penis will be required). Taking the huge leap that defies all social conditioning, men therefore also play a role in preventing unwanted pregnancies. And finally, this is being loudly and publicly acknowledged.

The British contraception advocacy group Family Planning Association is running a Contraceptive Awareness Week in February. This year’s focus? Men.

From the site:

To get the full picture, for this year, fpa will be focusing on the male element of contraceptive use. Our Valentine’s campaign – The New Man – will examine men’s attitudes to contraception, get some of the basics about contraception out there and encourage men to get more involved in their own reproductive decision making.

We know that men are interested in contraception. Since 1996 an extra 48 per cent of you have gone to a contraceptive clinic.

But men have their own set of issues when it comes to sexual health. Men don’t have as many methods to choose from as women (at the moment there are two male methods – condoms and sterilisation). Some men might think contraception is a bit of a ‘girly’ subject, putting them off it. We also know from men who call fpa’s helpline that they just don’t know enough about contraception and how the different methods work.

Some may say there’s no point including men. Contraception is a woman’s issue.

Of course it is! But there’s more to it than just focusing on the ladies. If men don’t know about contraception, how can they understand the options and make decisions about preventing pregnancy? And besides, how can they impress women with their encyclopaedic knowledge of all things contraceptive if they don’t know their patch from their pill?

Research also shows that men and women who don’t communicate about contraception are less likely to use it.

Personally, I think that it’s a great thing. Contraception distribution and education is generally focused on women, and there are damn good reasons for this that I’m not going to criticize. With the exception of sterilization, the most effective means of birth control are and must be controlled by women. And yes, they do have more at stake. If a pregnancy occurs, it’s going to be their body bringing a fetus to term and giving birth, or their body going through an abortion procedure.

But of course, that doesn’t mean that men shouldn’t be involved.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

Via the 52nd Carnival of Feminists comes this post by Debs about an appalling campaign taking place in the UK called Know Your Limits. It has been running for what seems like quite a while by now, but it’s still definitely worth talking about.

The Know Your Limits campaign raises awareness about how drinking can lead to sexual assault. That is, if you’re a woman, drinking can lead to you being sexually assaulted. Check out the poster (pdf) that shows a woman laying down and sobbing, next to the big bold words one in three reported rapes happens when the victim has been drinking. Debs refers to the woman “as evidently having had too much to drink.” That’s one interpretation; I’d say that she looks more like she has just been raped in the street and is now laying there sobbing. Oh, and she was probably drinking. So let that be a lesson to you, ladies. Do you want to end up raped and sobbing in an alley? I didn’t think so.

Obviously I agree with everything that Debs has to say about how this campaign is blaming the victim. As she notes (like many before her), women aren’t raped because they’ve been drinking, women are raped because they are in the presence of a rapist.

But I find something else interesting going on, here. You see, this isn’t, as you might expect, a sexual assault prevention campaign. This is an anti-binge drinking campaign. And here, according to the Home Office, is why you shouldn’t binge drink: you could get into a fight, you could have sex without a condom and get an STD, you could drive and hurt yourself or someone else, you could die from mixing alcohol with drugs, you could get fat, and you could get raped.

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Popularity: 25% [?]

Yesterday, the Daily Mail — hardly a reservoir of excellent reporting — ran an article warning successful married business men about the perils of evil attractive women who get jobs specifically looking for unsuspecting guys to sexually prey upon. And then, once they get the poor guy in bed despite his deep protestations, the heartless bitches have the nerve to call him the next day! And expect him to call back! The article calls such women “office piranhas.” Yeah, that sounds fair.

Or, we could — just for the sake of argument, of course — put it another way. Guy hires secretary. Guy thinks secretary is hot. Secretary flirts with guy. Guy sleeps with her, despite the fact that he has two kids and a pregnant wife. Guy feels guilty about cheating on his wife, but secretary keeps flirting so he keeps fucking her. Wife finds out, leaves him. Guy realizes that his life is now in ruins but is totally unable to accept responsibility for his actions. Guy writes to the Daily Mail to tell them about this evil, flirting banshee woman. Daily Mail says “hey, this is crap, so we obviously have to print it.” Knowing that they need to provide some sort of an excuse for the misogyny, they find an “expert” to explain the “phenomenon” of money-grubbing whores getting jobs for the sole purpose of finding married men to financially support them.

Take your pick.

Once, retail boss Colin had an enviable life. He was in line for promotion, had a beautiful North London home, two children he adored and a loving wife who was expecting their third baby.

Then he hired a 26-year-old secretary. She was to herald the unravelling of his life in the most spectacular way.

Fuelled by alcohol and intoxicated by the fact that this nubile young woman made it crystal-clear that she desired him, he found himself in bed with her after the office Christmas party. It was to leave him nursing the biggest hangover of his life: within six months he was homeless and estranged from his wife and children, and out of a job.

Last week, matrimonial lawyer Diane Benussi warned male bosses who unexpectedly hit it off with a female employee that they might have caught themselves an “office piranha” - a man-eating woman who preys on married, high-status men. And Ms Benussi, who has almost 30 years’ experience in the legal profession, sounded her warning after noting an increasing number of cases involving single women chasing the married fathers of their children for financial support.

Many such women, she says, join companies with a large number of male employees with the sole intention of looking for a partner. The office party then offers the ideal environment to trigger such relationships.

Ms Benussi’s warning comes too late for Colin, who was divorced by his wife Ellen, 38, nine months ago on the grounds of adultery.

Damn those women, ruining men’s lives by eating the apple and destroying paradise flirting with them and shit!

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Popularity: 100% [?]

Labour party parliament officials in Britain are currently working to outlaw prostitution.

Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader and minister for women, gave public backing to a ban on prostitution yesterday.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker and junior women’s minister Barbara Follett are to visit Sweden, where paying for sex is illegal, to see what the ban there has achieved.

The Home Office considered making paying for sex a specific crime in 2004, but decided against it. Harman’s comments have put the issue back on the table. “Do we think it’s right in the 21st century that women should be in a sex trade or do we think it’s exploitation and should be banned? Just because something has always gone on, it doesn’t mean you just wring your hands and say there’s nothing we can do about it,” Harman told Radio 4’s Today programme.

She said the government had to deal with the problem of sex workers trafficked into Britain. “I think we do need to have a debate and unless you tackle the demand side of human trafficking, which is fuelling this trade, we will not be able to protect women from it. That is what they’ve done in Sweden. My own personal view is that’s what we need to do as a next step.”

The Newspaper Society will produce new guidelines on small ads offering services at brothels next month. “I think that the new guidance will stop those ads. But the next question is, can we really stop this trade when we’ve still got a lawful sex trade going on?” Harman said.

I think that Harman’s last question is a valid one with no easy answers. I also think that her first question is innately flawed. To ask whether we think that the sex industry is exploitative and then declare that if we do, we must outlaw it, is to work off of the disproved basis that criminalizing the sex industry will somehow make it less exploitative.

From everything I’ve read about the plan, the new laws would simply criminalize the purchasing of sex and not the selling. Indeed, in some small ways it even officially lessens the restrictions upon sex workers themselves. The goal here is a noble one: to put the sex trafficking industry out of business, and therefore decrease the number of abused and exploited women, as well as to increase the safety of all sex workers.

The problem is, as sex worker advocacy groups and the Liberal Democrats (a smaller more politically progressive party in parliament) have pointed out, that the restrictions will probably make sex workers less safe, not more.

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Popularity: 13% [?]