Well Nothing Exciting Happened BUT

Firstly sorry for being so quiet, I have been working on a pet project that I thought was going to be easy and turns out it is the most impossible concept I have ever had. I will keep working at it but not sure I will ever get an answer that I will be comfortable with sharing. However I felt today I needed to put a couple of things out there, so it has got me back into the flow of things. It is nice to get my head back round the day to day stuff rather than trying to fix the world.

So firstly good luck to @ethicalstripper who is up for a sexual freedom award, this is for her work with ELSC to mobilise change for dancers. She recently gave a view to a parliamentary committee discussing this and other things including Decrim of sex work. Because of the issues with licensing and social stigma it has been almost impossible for dancers to stand with their sex worker sisters because of the stigma that attaches and would feed back to the clubs. In the UK the strip industry has become more and more challenged and a minority of very loud voices has created an environment where clubs cannot allow any touching so clubs police their dancers. On a personal level I would say that any choice a person makes should be treated as valid and not policed by the moral minority.

We should stand together and fight to achieve personal freedoms but the way the industry is policed it makes it a major challenge. I can't think of a dancer I have met over the the last 25 years who would go ewwww and look down on prostitutes but because they don't want to have issues with the clubs they can't come out and say it. All sex workers are stigmatised to one degree or another and many cannot come out and say what they feel because of the judgemental nature of society. So yes TonyN stands up for Decrim because the right for a person to decide what they do with their body is a human right in my very no so humble opinion. Society is busy trying to divide various aspects of the sexual entertainment /adult businesses because they are easier to control if they are fighting each other.

So to all those workers out there no matter what aspect of the sexual entertainment industry you are in remember a divide front is a lot easier to combat. It will put words into others mouths to create a situation where people who should share common ground are pushed apart.

The strip industry needs to have its business practices and regulations reviewed, how this might be affected by Decrim I don't know but both parties dancers and prostitutes share more common ground because of stigma and portrayal by the press and other forms of media. Supporting Decrim should not preclude supporting change in the strip industry given the regulations clubs and dancers currently face. And certainly supporting reviewing and changing the strip industry legislation should not preclude supporting Decrim. I am just a humble man who feels the world has changed but we are still guided by laws written in a time when the church and it's morals had way to much influence on society. If people want to follow a religion I would never deny them that right but society has changed and it is time we recognised that and moved forward.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Leeds Redux Mumsnet Strikes Back

So this was a piece I was intending to write after the ELSC exhibitions and performances. However certain feminists have been busy commenting on my flying penis avatar on twitter, which of course would be very easy for me to comment on and mock. But to be honest the way these feminists have been carrying on they need no help from me on creating a highly amusing set of comments. So who are these warriors of truth, justice and the feminist ways? Well it is our good friends on the Mumsnet feminist boards, you know the ones who raise a hue and cry based on beliefs rather that facts. No apologies for the length of this piece nor on the lack of images.

As people who read the blog regularly know I have a fascination with crime figures and when I did a comparison on the Lilith report with a control being Wandsworth and allowing for population changes which Lilith didn't do the figures changed a tad with rape falling over 12 years in Camden and increasing in the control being Wandsworth. So we were seeing pointers towards the fact that any claims of links to sexual violence were in fact a little off. Add to this the figures produced by a local paper in Newquay after a certain Inspector Drummond opened mouth and engaged foot and any claims about the fact that SEVs cause sexual violence seem to have disappeared. However facts can never keep a good Woozle down.

So if people remember I produced figures around every single SEV in England and Wales back in 2012 for the year 2011. Now the methodology wasn't mine but one used by Bristol and Coventry feminists in the campaign against clubs in those areas. They took an arbitrary 50 metres around each club and assumed any and all violent and sexual crimes were linked to the SEV at the centre of the zone, now I have no idea why 50 metres but it does create an image of what happens around SEVs apparently. The methodology was created by Bristol and they passed the figures for Bristol to Coventry Women's Voices for them to use in their campaign. So I had figures for 2011 for the Headrow in Leeds where 2 clubs closed and now the clubs have been clubs long enough that I can do a comparative analysis of what has gone on since the 2 clubs in the area closed, the clubs were fairly close to each other and created overlapping fields of influence so I have taken the two as a single entity.

Looking back at 2011 we saw a grand total of 15 sexual and violent crimes whilst from August 2014 to July 2015 37 violent and sexual crimes in the same area. So 12 months and allowing for any residual impact of the clubs on the area I worked back from the latest date for one year. Not rocket science and to be perfectly honest I am not sure if proves much other than the claims made by radical feminists in an effort to close clubs are not based on any sort of reality. If I was a victim of sexual or violent crime in the Headrow area since the SEVs closed I would be questioning the council about the fact that no impact analysis was done on the closing on venues and losing bouncers and CCTV. I e-mailed the licensing committee to ask if anyone had thought to consider what might happen if the clubs closed and was told the licensing committee had no interest in doing an impact analysis as they could not see any possible reason. And this is where the ignorance created by claiming clubs cause Sexual Violence people will not think that losing CCTV and door staff could possibly have a negative impact.

The fact is after looking at every venue in England and Wales back in 2012 I can be certain that the only places that have localised issues with sexual and violent crimes are night clubs. So I am certain there will be a backlash from this after all this is only a blog and I don't get peer reviewed as I don't publish papers. What I do is look at claims pointing SEVs as being linked to sex crimes. The clubs are no more linked than banks or even women's centres. The claims were made and the fact is the claims have no bearing on reality, so please if you are going to make claims about the clubs please be aware I will be here to double check any claims. I could pick a woman's centre in a locality that has a lot of sexual and violent crimes close by and make the whole thing look incredibly edgy.

One thing that has had me laughing about Mumsnet boards is that one section of the feminists have basically ignored all evidence including Eaves withdrawing Lilith and still believe that SEVs cause localised sexual violence, this might be called cognitive dissonance? And on the other hand some being accepting of the facts are now trying to justify the attitude of close all clubs because they allow men to let off rabid misogyny and come out of the club worse than when they went in. Now apart from the fact there was almost two separate groups of radical feminists with diametrically opposed points of view the thing that I found most funny (apart from the fact I am supposedly crazy enough to post on mumsnet boards posing as a feminist) was that certain people on the board quoting Lilith and associated gems was on the board when Object were forced to remove Lilith from their resources (well played Sausage) so they surely knew what they were saying had no basis in fact but they just couldn't manage to hold back. So the fact that Leeds has such a dramatic change since the club closed it does raise a question why? I will be going back over my 2011 figures and comparing them to clubs that have closed elsewhere and see if the issue is consistent or does it take a large City for this sort of thing to happen?

Finally I know those who accept there isn't a direct link between clubs and sexual violence are already looking for ways to still blame clubs but now the club is a breeding ground of misogyny that will be brought out of the clubs and will affect women everywhere. Interesting that any time one argument fails there seems to be a rush to find another excuse to back the belief system that clubs are evil and need to be eradicated. I am amazed that the belief system refuses to die amongst those who want to close clubs and that claims still rattle out regularly because to actually realise the claims are based on nothing other than a belief and that clubs are not the evil they imagined.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com) for flying penises everywhere!

It Is An Ex Lobby Group, It Has Ceased To Be?

Over the years that this blog has been running there has been one thing that has been more consistent than anything else. The fact that Object Now Ltd have been campaigning about striptease and "lapdancing", usually missing most of the facts, at every turn and about every venue. They even had toolkits full of misguided, ill informed and defamatory statements to send to councils. Well I will admit that I was expecting them to haunt every campaign ever since the Guardian framed Anna as the perfect radical feminist, but is seems motherhood changed her drive, either that or Object couldn't afford her any more.

However the existence of Object seems to be a thing of the past as I suppose all good (and bad) things must come to an end. Having looked at their webpages for many a year it was disappointing to go have a look to see what they were up to only to find what is basically an empty page with a log in for the webmaster, now we know that they haven't had much in the way of funding and the money from Joseph Roundtree which covered the money for the CEO ran out this year so what do you do? I was assuming the cost cutting would be so that Object could focus on communicating with the world via facebook and twitter, however twitter and facebook seem to have stopped at the 7th July. I not sure when their tumblr stopped as I have never really tried to figure out timelines on there.

Whoops, well that's not good.

So Object as a company have failed to file both their account and annual returns, the last two transactions were terminations of appointments as directors leaving Roz Hardie as CEO and Company Secretary. I am not sure if Roz has even realised that the accounts and returns are due but given the fact she seems to have sole responsibility for Object as a company I would suggest she is in trouble, not sure that using the same name in both roles apart from the addition of the name Boyd as a director really makes much difference. Does Object even have a future? I am sure that when this is read someone will try to make object look active but over the last couple of years they have had less and less impact and failed to deliver anything other than a jolly to Brazil for Roz, certainly hope that wasn't the last of the funds. And if I donated to Object in the past I would be stopping any standing orders.

Someone needs a new accountant

So who will pick up the slack and become the next object of ridicule? We have seen misleading reports and cherry picked results from various organisations but we are not sure if anyone will take that step forward to become the next voice of stupidity... errrr I mean the next voice of denying women the right to choose... errr the next group to make up stuff to create invalid arguments... errr the next group to running around shouting stuff.... you all get the point. I would put my money on UK Feminista which of course will be the death knell for it as the more object claims were countered the less people wanted to deal with them. The big thing now is all the MPs and councillors who followed Object are going to now wonder why it has ceased to be. Come on Roz make that effort for a couple of weeks. Pretend that Object has some validity left and please file your accounts and returns we dont want you in trouble we want you to lead your followers into battle and shout intelligent slogans like loser and w**ker.

Has Roz been cloning herself?

It is an ex lobby group it has ceased to be, well almost we are waiting on that last gasp.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Lets Support 'The Art of Stripping'...

I would be amazed if you haven't heard of the East London Strippers Collective, a group of women, who happen to be dancers, dedicated to fighting not only the negative public perception of the industry, but also highlighting the challenging nature of the work itself.

On 22nd October to 1st November 2015, the ELSC, in conjunction with the Red Gallery in Shoreditch are presenting the 'Art of Stripping, a large scale, multi media event that aims to shed light on the world in which they work. Activities will include....

Costume Making Workshops, Academic Symposium, Life Drawing Classes, Pole Dance Movement Workshop, a Photography Exhibition, Performance and Art Installations but most of all it's going to fun....

It is important to realise and understand that this is a dancer lead event and represents an opportunity for anyone to experience a slice of a cultural phenomenon that has been under attack by the government, by 'feminist' hate groups and by mainstream media as well.

Now, in the time this blog has been in existence, I have not asked anything of any of you. But I am going to now because the event needs sponsorship if it is to succeed. It appears that a number of people made a number of commitments that they were unable to meet and the costs associated with the exhibition have to be met, so I am going to ask you to pause for a minute and consider the following...

Do you support the striptease scene?
Do you support the right of dancers to choose how and when they make a living?
Are you prepared to stand up for your chance to go to one of the diminishing number of venues left in the East End?
Do you agree that the activities of the various 'feminist' groups that have been trying to destroy the scene are completely unacceptable?

If you have answered 'Yes' to any of the above questions, then I want you to follow this link, to an Indiegogo page where you can contribute anything from £2 upwards and help make the 'Art of Stripping' a success.

It is events like this that will help to ensure the pubs, clubs and dancers will remain a feature of the East End, so please make a contribution today. At the time of writing, the campaign has raised £255 out of a target of £8000 and if you think that is a lot, believe me it isn't. The exhibition is going to have the engage the services of a number of professional support services, none of which come cheap.

If you want to know more, you can visit the Red Gallery web page that details the event.

As I said, this blog has never solicited contributions from its readers and supporters. Today, for one time only, we are asking for your help. Let's make this a success and an event to remember...

Finally, in case you're wondering, yes I have made a contribution...

Thanks

Chasmal.

A Letter to a Dancer

I would like to say that this piece has given me more difficulties in writing for it than any other. Not for negative reasons but for the incredible message and image the video this is about shows. I got it wrong so many times and I still don't feel I have done it the justice it deserves. I hope our readers understand the where and why and take my words for the positive message I hope they send.

A fascinating video has appeared on Nowness (here) there is an interview underneath which I hope everyone will go and read.. The dancing shows the amazing physicality of dancers whilst the sound track is the reading of a letter written by a customer who favours a particular dancer. The emotional context of a customer expressing his reaction to the "beauty" of dancer does highlight several points from the first reaction and attraction to looking for understanding as a human being interacting with another and  how exposure to the environment and people inside strip clubs and the changes it makes to us and how we find an emotional maturity to deal with women as the sum of all of her rather than just the parts. Certainly people will question and want to deny that as a man I can look at a woman and see her as an individual with all that goes with it. The physical and the mental, of course the political rad fem would not want this to be true because it is nothing like the belief system they have built up. The entitlement attitude that we see in out twenties has been stripped out of us and forced us to change and grow. This does not apply to everyone and nor can I comment on all men who go to strip bars. Not all men grow up but strip bars and lap dancing clubs can really make us grow.

So I have listened to the video and taken it what is said and it resonates with me. I am now going to say a few things about myself because we need to move away from the labels that aspects of feminist theory put on us. I am not a pimp, rapist or any of the other labels that people want to call me as their ad hominien attacks. There are easier than dealing with the empirical data around the clubs so labelling and trying to stigmatise anyone who dares say different to aspects of feminist theory is standard. So lets look at me as a human being and what the clubs mean to me and how they have benefitted me with acceptance which has aided me in moving forward in my life. I started going to strip pubs in the late 80s and early 90s when it was normal for birthdays and leaving dos to be celebrated at strip bars. I didn't really understand it I was married with kids but this was seen as perfectly normal for people at work to go to the bars. On several occassions I went to bars with customers along with the salesman, I was there to make the customer understand this wasn't a random idea by the account manager but acceptable to the company. I wasn't regular but certainly went 2 or 3 times a year and I was going more frequently as the company downsized.

Over the years I started to go to clubs more frequently and made friends not just with other customers but the odd dancer and even a club owner or two. When I was single I would go more often than when I was dating but I always explained that I enjoyed striptease in any relationship I was in. I had realised that when through work I had to say nothing as certain customers would be uncomfortable if anyone talked about afternoon/evenings outs. The stigma associated with clubs and pubs existed even back then, yet each year over 2 million men will go to clubs from 21 year olds who still have the entitlement to a guy who once a month would come down from his nursing home who was into his late 80s. With that number of customers you will get just about everyone represented from the not my nigel brigade to those who pop in 2 or 3 times a week.

So what does this have to do with clubs and my interactions with dancers and other customers? One thing I have learned over the years is we are all human but the guys who are regular club goers are just as normal as everyone else, from government employees to customers who are a little shady the strip bar is full of people from all walks of life. The labels put on customers like pimp, rapist, trafficker and pedeophile are nothing like the truth but for those who stand against the clubs to acknowledge the humanity of a single customer will destroy their narrative.

I have had serious issues with body image, I am permanently in a wheelchair due to genetics. If I go out in the street people have to stop their kids from staring and people tend to try to ignore you because they are uncomfortable with who I have become. But when going to a strip bar I found not just the owner and my friends accepting me but the dancers had an incredible interaction with me which caused me to realise I was still human. Having to deal with a real negative was not so difficult when you are seen as the same as others, and here in lies the second part of the issue. Dancers are human, there is the good, the bad and the truly brilliant. I have had the luck over the years to get to know many aspects of the industry but the dancers have been a joy, just not for the expected reason. Yes they are sexy, sassy and intelligent but most of all they are human. I am guessing me making that statement will annoy aspects of the radical feminist community because I can't see a dancer as just body parts. Of course there are some guys who will view the woman as sexual, that is the animal in us but it is amazing how we progress and view dancers. I am rambling but listen to the words and you really get a feeling that both parties are anything but a simple equation.

I would like to thank Nowness for the production of this piece and the production crew, the White Horse and Julia. Also Sue at the White Horse for all the support she has given the dancers over the years especially for allowing the filming. Bronwen Parker-Rhodes you have produced a wonderful piece. And a special thanks to Edie for her support and help with this piece along with her support of the blog.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Get Out Your Scissors

Back in October 2013 (here) I wrote an open letter to councillors about the usual misconceptions they have/had about SEVs and how they are portrayed. After a discussion on twitter with a dancer about the fact dancers and customers need to mobilise and write in when licenses are being renewed rather than the usual apathy that is shown I have decided to bring up to date the arguments and suggest how dancers could word things for themselves along with customers. Clubs and dancers may not always agree but the one thing that you do both agree on is that clubs should not be targets for a moral minority. As an example Wrexham turned down a new venue after a petition of over 100 names signed against the club. In favour 1 e-mail of support and the person who wrote it did not come from Wrexham. Local press piece here but you see from the arguments there is nothing new against the clubs. Fact there are already two is the given reason and that is the limit that was set but lack of support is a killer of clubs.

So this will be long winded but I don't intend to write a template that the brain dead can just cut and paste. I have no doubt some people will but the intention is to make people think so when they write in they can personalise their arguments. Some of the research has been done by myself so no peer review as such but all my claims are backed either by the police.uk database of crime or freedom of information requests. Anything I claim in terms of mathematics can be tested, and I am sure some feminists have looked at my figures because I know that Object at least will look at this blog. Guess everyone checks what the opposition is up to.

I want to discuss the claims that use to be made by many feminist groups that there is a link between SEVs and rape. The feminists have withdrawn the Lilith report on which this claim was made as when examined closely the figures are discovered to be cherry picked. This blog obtained the raw data for Camden and also for Wandsworth to use as a control, the Chelsea Reach was closed in Wandsworth in 1997 so a 12 year review was done based on this and in Camden the figures show a fall in rape whilst in the control where the SEV was closed rape increased. Add to this the claim made by Inspector Drummond about SEVs in Newquay where he claimed rape had increased because of the clubs. Instead under a freedom of information request by a local paper the figures show a 50% fall in rape and Inspector Drummond admitted he had just made an assumption without checking the facts. Finally Leeds recently closed 3 clubs, 2 were very close together. Since the closure sexual and violent crimes have increase 200%. Now none of these figures are claimed as causal effects but it does show that there is absolutely no link to rape or sexual crime because of clubs and it seems in fact the opposite could be true.

Of course there are claims of an increase in general crimes especially drunken and insulting behaviour. Whilst no one would ever claim this does not happen it is between 5 and 10 times less likely than outside an ordinary night club. The research done by Kent and Loughborough Universities show that people do not see clubs as causing a disturbance and they are much more likely to indicate a pub or restaurant as a nuisance than a SEV. It is noticeable how rarely the police raise issues with clubs when they apply for a license or a renewal, this should indicate to any right minded individual that SEVs do not cause issues in the way a nightclub might.

You often hear the ill informed make claims about SEVs and trafficking. This shows the person raising the issue has done no research and hasn't even thought it through. When you consider that both high profile investigations into Trafficking Pentameter I and II did not bring one charge against the clubs you realise just how stupid the claim of trafficking sounds. And into that the fact that the council can investigate dancers and clubs paperwork at any time and you realise that the claims sound more ridiculous than ever yet people will make this claim. And to add if I was a dancer writing a letter/e-mail I would add in here the years danced and the fact you have never seen a trafficked dancer.

And of course there is always the classic that dancers offer sex in the clubs. Now I will not claim that this has never taken place but the impression is that every dancer is offering services, part of the fault for this concept is the misuse of the words Lap Dancing? It implies grinding which under the current licensing regulations doesn't happen but because those people who make moral judgements want to close the clubs the use stigmatising language to create a web of deceit about what goes on in the clubs. Councils impose distances between customers and dancers and clubs have rules against dancers meeting customers outside of work which would be a pretty good reason why services don't occur. Of course dancers use suggestive language to encourage customers to have private dances which to the uninformed could sound like offers but this is a marketing ploy and not a reality.

Now everyone's favourite issue is the effect clubs will have on children, because people naturally want to protect children they assume the worst without performing any critical thinking. Children have no idea what goes on in the clubs up to a certain age and the fears that parents have that the clubs will corrupt the children are just superimposed issues from the parents own impression of the clubs. The statement how do I explain the SEV to my child makes an assumption the child will look at blacked out windows with x ray eyes because kids couldn't see in and wonder what is going on. Club operating hours are not exactly open during school hours. Kids can't get in either so the whole issue is down to the parent and their imaginary fears. Parents will imprint their moral views and judgements and use a statement that is in no way related to reality so councillors should realise the truth about these claims.

The press often create fears due to using the sexualisation of the clubs to sell papers or increase page clicks. Photos of scantily clad women will draw men to view the page and feminists to police the page. There are often no issues with license renewals from the police but a little scaremongering by the press can create issues that shouldn't exist. Millions of visits happen to clubs every year without any issues but that wouldn't sell anything so the press will often manipulate stories to create an image that can generate traffic to the web articles.  This is a deliberate scaremongering ploy but people will be suckered into it. hopefully sensible councillors will realise this.

And now I want to tackle objectification, this is messy at best because I am male and I can't answer for how dancers feel, certainly I have known dancers who have revelled in the attention, but I don't speak for the dancers, in any letter a dancer writes she will have to decide what she wants to include or not. Yesterday I wasted several hours of my life reading scholarly papers about Sexual Objectification and in my humble opinion a lot of it is dressing up natural reactions with big words to make it sound bad when in reality it is someone applying their moral standards to other people. I am personally use to being objectified, not in the same way but judged by others for my looks and also being judged for the size of my wallet, I accept it because human beings do these things subconsciously. As to the claim about objectification about policing women's bodies I would suggest those making those claims remember that dancers can work 4-6 hours a shift and with several shifts a week doing a very physically demanding job you will get a lot of exercise especially when working on the pole. I doubt that many other jobs are as physically demanding. Yet if you look at other jobs when body image is policed no one complains about that! Ballet dancers have to monitor their weight, sportswomen have to watch what their eat, drink and social activities. No one suggests that this is bad it only happens when people see the word sex and the dirty image it creates.

Finally there is the claims of exploitation and here is where the clubs may not be too pleased with what I am saying but yes we accept there are some exploitative practices in the industry but rather than just closing clubs and making lives difficult for those who people are talking about being exploited the councils should be working with clubs and dancers to create a better working experience, certainly this would make for a better experience all round and the customers would benefit from dancers that are even more happy. Leeds University research in 2009 showed that dancers enjoyed their worked and 87% had some form of higher education so we are talking about intelligent women making free choices and enjoying their work being policed by a moral minority. The research by Kent and Loughborough Universities showed only 3% of people felt there was no place for clubs so any claims of exploitation come from a small minority of people using terms to create a negative image. No job is perfect and many jobs are exploitative but the 2009 study showed that most dancers are satisfied or better with their work. Once again what we have is the use of language to conceal the moral outrage. If these people were truly concerned with exploitation they would be working with the dancers to improve conditions not shut down clubs.

I did say this would be a lot of verbal, but most of the answers to the objections that I could think of are here. If people want ideas of things that could be brought up when councils meet then this isn't a bad starting place. But we need dancers and customers writing in about every license renewal and if we hear of a new club then we should be supporting it. If clubs close it is not because the moral minority are write but the majority of us are lazy.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com

Chester and the Rise of the Prickademics

There are a couple of things that have come up that I want to talk about. It has been a quiet time and all of a sudden you get hit by stupidity right in the face and you go just what the f***

So firstly I want to talk about Chester and the issues raised by the Council refusing to renew the license after 9 years of operating without any issues. Now I do find it strange that a handful of people managed to shut down a club the way it happened in Chester but you do feel that everything was being judged on moral standards rather than if the business was a problem. Certainly the police raised no issues and that to me is always a clue when an existing club is up for it's license renewal. Really you have to question what is behind this awful decision by the council. I hate to see this, where councillors morals creep into their representation of the public. I firmly believe that unless you can get 3% of the population of a borough or city council against a club you can't really feel that people are even bothered. And there in lies the problem, apathy by customers not to stand up for their clubs assuming the council will approve venues. We need to be active in the defence of the clubs, dancers you need to be pushing customers to write in. So long as you state that you do not want your details released the council cannot publish your details just a redacted print out of the letter/e-mail.

The local online paper (here) has noted the club intends to operate as a Burlesque bar with 11 full nude nights every year under the TENs regulations. Whilst reading the article I noticed that Debbie Lomas of the Rainforest Shop who has been at the forefront of trying to close the club pretend that her heart goes out to the "girls". No it doesn't you are busy applying your moral standards to other people and that is just wrong. And I would say that the dancers are no girls, you belittle them Ms Lomas while portray them as infantile and unable to make decisions. Now if a man calls gown women girls he is a misogynist so I can only assume that most feminists will see Ms Lomas's statement as Misogynistic.

Nice to see that personal attacks are a thing of the past.

Now onto twitter which I continue to have a love/hate relationship with. But I did spot an absolute classic in a snippet between our statistics heroine Julie Bindel and Gail Dines. In the photo you will see the lovely terminology that is being used by these two lovely ladies to judge others just because the research done by these "Prickdemics" (had to add that to the dictionary) shows that the views held by radical feminists may not be as accurate as they would hope. It sort of shows that blanket ad hominem attacks can and will be used when any research dares challenge the articles of faith of radical feminism. Now if I was to attack the two ladies using this language I would no doubt be called troll or even accused of using threatening behaviour which I have never and in now way ever condone. I would challenge Ms Bindel on her "research" for her report for Glasgow council which I have done in the past and to Ms Dines I have read your thesis and sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon. But I would never consider attacking their personalities or who they are, I just challenge the facts as they see them.

I was going to come up with amusing words to describe radical feminist journalists and academics but this would be sinking to their level and I have no need to do that as the facts are the facts and insulting those who produce them via peer reviewed research does not change the end results.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)