Headline of the day
January 25th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Authoritarianism, Media, Politics, Sexuality | 240 Comments
January 25th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Authoritarianism, Media, Politics, Sexuality | 240 Comments
This post was written by mark bahnisch, who has written 1548 posts for Larvatus Prodeo.
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Tone is a gift from God.
Said Tone, “The hymen is a sign of perfection
Whose breakage demands circumspection.
When elected we’ll decide
To require every bride
To be hygienically sealed for your protection.”
Sorry mean no disrespect to believers. I am just …. astonished. He is only a few months out from an election – where are his minders – what are they thinking – do I care. Next in line please…!
It feels slaeazy hearing his daughters’ virginity discussed. I just don’t want to know and I bet they’re not thrilled.
Fine @4, I agree. There’s something I find icky about a dad talking about his daughters having sex.
But of course it’s women who need warnings from Uncle Tony, not men.
Katz @2, roflmao.
Even more icky if the magazine’s reporter asked him about his daughters.
Was Tone’s virginity a precious gift? I can’t see how he & his girlfriend could be “trying to not be sexual” and “playing Vatican roulette”.
Be careful, Jane. You may break something precious.
This is the kind of thing I was referring to in a certain post a few weeks back. The man is unable to help himself.
Every bloke should get a Zoladex injection (about $1,004 per injection) every three months, then they wouldn’t have a sex drive. Problem solved. :)
Whatever Tone’s minders are doing, I hope they keep doing it. People who think like Tones who are going to vote for him will still vote for him. People who think like Tones who aren’t going to vote for him, still won’t vote for him.
And, whatever he says, people who like having sex, married or unmarried, will keep having sex.
And, to mosr of us, Tony will continue to be … well, a bit weird.
Uneffingbelievable.
Maybe I’m in an episode of Big Love or Desperate Housewives (or both). Oh to be a fly on the wall at the doctor’s wives Australia Day BBQ.
Its not only icky, its far too much information. Discussing your daughter’s sex life publicly, is not acceptable. I cant imagine even many of the young happy rabbit ..er clappers being impressed.
What about public hospitals?
Ambigulous @7: “Was Tone’s virginity a precious gift? I can’t see how he & his girlfriend could be “trying to not be sexual” and “playing Vatican roulette”.
But he really, really didn’t want to be sexual…Honest!
Yep, that Tone is real good at earnestly saying one thing and doing the opposite. Three sheets to the wind…
About as consistent as saying he totally supported Malcolm, up til he knifed him.
But he really, really didn’t want to be disloyal…Honest!
About as consistent as saying climate change is a load of bull, then telling us that he now has a plan to fix it.
But he really, really does believe in Green issues…Honest!
His wife must be the eternal sucker for the earnest con job.
So according to Tone’s model, virginity is a gift to the bloke that’s doing the deflowering. But what if the bloke doesn’t care? What worth is the gift? That’s my problem with it – it’s the man who does the auditing, and the man who determines the value. It could be celebrated by champagne in bed next morning. Or by panties wrapped around an aeriel of a Torana hooning down Ipswich road.
Can you sense the power disparity here? I can.
Just in case anyone misunderstands me, I don’t have a problem with anyone giving importance to their own virginity – male or female. If they see it as a gift to themselves, then more power to them. But as a gift for the partner… gag me with a spoon.
Fascinated@13, I am not so sure about that. Heard of the Purity ball?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_ball
Fine @4: “It feels slaeazy hearing his daughters’ virginity discussed.”
It would be sleazy, even if he was only discussing it with his mates. More so, that he is discussing it with the mass media.
I get the creepy feeling that Tone has a serious fixation with the overlapping issues of sex, his body and religion. A bit like a pedophile priest.
@17 – here’s a scarier link:
http://www.purityball.com/
Speaking as an ex-Catholic who used to be a very devout Catholic, I never said no to nobody. :) Tone’s philosophy don’t ring true. Or as one of my more delightful girlfriends used to say to me, “Hormones is hormones.”
But of course it’s women who need warnings from Uncle Tony, not men.
God knows I’m the last person on Earth to defend him, but the quotes in the Australian article are all about men and women, and it’s for an interview with Australian Women’s Weekly, so focussing on women wouldn’t necessarily be a sign of chauvinism.
Of course, there’s about fifty billion other signs pointing to his chauvinism, so it’s not exactly a fair game of hide-the-sausage.
I don’t know whether I hope his daughters have drunk Tone’s particular brand of kool-aid, thus insulated from their father’s madness, or are filled with the secular loathing he so richly deserves, and thus immune from that angle.
17 and 19
Well aware – unhappily, but amazingly lots of things can (and do) happen between the vow of chastity and gosh golly, even the first hot date; all this despite promises and denunciations. And then there’s of course, the shame – maybe that’s the aim.
Tone (and its not an endearment) is shaming his consituency (male and female). His sins (as it were) are his – We dont have to wear hair shirts too.
Hmm.
I was about to jump in on this topic until I realized I hadn’t seen a direct quote, in context, of what Abbott actually said.
His words, not someone else’s second hand version.
Whilst I am as keen as mustard to condemn one of the nastier and sleazier human beings curently in Oz politics and whilst he definitely has form in the past and recently as well, in this case I reckon I want to see what he said before I jump.
So I suppose I’m echoing patrickg above.
Does anyone have Abbott’s precise words?
Tony Abbottrock and Barnaby Rubble Joyce, the Fred and Barney of Australian politics. I don’t know whether to laugh at the obsurdity of their comments or be very pissed off.
Basically he’s saying that a women’s “intact” hymen is more valuable to men, than a women’s mind or her abilities. Stuff you Tone!!!!
I wonder what the unmarried Julie Bishop or Bronny would think of this, since neither are married and in Julie’s case living in “sin”.
Makes you think that the Australian Sex Party might be worth a vote or two (or at least some preferences – just on principle)
He’s sounding more like Billy McMahon every day. Think I’ll call him ‘Big Ears Abbott’ from now on.
America’s Red Southern states have the most conservative and religious voters, you would think that the youngsters would have saved their gift for marriage. Polling shows that these red southern states have the highest teenage pregnancy in America. They do not advocate sex ed classes in their high schools, hence the high rates of pregnancies.
I think that Tony Abbottrock sexist remarks are a window to what he would be like as PM. He would be constantly sticking his nose into everybody’s business.
aj@24, I do not thank you for mentioning Bronny in this particular conversation. I don’t have that much imagination…
What a dinosaur. I wonder what other spots he wont be able to hide. I’m sure the Taliban would approve, Tones, but you may have lost the rest of us.
Anyway: that’s pretty much game over, in case there was still any doubt. ALP wins 2010 in a canter.
Assuming the minders are ‘competent’ I suspect they are very, very worried. In political terms, he is a loose cannon who either doesn’t listen or simply ignores advice.
Either way, it’s not good news for the Opposition. There’s a smell of arrogance in the air.
He probably spent the summer reading stories in the papers about what a great start his leadership was off to, while everyone else was asleep at the beach.
Oooh Mark..don’t be naughty.
Likely to be true, though, Fascinated!
Last week Tones was turning back the boats this week it’s the clocks.
Phew!
I am sure the good Cardinal would approve.
I will pass Tony’s words on to all the unmarried sexually active women that I know
The patellar tendon reflexes are as good as ever around here.
The only thing that I can say about this is that it sounds absolutely dumb as ** to any right thinking person. I don’t advocate a promiscuous society, but I do advocate an adult’s right to choose, as long as they don’t harm others. I don’t appreciate a person whose job it is to govern our country, not our religious and social mores, making my personal choices for me, even more glaringly when they don’t make those same choices for the opposite sex.
Perhaps he can institute a state sponsored nunnery for all the young hussies out there. Or make a policy about something that actually matters if you’re planning to lead a country. *DISGUST*
And how could we do without the natural looking piccie of Tone with daughters?
“icky”? Yer, I think so.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/tony-abbott-opens-up-on-all-things-female/story-e6frf7l6-1225822959795
I chortle while I imagine the North Shore Doctors Wives threatening their husbands with all sorts of dire consequences if Abbot ever becomes PM – chief threat of which may be the withdrawal of the sexual favours Tone seems so afraid of.
Oh, and Down and Out of Saigion at 16, I laughed out loud at the “hooning in a Torana on Ipswich Road” reference, being both from Ipswich and a former Torana owner. In fact, I recall doing something very similar on an alarming number of occasions…
OTOH, if Tones keeps this up, he could be a candidate for sainthood once he shuffles off the mortal coil. If you don’t believe me, read up on some of the 2nd Century monastics.
Our Tone: putting government back where it belongs, in people’s bedrooms!
Hannah’s dad at 23, the interview will be published in (wait for it) the Women’s Weekly on Wednesday, so probably nobody but insiders will have his exact words before then. I can see them queuing up at the Woollies magazine stand as we speak.
Craig Mc at 37, are you implying that the knees are jerking before we know what Abbott’s exact words were, or do you think we don’t really believe that the idea of women’s virginity as a gift to men is a grotesquely offensive crock, or do you think the interview is being misreported in the Oz, or what? Knee-jerk responses are those one has without actually engaging with what’s been said, but most of the people commenting here are all too aware (if not yet at first hand) of what’s been said, as far as I can see.
It’s unlikely that the Oz will be putting an unfavourable spin on Abbott, too. It’s probably even worse than they’re making it sound, though it’s hard to see how that could be possible.
I’d just like to add that I personally was once on the receiving end of someone else’s virginity, and believe me when I say that I did not regard it as any kind of a gift. Or does the ‘gift’ thing apply only to female virgins? Goodness me, surely not.
PC, I don’t remember much gratitude when I bestowed my “gift”, either. Poor old Tone. Maybe he’s jockeying for another shot at the seminary.
A “pretty lousy role model” (sex-wise) *AND* a “gay, churchy loser”. Maybe Tony thinks a man of extremes will appear OK, on average.
Yeah I gather that PC and I don’t want to be seen to be defending Abbott, the gods forfend, but I have seen so called quotes that were reported second hand take on a different meaning when the actual words were viewed in context.
Basically I suppose I don’t trust the media to report accurately and I’m being very careful.
If what has been reported is accurate then its obviously disgraceful and not in the least surprising given his form.
I found his description of Julie Bishop as a ‘girl’ revealing of his attitude towards women and I find his constant aggressive language inappropriate [and that is being ultra diplomatic] and the combination of the two together really worries me. I have little respect for Julie Bishop but she, any woman, does not deserve that.
I’ll go back and read the article again but my first read suggested that there may be some ambiguity and I just want to see Abbott’s precise words before I jump.
Rest assured I do not condone his attitudes generally, his other comments about migrants are shameful and par for his course, and particularly his usually thinly disguised misogynism.
I also suppose when I think about that if he is being accurately quoted he has rendered himself unsuitable for public leadership in this country.
Not that that is anything new.
Let me just wait until the exact words are available, not that I have any attention of buying the Weakly.
#37
There once was a confus-ed fella
Who put an extra r in patella
But he got rs about
With a Catholic devout
Whose urgin’ on virgins was plain old knee jerkin’
I began to write a comment, but it got too long, so have this trackback instead.
Oooh, a “gift” is it!?
Must get my order in for Xmas.
In my experience it was often like a gift from a maiden aunt, eg., a hand-crocheted tissue box cover with a Southern Belle theme.
Its recipient was quite keen to donate it to the Brotherhood.
Oh dear. Squicky.
tony abbot not budging on virginity as he ditches budgie smugglers for boardies
That’s a headline that’s going to be hard to top :D I think his minders decided to leak the Weekly story early, although why they’d think that would help is beyond me.
Maybe he decided the budgie snugglers were an occasion of sin. Made people thgink about sex and stuff.
Of course, there’s always the possibility he didn’t tell his minders about the Womens’ Weekly interview. And when they finally got their hands on a draft copy, they went -’Oh, shit!’ or words to that effect.
Given Abbott’s stand on migrants (‘respect the laws of the land’ and all that) in combination with his medieval attitudes to women’s genitals – I am obliged to wonder where he stands on FGM? Someone should ask him so we could all sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Evidently Tony doesn’t know that virginity causes terrorism.
“Monky King warns queue-jumping budgies from Smugglers Cove”
So, just how old did you like your cougars then? All that arsenic and old lace. I am surprised you didn’t end up in the cellar.
I see the Purity Ball people offered to help us all have balls.
And he’s using all the weapons in his arsenal.
I think Tones would be more comfortable, and credible, if he started a new religion: ie the “Reorganised Universal Church of Orgasmic Saints” and re-colonised Tasmania, (a sister state of Utah?) Then we could say:
Miranda Devine has a point, even if it disagrees with her other points. A great deal of this is to do with female sexual expression and monotheistic fear of same. In other words, Freud was right, much as we may hate admitting it.
Moderated, I’m not sure why. Will leave to admins.
I’ve taken you out of the sinbin, SL. (I suspect that a certain name was the trigger)
Was that you?? (Describe your cellar.)
Wot, mention of Freud gets you sin binned?
Too much psychoanalysis leads to Freud-rage.
More likely the mention of Miranda Devine gets you sin-binned, rather than Freud.
Wonder which one got me moderated?
Well if it was, I assure you, you would not be asking me that question.
Forget about my cellar. Please describe yours. I suppose your cellar was not decorated with lace doilies, nor smelt of faded violets and musty roses?
No?
Look, just don’t start citing court cases ok? This is my point:
If Tony Abbott decides to describe virginity is a ‘gift’ to be bequeathed to a man, all holy and once only, then you may want to think about how it looks to describe virginity in these other stereotypical terms. It’s just the other side of the same coin.
One inflates the state as an almost divine gift to be given, the other degrades the state using the trope of ‘the old maid’, cobwebs, fetid, cloying, decaying, gothic, the grand old lady of the South, blah blah.
See? It’s just an observation.
Don’t be thinking I will be spending all day on this.
While I’m glad for Frances that she hasn’t bought into her father’s conservative religious views, I’m sad that nobody has taught her that using able-ist and homophobic slurs to express disapprobation is seriously uncool.
My cellar is full of wine.
Yours sounds much more unusual. Details?
Haven’t caught up with either of the articles yet – and heaven forbid that I would buy “The Weakly” so I’ll confine my comment to what would you expect a man with his belief system to say. However the greater puzzlement for me has been seeing the use of “Tone” and its derivations on these pages. It is suggestive of an affectionate acknowledgment of an old acquaintance rather than an Opposition Leader who seeks to use any and every weapon in his and his advisors armoury to drive his case forward. It seems to me many of what people claim as his “mistakes” are deliberate advances to gain back those people who have deserted the Liberals in the recent past. Perhaps I’m wrong and for many who contribute here they do have a deep and abiding affection for “our Tone”. If so, I apologise to them if I offend them. But for me, count me out. I like to call a spade a spade and a spider a spider.
That chasm you stepped into is the generation gap Tigtog.
Young people often use the term “gay” and have no sexual preference description in it – it means hopeless or useless.
Hey remember when it meant happy? If you do you are too old to understand!
@murph the surf,
I’m well aware that many young people don’t think that the words “lame” or “gay” as expressions of general disdain have anything to do with actual people with disabilities or same sex attractions.
Their ignorance does not mean that the words used in that way are harmless.
@73, Way to read way too much into the “Tone” nickname, el oso.
And whatever it may suggest to you, to me, “Tone” calls to mind a dorky outsider who hangs around the fringes of the ‘it’ group, before making a ham-fisted and ill-timed interjection into the conversation with a cheery “what’s occurring, fellas?”
But, yeah, don’t go getting in a bother about it.
While we’re on the subject of langage usage, the “doctor’s wives” thing drives me bonkers. I’m a bit miffed when those that step into a thread to discuss an issue such as this and then refer to women as nothing more than their relationship to their husband’s vocation.
So Tigtog you understand they have a different meaning but still think they are ignorant ?
The gap just keeps widening….
Can you be sure this is “disapprobation” she is expressing*, Tigtog?
They may be acute observations about matters Tony is finding it difficult to come to terms with. Particularly in view of his now fading athleticism and clearly failed asceticism.
* Except in the clear case of his churchyness, of course,
Murph, ease up. The unconscious use of terms like “gay” and “lame” as pejoratives unrelated to sexuality or (dis)ability can still do harm, by affirming a background culture that is unconsciously homophobic or ableist. Even though (and indeed, especially because)the people using those terms bear no malice and mean no harm. If that’s not a fair portrayal of ‘ignorance’, I don’t know what is.
Why do people have such difficulty accepting that there can be ‘unintended consequences’ of speech, and that ignorance of such does not entitle the speaker to a free pass? Does the fact that Tony Abbott (I charitably assume) intends no harm with any of his ravings excuse him from condemnation for the misogynistic premise of his utterances?
Charm. Life has it. The relevant issue is a man who thinks he can still provide moral guidance to others. Thing is, he can’t. More here:
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2010/01/25/forgiveness-is-overrated/
There was a Lib polly named Abbott
Said white Aussies should breed like the rabbit
But if he keeps on urgin
Us gals to be virgin
We’ll never get into the habit
yay patricia. score.
Did anyone happen to notice the name of the journalist who wrote the article? … Samantha Maiden.
See my, now it seems, too obscure, comment @8 iorarua.
Thanks, an, but as Fascinated affirmed at the start of this thread Tone is a gift from God, or, as I recall someone else on LP saying, a gift that keeps on giving. He inspires us all.
Tony Abbott who stands for election
Has his media thrust to perfection
As master of spin
He’s sure to get in
By arousing a national erection
joe2
‘See my, now it seems, too obscure, comment @8 iorarua.’
Yes, it was a little too subtle for me. Perhaps you should have added: ‘Badoom, badoom … oi!!’
“Yep, that Tone is real good at earnestly saying one thing and doing the opposite.”
Agreed, he like a small boy who always wants to do the right thing but, well, he’s just a little boy and they can’t always live up to their parents ideals can they? Still he’s such a cutey. Conviction politician? Pigs arse.
patricia: are you just warming to the subject?
Ooops. I put this on the wrong thread earlier. Apparently Tones got into some yoghurt hash and was away with the fairies, he says, for 24 hours. Either he ate an awful lot of hash with that yoghurt or it was very very good hash.
Patrickb @ 88, you seem to get and understand the Tone who puzzles me, i.e. “he’s just a little boy” and “he’s such a cutey”!
I had tended to think he was entirely cynical and disingenuous which in view of the windmill-like changes in his public statements would make him totally dishonest and unscrupulous, verging on the criminal. A conviction politician only in the sense that he should tried, found guilty and locked up. His views are so antipathetic to my own, of course that I am delighted every time he does a volte face and confirms for me his hypocrisy and insincerity, somehow made worse by his casuistic facility in arguing his new perspective.
Yet I find him oddly charming and beguilingly convincing at times, and have to stop and remind myself how dangerous he could be. Particularly since he has some claim to credibility on a par with Rudd in terms of academic achievement and a history of ministerial experience. As well he far outshines Rudd in terms of personal charisma – physique, manly pursuits and gift of the gab.
I see now, you’re right, Patrick, Abbott is just a clever kid, but he’s also an ‘enfant terrible’ and very difficult to control. He uses his quick tongue and charm to wriggle himself out of trouble and rationalise his way back into favour with the MSM who are, of course, delighted to have such a colourful character to portray.
So, not wicked but wayward, wilful and one to beware. He should be made a ward of court and kept indefinitely on probation.
@91 – in short, Patricia WA, he’s not a mature individual, but a little boy. Politics is a great career for those looking for the comfort of delusional certainty that one is always right, and substitutes for lost love.
So Mr Abbott is saying that sex without love is cheap. I agree. Men and women who have low self respect, sleep around and degrade sex are really pretty selfish. The I am so liberated I can let ten men have sex with me mentality or alternativley the I am so in touch with my sexuality that I can sleep with ten women view is a cover for shalow selfish egotism. Morals have declined. Sex without love is wrong and women and men who sleep around should suffer social stigmatisation of their actions. The idea of sharing your body with many others is revolting.
That may or may not be so, Spana, and it’s your personal opinion and values at play there. The whole point is that adults can make their own choices, form their own views, and what Tony Abbott – or you – think really is no one’s business but your own.
Spana:
“So Mr Abbott is saying that sex without love is cheap.”
No he is not Spana. He is saying that sex before marriage is wrong. I don’t think that Catholics are strangers to the reality of loveless sex within marriage.
Yes Mark, true. I don’t believe Mr Abbott was talking about making sex before marriage illegal. Everyone has personal opinions that they push every day. You do too. Mr Abbott is entitled to his. Also, sexual morals are an issue for public debate given the high rates of STDs, sexual abuse of women and increasingly aggressive male sexual views of women. Maybe, just maybe, the decline in self respect may be contributing to wider social problems. Maybe those kids who grow up in disfunctional homes where dad is simply the latest man on the scene or where dad brings home multiple partners could tell you a thing about how bad sexual decisions affect wider society. Sleeping round has social consequences and the left need to start addressing this rather than burying their heads in the sand and pretending it is all an individuals choice.
So, Spana if it’s not all an individual’s choice, who’s choice is it?
If you think sexual morals (between consenting adults) is an issue for public debate, how would you frame that debate? What would you want the outcome of that debate to be?
You might also want to look at evidence from the USA which shows, as aj has pointed out above, that the states which push an abstinence agenda, have teh highest rate of teen pregnancies.
And why do you see sex without love as something nasty and cheap?I can’t stand Puritanism.
And more importantly who is Spana or anyone else to say that sex before marriage is automatically loveless or vice versa.
This is beyond ridiculous.
Fine, there is a huge gap between the abstinence you speak of and the sleep around attitude almost encouraged by some today. I have no issue in saying that people who sleep with large numbers of people by and large have low self esteem, make poor judgements and model poor self control across a range of areas. This is not healthy for society. The public health system ends up paying for the STDs, the counselling around bad relationships and society ends up paying through the drain of disfunctional families brought up as a result of sleeping around. Why is it that the left thinks sexuality is totally an individual’s choice but expects the taxpayer to fund abortions resulting from sleeping around? Sex is not simply a private matter if the results of it spill into the public arena. We must ask why there has been a rise in STDs for example. Sex without love is ultimately a selfish act. It is saying I will use your body for a short time for my own pleasure. I will engage in an act which may result in pregnancy and which will result in an exchange of fluids and then I wil go along and do it agian with someone else. Sexual selfishness is so compatible with the capitalist mentality. Use and consume and deny any higher meaning.
Okay Spananator, but before we get to the much needed public debate on “sleeping around”, let’s begin with active and passive assignations in the sex making blight hitting the country.
Presuming the liberation of which you speak up there relates to feminism I am making the assumption the first half of your cracker relates to women and the second half to men who are heterosexual. I don’t suppose gay choices are in it at all. My question then is, from a liberated perspective: Why is it that men take the active role in the sleeping around? Why is it that women lay back and allow the men to have the sex?
Why would you consider a woman passive in all this? Women make their choices actively you know and as Gillard has just said, it’s none of Abbott’s business.
And apart from advocating the use of condoms for STD’s, which I am sure is on the top of your list,k what does sexual assault have to do with consenting adults having sex?
Someone using the same sort of language and with the same IP address as “Spana” but calling her or himself “Chris” has left a similar comment at my place.
Casy, you show some ignorance of the realty of sexual decision making in some sections of society. In the areas I work many women indeed have the view that sex is what they let men do with them. You may not like that attitude but it is a widespread reality. Yes, you are right, women do make active choices. So I agree with you when you ask “Why is it that men take the active role in the sleeping around? Why is it that women lay back and allow the men to have the sex?” You assume that my observations are a reflection of MY attitudes. Wrong. What I observe is real, that many women do view sex as allowing somehting to be done to them and passively. You and I may not like it but that does not change the reality.
As for homosexuality, same views for me. Gay or straight, sleeping around is cheap, degrading, damaging to self esteem and bad for society in numerous ways such as public health.
Hi Deborah, good to see you out there policing the web. When will you be lobbying for a law demanding all posts on all websites use the same name? Maybe you can issue everyone with a set of identifying features so everyone can be tracked. Just so you know, my comments on LP are always as Spana. As for other sites I will use what I want.
Patricia WA @91, Abbott has charisma? Oddly charming and beguilingly convincing? How so. In the immortal words of that Ipswich fish and chip shop owner, please explain.
For me, he has all the charisma and charm of milk well past its use-by date.
Spana:
“Gay or straight, sleeping around is cheap, degrading, damaging to self esteem and bad for society in numerous ways such as public health.”
But what if one likes cheap and degrading sex without the bonds of love? You may not like it but others may.
Reb’s got it right; ‘Churchoices’.
St Dudd’s Sunday Sinjon E Pizzle or the Gross Pell du Abbott…
And Julia’s original headline screamer…
“Australian women want to make their own choices and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott.”
has had a McKillop/ McGorry makeover and now reads…
“Australians want to make their own choices and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott or Mr Rudd”.
Sheesh!
Oh, 102, but fun hey?
Spana, the fact that you can pontificate about moral decline while using multiple online identities is sort of frightening. Either you’re postmodern, or you’re not; you can’t be both.
Anthony. Those who engage in high risk behaviour should not expect the taxpayer to subsidise the cost. I believe that more responsibility needs to be encouraged. If you smoke after years and years of warnings then expect to pay more taxes. If you turn up drunk at a hospital and are injured as a result of your own stupidity then expect to pay the full medical costs and don’t rely on the tax payer. If you sleep around and get an STD expect to pay for the bill yourself. And most revoltingly, if you get pregnant don’t demand the taxpayer assist in killing your unborn child. Sadly, Anthony, your self indulged comment reflects the general decay of social standards in the west. I understand why many in the developing world look at the west as a deranged and lost culture where people live sad lives. The west condemns polygamy but says okay to sleeping with 20 people before you settle down. Which is more wrong? Polygamy or promiscuity? Anthony, your comment takes away all spirit from life and reduces us to mere animals responding to urges and giving little thought to consequence.
@Spana
Sheer sophistry. Using different monikers across associated websites (since Deborah is an LP author) smells more than a little of sockpuppetry generalised to a broad online community rather than just one forum. It’s enough to make me add your IP to my own permanent moderation filter just in case, anyway. Congratulations.
SpanaChris, your observations are reflections of your attitudes. If you think you are like some camera which simply records reality and then regurgitates in on blogs, and if you think people will believe that, dream on. You have an agenda. You always do. You are concerned to police women’s sexual reproductive choices and women’s sexual pleasure and women’s agency and women in general. You are a one subject commenter, and always show up when these issues arise. Changing your identity online is called sock puppeting btw.
I think you may be quite ridiculously conflating sexual assault/abuse with consenting sex. What we are talking about is fully consenting adults, not women who have been abused or who, because of their circumstances have no agency. Abbott did not qualify his statements and neither did you initially, though I note you added that this passivity is to be found in some ‘sections of society’ in your response to me. One would think you might at least have the courage to stand by your own skewed view of women and your objectification of them.
You, like Abbott, regard women, fully consenting or not, as passive agents in this thing we call ‘having sex’. You seem to think they should have no choice in matters concerning their own bodies. You need to come to terms with the idea that women make active choices to have sex, for love, for pleasure, for whatever, and enjoy it, or not, for whatever reason. They have agency. And you need to live with that.
NB: If you really do work with women who are being coerced into sex, or who seem to think they should have sex just cause a man says so, then what they need SpanaChris is not a lecture on abstinence according to Pope Benedictus 16, but some intervention from a qualified professional regarding issues of identity and agency.
Oh Tigtog, now the hypocrisy begins. I’ll let you in on a little secret. When I write to the Courier Mail I use my real name. On LP I am Spana. I also contribute to a number of other blogs where contexually relevent names are used. Some are humurous (lacking here of course). And guess what. So do a number of other people here. I know this and you probably do too. What you are doing is making an issue of nothing and attacking someone over something that your allies do yet receive no criticism for. Is it a crime too to use a funny animal name if you are on a pet lovers; site or do we all have to use our politics debating name in all spheres. I am glad that all these upright netizens use the same name on all sites. Come to thin of it why are you not using your real name full stop. Shameful isn’t it. Get a life mate and make an argument rather than creating false issues.
Wow Casey, I wonder if you can read. I don’t mean this rudely but you simply write drivel and attribute it to me. The things you say I think! Wow! Please stop lying about what people say. Stick to argument. Perhaps you don’t read too widely on LP as you seem to have missed my comments on police powers, school reform, privatisation… Hmmm. Maybe it is you who has the fixation with this subject. And yes Casey, the issue of poor sexual choices does concern me because I see the results of it in the area I work. I would be interested to know where you came up with this as well ” One would think you might at least have the courage to stand by your own skewed view of women and your objectification of them.” Umm, my objectification of women. Please explain Casey.
You again show your ignorance of the real lack of choices women have by makng statements like
“You need to come to terms with the idea that women make active choices to have sex, for love, for pleasure, for whatever, and enjoy it, or not, for whatever reason. They have agency. And you need to live with that.”
No Casey, many women do not. You may want them to. They may in your small world. But many do not. There are real consequences of exploitation and abuse which stem from the promiscuos culture taking hold in the west. Many are hidden just as domestic violence was. The sexual revolution has been terrible for many women. Many non western women see this clearly and are more free and better mentally adjusted and have more soul than those caught up in promiscuous sleeping around.
Spana
tigtog’s IRL name is well-known, and easily enough found. I use my given name, consistently, across the net, except on a couple of overseas sites where I add “down under” to distinguish myself from another person commenting as “Deborah”. I’ve got your IP number on permanent moderation now too, which is a shame, because it means that anyone else who happens to use the same ISP as you will also fall into moderation (I don’t have the skill to, and nor do I want to track you any further than your ISP).
When discussing the same issue across a couple of blogs, one of which linked directly to the other, the honest thing to do would be to use the same handle.
Bingo.
Doesn’t take much, Spananator, for you to blurt out your motivations. It’s feminism is it? Is that the problem?
Spana @99
Indeed.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Abbotts-love-child-turns-into-a-shaggy-dog-story/2005/03/21/1111253960197.html
Tones would likely blame all that on the “spill motion” that he was unable to perform in 1975.
Casey, I suggest you travel a bit. I remeber talking to a woman in a village in Indonesia about feminsm. She had no time for western feminists (like yourself I amagine) and saw them as bringing a neo colonial agenda to the non western world. She strongly argued for a different style of feminism as she viewd the so called liberated western woman as a slave. You are not feminism Casey much as you think your word is. There are many women who disagree strongly with you and have no time for your style of “liberation”. Are these self hating women? Or perhaps you find non western thought below you.
Thanks Deborah. I am glad to know my comments are so powerful that they require tracking and moderating! You I suggest in using one name are in a minority. Cheers. Chris (Down Under).
Spananator, you don’t answer. So where were we? Oh yes, the sexual revolution and that easy access to the pill, dagnabbit. And that means sex, sex, sex for women. And this causes them to be abused or something, this access to the pill, this sexual revolution.
I fear Spana has become trapped in an episode of Brides of Christ and has not been able to exit the set to find out that the world did not fall apart with the advent of the pill and that some objects, sorry, women, feel quite good about it and it doesn’t affect their ‘soul’ at all.
You don’t listen Casey. The sexual revolution was about a lot more than the pill you know. I can’t believe I have to tell a “feminist” this. The pill is widely used in Indonesia but western promiscuity and the decline in self respect have not taken hold. The pill is a tool. The pill is not the issue. Promiscuity is about behaviour. This is the issue. Certain groups have fostered a false vision of a liberated woman as sexually available and experienced and which mocks women and men who maintain high standards for sexual behaviour. Your problem is Casey that you refer to women as the minority of women in the west. MAny women in other cultures view the sexual behaviour of some men and women in the west as depraved or at least desperate and shallow. Many women around the world want nothing to do with this style of feminism and adhere to a deeper meaning of liberation. The Indonesian woman in the village was every bit as feminist as you claim to be but view with disgust the low self respect and obsession with looks and sex that is pushed by some western feminists.
Spana 119
Who cares what these people think. It’s not their business nor Tony Abbotts
Oh thank you for that magnum opus of an orientalist exposition up there! But I am sure your great work could be supplemented by reading Spivak’s work on the Subaltern and speech. Get back to me after that will you?
And this I do not understand at all. Which is not surprising, going by our past conversations. Your language has a habit of fracturing under stress and disintegrating the more I interrogate it. Oh well, never mind, I’m sure it makes sense in your own mind.
Back to the point. Here. In Australia. Speaking of his daughters and of women in general Tony Abbott thinks virginity is a gift to be saved for marriage. Do you see the objectification? The virginal state is gifted to the man. Nothing to do with the woman.
Will you stop blathering on about the demise of the world as we know it because people have sex and like it and acknowledge your view on abstinence is a personal one just like Tony’s, and as such, who cares?
You are not feminism Casey much as you think your word is.
Casey, in your writing you speak as if there is one version of feminism and on this you are wrong. To spell it our in simple terms Casey I mean that your view on feminism is not the only one. I know this may be hard for you to undertstand as you admit. But there are other strands of feminism which I happen to support far more along with millions of women from the non western world.
You state, “Back to the point. Here. In Australia. Speaking of his daughters and of women in general Tony Abbott thinks virginity is a gift to be saved for marriage. Do you see the objectification? The virginal state is gifted to the man. Nothing to do with the woman.”
Ummm. You said I objectify women, not Tony Abbott. But then you defend your innaccurate statement with something from Tony. I am not Tony Abbott Casey. What did I say?
You also have a habit of making incorrect statements and simply telling lies about what people have said when you are under stress Casey. The interrogation of you and requests to make you explain your sweeping statements seem to unsettle you and push to to outright dishonesty.
Spana @108:
“The west condemns polygamy but says okay to sleeping with 20 people before you settle down”
Only twenty?
Peter Kemp @150: ‘spill motion’. Aha.
Spana @119:
“…which mocks women and men who maintain high standards for sexual behaviour.”
High standards of course can include integity and honesty and a resolve that a gentleman always cums last. They do not reflect on frequency of sexual relations, sexual practices or the number of partners.
What you said Spana, is this
“I am so liberated I can let ten men have sex with me mentality or alternativley the I am so in touch with my sexuality that I can sleep with ten women”
In this, the woman is the passive object that lies there and lets men have sex with her. The man on the other hand is the active participant in both clauses of your sentence. Herein lies your objectification. And there is the similarity with Abbott’s statements. You are both saying one and the same thing. Except he’s more honest about it.
You on the other hand have conducted campagn with a continued barrage of obfuscations and and increasing confused deflections ranging far and wide to try and back up your purely personal opinion regarding the benefits of abstinence. You have accused sexual freedom as responsible for the abuse of women, you have used the voice of one woman in Indonesia to represent all postcolonial feminisms, you have attributed the decline of civilisation as we know it to the advent of the sexual revolution. Nonsense to all of that. Your opinion is a personal one, and again, who cares.
Casey, once again to explain, an observation is not an opinion. I would love to invite you to listen to the people in some of the disfunctional relationships which are common in the area I work in. I know you don’t like the attitude of some women who treat themselves like that but it is not uncommon where I work. I don’t like it either. Nor do I like the attitude of men who reflect my observation. I could be wrong but I am detecting a middle class bias coming through in your comments. Nothing wrong with than in itself. Everyone has their biases. However, you need to understand that these attitudes are out there. I have seen them. Perhaps you have not and that is not your fault. I dislike them too. As the old saying goes, don’t shoot the messenger. Perhaps you need to listen to the actual language some of the men and women I refer to use and then you may understand that my comment is an observation of behaviour and the attitudes that go with it.
I would also suggest that seeing there are 124 comments here that quite a few people including you do actually care depite your attempt to say you don’t!
Er, STDs being a burden on the taxpayer? A liitlle bit of history here. Gonorrhea came into Europe from the Middle East about the learly to mid 13th century. Syphilis arrived in Europe from the New World about the early 16th century. Seems yo me they’ve been a burden on the taxpayer a helluva long time.
Listen Spana, do you acknowledge that not all the women of Australia are in dysfunctional relationships?
What about women who are in healthy sexual relationships but not married? Or what about women who have casual sex using their full agency to do so and enjoy it and are not damaged by it? What about women who are not pressured into it and women who are not lying there saying, oh okay then?
What do you say about them? Are they ok to have sex or not?
Okay Casey, we have moved on. This is a different issue. Women and men who are in sexual relationships but not married make their own choices. My personal view is that marriage, be it religious or nor is an important ritual for both individual couples and community. I believe those who live de facto often just drift into relationships because of circumstance and drift through life withour acknowledging significant milestones. De facto relationships have a higher level of abuse and of breakup than married couples. However, I acknowledge this is simply personal choice.
Women and men who have casual sex are I believe generally low in self esteem and are more selfish and less empowered. I see them as at a lower level of self awareness and generally have issues similar to those who have addictions. It is not generally good for one’s self worth to be a user or to be used even if it is by choice. And ultimately casual sex is about using someone. It is in line with modern capitalism which encourages consumption and discarding something once used, then getting a new one. Then there is the issue of health ans STDs. And of course the ever present issue of creating a baby which you have no intention of caring for. Yes, sex can lead to a baby and unless you can deal with this reality then you should not have sex in those circumstances. And I believe ending the life of a baby because of casual sex is very wrong.
So Casey, if people can’t accept the consequences of their actions, don’t do them. And if we want to create a world where we respect the earth and each other then using people for sex (and there is no casual sex which is respectful) is not okay.
Paul @126 I think Spana’s point was that only the promiscuous catch these diseases for which as a taxpayer he appears to be resentful for the imposition of a “pox tax”.
Perhaps we need a compulsory insurance to cover the costs of promiscuous pox? I can see the legislative instrument already:
The Long John Thomas (Promiscuous Pox Recovery) Insurance Act NSW 2010?
Paul Burns, then how do you explain the recent statistics pointing to a big rise in STDs. This is the issue. Not they they have always been around. Just maybe bad sexual morals leads to disease. Imagine that.
You’ve got that arse about, Spana: an opinion is not an observation. You’re obviously very confused about the difference between the two. For example
How exactly have you observed this? By direct experience of sleeping around with many women, all of whom saw sex in this way? Obviously not because you regard sleeping around as cheap. Voyeurism perhaps. Probably not. All we’re left with is inference from what some women have told you abnout their sex lives – your opinion of the underlying meaning of anecdote and hearsay. That and your outrage at the poor sexual choices whose consequences you say you see in your work, not that we’ve been told what your work is or how you know that what you’re seeing is the result of poor sexual choices. No observation there either – just pure opinion, yet again.
Then, like Tony Abbott, you are truly an idiot.
Oh. I just broke comments policy. I do apologise for that.
Though, personally, I DO think I have been rather good to resist to this point. In the face of all the ignorant ad homs thrown my way.
Spana @128:
“Women and men who have casual sex are I believe generally low in self esteem and are more selfish and less empowered. I see them as at a lower level of self awareness and generally have issues similar to those who have addictions. It is not generally good for one’s self worth to be a user or to be used even if it is by choice. And ultimately casual sex is about using someone.”
All of this is a personal judgement verging on bigotry. None of it reflects my experience.
Spana you raise some cute points:
Does thinking about/hoping for casual sex mean I have low self-esteem, or do I have to actually carry out this act to qualify?
If I try for casual sex, but is unsuccessful/rebuffed, does it mean my self-esteem is lower or higher than if casual sex had been consummated?
Going for the whole anti-Tony Abbott hog, if I hanker for sex with unmarried teens, am I in big self-esteem/gift giving strife?
Perhaps my self-esteem is preserved if the sex-with-single-teen-girls is full time, rather than casual?
Come to think of it, perhaps I can evade self esteem/empowerment problems by having full time sex arrangements with a married woman?
The unadressed point remains that casual sex is about using or being used. Like I have said we live in a capitalist and consumer society where people use, discard and repurchase. The left opposes this but then will encourage it when it comes to sex. We cannot create a good society if the people in it are users and consumers of other people. Therefore, moral sexual choices are required to arrive at a just society. A just society that cares for people and the earth will not be brought about by people who are happy to use and discard other human beings in order to get off. Casual sex is just another product of consumerism.
Spana, I put forward the alternative hypothesis that casual sex is about satisfying natural urges.
Have you ever contemplated Spana that propagation of many species, including us as evolved apes, sometimes involves casual short sharp shags which when travelling especially in foreign lands, does a mighty (and necessary evolutionary) job in spreading the gene pool?
Casual sex is programmed into our evolved biology and as long as it’s consensual and reasonably responsible, the wowsers who condemn it on sky fairy moral grounds can well, go and get fucked.
Spano @ 130,
More people?
Peter Kemp. Good try to justify bad morals with genes. Not even worth responding to.
Oh, and more diseases. HIV-AIDS, for example is only about 30 years old. There are probably a few other lesser well known STDs discovered in recent years, or recorded as STDs, that weren’t previously recorded. I don’t know. Its not exactly a topic one tends to study up on unless you absolutely have to.
Spana
I totally object to your objectification of the left (and possibly our rather randy rellies on the right) on matters sexual.I dont really know any one of any particular political persuasion who thinks sex with random partners (particularly without protection) is an especially bright idea – its actually pretty frought with danger, even deadly. ‘One night stands’ etc can be fun, even beneficial, at first but rather zapping on an ongoing basis.
This discussion was generated by statements by a public figure who uses his physical attributes to promote his political persona – his minders/marketing people are thinking with his d**k, and not their brains.
@ 136.
Anachronistic nonsense. Casual sex was invented before Coca-Cola. At least, judging by the frescoes at Pompeii and some rather intriguing Hindu temples.
Just because you’re incapable of separating your personal moral world-view from your claims about the world is no reason to inflict the contents of your head upon the rest of us. We’ve got Tony Abbott for that.
This has got nightmarish since I’ve been away. I’ve been drinking and I’m going to bed.
Spana @136:
“The unadressed point remains that casual sex is about using or being used. Like I have said we live in a capitalist and consumer society where people use, discard and repurchase. The left opposes this but then will encourage it when it comes to sex.”
You are the one incapable of conceptualising sex outside of marriage in any other terms than commodification. That’s your problem. You’re projecting.
‘Spana’ has a point; even if Abbott is pointless.
Sex without love, or commitment, is more than pointless.
Humanists arguing otherwise for the sake of some quite distinct political or feminist cause are substituting reflection for inflection.
Hands up then who has slept around/casualised sex – free of intoxicated stupor – without regret? Regret borne NOT of some cartoon morality, but of a sense of the abjectness of treating another life as a plaything or conversely of imagining nirvana in a transaction of intimacy?
If the left is to descend into an amoral liberalism then there is no hope.
(Abbott yes is a dork. Virginity is no gift; for most teenagers it’s a saddle-bag. Sexuality is the gift.)
Sex without affection/liking is callous objectification.
Recreational sex with someone whose company one enjoys but that’s as far as it goes – what on earth is wrong with that? Since when is shared enjoyment of an intense physical experience “treating another life as a plaything”?
Sorry Jane @ 104 I meant to get back to you much earlier but the thread was hi-jacked by the politicially irrelevant discussion on sex before marriage! I had to stop myself from submitting anything in case I wandered off into writing about Erica Jong and the Zipless F***. I don’t recall Gough Whitlam or Malcolm Fraser ever parading their views on sex and morality. Or was I so caught up in the hedonism of the time I just didn’t notice? Or care?
My comments about Abbott’s having charm and charisma were made in the context of wondering why he occasionally has appeal even to some like myself for whom he is anathema and warning that this made him a dangerous political operator.
Mark summed it up immediately – “in short, Patricia WA, he’s not a mature individual, but a little boy. Politics is a great career for those looking for the comfort of delusional certainty that one is always right, and substitutes for lost love.”
I’m not sure about the lost love which usually occurs before the age of seven. We know surprisingly little about the early years of Abbott’s life which formed the morally inconsistent but would-be valiant Christian who had unprotected sex in the weeks before his entry into a Catholic seminary from which he ultimately withdrew. This is the man who while a government Minister privately set about ruining another politician with his 2003 trust(sic)fund for Australians for Honest Politics whose sole aim was the prosecution of Pauline Hanson. We see the same man trying to make political mileage out of very public advice on sex before marriage to his own daughters, advice which he admits he was unable to follow himself.
These are but three of Abbott’s many glaring moral inconsistencies which if he cannot shrug off or rationalise away he admits to with disarming frankness. I heard today that Liberal party organisers plan to exploit this frankness as a political plus as an attractive trait. See, he admits his mistakes! He’s human!
I wonder how Rudd & Co will respond?
Robotically staying on message, Patricia WA? ;)
PatriciaWA
“This is the man who while a government Minister privately set about ruining another politician with his 2003 trust(sic)fund for Australians for Honest Politics whose sole aim was the prosecution of Pauline Hanson”
This is entirely consistent with religion and politics of the middle ages. The man knows his place.
Is this the same Spana that was doggedly defending Stephen Conroy’s internet censorship on here?
Oooh goody! This thread has turned into a game of “never have I ever…” Fun!
@ 146
*Hand goes up*
(and that’s all you’re gonna get outta me, so don’t bother asking)
Why is it that the people (in this case Abbott, Spanabot and Graeme) who make all sorts of moral claims about the purity and sanctity of sex as an interpersonal act between two people just can’t refrain from prurient enquiry into other people’s sex lives?
Do they really believe that the public has some sort of claim upon the behaviour of private individuals in the bedroom? The sense of entitlement is galling. Bottom line: What you with your genital organs is, erm, outta my hands. I’m not entitled to tell you what to do with your body (although I *do* have a few tips, but this is not the place!)
To those speculating upthread about Abbott’s minders, there is one thing for sure politically-speaking: Abbott has got the wowser vote aroused, sent a pulse of excitement throbbing through the base, and got them rigidly standing to attention.
@151: Jacques, yes it is.
Spana’s got a one-track-mind. Can only think of one thing. Can’t get his mind off it.
Morals crusaders are like that.
Indeed, the same basic argument that sex is so nasty and horrible that you should only save it for someone you truly and deeply love seemed to feature then as well.
I dips my lid, Peter, at that most excellent bit of lawyerly humour.
……you, you brazen hussy!
Philip Larkin – Annus Mirabilis
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
Up to then there’d only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.
Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.
So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
This thread has poignantly evoked the moral atmosphere that persisted “Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.”
I’m bracing myself for some rather alarming political cartoons to be drawn this week:
Something about Tony Abbott as the Groom, Australian voters as the Bride, and the ‘Honeymoon is over’…
Indeed, the same basic argument that sex is so nasty and horrible that you should only save it for someone you truly and deeply love seemed to feature then as well.
ROFL
Now to clean breakfast off keyboard.
Or, how about…since sex is, as the morals crusaders remind us, such a wonderful and special and sacred and transcendental thing…
…in which case, it would be just…mean…to share it with only one other person! :D
Of course, like any activity, casual sex can be enervating and dissipating if people are doing it to compensate for some kind of personal neurosis (but it doesn’t follow in logic or in reality that this is the only possible, or even majority, motivation).
Some people compensate with sex, others with workplace bullying. Some build elaborate train sets in their basements, and some become obsessive one-note contributers to blog threads.
But the incidence of all these activities would diminish if the people involved simply worked through their ishoos. That would leave the fun stuff to those so-inclined in a more constructive context.
I always thought swx was more fun when you weren’t supposed to do it. :)
Katz #157. Truly my generation. But I reckon the change came with the FJ Holden with lie back seats. And for me the psychological liberation from Catholic guilt came from Chaucer’s Good Woman of Bath Tale – with her five husbands and several in between.
We started collecting Abbottisms when Tone was Minister for Employment. Such a strange contradictory man on all sorts of issues.
I got seduced by an older Communist woman. :)
http://www.theage.com.au/national/hypocrite-abbott-panned-for-virginity-stance-20100126-mwds.html
I love Fiona Scott-Norman’s quote in this article.
The article is up on the AWW site, with a somewhat creepy title: Abbott’s women.
Look, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. An ABC correspondent informed me this morning that Tony was only reflecting the views of ‘mainstream Australia’ and this was the advice that most parents would give their daughters. It was only a few women who had other issues with Tony that were getting upset.
As this came from the independent ABC news service I knew that it was accurate.
A blog is a visit to a sell-stocked aquarium. You see creatures of strange shape and weird habits: oddness close-up behind armoured glass.
There is Eva Cox. The article Fine links to makes clear he is referring to girls. His advice to men is:
Well it’s not much the same. Where is the blokes’ gifting? Why don’t they get to bestow the greatest gift of all?
This discourse is a gendered one. It is directed at women. It is not just a moralistic one. Contrary to whoever it was above, this is a feminist issue and speaking of, where did that expert on the many feminisms, aka the Spana, go? You know, once his underlying motivations (which were always to ascribe deficient moral attributes and addictive weaknesses to those who had sex outside marriage) had been arduously extracted.
Cixous had some ideas on the economy of the gift. It has nothing to do with abstinence, but perhaps Spana should read up on it, to, even further solidify his already impregnable reputation as a feminist of some note in these parts. Impregnable being the operative word.
@167 Yes that’s right Adrian. I heard a long interview on ABC NewsRadio about it this morning, with Charmaine Stone. So the ABC is giving us both sides of the story: We’ve heard from both the Leader of the Opposition, and the Leader of the Opposition’s Spokesperson.
What Anna said at #10. The scary thing is that he does at least seem to be thinking harder and trying harder to work it all out (although failing none the less) than a lot of his colleagues who’ll be in very important positions in government if Tony succeeds in making Christopher Pearson’s dreams come true.
PB @ 164. Schtupping for the revolution, huh? :D
I bet they told her she’d never get laid in those overalls…
Rubbish the minders didn’t know. Beginning with phonecalls to “Princess” and “darling angel” (??!!!), the article and accompanying pictures are positioned to make him attractive to women. This is very strategic positioning of Abbott as a romantic loving family man surrounded by a cloud of beauteous femininity, confirming his role as benevolent pater familias.
Mercurius @ 172,
She was a stunningly beautiful woman, determined to destroy my Catholic innocence. She kept on saying “Will I or won’t I?” for about a week, while giving me long meaningful stares,and laughing, and I was so naive I didn’t know what she was on about. :)
” Mr Abbott said: ”Much the same – treat people with respect and don’t act in ways which demean other people”
This, of course, is good advice. But what does it have to do with the ‘gift’ of virginity?
It’s true that people can have sex they later regret. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of life. What shouldn’t be part of life is shaming people by describing their actions as cheap and demeaning. Much less going down the road Spana described of refusing people treatment for STDs, if they can’t pay.
What would that mean? A verbal test before treatment? “So young lady, did you love this man, or were you really fond of him, or just liked him a little bit, or have very little memory of the event at all?” Treatment would then depend on the answer.
For goodness sake, read the interview before commenting. He was asked what advice he gives to his OWN family and he responded. He was not giving everyone on the planet a lecture about what or what not to do with their life.
@ 176 Jamo, when I want to give advice to my own family, I don’t tell the WW. I tell the family.
Of course he was lecturing the planet (well, the parts of the planet that read WW).
For goodness sake Jamo, there’s no such thing as a politician “frankly” or “innocently” talking to a media outlet. Ever.
Yep, Tone has glommed onto the KIDZ RUNNIN WYLDE trope.
It’s the Law’n'order of the ‘teenies.
Jamo, if Abbott had said something like “My daughters are grown women, they’re living their own lives, they’re the ones who are best placed to make decisions about their lives, of course if they want my opinion I’ll give it but it’s only my 52 year old bloke’s opinion” I don’t think he’d have attracted the derision that he has.
@178 A stint in the Green Army ‘ll sort out those yoofs and teach ‘em respect!
One of the things that bothers me with Tone’s advice, is that in some ways he’s missing the point really. Now I may be a bit of an idealist, but most people are basically decent and honest and loyal and caring of other people regardless of their sexual mores. Sure, there’s some bad people out there, some really bad ones, but you learn to suss them out and avoid them very quickly, unless you’re one of that kind, or utterly completely stupid. There’s a sense of objectification in what he’s saying but I’m sure he doesn’t recognise it. That’s what bothers me. He doesn’t seem to see people as real. You can see this too, in him in other areas – for example his attitudes to refugees and the unemployed and the disabled. We become stats on a balance sheet, not people with real feelings and needs and wants and hopes and fears and dreams. And that’s bothersome in some one who aspires to be our PM.
He could have said, ‘I actually don’t belive in sex before marriage. But tht’s just my personal belief. I don’t think it’s my job to advise people on how to run their lives’.
It’s not that he thinks this, it’s that he’d like everyone else to run their lives to fit in with his belief system. And he could say that his advice to his daughters is personal, family business.
Yep:
“It’s not that he thinks this, it’s that he’d like everyone else to run their lives to fit in with his belief system.”
Abbott speaks with the absolute certitude of religious conviction. No room for doubt, ambiguity or the differences of others. One world, one pope, one set of values.
I’m wondering what his views of homosexuality are now.
Fine @182: “And he could say that his advice to his daughters is personal, family business.”
I suspect that here lies part of the wider problem.
The fact that Abbott is a hypocrite, and extremely condescending to women, and hung-up badly over sexual matters, is one aspect. It makes him unattractive as an individual, possibly to most modern women and a reasonable percentage of thoughtful men. Presumably he is aiming at the arch-conservative over 55 votes?
However, the real problem in terms of Abbott as a potential PM comes back to the thoughts underlying Fine’s point, and some others here. Abbott doesn’t know when to shut his trap.
“Three sheets to the wind” – all flapping about in the breezes. No self-monitoring, or sense of perspective.
Heaven help us if the Aussie electorate had a fit of temporary insanity and this man got to be PM. Imagine Abbott at some international junket like the G20, being asked his opinion on a delicate international matter…
Im sorry but just because he gives advice to his own children doesnt mean he percieves that advice to be applicable to the nation as a whole. I mean hes a catholic too. Does that mean he thinks everyone should hold catholic veiws or beliefs? No of course not. He recognises that individual are entitled to their own religious beliefs, just as he realises woman are entitled to their individual views.
Jamo @185: “Does that mean he thinks everyone should hold catholic veiws or beliefs? No of course not.”
I suspect that you haven’t been paying attention to Abbott’s past actions.
He does indeed think that political power gives him the right to apply his catholic views to legislation, which applies to all.
Think about RU486, and his trenchant views on everything to do with reproduction and contraception. Think about his views on stem cell research. Abbott showed every inclination to apply his hardline catholic views to the world at large, whenever the opportunity presented itself.
And of course, Abstinence Only is such a successful strategy that a report just out suggests it is actually leading to increased teen pregnancies in the U.S.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/26/teen-pregnancies-up-is-abstinence-only-emphasis-a-reason/
Elise@186: The RU486 and stem cell issues were conscience votes in the parliament which is where MP’s vote according to their personal consciences. And I note that a lot of Labor members also voted the same as Abbott in those debates. I think drawing the conclusion that you did from this is a very long bow indeed.
All this talk about sex is turning me on! My expression can only be verbal, of course. Groupies could add to the enjoyment. Anyone interested?
Sexual Politics Downunder
Suddenly a nine day wonder!
Even Larvatus Prodeo
Holds a raunchy rodeo.
Rudd’s seems robotic.
While Abbott’s quixotic.
Julia say’s HECS
Matters far more than sex.
There’s hundreds of pollies.
How do they get their lollies?
Does Nicola Roxon
Keep even her socks on?
And Barnaby Joyce
Does he get any choice?
Bob Brown as we know
Gives the other a go.
Julie’s glare it is said
Will knock any man dead.
Does Iron Bar Tuckey
Ever get lucky?
Does poor Warren Truss
Get the occasional buss?
Could you write a novella
Round Sophe Mirabella?
And why does that Conroy
Think the web’s just a sex toy?
etc.
Jamo @188, a long bow huh? You reckon Abbott was the one advocating a conscience vote???
I call BS. If he wanted to give advice to his own children, why did he give it to the Women’s Weekly? Don’t they talk in the living room at home?
I have a message for my uncle. I’ll give the New York Times a ring so that he gets the message.
Errm. That’s kind of the dictionary definition of ‘Catholic’. It means universal, right, one. An ecumenical Catholic is a contradiction in terms.
(NTTAWWT Disclaimer: It’s fine for people to hold a universal belief. But they should be frickin’ well honest about it. I don’t mean any disrespect to Catholics nor am I presuming to speak for them. But can we at least understand the denotative meaning of ‘Catholic’ and use it accurately, respectfully and in a non-pejorative manner?)
Jamo re:
Balderdash.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/sushi-das/mr-abbott-minister-for-meddling/2005/11/23/1132703249708.html
Not necessarily the “views or beliefs”, just the anti-abortion practice of Catholicism, for example.
Spana @ 140
Are those “morals” attributable to a celestial dictatorship? If the celestial dictator created the genes, bit of a failure wasn’t it?
Skepticlawyer @ 155, my pleasure. :-)
Paul Burns @ 164: Must have been fucking KGB mate :-)
I guess others have noticed it too, already, but it just occurred to me.
Abbott is to the Liberals, as Latham was to Labor.
The circle closes at the bottom, with mirror images?
Elise, how’s this for a book title?
Paul @195, well I never!!!
The title is rather OTT, though, don’t you think? “Latham and Abbott: The lives and rivalries of the two finest politicians of their generation” By Michael Duffy.
One might question Michael Duffy’s judgement there, if he thinks these two are “the finest” that we have?
Elise, it’s one of a number of reasons I have to question Michael Duffy’s judgement.
Jamo, iirc the ONLY reason RU486 came up as a conscience issue in the first place is because Abbott had already refused to follow the reccomendations of the TGA on its use.
He’s a nasty-minded, bigoted, hypocritical wowser. (And yes, I know a lot of those adjectives are redundant.)
Good catch, Peter Kemp. Sure, Mistah Rabbit is only concerned about women’s health.
Jonathan Green also appears to be losing his judgement if the article he wrote in his new role at the ABC is any guide. Apparently Tones cherry proclamation is all about Julia Gillard being out of touch.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/27/2802389.htm?site=thedrum
ps… Paul B linked to this elsewhere.
To steer the discussion back to something mentioned earlier in the comments.
Recent articles about the growing number of confirmed cases of STIs in the late teens/twenties crowd can be explained in ways that have nothing to do with this imagined casual sex “craze”. The generation of twenties (what are they Y or X generation?) did not grow up with the Grim Reaper and associated advertisements. Different testing patterns or different reporting guidelines of infections can also affect the increase.
Casual sex is not necessary a recent occurrence except now there is greater transparency that it does occur (reduction of shame?)
It irritates me that Abbott is quoted as telling women to not have sex outside marriage (I know he only has daughters). Why is it always about women closing their legs. Who are the woman having sex with? A far few would be unmarried men too. Tell them to keep their pants on too to keep some rationality to your argument Abbott.
Re: The ‘Grim Reaper’ ad.
It’s ironic, but when you think about it, Siimon Reynolds has probably saved more lives than your average oncologist!
And he certainly saved more people than all the prurient wowsers telling people to never, ever, before marriage.
David Irving (nr) – why not say what you really think?
I could be more blunt, Patricia, but it might violate the comment policy.
On a slightly difeerent note, apparently it’s not just the younger folk who are suffering an upswing in … err … social diseases – my own generation is as well, I’ve heard. (At least we can’t get pregnant … )
For the benefit of Jamo, here’s the report on the Inquiry into the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005: a bill that was only ever introduced into Parliament in the first place because Tony Abbott as Health Minister had used his unilaterial ministerial powers to block the importation, supply and use of RU486 in Australia by refusing to approve it for inclusion on the Therapeutic Goods Registry.
Abbott’s response to the bill?
Yeah, it’s all just about him providing a private moral compass for his family. Riiiiggghhhht.
WW should have asked Tone how babby is formed.
Phil@vb@28 Think about Bronnie’s claim to have ‘been the first woman to go down on a submarine’ when she was Minister for Defence Industry, Science and Personnel. ‘
Leaving aside all the other stuff, I was fascinated to note that all three of his adult daughters are still living at home, which would lead me to believe that there must be either a lot of sneaking about or turning of the blind eye by the mad monk – seriously, with three beautiful single daughters about town he has got to be kidding.
I’m pretty sure that my dad would have taken the same attitude but he was never game to say so to his three daughters. Although with my teenage daughters I have talked to them about the unexpected emotional reactions aroused by what you thought was casual sex – just when you think your liberated – whammo – you get hit with the hormones that send you off into the kitchen to make them something nice and nurturing. Beware.
bmh @ 207 – nice. Delightful incongruity of who she really is and what she might have got up to!
Sara @201: “Why is it always about women closing their legs. Who are the woman having sex with? A far few would be unmarried men too. Tell them to keep their pants on too to keep some rationality to your argument Abbott.”
Precisely!!!
Perhaps Abbott would say that the men can’t help it as those damn zippers never stay up, and the buttons keep popping off? It must be the woman’s fault, for not sewing them on strongly enough, hey?
Perhaps he secretly believes the muslim BS that women are all seductresses, and have to be kept under tight reign, preferably in black sacks, or they will overcome men’s feeble control on their impulses?
He would have done better if he had left virginity and chastity alone. He could have confined himself to saying something like he thinks that sex is a deeply personal and private interaction, and he hoped that his daughters chose their partners carefully. Beslides, he could personally attest that some of their potential partners might be scumbags who aren’t ready for the consequences of their actions and bugger bravely off…
Bloody sanctimonious hypocrite.
I read this post yesterday and thought to myself ‘ what the f..k was he thinking”. Yet here I find no direct quote of what he said, although I confess I haven’t had a chance to read the whole post in its entirety, except that someone up at around #40 asked for the complete quote. Anyway I found it, courtesy of the ABC and here it is -
“It happens, I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question, I would say … it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly that is what I would say.”
To me that doesn’t sound like such bad advice from a father to a daughter. Obviously being a left wing blog site, people here naturally hate his guts, but it’s pretty poor form to take partial quotes out of context.
Baffled @211, actually people were discussing the point in appropriate context.
How about leading by example? Or being more realistic?
Given their father’s own behaviour with regard to virginity and chastity, that advice would be “Do as I say, not as I do” presumably?
Since when did that kind of advice cut any ice with teenagers?
The attack has now moved to Julia Gillard, on the grounds she doesn’t understand families because she has no children and so cannot what a girl’s virginity means to a parent. Courtesy George Brandeis.
Now I know Julia Gillard is really bright and there is a distinct possibility she sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus like Pallas Athene, but if that is the case, it would not be something I was emphasising if I was an Opposition pollie. It would surely just prove I was stupid, wouldn’t it?
OTOH, I was under the impression she started out life as a Welsh virgin. So, it would follow she does understand the meaning of virginity, wouldn’t/doesn’t it?
Don’t be silly Paul. She’s never owned a woman, so what could she possibly contribute to the discussion.
Equally baffled, how can his daughters live now with or up to such public advice, the poor girls. I would not want this character as our Prime Minister lecturing us via ASEAN plenum speech on the sanctity of fasting as well as eating fish on a Friday.
He’s all class!
Perhaps George Brandis can, in a spirit of cross-cultural understanding, lend a sympathetic ear to fathers who engage in “honour killings”. Now there are some proud dads whose daughters’ virginity means a lot to them!
Miss Gillard DID chime in with a few comments of her own first, along the lines of him Suggesting girls put a bit of thought into who their first root is with “will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott”.
Mr. Brandis may hardly be all class, however Miss Gillard would have been wiser to not say anything.
satb see 106
Suggesting girls put a bit of thought into who their first root is
Again, no mention of boys. Why?
@219, ahh Helen, the boyz are not mentioned ‘cos we all know us boyz are just the unfortunate playthings of sirens, succubi and fluttering eyelids. I mean, look how you make us behave!
I love it when “Christian” moralists come around full-circle to hold a meeting of ‘minds’ with the worst excesses of “Islamic” views of women as defilers of male purity. Yet the bigots love nothing better than to hector Muslims for how badly they treat the wimmins. Why should they be surprised? Islam distilled its traditions of sexual morality straight out of the original Catholic playbook, mixed together with unreconstructed dumb-ass literal passages of Torah. Christian fundies look in the mirror of Islam and consistenly fail to see their own misogyny staring back at them, petrol can and lighter at the ready to defend the family’s “honour”.
Check it
http://www.articlesbase.com/religion-articles/sheikh-hilaly-had-a-point-101435.html
Father Dave Smith, self fashioned “Fighting Father” pfft, Anglican Minister, Sydney Diocese
“Again, no mention of boys. Why?”
Socks don’t count like the gift.
Mercurius @220, Brilliant summary! Especially the comment about the “mirror of Islam”. Spot on.
I bats me lashes at you (in a virtual sense)! ;)
Mercurius @ 152: “Why is it that the people (in this case Abbott, Spanabot and Graeme) who make all sorts of moral claims about the purity and sanctity of sex as an interpersonal act between two people just can’t refrain from prurient enquiry into other people’s sex lives?”
I wasn’t making a moral claim at all: but one based on psychology, aesthetics… (I realise you later posted something about the psychological aspects of casualising sex).
Least of all was I making a claim for censorship in the private domain of the consensually sensual. Or public pruriency: on the contrary, there’s already way much too much vaudeville crossover and celebrityhood in the way public affairs are reported. Indeed Abbott in the Women’s Weekly, Rudd on Henson are examples of this; and some blame for this belongs with a certain type of feminist elision inherent in the old claim that ‘the personal is public’.
Sexuality is way too complex for easy terms like ‘objectification’ and crusades against ‘pornofication’. By the same token, liberation isn’t licence and licentiousness and promiscuity tend to be inherently self-defeating, bleaching the erotic of the erotic.
@Graeme, you are the one who is eliding distinctions between personal/political and private/public. Do keep up.
Edited to add: the tabloids never needed feminism to realise that paying readers get their kicks out of peeking into the private lives of public figures
Graeme @ 146: If the left is to descend into an amoral liberalism then there is no hope
Graeme @ 224: I wasn’t making a moral claim at all
@ 226 fine catch at Silly Point there, Nick. Got ‘im yes! :D
‘Twas on the Good Ship Menzies*
Before they launched the dinghies
They segregated girls from boys
And confiscated thingies.
* trad. pron. Mingies
Indeed, Casey @ 221.
I can remember saying similarly stupid things myself about 40 years ago. (Unlike the good Father, I’ve grown up.) I thought Howard (and others) were being spectacularly hypocritical condemning Hilali for the uncovered meat remark.
Elise, that’s an attitude not confined to the muslim world. I think it pervades most societies and has allowed rape to be viewed as a crime where the victim is portrayed as “asking for it” because of her clothing, prior sexual experience, level of intoxication and location (eg in a pub, club or out and about at night).
This allowed blame for the crime to be shifted from the rapist to the victim and also allowed the rapist to be regarded not as a criminal, but the helpless victim of the jezebel who accused him.
My female relatives’ contention was that if men had so little control over their nether regions, their fitness to run governments and armies should be seriously questioned.
Graeme,
I distinctly remember the cops banning Buzo’s Norm and Ahmed and raiding the New Theatre in Sydney when they staged America Hurrah. Even further back, politicians banned Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and James Joyce’s Ulysses. Politicians imposing on peoples’ personal lives and beliefs when expressed in sexual terms goes back a long way. And less well known, John Gay’s play Polly was banned in England in, I think, the 1740s. Politicians and moralists banned the works of De Sade (who, admittedly, with the possible exception of the last chapter of Justine, is very, very boring unless you’re into anti-monarchist tirades). Similarly, Lawrence’s Lady Chetterley’s Lover was banned until the late 1960s.
All these events have one thing in common. They predate feminism and the idea that the personal is political. And I would go so far to suggest that if it had not been for some historians, male and female, contemplating that maxim of ‘The personal is political’ and developing upon it, we wouldn’t have made the advances we’ve made in some fields of history over the past few decades.
At this point I’ll stop, otherwise I’m likely to get scathing.
Jane @230, projection of blame onto others seems to be as old as time, and not confined to sex?
Graeme @ 224 says”Sexuality is way too complex for easy terms like ‘ojectification’ and crusades against ‘pornofication’. By the same token, liberation isn’t licence and licentiousness and promiscuity tend to be inherently self-defeating, bleaching the erotic of the erotic.”
Nicely explains why the sexual liberation of women doesn’t necessarily result in political emancipation or vice versa. Graeme’s reference to the claim that the “personal is public” and by inference political cries out for comment on how cynical politicians can be in exploiting any issue, particularly one inviting discussion on sex and gender together!
I’m not for a moment suggesting that Tony Abbott planned this one! Surely though, having often crossed swords with the likes of Gillard and Roxon, he might have anticipated their response and that of the feminist lobby? And there’s an even broader constituency out there to offend in all those who’ve gone to the altar heavy with child or borne offspring out of wedlock. And what about all those other women and ‘girls’ out there dutifully and let’s hope joyfully serving the needs of single red-blooded Aussie males?
Patricia @233: “Surely though,…he might have anticipated their response…”
Of course he understands, Patricia!
He is Mr People Skills, remember?
Those despeartely trying to defend casual sex would do well to read Clive Hamilton’s, The Freedom Paradox where he discusses this issue. It may prove enlightening to those who believe poor morals, cheap sex and using people are okay.
I will not bother Spana. I think you have an unhealthy obsession with other peoples business and all these judgments, you keep throwing around, have made you bitter, twisted and completely unsuited to working in any area of community service.
Thanks Joe. Perhaps I have just seen how damaging bad choices about sex can be to young people. As I have stated, cheap casual sex is in line with capitalism – consume, discard and move on. The comments on here justifying this human consumerism and using of people show why some on the left are really no different from the greedy corpoartes who will use and consume for their own benefit. Consuming people or workers or the environment all require the same callous disregard for people and a lack of respect for self.
Your welcome Spana.
Forget capitalism and all you claim to have seen. Have you ever had casual sex?
I have and I can assure you that sometimes it has been great and other times less enjoyable. Still, I would no wish to deny, change or judge those experiences. It is all part of growing up.
One thing for sure, I do not go round proclaiming I know how other people should behave in relationships because that is their business and it would be ugly and preachy.
For the second time Spana, do the “morals” emanate from a celestial dictator? If they don’t, you also have a problem in calling your rather subjective application of utilitarian theory or sex_as_consumerism theory “morals”.
Hamilton in that book said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freedom_Paradox:_Towards_a_Post-Secular_Ethics
Clearly he doesn’t know a lot about sheep: with no fences they go wandering off in all directions apparently without fear, huddling in small groups occasionally, actually just like isolated humans in social contact in a frontier setting. (Would like to see any statistics on the “fearful”)
Here we go, from that link:
So someone who doesn’t conform, to Spana/Pell/Abbott
ad nauseam, must be…evil and immoral wallowing around in that nasty, vile abominable practice of casual sex!!!
“The heavens will open and the righteous wrath of God shall descend upon ye, and there will be a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!”
“But Reverend Paisley, I haven’t got any teeth.”
“TEETH SHALL BE PROVIDED”
Spana, I remember my misspent youth with great fondness. I used to say that it would at least give me memories for the nursing home and as I approach my sexual decline with the onset of peri-menopause, I am very glad I did every thing I did. Including some eye-wateringly embarassing episodes (like stupidly thinking at 17 that if buying one pack of condoms was embarassing, I may as well reduce the episodes of embarrassment and buy two dozen packs in one go (funded from my Austudy book allowance of course) – but I hadn’t factored in the utter humiliation of the chemist’s assistant repeating my request at the top of her voice in total disbelief.
I recall some truly awful and some truly awesome sex of various persuasions- none of which did me any harm at all. The wowserism that understandably came in with AIDS needs to be tempered with the fact that we are sexual beings and that we need to find what works sexually for us. I have trouble believing that most of us can strike lucky first go. I have been happily cohabiting with a woman for the last 15 years and if I had been a “good girl” I would never have experimented and discovered the joys of lesbian sex.
The young women I did see damaged during those naughty seventies and eighties were struggling to overcome societal and familial beliefs about women’s sexuality. Thank goodness I have always had a tin ear for social mores and the fact that my parents subcontracted childrearing to my older siblings who merely locked me in the cupboard when I got too stroppy.