An Arm's Length from Common Sense

Pensiero via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

After a spate of gang assaults on women in the German city of Cologne, the mayor recommended women stay "an arm's length" from people they don't know in order to prevent sexual assault.

A lot of people objected to this because, as usual, it put the onus of responsibility on women to avoid being raped.  I am somewhat ambivalent about that.  Yes, I should be able to be naked and unconscious on the public highway and still safe from being raped, because we want to live in a civilised society.  Nevertheless it is only sensible that women, including myself, take certain precautions to avoid high risk situations.

My main objection mayor Reker relates to the sheer level of cluelessness she shows in suggesting this particular precaution in the context of this particular crime spree.  Specifically, an arm's length distance is impossible to maintain in normal dailly life, and means fuck all when you are being gang attacked in the street by a mob of 80 to 100 men.

Gang sexual attacks are a case where not only is the female victim not at all responsible for the crime, there is no reasonable precaution she could have taken that would not obliterate her right to be in public spaces at all.  Gang sexual attacks can only be responded to as break downs in civil order that require a mass, coordinated, and emphatic response in which victim behavior is simply not a factor.

Kea Serial Killer

Some one is shooting the Keas, a much loved New Zealand parrot. A total of six dead birds have been found, out of an estimated total population of less than 1000.

I hope the cops catch this bastard soon.  An apt punishment might involve being staked out naked in Kea territory.

Wow

I was mildly impressed by the woman who could shoplift shoes by hiding them under her boobs. But that pales in comparison to the woman who used her vagina to hide "54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, and eight prescription pills - along with $51.22 in cash and change."

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The rule is that if a girl can hold a pencil under her breast, it's time to get a bra.  I don't know what it means if you can shoplift shoes under your boobs, and I don't want to know.

Sexting

Sometimes we don't need a new word for something--if it isn't a new thing.

Sexting.

There have always been horny teens. There have always been ways of fixing an image. There have aways been ways of transmitting an image--even if you had to chisel it on a rock and attach it to a very hefty carrier pigeon.

If a 16-year-old girl takes a picture of herself and sends it to someone, where is the victim? And in the absence of a victim, where is the crime? I am as against child porn as anyone but can there even be such a thing as remote self-child-abuse?