Monday, September 11, 2006

Back to Life

Apologies for the blog silence over the last couple of weeks. The success of the show led to me being invited to take part in a number of "showcase" shows in front of some very large audiences. My favourites were "Spank!" - a very noisy late night gig where I weirdly bumped in to an old friends who turns out to be the cousin of one of the other acts on the bill - and "Lunchbox Live" which at about 1pm seemed very early to be doing skits about orgasms and, well, those of you who've seen my set will know the rest...

Anyway so that's my excuse for not being on blog. When we got back we mostly just slept and vegged out. Doing a few shows though too.

I see while I was napping something truly unexpected has happened - the Guardian gender page has published a real feminist article. Actually one which ties in with some things I've been saying for a while.

Also "while I was out..." there's another new bill in parliament which sets out to ban viewing violent pornography (it is already illegal to produce or distribute it). Lots of people are moaning about the bill saying it's the producers of such vile things who should be prosecuted. Which in theory would completely solve the problem but in practice would have no effect at all. Why?

1) We live in a world full of economic unbalance. If the demand for something exists in the west, the supply for it will emerge in the third world.

2) It's already illegal to produce it and yet it still exists.

3) I don't want to work and interract with people who spend their evenings indoors with their high-speed internet access and a box of tissues watching women being violently raped and murdered.

1 comment:

Cruella said...

There are films about paedophilia that cover the issues without coming close to breaking the law. The line between scenes shown for sexual enjoyment and those shown for documentary reasons is quite clear. sadly many films already exist depicting graphic violence against women purporting to be commentary and in fact largely viewed as power-based porn. In particular "Boxing Helena" I have heard spoken about by guys as a sexually thrilling movie. It shows a woman held captive by a guy she's been dating and he surgically removes her limbs to keep her trapped. There are ways of raising and discussing issues that are clearly not glorifying the violence.