Sex in the city

I haven't, until now, commented on Max Mosley's case against the News of the World, but reading the papers this week I am obviously not alone in believing that what people do in private (as long as it's legal and between consenting adults) is a matter for them.

Whether the paper is right to argue that what Mosley gets up to in private is of "public interest" is another matter. It's titillating (of course it is), so from that point of view there is an element of "public interest" (and we can't forget his F1 connections), but what's more important - his right to privacy or our "right" to know?

If there was a Nazi theme (as the NOTW claims), that may change our perception of his behaviour, but surely the charge would be gross insensivity rather than “gross sexual depravity”.

Talking of sexual festishes, shortly before the introduction of the smoking ban in England, I received an email from the organiser of the London Fetish Fair. She told me that, as a direct result of the ban, the LFF was moving to a new venue "with a large, closed off courtyard to accomodate the rights of our smoking fetishists and regular smoking visitors".
 
Things like the smoking ban, she added, "diminish the rights and freedoms of all kinds of people from different walks of life". I agreed, and suggested she write a press release which we would circulate to our media contacts. She did, and it included her comment that:

"My entire staff smoke. How am I supposed to have a happy, chilled-out team if their requirements are not taken into account? Unlike so many other minorities, there is already a dwindling number of welcoming places for people from the alternative side of life to have a chance to meet others. This ban will only drive people out of the social scene and back into feeling cut off from the chance to meet their peers."

There is a serious point here and it is this: all minority groups have to stick together and defend one another's interests. Who knows, but in 30 years' time I wouldn't put it past the anti-smoking movement to brand ALL smokers as fetishists guilty of "gross depravity".

Update on Saturday, July 12, 2008 by Simon Clark

There are a couple of interesting articles on the subject of Max Mosley in today's papers. Stephen Glover, in the Daily Mail, seems rather affronted by Mosley's behaviour; Rowan Pelling, former editor of the Erotic Review, adopts a lighter tone in the Telegraph. See HERE and HERE.

Update on Monday, July 14, 2008 by Simon Clark

Intelligent discussion of the subject on the BBC website HERE.

Comments

[chas]

Consenting men and women having sex. How disgraceful?

[chas]

Forces web site states:
'A newly published study links the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, to lung cancer, adding lungs to the list of organs scientists say are susceptible to cancer as a result of contracting the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States'.
Should we ban sex?

[Joyce]

It was beyond Cynthia, her S&M sessions were approved but woe betide the client who wanted to spark up afterwards:

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa42/jayjaystew/000143-1.jpg

[Joyce]

I haven't read any articles so I might be commenting from a position of ignorance of all the facts but, on the face of it, I can't understand all the fuss (except on the issue of intrusion of privacy). What consenting adults do in private, however distasteful, is no-one's business except their own.

[Eleanor Maw]

If Max wants to fuck tarts dressed up in German world war 2 uniforms in private let him, it's his hobby. Ha Ha