What's offensive about a pregnant nun?

Two priests share a glance in front of an altar, and seem about to share something more than the tub of ice-cream that one has in his hands. A nun looks down at her pregnant belly, one hand holding a spoon poised over a large tub of the same brand. Offensive? The Advertising Standards Authority thinks so. It has recently banned both these adverts on the grounds that they might upset Catholics. The National Secular Society today accused the quango of seeking to "unilaterally" reintroduce the old law of blasphemy less than three years after it was abolished by Parliament.

Terry Sanderson, who has complained to culture minister Ed Vaizey, says

Anyone who has seen the Antonio Federici ads knows that they are mildly humorous, in no way threatening, abusive or insulting. It is entirely wrong that these advertisements have been banned by such an unaccountable body, which needs to be reined in.

I'm not always a fan of the NSS, but I think they've got this one right. It is indeed troubling that these fairly inoffensive pictures should have been deemed - by the anonymous functionary who made this decision - to be likely to cause "serious or widespread offence" to religious people. If only on grounds of common sense. Certainly, the offence cannot have been widespread. A mere six people complained about the "gay priests" ad, while there were ten complaints regarding the pregnant nun. Last year, an even tamer ad by the same firm featuring a priest and a nun "looking as if they were about to kiss" was also deemed offensive by the ASA, again after 10 complaints.

It's not clear if anyone complained separately about all three adverts, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some overlap. In any event, there is a maximum of twenty-six people and a minimum of ten who find these things offensive. There are supposedly five million Roman Catholics in the UK. Not all of them will have seen these ads, and some who did may have felt some offence yet not have been moved to complain. But that, too, is relevant. For given that the offence was not widespread, we must assume that the ASA deems it to have been serious.

Does this image really represent "a distortion and mockery of the beliefs of Roman Catholics" as the ASA held? Scarcely. I can imagine a Catholic pedant - or even an atheistic one - being offended by the apparent misuse of the phrase "immaculately conceived" as a reference to the virgin birth and thus to the incongruity of a pregnant nun. The theological meaning of "immaculately conceived" is "conceived without sin" - but given that ice-cream is supposed to be sinful (that's the whole point of the ad, I should have thought) the line doesn't really work. That isn't why the ASA upheld the complaint, though. It imagined that Catholics might be shocked by the very idea of a pregnant nun. Yet neither history nor literature is short of pregnant nuns. Such a lapsed Bride of Christ might get well into trouble with her Mother Superior, but her existence would not mock or undermine the faith. She's just not a very good nun. First she gets herself up the duff. Then, when she should be deep into remorseful Hail Marys, she starts tucking into ice cream. First lust, then gluttony.

And anyway, it's not like she's having an abortion. A pregnant nun - continuing with her unplanned pregnancy although it has presumably ruined her career, and, indeed, still in the habit (which means that Mother Superior has forgiven her) - actually represents an affirmation of Catholic teaching, if you think about it.

As for the "gay priests", they aren't even Roman Catholics. Their cassocks clearly mark them out as Anglicans, possibly from one of the more liberal Anglican parishes that don't have a problem with gay clergy. It may in fact be that the advertisers intended the models to represent clerics of the Roman persuasion, but there is nothing either in the picture, nor in the caption ("We believe in salivation") to prove such a contention. Yet the ASA decided that "the portrayal of the two priests in a sexualised manner was likely to be interpreted as mocking the beliefs of Roman Catholics", and that was apparently that. Whether or not the advert actually mocked anyone's belief was irrelevant; it was enough merely that it could be "interpreted" in such a way. This is a ludicrously censorious interpretation of what is already a restrictive code.

Antonio Federici may not mind the further publicity that comes from having their already-seen adverts withdrawn, but the rest of us should mind. The adjudications are couched in that humourless, deadening prose we have become used to from the modern bureaucracy of "non-offence", whose effect is to make things that are humorous and trivial sound like serious and dangerous threats to society. The code itself, notes the statement without further rationale, stipulates that "particular care should be taken to avoid causing offence on the grounds of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability." This is a problem. Why should religion be privileged in this way, especially when what is being satirised is not even a core belief of the faithful but merely the institutional structure and its personnel?

The NSS claim that the watchdog is surreptitiously reintroducing laws against blasphemy actually misses the point, for its rulings do not make the adverts illegal. Rather, we should be asking why advertising should be subjected to petty-minded interventions that would never be tolerated in literature or film, simply to appease the sensibilities of a tiny minority of the easily-offended. Or, more likely, of semi-professional offence-takers whose motivation is as much political as spiritual.

At the very least, the ASA seems to have an alarmingly low threshold as to what constitutes "offence" where religion is concerned. An advert need not be objectively outrageous; it's enough that someone somewhere might potentially take exception to it. The organisation is worryingly over-protective both of the supposed sensibilities of believers (who, at most, will have been mildly irritated) and of its own Holy Scripture, the Code. Perhaps they would like all advertising to be bland and inoffensive, just to be on the safe side. But as Federici told the ASA:

They did not believe offence had been so deeply felt as to affect their right, as marketers, to free expression and that offence caused to a small minority should not affect the ability of the wider public to see their ad. They believed that, as a form of art and self-expression, advertising should be challenging and often iconoclastic.

I agree. Advertising is mainly about selling things, obviously; its artistic impulse will always be secondary. Yet it is an important form of public art. The best advertisements are thought-provoking, memorable, unexpected and, yes, controversial. Advertising is also the most ubiquitous type of art. It can make a huge impact on public consciousness, much more so than most films or books. This hands the unelected, largely unaccountable ASA the powers of a censor. Banning an advert robs people of the opportunity to have their thoughts provoked by it. Potentially it impoverishes culture. The ASA should realise that it owes greater duty to society as a whole than to the unrepresentative and eccentric handful who take the trouble to complain. Read the rest of this article

Anglicans seen consorting with Buddhists on Songs of Praise

This is a guest post by Julian Mann

If you want to see what mainstream establishment religion looks like, then watch the recent edition of the BBC's Song of Praise, rather patronisingly entitled Surprising Sheffield.

Not even the BBC can suppress the Nicene credal theology expressed by the Christian hymnody Songs of Praise necessarily features. But in this edition showcasing multi-faith Sheffield the inescapable aspects of Nicene Christianity were well drowned out by politically-correct religiosity and complacent sentimentality.

Aled Jones’ cheery voiceover described an inter-faith meditation group meeting at Sheffield Cathedral. When this collaboration between the Cathedral and local Buddhists came to light around eight years ago, the then Diocesan Evangelical Network raised objections and I debated with a Cathedral cleric on BBC Radio Sheffield. Our group argued that such a meditation group in the Cathedral involving Buddhists undermined Biblical and indeed Anglican teaching regarding the supremacy and uniqueness of Christ.

But there it was, flattered and flaunted on Songs of Praise.

At least, you know where you are with Nicene Christianity. You can argue with it and if you are unpersuaded in a Christian-influenced democracy, you are free to reject it. This new politically-correct establishment religion is much more slippery.

If you criticise it, you can be accused of undermining good community relations and even public order in a multi-cultural society. But it needs to be criticised if we are to value free and rigorous intellectual enquiry in our country. Politically-correct religion is incoherent. Buddhism and Nicene Christianity cannot both be correct.

Either, to quote the Nicene Creed, there is ‘one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible’ or there is not.

Either there is ‘one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God’ or there is not.

Freedom of speech and intellectual enquiry has far more to worry about from this new PC establishment religion than from counter-cultural Christianity.

No wonder none of the pro-active evangelism and church planting being done by orthodox Christians in Sheffield received the Aled Jones' treatment.

The Heresiarch adds:

The latest issue of Private Eye reports on recent comings and goings at the BBC's religion department, including at Songs of Praise. It mentions the "2008 head-hunted recruitment of Tommy Nagra" as the programme's editor:

Nagra's staggering lack of knowledge of music, Christianity, TV and the meaning of the word "Emeritus" became such an embarrassment that [Aaqil] Ahmed [Head of Religion] had to appoint yet another executive to help him out. This new "series editor" was David Taviner, barely more knowledgeable than Nagra, but an evangelical Christian. Nagra has since been given the grand new title of Head of Religion and Ethics TV.

(The "emeritus" reference is to a notorious alleged incident in which Nagra spotted a caption reading "Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu" and supposedly exclaimed "I didn't know Desmond was his middle name".)

So it seems that the person ultimately responsible for this latest multi-faith horror is in fact an evangelical Christian. Just shows how far the rot has spread, I suppose... Read the rest of this article

It's the thought that counts

The super-rich Emir of Qatar is on a state visit to Britain.

The Queen presented her guests with signed photos of herself and Prince Philip.

In return, she received an 18-carat gold casket encrusted with diamonds, amethysts and pearls, while Philip’s gift was a statue of a horse on a clock base.

Clearly, the spending cuts are already beginning to bite. I wonder if that gold casket will turn up on Ebay? Read the rest of this article

The language of prostitution, or the prostitution of language

Listening to the podcast of last week's Westminster Skeptics debate on the sex trade (which you can also read about here) I was struck by the extent to which discussion about prostitution often seems to get reduced to an argument about language. Dr Brooke Magnanti (the celebrated author Belle de Jour) criticised anti-prostitution campaigners for their habitual use of terms which both denigrated sex-workers (her preferred term) and denied their agency; she added that while she personally was content to call herself a hooker, even that term might be considered derogatory when used casually by someone outside the sex industry. Rather like only gay men being allowed to call each other "queer", perhaps.

This might all seem somewhat politically correct, but this is an area in which language can be peculiarly powerful in shaping thought. It might even be argued that the "problem" of commercial sex is as much a linguistic problem as a social one, perhaps more so. The very reasons Magnanti gave for preferring the term "sex-work" - that it respects the women's (or, of course, men's - but for simplicity's sake I shall be using the female pronoun) autonomy, that it implies that they are people doing a job rather than passive objects - are those cited by anti-prostitution campaigners for rejecting it. She claimed that "sex worker" was the most neutral term available, because it does not come loaded either with moral judgement or assumptions of victimhood. But that is precisely why it is not neutral. Merely by not passing moral judgement on prostitution, its clients and practitioners, you are already taking a stand.

By way of contrast, I offer you an intriguing passage from a lengthy report (pdf here) compiled by an anti-prostitution working party. Financed by the Hunt Alternatives Fund, and supported by such high-profile campaigners as the Guardian's Julie Bindel, the group aims to use "business strategies" to tackle the "demand" for paid-for sex, on the theory that "commercial sexual exploitation" (which is their preferred term for the phenomenon) would disappear if men could somehow be dissuaded from visiting prostitutes. (See Laura Agustin's lucid dissection here.) As such, they are as alive to nuances of language as Brooke Magnanti is. Here's what they have to say:

One of the messages we frequently encountered during our research for this project was, “words matter.” The language used to describe commercial sex and those involved in it reflects different positions about the nature of commercial sex and exploitation, and how best to regulate or combat it. The right words can inspire, strengthen resolve, and mobilize action. The wrong choices can alienate potential supporters, fracture coalitions, and bring effective action to a halt.

There are instances where it is most appropriate to use a term such as commercial sex provider or prostituted person when describing those engaged in selling sex or being sexually exploited. There was debate among those interviewed about whether the term “prostitute” should ever be used, and consensus that children engaged in commercial sex are never to be referred to as “prostitutes,” but instead as victims or survivors of commercial sexual exploitation or rape. Prostitute is seen by many as a pejorative, stigmatizing label that attempts to define people simply by their role in commercial sex. The term is regarded as failing to convey the force, fraud, coercion, and/or exploitation to which the providers of commercial sex are often subjected, and can be interpreted as implying a level of self-determination that is seldom experienced by those with pimps or traffickers. However, many survivors or providers of commercial sex refer to themselves as “prostitutes” or former prostitutes, and do not use the term “prostituted person” because they were not compelled by a third party.

Many opponents of commercial sex refer to prostitution with the term “commercial sexual exploitation,” and refer to those serving as prostitutes as “prostituted women,” “victims of commercial sexual exploitation,” or “survivors.” The buyers of commercial sex are described as “offenders” or “exploiters” rather than as “clients” or “customers.” The use of these terms is an attempt to describe commercial sex in the language of crime and exploitation, and to convey the sense that prostitution is something detrimental and done to women for the benefit of others, rather than something done by women to benefit themselves. Proponents of decriminalization or legalization prefer the phrases “the sex trade,” “sex work,” or “the sex business,” and refer to the providers of commercial sex as “sex workers” or “providers,” and to the consumers of commercial sex as “clients” or “customers”. These terms seek to legitimate prostitution by describing it in the language of the conventional workplace. There was a strong consensus among those we interviewed that the term “sex work” is never appropriate, since it implies a legitimate form of labor, while the Campaign is based on the premise that selling sex is exploitation or slavery, and is never work.

While professing not to judge sex-workers (although emphatically judging their clients) these campaigners have no such qualms about denying their agency and autonomy. Indeed, denying their agency - and thus their right to participate in the debate on any terms other than those of abuse victim or "survivor" decreed for them by the activists - is the whole point. The last sentence is especially telling. Ideologically committed to the a priori belief that "selling sex is exploitation or slavery, and never work", they are unable to recognise (or even comprehend) any view that contradicts their own. For them, the iniquity of prostitution is encoded within the language used to describe it. It is very difficult to argue against this way of seeing the world. If you believe, not only that all swans are white, but that whiteness is part of the very definition of the word swan, the sight of a black swan is unlikely to disabuse you. Rather you will be apt to argue that as it is not white, therefore it cannot be a swan.

That is one reason why the debate about sex-work, for all the efforts of sensible people like Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon (who also spoke at the WS meeting, and who I had the pleasure of hearing speak on the subject about a year ago) to promote an evidence-based approach to the issue, is so intractable. In some ways, the old stigmatising language was less oppressive. Talk of whores, prozzies, sluts and all the rest may be deeply misogynistic, and it is certainly derogatory, but at least it constitutes the sex-worker as an active participant in her own shame. The new caring, politically-correct formulations ("prostituted person", "survivor", "exploitee") are dehumanising. They express the view, openly admitted in the above passage, that "prostitution is something detrimental and done to women for the benefit of others, rather than something done by women to benefit themselves".

It is scarcely surprising, then, that sex workers often resent the attitudes demonstrated by those who claim to be campaigning on their behalf. Such language is experienced as objectifying, because for the activists (often professed feminists) the prostitute, in her capacity as commercial sex provider, is an object, a mere instrument to be used by the client for his selfish pleasure. It is asserted that a prostitute is a receptacle for a client to masturbate into, for example. Or prostitution is defined as men asserting their "right" to "buy" a female body to abuse, ignoring the possibility that a woman (and again I note that not all prostitutes are women!) might want to assert her right to deploy her body and sexual talents as she sees fit. Melissa Farley begins an academic paper with the bald assertion that "prostitution is sexual violence which results in economic profit for perpetrators" - almost as though the sex worker wasn't even there!

By contrast - and I don't want to glamorise what is indeed often a seedy business - in a society that stigmatises commercial sex and its providers, the people least likely to unthinkingly objectify prostitutes, and most likely to treat them with respect, are in fact their clients.

Whence comes this objectifying, ideologically-imprinted language? After all, it ought to be possible to tackle the attendant evils - the gangsterism, the human trafficking, the coercion - without striving to eliminate the phenomenon of commercial sex altogether. People do not walk around naked because they dislike the fact that many clothes are manufactured by poorly-paid workers in third world sweatshops. It was recently revealed that immigrant children had been working long hours fruit-picking on British farms. No-one is saying we should ban fruit. Why is sex different?

Partly, I think, it is an overhang from religious morality. Campaigners find it impossible to separate the situation which women involved in the sex industry find themselves in from the status which the prostitute has traditionally occupied morally. The prostitute is culturally an un-person, defined either by her victimhood or by her notoriety. It isn't a job like any other because anyone engaging in it is tainted. Indeed, it seems natural to impugn the moral status of other forms of work and money-making by associating them prostitution - as, for example, in the famous line from Pretty Woman, in which Richard Gere's corporate raider tells Julia Roberts's LA hooker, "We both screw people for money."

But that just begs the question. What is it about sex, rather than, say, cooking, that makes its commercialisation wrong? There's much to be said for home-cooking, but few people would argue that it is immoral to eat an expensive restaurant (or even, for the matter, McDonalds). The parallel is a good one, because sexual skills can be as highly-toned and valued as culinary ones. In some societies, historically, prostitution has indeed been an honourable profession - or at least an accepted one, with its own traditions and pride. And why shouldn't a fine blow-job be as celebrated as a perfect soufflé? A Martian observer might find it strange that in a society which lays ever-greater emphasis on sexual performance, with how-to guides everywhere on sale and magazines aimed at teenage girls discussing sexual techniques in often alarming detail, sexual professionalism remains so strongly taboo.

The logical conundrum faced by anti-prostitution feminists is that, supposing the premises of 1) equal rights and 2) informed choice, it must be at least conceptually possible that some women will choose prostitution, not out of desperation, but because they actually find it preferable to the alternatives (which include, for example, graduating with a huge student debt, or being unable to get on the property ladder). The fact that the choice is, by and large, unavailable to heterosexual men does not ipso facto mean that it is a bad one. It might just as logically be the case that women are peculiarly fortunate in having the option.

Rather than confront such a dark truth, it's much easier to define prostitution in such a way that the question simply does not arise. Read the rest of this article

RIP Paul the Octopus

So farewell then
Paul the Octopus
Psychic cephalopod
The invertebrate Uri Geller

He knew who would win
This year's World Cup
But I bet he couldn't
See this coming

Read the rest of this article

The Cuts: A poem

(With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)

Let's look forward to the cuts
Spending cuts!
And celebrate a government that's finally got the guts
How we feel all a-quiver
With the sweet anticipation
Of what Osborne will deliver
Just to make the unions shiver
And repair a shattered nation.
Swing the axe, axe, axe
Chop the budget, don't raise tax
As the serried ranks of Labour join in choruses of tuts
At the cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts
Cuts, cuts, cuts
At the painful but most necessary cuts

Let us welcome in the cuts,
Costly cuts!
For we must receive our medicine, ignoring ifs and buts
With the country on the brink
Only fools would turn or shrink
From the measures, hard to bear.
Yet they're right -
And yes, of course, we care
And we recognise some people will despair -
Just hold tight
As the Guardian erupts
With a gush of muddle-headed, bleeding-hearted tosh.
Polly's nuts
And Seumas Milne a putz
Their analysis won't wash
They are stuck in dated ruts
With their silly opposition to the cuts
To the cuts, cuts, cuts
To the cuts cuts cuts cuts
Cuts cuts cuts
With their whinging at the swingeing spending cuts!


Feel the sharpness of the cuts,
Longed-for cuts!
Listen as the controversy rapidly erupts
See the quangocrats take fright,
And forget to be polite
Almost horrified to speak
They can only shriek, shriek, shriek
Don't you dare!
In a clamorous appealing for their feather-bedded jobs
As they cast about for reasons why they must retain their jobs
And in terror of the dole
They will threaten and cajole
Warn that chaos will descend
If the state refrains to spend
If the Chancellor refuses to take care
With the cuts, cuts, cuts
How the word rips up their guts
With despair!
And we watch with exaltation
At the frenzied decimation
Of a hundred thousand civil service drones
Who spend all day on Twitter or the phones
Clear them out!
And a million welfare shirkers
Who sponge off honest workers -
All their illnesses are feigned
And their breeding unconstrained
And they're housed at our expense
Free of rent
Undeserving,
It's unnerving
How they always play the system
So rejoice as they fall victim
To the cuts
To the cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts,
Cuts, cuts, cuts
To the cleansing and catharsis of the cuts

Feel the fury of the cuts
Savage cuts!
Tremble every minute as a public service shuts
As the prisons overflow
Have to let the rapists go
Less police!
But at least we'll get those carriers
(A shame they won't have harriers
Or jets)
And it's better not to think about the foul and unplugged drains
Or the slow and rusting trains
Or the houses no-one's able to afford
Or the scientists who're forced to work abroad
By the cuts
In the schools
All the hungry kids will get wet when it rains
Yet we're all in this together
And we'll face the bitter weather
Take the strain,
Not complain
As we steadily get poor
Still we will not ask for more
Like those rowdy Greeks or French
They are fools.
Pay our debts!
Watch the government retrench
Though the bankers still get rich
Which is good
And we'll toil, toil, toil,
(Though we're running out of oil)
In the darkness of the night
When there's no electric light
And we'll have to work till eighty
Just for food
Now they've got us by the nuts.
Though the burden may be weighty
Still there's comfort for we know we need these cuts
And we'll cheer the Coalition
And enjoy the masochism
Of the cuts, cuts, cuts
The unprecedented cuts
The exquisite masochism of the savage spending cuts
Of the cuts cuts cuts cuts
Cuts cuts cuts
While we're moaning and we're groaning at the cuts.

Read the rest of this article

Winter Fuel Allowance: Did minister mislead Parliament?

The Telegraph this morning is reporting that millions of pensioners will get less than they were expecting when their Winter Fuel Allowance arrives in a few weeks' time. The bung - paid to millionaires and paupers alike - will be "reduced this year in line with plans announced by Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor, in his last budget", writes Robert Winnett. This means £200 rather than £250 for younger pensioners, and £300 rather than £400 for those over eighty. A nasty surprise, that, especially as George Osborne's words - and the general reporting of the Comprehensive Spending Review - implied that there would be no change.

What Osborne actually said was this:

We also keep the universal benefits for pensioners, in recognition of the fact many have worked hard and saved hard all their lives. Free eye tests; free prescription charges; free bus passes; free TV licenses for the over 75s; and Winter Fuel Payments will remain exactly as budgeted for by the previous Government - as promised.

I thought at the time that this sounded like a particularly sneaky cut - and Tweeted that it seemed like bad politics not to warn pensioners that their cherished allowance was being reduced by as much as a quarter. The difference between the two rates originates in Gordon Brown's love of political gestures: technically, for the past couple of years pensioners were given an extra, specially-announced "top-up" of the basic £200 or £300 rate, as a sort of Christmas present by a generous Labour government. Crucially, for technical reasons the calculations in Alistair Darling's March budget this year assumed the basic rather than the bonus rate of WFA, even though it was widely assumed that the bonus would be re-announced in due course.

So while George Osborne appeared to be saying that the WFA would be the same as last year, as far as pensioners are concerned it will be less. That is, at least, the natural meaning of his words, and how the Telegraph reported it.

But on Monday Steve Webb, Lib Dem minister of state in the Department of Work and Pensions, stood up in the House of Commons and said quite plainly:

In winter 2010, the winter fuel payment will continue to be paid at the higher rate of £250 or £400, according to family circumstances. Decisions about the rates for future winters will be taken as part of the annual Budget cycle, as normal.

Was this wrong? It's hard to believe that a minister would give false information to the House unless he himself - and his whole Department - had themselves been misled. Yet that would seem to be the implication of George Osborne's announcement. If he had intended to keep the higher rate to which pensioners have become accustomed, after all, would he not have said so unambiguously, if only to point out his largesse?

It's all rather confusing, especially since DirectGov is still telling pensioners that the rates will be the same as last year. I guess they'll just have to wait and see. Read the rest of this article