Interesting. Extracts:

Lovedoll UK in Gateshead was offering “try before you buy” sex with dolls for £50 (US$69.40), before selling them for £2,000. The owner, Graham, was then investigated over whether or not he needs a license. [J4MB: So is there a market for ‘previously loved’ sex dolls, as there is for ‘previously loved’ cars? What sort of discounts can you expect? Is ‘number of times loved’ the equivalent of car mileage? How would you know a seller wasn’t lying about the former, as sellers sometimes lie about the latter? It’s a minefield…]

The sex service offers men the chance to have sex with “the girl you’ve always wanted” {J4MB: Cameron Diaz? Keira Knightley? How often do they visit Gateshead?] and apparently it’s working. Customers have said they found it impossible to get a slot on a Friday evening [J4MB: The time-honoured time slot for conjugal relations in Gateshead?] and even securing a lunch visit was tough.

Our thanks to Bryn for this:

Times caption: A civil order mandating the restrictions could be obtained by family members or third parties on behalf of the victim

A piece in today’s Times by Richard Ford, Home Correspondent. Emphases ours:

People [J4MB translation: Men] accused of domestic abuse could be banned from drinking and put on a tag under government plans aimed at reducing the scale of the crime.

A new civil order would enable courts to impose a range of restrictions, including banning them from contacting victims, while police investigate.

Suspects could be required to attend alcohol and drug treatment programmes, parenting classes and anger management courses under the new Domestic Abuse Protection Order.

Family members and third parties would be able to apply for an order on behalf of a victim, and breaching that order would be a criminal offence.

Another proposal would include economic abuse under the definition of domestic abuse. Although existing measures recognise financial abuse, the new definition would include depriving someone of food, clothing or transport, or forcing them into debt.

Theresa May said: “Domestic abuse takes many forms, from physical and sexual abuse, to controlling and coercive behaviour that isolates victims from their families and has long-term, shattering impacts on their children.

“The consultation we are launching today includes a number of proposals which have the potential to completely transform the way we tackle domestic abuse, providing better protection to victims and bringing more perpetrators to justice.”

An estimated 1.2 million women and 713,000 men were victims of domestic abuse in the year to the end of March last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. About 4.3 million women and 2.2 million men had experienced some form of domestic abuse since the age of 16, the Crime Survey of England and Wales found.

Amber Rudd, the home secretary, said: “It is appalling that in 21st-century Britain nearly two million people every year, the majority of them women, suffer abuse at the hands of those closest to them. Through this bill I want to fundamentally change the way we as a country think about domestic abuse, recognising that it is a crime that comes in many forms, physical, emotional, economic. This is about creating a society that protects individuals and families at the earliest opportunity, before such abuse has a chance to escalate.”

She added: “If we want to be really ambitious about equality, ambitious about equality, this is the sort of change we really need to tackle head-on.”

Under the consultation, Transforming the Response to Domestic Abuse, the government plans a new statutory definition that would include all relationships with intimate partners and all family relationships, including children who abuse parents. Suspects could be required to attend “perpetrator programmes, alcohol and drug treatment programmes and parenting programmes”. There would also be a domestic abuse commissioner.

The proposed order would bring together elements of the existing measures to protect victims, but give the courts a wider range of restrictions and allow them to be imposed for longer than the present 28-day maximum.

You can subscribe to The Times here.

Ten days ago the veteran radio broadcaster James Whale had a programme devoted to MGM, a practice to which he’s firmly opposed. Among the intactivists who spoke to him over the phone were Philip Smyth, David Smith, and myself. The audio file is here, the timings of the individual contributions are given in the description panel.

This being International Women’s Day (groan) he’s invited me onto his programme (which started 20 minutes ago) after 9pm tonight, you can access the programme online here (click on ‘Listen Live’ in the top left corner). There will be a phone-in after our discussion, you can call the programme (0344 499 1000), text 87222, Twitter @talkRADIO. I invite you to call in. Thanks.

A tip of the hat to HEqual for this.

A tip of the hat to Quentin Letts for writing this. The start of the piece:

Sid James and Benny Hill might have been banged up longer than the Yorkshire Ripper, if Melanie Onn had her way. Mrs Onn (Lab, Great Grimsby) yesterday proposed criminalising misogyny (ie discrimination against women).

She and other MPs demanded ‘appropriate sentencing’ for culprits of ‘street harassment’ such as wolf-whistling and the sort of hello-darlin’ pavement ogling that can occur outside pubs on balmy evenings.

Welcome to liberal Britain. Blow up a British Cabinet with a terrorist bomb and you will walk free. But if you and your mates are outside the Pig & Whistle and compliment a lass on her summer frock, you could face clink. We’d better start building an awful lot of prisons.

Mrs Onn (majority 2,565) opened a debate on ‘misogyny as a hate crime’. Only nine MPs were present and only one was a man. Tut tut. Worse, he was Philip Davies (Con, Shipley), serial skewer of political correctness. He was there long enough to ask two awkward questions.

Did Mrs Onn think there should also be a law against misandry (ie discrimination against men)? She did not. ‘There is a power imbalance in society that disproportionately affects women negatively, so I think misogyny should be an exclusive strand of hate crime,’ she averred. Glowering.

Give me strength.

A piece just published online by The Guardian. Extracts:

Harriet Harman has claimed that the arrival in parliament of a fresh generation of “Tory feminist” MPs alongside men with modern attitudes has the power to boost the women’s rights movement.

The Labour MP, who has been parliament’s leading feminist advocate for decades, said the changing nature of female Conservative politicians from the “doughty tweedy matrons” of the past to today’s feminists had been critical. She claimed a newfound cooperation across party lines amounted to a dramatic shift and she welcomed the arrival of men who no longer thought of a woman’s place as being in the home.

“They are the sons of the women’s movement,” she said of political colleagues who had spoken out in recent debates about making parliament more family friendly…

Asked to whom she was referring among the Tory feminists, Harman listed Maria Miller, who chairs the parliamentary women’s and equality committee, Nicky Morgan, who leads the Treasury committee, Sarah Wollaston at health, and Theresa May’s parliamentary private secretary, Seema Kennedy. She also praised former education secretary Justine Greening, as well as Anne Milton, Rachel McLean and Mims Davies, and said there were “loads more”. [J4MB: Are there any sitting Tory female MPs who’ve declared themselves publicly to be non-feminists, let alone anti-feminists? If so, please let us know (info@j4mb.org.uk).]

We live in interesting times.