Boobs on bikes?
It looks like someone is at last going to stand up to “boobs on bikes” pornographer Steve Crow. It’s about time. Every year the Church grumbles about it, but this year Auckland Councillor Dr. Cathy Casey is seeking a court injunction to stop the Boobs on Bikes parade. And if that doesn’t succeed:
“Ms Casey is also threatening to lie across Queen St with friends to stop the parade.
““If the council can’t win and the court can’t win, maybe people power, maybe woman power can …”
I find it pretty sad that the only person with some balls is a woman. And, yes, that was an intentionally sexist statement. 
Every year, Crow thumbs his nose at everyone and has his little parade. Every year the Christian groups object and are ignored. Every year legal action is threatened but nothing happens. As Dr. Casey points out:
““There was an alternative thought to let him have the parade and then prosecute him, but then he wins. He gets a thousand-dollar fine and a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.””
Exactly. He also get tons of free publicity for his porn magazines. As Family First Director, Bob McCoskrie says:
““The Boobs on Bikes parade is a commercial stunt advertising an R-18 event, with sexualised nudity in a public street that is offensive to many people and completely inappropriate for young people and children to view.””
Though I have some sympathy with Mr. McCoskrie’s moral stance (after all, why have public decency laws at all, if Crow can just flout them), I think he misses the big picture here. Crow is a pornographer. He sells sex. The boobs on bikes parade is nothing but a cattle market where Crow can parade his wares. I am waiting for the day that one of the “buyers” starts checking the women’s teeth. Okay, maybe not – but you get my point.
It actually comes as no surprise to me that a woman is taking the lead here. After all, these women on the bikes are being paraded like the slaves in an epic roman victory parade. There is no dignity here. These women are being treated as objects of sexual gratification rather than as people.
And before all you guys tell me to lighten up, let me ask you – How does this parade make you feel? Turned on? Powerful? A bit superior? Thought so. These are the same feelings you would get with exposure to any pornography. These are also the feelings going through the mind of a wife beater. Now, that’s scary. I don’t know about you, but I want to stay as far away from those feelings as possible. I think we owe that to our wives, partners and girlfriends.
The question next Wednesday will be: Are the boobs on the bikes or are they in the street, watching?
Addition:
It’s nice to see that Jafapete feels the same way…
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Aug 15 08 10:16 am
MacDoctor, does always sticking up for women and blindly accepting shonky research that portrays women as victims and men (other men) as the oppressor make you feel like a knight in shining armour?
Aug 15 08 1:52 pm
Seeing as it has been well-established that between 20 and 25% of all women experience some form of domestic physical abuse, I think that 10% of pregnant women is likely to be an underestimation. The figure is consistent with Australian and UK studies. It is also consistent with what I see coming into emergency departments.
How you then translate these facts to women being victims is a mystery to me. Many women are, in fact, active co-aggressors, but I don’t see that as vindicating violence.
I should point out that 80-90% of all men maintain completely non-violent relationships with their partners/spouse. Man as the “oppressor” is therefore a modern-day myth. While I have some sympathy for the search for gender equality, I have no time for feminist rhetoric.
Aug 15 08 4:31 pm
MacDoctor, it very difficult to debate an issue when someone quotes percentages with no source. That is why I a very sceptical of the 10% figure. The reason I have stated on Kiwiblog. Do you remember the government funded Hitting Home report that got awarded a Bent Spoon Award by the NZ Skeptics. The study was totally unscientific. You might not remember during a Telethon over 20 years ago the Herald ran an ad with a picture of four baby girls with the caption 1 in 4 of these girls will be sexually abused by the time they are 18 – half by their own fathers. This turned out absolute rubbish. Not surprisingly some man hating lesbian was involved in the “research”. Typical dyke – she blamed others for misinterpreting figures.
Minimising the damage done by female violence seems to portray them as victims.
Let me ask you a couple of questions?
If a man hits a woman is she justified in hitting him back?
If a woman hits a man is he justified in hitting her back?
If your answers are different would please explain why.
Some years ago a man murdered his children before committing suicide. As a result a blatantly sexist law called Domestic Violence Act came about. This meant that if there was minor violence towards ones spouse or even shouting a man could be denied access to his children.
Do not get me wrong. Any parent who murderers his or her children is the lowest of the low. I have got off side with a few in the father’s rights movement for saying this. I believe this is the case whether it is the mother of father who does this.
The big difference is when a woman does it the question is asked what drove her to do such a thing?
I have been in contact with Janet Fanslow and she has told me she will send me the full research in about week. I will keep an open mind in the mean time.
I am sorry I am not impressed with the medical profession when it comes to research. On sexual health issues they come up with answers and recommendations that this queer friendly government wants to hear. I do not know whether this is due to incompetence, corruption or self interest. People die because the government follows these recommendations.
Sorry get off topic but the general debate is about research and statistics.
Perhaps you could start a thread on sexual health. That would make for interesting debate.
Aug 15 08 7:10 pm
I’m not sure what your problem with the study is. Even if it was 1% – that would not be acceptable, would it? But you are correct in asking me to furnish some sort of reference – here are the American stats – I doubt if ours are better. The Australians put the figure at 4.9% per annum.
I would also be interested in a copy of the actual study (that’s the only way you can tell if it’s been done well)
The answer to your two questions would be no, except in the case where you think your life may be threatened. That’s not a moral judgement, BTW, it is based on the fact that reciprocation of violence almost invariably leads to escalation.
Aug 16 08 1:21 pm
My problem with the study aside from not seeing it is that I suspect bias. I will try my best to keep an open mind but when I look at your links I find it difficult. Those links appear to be more anti male propaganda similar to the NZ government funded Hitting Home Report that got Bent Spoon Award by the NZ Skeptics. Many of members of NZ Skeptics are genuine researcher with degrees many in medicine. They did not class the report as genuine research. When someone tests a drug for side effects they do so with an open mind. If they fail to do genuine research drug companies can get sued for millions.
With social sciences the so called researchers are held to the same standard.
Rather than post a lot of links I will cut and paste an excerpts from Ceasefire by Cathy Young plus article by her to show that woman can and do infect injury on men at the end of this post.
When I receive the full study from Dr Fanslow I will be happy to forward it to you. It would be nice if she was prepared to debate the issues on you blog.
BTW, it is based on the fact that reciprocation of violence almost invariably leads to escalation.
With respect it appears you are confusing fact with opinion. Have you ever heard of Neville Chamberlain?
From Ceasefire by Cathy Young
Legislating the Gender War:
The Politics of Domestic Abuse
A year after Susan Finkelstein’s live-in boyfriend was charged with assaulting her, Susan, a freelance editor in her thirties who lives in a small midwestern town, felt abused by the system I had no rights,” she says. “Nobody listened to me, nobody wanted to hear my story.” What angered Susan was not that her alleged batterer was treated too leniently but that he was prosecuted at all.
It started when Susan and John, a fortysomething college administrator, got into a heated argument while driving home. John decided to pull over and step out of the car; Susan tried to stop him, and they got into a scuffle. “I may have scratched him, he may have pushed me,” she says. “It got physical, but there certainly wasn’t any beating.”
Finally they cooled down and got back on the road-only to be stopped by a police car. Susan recalls thinking that John may have looked like a drunk driver if he drove erratically during the argument. In fact, a passing motorist had seen the altercation, written down their license plate number, and called the police. Despite Susan’s assurances that John hadn’t hurt her, he was taken away in handcuffs. It was department policy, an officer told her, to make an arrest in a domestic dispute.
After a night in jail, John was arraigned on a domestic assault charge and barred from contact with Susan, who had to stay with a friend. Her efforts to convince the judge and the prosecutor that nothing had happened were futile. On a lawyer’s advice, John pleaded no contest. He had to attend ten weekly counseling sessions for batterers, a three-hour drive away, at the cost of $400.
What happened to John and Susan is no aberration. It’s one of many stories from the trenches of the War on Domestic Violence.
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 19:18:30 EDT
From: Cathy Young [71774.1305@COMPUSERVE.COM]
Subject: Injury in domestic violence cases
Another point to ponder about domestic violence:
It has been commonly said — by those who concede that the rates of violence are roughly equal — that, at the same time, women are six or seven times more likely than men to be seriously injured by their partners. Straus and Gelles themselves have said this. This is based on their finding that about 3% of female victims of domestic violence, but about 0.5% of the male victims, reported having sought medical care as a result of a dom. violence incident.
I have no doubt that women are more likely than men to be injured (let’s face it, if we take the average man and the average woman and she punches him in the face as hard as she can, it’s likely that the worst that will happen is a bruise and/or a sore jaw; if he responds in kind, he’s likely to knock some of her teeth out). But I’m beginning to doubt that the discrepancy is _that_ great. I think the 7-to-1 or 6-to-1 figure is partly due to the fact that more women than men may seek medical care for minor injuries such as a swollen lip or a superficial cut. I think it is generally true that females are somewhat more likely than males to seek medical attention for the same problems; this would be especially true, I think, in cases of domestic violence. The male with a bruised lip or a cut on his face may be especially reluctant to seek medical aid if he thinks medical personnel may find out he was hit by his wife. Some females, of course, may also be embarrassed to admit that they were hit by a partner; OTOH, if the woman is considering filing charges, she may go to the emergency room in order to have her injuries documented.
Studies that have asked about specific injuries rather than seeking medical assistance usually yield a smaller gap. In the recently published book THE VIOLENT COUPLE by Anson Shupe, Lonnie Hazelwood, and William Stacey (Praeger), based on case studies from the Family Violence Diversion Network in Austin, TX, the overall “injury index” (combined score of the percentages who have sustained a given type of injury) is 158 for men and 335 for women. In particular, 4% of men and 17% of women sustained broken teeth or bones (i.e., about 4 times as many women as men); 10% of men and 38% of women had a split lip; 4% of men and 21% of women had a black eye; and 10% of men and 47% of women had multiple bruises. Cuts were sustained by 22% of men and 31% of women; the same percentage of women and men — 4% had cuts requiring stitches. More men than women (53% compared to 49%) had scratches.
Overall, the differences are obviously there but they are not as pronounced.
In the study “Determining Police Response to Domestic Violence Victims” (AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, May 1993), based on police records from Detroit, MI, Eve Buzawa and Thomas Austin conclude that while 85% of the victims in the reported cases were female, only 14% of the female victims compared to 38% of the male victims had “serious injuries.” 85 x 14% = 11.9; 15 x 38% = 5.7. Thus, according to those numbers, women are about twice as likely as men to be seriously injured in a domestic violence incident.
If I had to guess, I’d say that 20 to 30% of serious injuries in domestic violence incidents are sustained by males. A minority, yes; but hardly an insignificant number. And it certainly doesn’t justify 100% of public attention to domestic violence going to female victims.
Cathy Young is a free-lance writer specializing in women’s issues. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reason and The New Republic.
Aug 16 08 5:08 pm
Bias is certainly possible in any social study. The fact that the paper has been published in a peer-review journal is reassuring, but not conclusive. And you are quite right in saying that domestic violence involving women against men is very downplayed. I see almost nothing of it, but that may be, as you say, simply a reflection of male reluctance to seek medical help (avoiding the stigma of it as well as refusing to treat minor injuries).
With respect it appears you are confusing fact with opinion. Have you ever heard of Neville Chamberlain?
Backing off from a violent person usually de-escalates violence. However, there is a strong bullying element in a domestic violence situation that might need to be counteracted by a swift punch in the nose. Mobs and Nations (is there a difference?) do not respond well to perceived weakness. Poor old Neville would have been much better off if he had given Hitler a metaphorical bloody nose. So would many millions of others.
With respect, it appears you are confusing war with domestic violence.