Category Archives: Ranty ones
Gifts for him, gifts for her: sexist Christmas gift guides 2016
Woo! Christmas! The season of mince pies, mulled wine, and trying to avoid awkward questions from relatives who have an opinion on your love life! More than that, it is the season where many online shops decide to split all of their products into ‘men versus women’, so they can provide you with sexist Christmas gift lists – ‘The Ultimate Christmas Gifts For Her’ and ‘Top Presents For Him’ etc – as a way of grabbing search traffic and all of your sweet, sweet cash. I had a look at sexist Christmas gift lists in 2013, but it’s time for an update. Let’s see what 2016 – aka The Worst Year, has to offer.
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Teenage sexting: who are we protecting, exactly?
This week, incompetent bellend Jeremy Hunt decided to wade in on the issue of teenagers sexting. This apparently terrifying activity could, he claimed, be stopped once and for all by blocking nude images from/to phones owned by under-18s, or using language filters to prevent cyberbullying.
“There is a lot of evidence that the technology industry, if they put their mind to it, can do really smart things,” he babbled, ignorantly.
Better people than I have already explained why, from a technology perspective, that’s absolute bullshit. But even if it were possible, it’s a ridiculous thing to do.
Two things: a trans woman’s porn journey and Tracy’s Dog
Two things this week features a gorgeous personal essay about one woman’s porn journey, discovering first erotica and then the internet. That’s my favourite thing of this week, and I haven’t found anything super-bad to highlight, so instead I’m going to take the piss out of a vibrator, because sometimes that is fun to do.
Two things: sex tech hack and Digital Economy Bill woe
Two things this week features one of the most FUN-looking sex tech events I’ve ever seen, as well as a worrying development in the Digital Economy Bill saga, which looks set to royally fuck almost all of us. In a bad way.
Girls’ nights, hen dos and gendered parties
Second only to ‘fancy dress’, the two words that make me most nervous about a party invitation are ‘girls’ night.’ I used to think (when I was twenty years’ old, and an absolute shit) that this was because I didn’t get on with women. Most of my friends were men, ergo I wouldn’t enjoy a girls’ night, because what would I have in common with women anyway? Today, I’m still wary of girls’ nights, but for very different reasons.