Coverage of the possible serial killings in Suffolk has afforded me a certain grim amusement over the last couple of days. The manner in which it's been reported is akin to a breathless schoolgirl informing her mum that Johnny's asked her to the formal. "But Mum, he's murdering hookers!"
Seriously, it's just so fucking overexcitable. From the slew of maps and graphics to the tediously ineivitable tagging of the killer(s) as the "Ipswich Ripper" (which seems wildly innapropriate given that the only method of death of which we've so far been informed has been asphyxiation). The tabloids (and, sadly, the Independent) have collectively wanked thremselves into a frenzy over a story which I cannot help but point out is, at it's very essence, the story of five dead women. Retreat to first principles. Killing. People. Is. Wrong.
Except they're not being defined as people, are they? the victims are being defined as prostitutes, as ludicrous a display of semantics as if five men were killed, all of whom played badminton in their spare time and it was trumpeted that the killer had an aversion to shuttlecocks. Certainly the killer(s) is/are targeting streetwalkers, but why do they have to be defined in the press as such? They are women. Dead women. Just doing a job.
Aha, but it's somehow, intangibly, their fault, isn't it? Women eh? Wandering around with their legs and their breasts, allowing us to look at them, they should all be locked up. Eh? This is the crux of the problem, a culture which sees no problem in the Lynx advert mentioned below likewise sees no problem in stigmatising some of the most vulnerable members of society. The old sex as commodity line is sold time and time again but it's one way traffic. Prostitution is the less publically acceptable face of male sexuality. Whilst it's fine and dandy to gaze at FHM's glossy High Street Honeys, or have a swift J Arthur on your lunchbreak to "Nikki and Dawn: together for the first time!" in Nuts or whatever and it's fine and dandy to be a High Street Honey or Nikki or Dawn the slightly more honest physical paradigm interface is well, not to be discussed.
Personally I don't know that one can exist without the other. I do suspect that in our hypersexualised society it's impossible to have a rational debate about our attitudes towards the opposite sex as the pitch has been so impossibly queered (pun unintended). The one thing I do know is that the press and public attitude towards these poor murdered girls stinks to high heaven.
Seriously, it's just so fucking overexcitable. From the slew of maps and graphics to the tediously ineivitable tagging of the killer(s) as the "Ipswich Ripper" (which seems wildly innapropriate given that the only method of death of which we've so far been informed has been asphyxiation). The tabloids (and, sadly, the Independent) have collectively wanked thremselves into a frenzy over a story which I cannot help but point out is, at it's very essence, the story of five dead women. Retreat to first principles. Killing. People. Is. Wrong.
Except they're not being defined as people, are they? the victims are being defined as prostitutes, as ludicrous a display of semantics as if five men were killed, all of whom played badminton in their spare time and it was trumpeted that the killer had an aversion to shuttlecocks. Certainly the killer(s) is/are targeting streetwalkers, but why do they have to be defined in the press as such? They are women. Dead women. Just doing a job.
Aha, but it's somehow, intangibly, their fault, isn't it? Women eh? Wandering around with their legs and their breasts, allowing us to look at them, they should all be locked up. Eh? This is the crux of the problem, a culture which sees no problem in the Lynx advert mentioned below likewise sees no problem in stigmatising some of the most vulnerable members of society. The old sex as commodity line is sold time and time again but it's one way traffic. Prostitution is the less publically acceptable face of male sexuality. Whilst it's fine and dandy to gaze at FHM's glossy High Street Honeys, or have a swift J Arthur on your lunchbreak to "Nikki and Dawn: together for the first time!" in Nuts or whatever and it's fine and dandy to be a High Street Honey or Nikki or Dawn the slightly more honest physical paradigm interface is well, not to be discussed.
Personally I don't know that one can exist without the other. I do suspect that in our hypersexualised society it's impossible to have a rational debate about our attitudes towards the opposite sex as the pitch has been so impossibly queered (pun unintended). The one thing I do know is that the press and public attitude towards these poor murdered girls stinks to high heaven.
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