Sexual assault prevention tips

1.  Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behaviour.

2.  When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone.

3.  If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them.

4.  Never open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5.  If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, don’t assault them.

6.  Use the buddy system. If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

7.  Always be honest with people. Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them that you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

8.  Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake. If they are asleep or unconscious, it’s not called ‘having sex’.

9.  Carry a whistle. If you’re worried you might assault someone accidentally, you can hand the whistle to the person you’re with so that they can blow it if you do.

From here, via Facebook.

Celibate men say no

Strong words on hospitals and abortion from the Catholic church today in the Age, threatening to close Catholic hospitals if proposed law reform goes ahead.

Actually, I agree that no doctor should have to perform an abortion against his/her will, and surely it couldn't be too difficult to allow for that in the legislation. Even the referrals business could be negotiated.

But this bullying, bluffing absolutism isn't really about that. It is about power and the exercise of power.

I mean, look at that man's face. Just look at it.

And given the Catholic church's record to date on the care and nurturing of unwanted, rejected and/or parentless children and the damage, sorry, "evil" done by its institutions in that respect over the centuries, you'd think they'd have done some sort of cost-benefit analysis by now.

I've been arguing the toss about abortion for decades and not once, not ever, have I heard any member of the so-called pro-life brigade come up with an argument -- not just a decent argument, but any argument at all -- about the "evil" of allowing embryos to develop into foetuses that become unwanted children born into a world that doesn't or can't make proper provision for their care. And about the "evil" of shunting priests who are known sexual abusers of these and other children from one parish to the next and then covering it up, we hear, likewise and strangely, nothing.

There's no point in asking a pro-lifer to justify the unspoken basis of his/her position, which is that a woman is basically a sort of centrally-heated wheelbarrow, because if you say that they'll just look at you like Well, der, yes; what's the problem?

So one must use their own alleged priorities in argument, and ask about the welfare of the child that has been allowed first to become viable and then to be born. And I have never yet heard anyone even take that argument on. They just go straight back on-message, projecting all refusal of logical engagement onto the hapless Almighty, and replying with the faithful's equivalent of 'Computer says no'.