Sex for children - yummy!

Well isn't that the sort of headline that the gutter press would use to attract a lower class of humanoid to part with money for their torrent of illiterate verbiage.

It is meant to be controversial to attract people's attention.  Though in the case of this blog I wonder whose attention wants attracting.  But it refers to women selling their bodies to feed their children.  So what you have is mothers selling 'sex', the proceeds of which are 'for' food for their 'children'.  And a word used to express delight at food, particularly for children, is 'yummy'.

But is it a fair use of language?  In this context yes because I am using it to illustrate the misuse of language.  And there is every reason to use complex layered literary devices in art of all sorts including theatre, literature and my blog.  But there is a consequence to the use of language.  It can transform the way we think.  Linguistic experts will, I'm sure, agree that different languages embody, encourage and enable different attitudes, perceptions and even paradigms.

The UK is, it seems, currently in the grip of some kind of madness.  I think it is similar to a madness that appears to be affecting (or infecting) many parts of the world.  It is not unrelated to language.  It is the contradictory nature of our societies.  If we didn't have language to help form our shared conceptual model of the world we probably wouldn't have this problem.

The problem is with the paradoxical values.  There is, for example, 'democracy'.  Most people have an idea that democracy is a sort of voting system whereby people collectively have a say in how the society is run.  But the evidence is quite clear that democracy in practice is more a case of acquiescence to the dictatorial bully with the most votes.  People rarely have a say in how things are run.  Bankers are meant to be above reproach and extremely trustworthy.  You would need to trust an institution in order to hand over your life savings to them for safe keeping.  But we now discover that they are profound deceivers and thieves.  In Britain we are supposedly a Christian society.  Christianity (like most religions) prizes good things like peace and kindness above anything else.  But ironically we use force and incarceration to maintain peace and kindness.  Authoritarians demand respect without applying the same responsibility to themselves.

So in an article on Hull's bit of the most horrible 'thisis' network (owned by Local World Ltd) called thisis Hull and East Riding entitled Mums 'selling sex to feed their children as benefit cuts hit Hull's poorest' they all sound very sympathetic to the plight of women economically pushed into prostitution by this governments 'welfare reforms'.  But the very concerned sounding PC Lorraine Summerfield can say:

"There have been a lot more who have come to it recently later in life because they are so desperate for cash. They don't want to commit crime so they are selling themselves because it is an easy way to make money and feed their family."

How did that happen?  How far down the road of doublespeak have we come?  How much of this linguistic metamorphosis are we going to entertain.  How can a police woman who thinks she is being sympathetic refer to the desperate attempt by a mother to feed her children by degrading herself as an "easy way" to make money?  Would it be fair to suggest that being a copper is a tough job?  Would it be a fair bet that Lorraine Summerfield doesn't regard her job as a breeze, as a kind of reprieve from having to actually 'work for a living'?  Would I be right to suppose that PC Lorraine Summerfield doesn't wish she could perform oral sex on strangers in back roads for a fiver?  I think Lorraine would prefer the tough job of being a police woman than to sell her body on the back streets of Hull.  The irony of all this is that she appears (and probably is) sympathetic to the plight of these women.  So how do the words "easy way" flow from her mouth?

This is a cultural problem.  We are embedded in a culture which is oppositional, competitive, blame orientated and prejudicial.  We have an authoritarian hierarchy which relies on threat and compliance.  It pretends to be rational but when push comes to shove it is not.  When the authorities 'discover' (read: 'can no longer conceal') Jimmy Savile is an abusive paedophile they take the moral stance that it is wrong and that people should speak out about abuse.  But when Ben Fellows says he was sexually groped by Ken Clarke the authorities go out of their way to silence him to the point of arresting him for perverting the course of justice.  Ben is a Jew by the way - oh sorry - correction - he's gay - no - er ... he's schizophrenic or was that a benefit scrounger?  Do you know I just can't remember what it is that's wrong with him.  Oh he's black - that was it - I knew there was something.

Here is a video outlining just some of Ben's ordeal.

The police eh?  I have known some police people in my time and some of them really do think they are decent law abiding citizens doing a good job.  They probably are just that.  But when you join the SS being good and doing what you are told is not so very GOOD!  You do have to question what you are being asked to do - that is YOUR responsibility.  Otherwise you are no better than Jimmy Savile.  Arguably you are worse because you enable and support people like him.