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BBC presenter Huw Edwards suspended over paying for sexual pics.

So that makes it ok to shame people for being 'vanilla'? Is that what you're arguing? And if it isn't, what are you arguing?

No, I don't think people should be shamed for being vanilla. I also don't believe it's really a thing beyond the kind of coercion that can take place in all types of sexual relationships. I'm not aware of anyone losing their job, being subjected to unwanted psychiatric treatment or having their reputation destroyed in a tabloid sting for having a vanilla monogamous sexuality.
 
Well inappropriate covers a lot of territory, including stuff that will extend well beyond the sort of moralising that the Sun etc indulge in.

A sense of what counts as inappropriate is also affected by public personas and their roles, and expectations attached to particular roles. Theres a sort of unreal, 'wholesome', values driven sense of responsibility attached to some roles including flagship news bulletin presenter for the state broadcaster, and when cracks appear in these veneers it becomes some sort of issue that generates hand-wringing, no matter how much hypocrisy is actually involved if we take a step back and view things from a more realistic human perspective. Real human Individuals are secondary to manufactured propaganda persona aspects when it comes to the 'responsibilities' placed on those who are used to tell the ongoing stories of a nation. We are not, for example, supposed to think of the person who 'holds the nations hand when announcing the death of the queen' as someone with genitals, as someone with complex contradictions in their private life, etc.

The scandal is mostly crap theatre so far, but in some ways the nature of their job was a different sort of crap theatre too. When people become more interested in the gossip behind the curtain, some things become untenable and new impossible plastic figureheads are deemed necessary.
Good post this.
It would seem logical to assume things had moved on a bit, in terms of moral panic & the expectation that public figures are held to a higher moral standard than you & me. Especially since people are obviously happy to elect overt liars thieves and unashamed philanderers to jobs like president & prime minister.

I mean theres a slightly anachronistic feel to the idea that the man who reads the news has to be a 1950s style Family Man in order to have the required gravitas.
Maybe bbc employees particularly vulnerable to this sort of attack because they’re not elected but are paid by public money, idk.
 
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No, I don't think people should be shamed for being vanilla. I also don't believe it's really a thing beyond the kind of coercion that can take place in all types of sexual relationships. I'm not aware of anyone losing their job, being subjected to unwanted psychiatric treatment or having their reputation destroyed in a tabloid sting for having a vanilla monogamous sexuality.
I agree that it's not really a thing except in those cases where it is a thing. I'm sure people being subject to it are grateful that it's only a thing for them and the other people it happens to, and not somehow a thing beyond the individual instances where it might happen. God forbid.

Do you believe that a rise in people (mostly women) being pressurised into more extreme forms of sex (by mostly men) is entirely down to individual choices, or do you think that general social attitudes to sex and pornography might play a role?
 
I agree that it's not really a thing except in those cases where it is a thing. I'm sure people being subject to it are grateful that it's only a thing for them and the other people it happens to, and not somehow a thing beyond the individual instances where it might happen. God forbid.

Do you believe that a rise in people (mostly women) being pressurised into more extreme forms of sex (by mostly men) is entirely down to individual choices, or do you think that general social attitudes to sex and pornography might play a role?

Yes I do. I think a lot of vanilla porn is disgusting, misogynist and degrading. You people need to get your shit together.
 
Good post this.
It would seem logical to assume things had moved on a bit, in terms of moral panic & the expectation that public figures are held to a higher moral standard than you & me. Especially since people are obviously happy to elect overt liars thieves and unashamed philanderers to jobs like president & prime minister.

I mean theres a slightly anachronistic feel to the idea that the man who reads the news has to be a 1950s style Family Man in order to have the required gravitas.
Maybe bbc employees particularly vulnerable to this sort of attack because they’re not elected but are paid by public money, idk.
Yeah but eating ice cream (of whatever flavour) whilst not wearing a dinner jacket . Standards aren't what they were
 
Unlike OnlyFans, for which you recently offered a spirited defence?

Hardly a spirited defence:

There are 18-20 year olds on onlyfans and other platforms with thousands of followers and these sites are coercive machines employing all the dopamine stimulating tricks of social media with the added enhancement of money and the fact that the next message might come from some dodgy old celebrity who could spend 10 grand or more over the next year.
 
No, I don't think people should be shamed for being vanilla. I also don't believe it's really a thing beyond the kind of coercion that can take place in all types of sexual relationships. I'm not aware of anyone losing their job, being subjected to unwanted psychiatric treatment or having their reputation destroyed in a tabloid sting for having a vanilla monogamous sexuality.
I think quite a few gay people having monogamous vanilla sex have faced those things.
 
You’d get on well with Mrs SFM as it’s the only ice cream flavour she will entertain and scorns all others. Doesn’t hold a candle to a decent raspberry ripple though 😋
This is my son. Won’t entertain vanilla being tainted with dreadful things such as toffee, caramel or anything else. It’s a step forward from a couple of years ago where he didn’t like ice cream at all.
 
Isnt it entirely possible that the reason we havent heard anything from the “victim” and the fact that they were trying to downplay the criminal aspect was that the £35k was not for photos but a pay off from an attempted blackmail?
It wouldn't be an attempted blackmail if money had been paid it would be blackmail.
 
I don’t really have an opinion on the person, was aware he read the news but that’s it, but am aware from reading the thread that he has had long term depression.

My only observation is that a lot of the loathsome Tory MPs have been very keen to explain away their misdemeanours as mental health issues, and I can’t be certain that this isn’t happening here too

He did a programme about on SC4 about his incidents of depression, saying that it would be hypocritical to support MIND and other charities without explaining why. Also sleazy behaviour and lame excuses for it are found right across the political spectrum in the UK and beyond.
 
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