Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Switchboard >

New UK sex laws

12:48 / 15.05.03

As thew BBC reports Home Secutary David Blunkett is proposing massive reform to many outmoded sex laws

So what have we got - homosexual group sex is to be made legal (though no movement yet on the local governement clause 28)

Necrophilia is to become illegal.

So what do people think?

13:45 / 15.05.03

yeah. I just posted something similar in the Q&A thread. I can't believe that necrophila is not against the law already - nevermind the whys and wherefore's; I'm not especially morally outraged - I'm just wondering how people could have been punished for it in the past if it's not against the law.

As for section 28 - bit of a moot point isn't it?

13:48 / 15.05.03

Necrophilia is to become illegal.

I'd always thought it was...

From the Beeb's report this seems to be an even handed update of a clutch of laws that seemed to both confuse and contradict each other. Can't see anything to grumble about in there.

Gawd, I agree with David Blunkett on something!

No doubt the Daily Mail brigade will come down on the gay orgy thing.

If Labour wanted to really impress me though, they'd do something serious about section 28, but this thread's not about that, so I'll stop mid rant...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:04 / 15.05.03

The more I look at it, the more section 28 pisses me off. I think about the stuff I wasn't allowed to be told, and how my friends and I, at sixteen, blundered through trying to figure out who was straight and who wasn't and what it all meant, and how much emotional pain there was purely from people trying to be nice to each other in ignorance of what the possibilities might be... Gah. Thank you, Maggie T.

As for necrophilia - what, they've had a lot of complaints from dead people recently? There's been a sudden rash of public skullfucking I didn't hear about?

Weird.

Sheesh.

15:28 / 15.05.03

Sex in public is illegal? Gay orgies were illegal? WHAT!!!!

15:51 / 15.05.03

As wrong as clause 28 is, I think that this piece of proposed legislation won't and can't have any impact upon it because it is local government legislation. It's another battle entirely. Still if this can stimulate interest in repealing clause 28, so much the better.

09:10 / 16.05.03

Clause 28 is not a problem, as I understand it.

Okay it's a little misguided, but just having the furore surrounding it and the resulting panic has done more for the publicity of gay issues than if they'd not bothered with it in the first place.

Under the clause, take from Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, a council may not "promote teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

Ultimately, it does not really affect teachers because sex education is not the responsibility of councils, but of the governors and has been since two years *before* the act was passed.

And who promotes homosexuality anyway? I don't remember anyone at my school promoting the acceptability of heterosexuality as a pretended family relationship either.

10:07 / 16.05.03

Jub said
Ultimately, it does not really affect teachers because sex education is not the
responsibility of councils, but of the governors and has been since two years
*before* the act was passed.

Actually i disagree with you that the locus of concern with clause 28 is merely sex education, the clause also covers a whole broad swathe of a teacher's pastoral duties not least of which is the 'acceptibility' of homosexuality.

Under the clause teachers are not allowed to say homosexuality is even acceptable to their students if ever they are asked any questions.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:33 / 16.05.03

Gay orgies were illegal?

Oh yeah - more than two men having sex in the same room is illegal. Two men having sex in the same room *with* another man, IIRC, is illegal. Until fairly recently, and this may still be the case, aloowing two men to have sex with each other with your knowledge in a house you owned was illegal.

It's one of those things that makes me feel slightly awkward when somebody says something like "Homosexuals have, and should have, the same rights as straight people."

This is true, in the sense that a straight man is not legally able to have sex with two men at the same time either, but it feels like there's a gap in the logic...

11:03 / 16.05.03

Actually i disagree with you that the locus of concern with clause 28 is merely sex education, the clause also covers a whole broad swathe of a teacher's pastoral duties not least of which is the 'acceptibility' of homosexuality.

Under the clause teachers are not allowed to say homosexuality is even acceptable to their students if ever they are asked any questions.

The locus of concern - as far as I'm concerned - is that Section 28 has become a short-cut for gay rights, and the feeling that unless you automatically want it repealed then you're a homophobe. Don't get me wrong I know you're not saying that, but people do.

Jacqui Smith: The Learning and Skills Act 2000 places a statutory duty on schools to protect pupils from inappropriate teaching and materials. Our Sex and Relationship Education guidance is clear that teachers should be able to deal honestly and sensitively with sexual orientation. There should be no direct promotion of sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation doesn't get promoted. So what?
Also, what other pastoral duties does it deal with?

Legislation and DfEE Guidance here

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:53 / 16.05.03

The devil is in the detail. 'Promote' can be (has been) interpreted to mean 'mention' or 'suggest homosexuality is as valid as hetersexuality'.

28 has prevented teachers from talking about homosexuality in a fair and helpful way (and mostly at all) to exactly the people who need to hear about it - kids who are discovering their sexual desires. When I was seventeen, I went out with a girl who was, she said, desperately afraid of sex. She wanted to explore this amazing thing everyone was talking about, but it scared the shit out of her. We went through all kinds of nervous, painful discussion and abortive experimentation, and both of us got confused and upset, and then we separated. She wasn't 'afraid of sex', of course, she was gay. But neither of us had more than the vaguest notion of how to go about saying it or thinking it. Our teachers hadn't been able to do more than a kind of liberalistic fudge, because 28 was on the books.

Section 28 is a monstrous bloody nonsense; it protects no one except aging Tories. If you understand its consequences and advocate it, you probably are homophobic.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that legislation should get its nose out of the bedroom (or the sitting room, the kitchen, the hallway, the laundry room...).

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:55 / 16.05.03

And actually, screw the detail. 'Pretended family relationship'? Gay people can't have real families? They just pretend?

It's a piece of hate written down and made 'law'. Fuck it.

12:22 / 16.05.03

Nick: that's fair play. I know what you're saying about the protecting the ageing tories thing - and I think this is why it was included in the first place. However, I think a lot of blame that has been aportion to it that is unwarrented.

I agree that government rules have no place in the bedroom, but Section 28 is in schools. It is a misguided piece of legislation in so far as it meant well (for god sake - think of the children!) but it is clearly unfounded. However, I still think that the actual implications of it are not as worrying as people have claimed.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:33 / 16.05.03

On what basis, given the points made in Nick's last-but-one post?

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:36 / 16.05.03

Or would you seriously argue that the primary education we receive doesn't have a pontentially huge impact on our subsequent attitudes and behaviour?

12:47 / 16.05.03

Flyboy- of course it has an effect. And Nicks post about the damning effects of too little education about sex in schools is fair. However, it is not all down to Section 28.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

13:13 / 16.05.03

Section 28 is a major contributor. You should read Tom's blog - he's got fairly strong feelings - and strong arguments - about this, and some empirical evidence. 28 is unforgivable, and while it's not the whole story, it's a great big chunk of nasty which should be excised immediately, and its makers removed from positions where they can do such harm.

The puritanism - of many faiths and humanisms - which suggests that children should not be told about sex - is rotten to the core. 28, however, expresses not only this, but a blatant and wicked prejudice about homosexuality - not just that homosexuals will 'prey' on 'innocent' and notionally sexless or sexually undecided youngesters (a depiction of children which is out-dated and demonstrably false) - but also that adult homosexuals cannot have valid family relationships.

No opprobium heaped on 28 is undeserved. It preserves a concept of 'homosexual' as 'dangerous' and 'unnatural', and something which has to be discussed with caution lest it bite the interlocutors. It enshrines the ghastly notion that young people can be protected through ignorance. It propounds the theory that homosexual relationships aren't real. It has no function beyond prejudice and ignorance, and its continued existence is a disgrace - and a banner for all those who are openly homophobic and do want children as ignorant as possible of subjects which touch on sex and sexuality.

Why on Earth are you defending it? I'm curious. You've gone out of your way to say you don't have a lot of time for it, yet you're also making out that it's not such a big deal. It manifestly is.

13:52 / 16.05.03

Nick - hear hear!

I think that sex education in schools was poor before section 28 came along (my time in school). However, I do remember the teachers explaining how it was physically possible for two men to make love in the context of their being sufficient space in the rectal passage to accomodate an erect penis. That was my entire 'homosexual' sex education.

I suspsect that even something so not 'promoting' as that would not be taught by teachers today for fear of section 28. It is truly, truly evil.

14:01 / 16.05.03

Why on Earth are you defending it? I'm curious. You've gone out of your way to say you don't have a lot of time for it, yet you're also making out that it's not such a big deal. It manifestly is.

Hm. Sorry Nick - I really didn't mean to raise your hackles like that. Obviously I need to do some more reading on the subject.

I'm not advocating, well, anything actually. From what I'd heard though, because the Section doesn't technically affect teachers, it wasn't as damning as it appears. This is in spite of the hysteria surrounding it. If repealing Section 28 means that there will be a discernible difference in the classroom, then great. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make though.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:56 / 16.05.03

In that case, there's no reason for it to be a law in the first place, is there?

Don't worry, I'm not peeved with you - but I loathe this law. And I think that while it will make little difference to the majority - perhaps even a majority of young gay people, though I doubt that - it will make a huge and tangible difference to a minority who are denied access to information and perspective they need to avoid emotional trauma. More generally, it puts us one step closer to equality, and to laying a particuarly idiotic and harmful prejudice to rest.

pointless and uncalled for

18:25 / 16.05.03

Judging on the BBC spin on this then the proposals seem to be rather progressive, both in direction and in the fact that the government is cleaing up an outdated to legal structure.

Clearly the laws will not suit everyone, as the above arguments clearly illustrate. I myself are concerned that the public indeceny laws will still be open to abuses, especially on the police side.

I certainly wasn't aware that necrophilia was legal, or more to the point not illegal, the distinction being what it is. It's a tricky subject though and one that will always need to be handled in a delicate manner.

At a most basic level I agree that it should be illegal, respect for the dead carrying a certain form weight above respect for someone's sexual desires. Of course as individuality brings ever more grey area to the legal system, we could find cases where the deceased, in a state of "sound body and mind", made it perfectly clear that being fucked post-mortis was entirely acceptable or even encouraged. How then should we handle the legally identified offender?

I can't really comment to intelligently on 28, having not read it in it. I therefore reserve full judgement, however, from the above representations I have this suspicion that I won't like it one little bit.