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* Posts by Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

11 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Aug 2008

British athlete puts self on eBay

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism
Devil

Objectification of men

This is absolutely appalling. How can he demean himself like this. Selling his body for the delectation of sports fans. It is setting back the emancipation of men by decades. We should be valued for our mental attributes, not the quality of our body. It is sending entirely the wrong message to the young people of this country.

The following is a generalisation from the the Wikpedia article on the objectification of women. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification

Objectification refers to the practice of regarding or treating another person merely as an instrument (object) towards one's pleasure, and a object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of gratification or who is attractive. Objectification is an attitude that regards a person as a commodity or as an object for use, with little or no regard for a person's personality or sentience. Objectification is most commonly examined at a societal level, but can also arise at an individual level.

The concept of objectification is an important idea in feminist/masculanist theory and psychological theories derived from feminism/masculanism. Many regard objectification as objectionable and as playing an important role in gender inequality. Some social commentators, however, argue that some modern men and women objectify themselves as an expression of their empowerment over the other gender, whilst others argue that increased sexual freedom for women, gay, and bisexual men has led to an increase of the objectification of men. The idea of objectification has also been an important area of discussion and debate in the area of ethics.

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ASA upholds customer complaint against eBuyer

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

Fraud

How does this differ from fraud?

There needs to be statutory protection for whistle-blowers.

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Oz rail company sold USB keys from lost property in auction

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

What do they have the right to sell?

The act gives the right to sell the memory sticks. Does it also give the right to sell the data on them? There is likely to be a complicated mishmash of legislation covering that.

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India asks Facebook and friends to screen content

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

UK censors extensively

"Even in the UK, the government brought in execs from Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry ..."

That's a joke, the idea that the UK does not censor. The UK is heavily censored in some areas, they are just a bit more subtle about it than many other countries.http://www.bn.org.uk/pages/pages.asp?page_ID=525

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Gov and ISPs clash over informal policing of net

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

Inappropriate = prejudice

Harmful - no problem, provided that it is based on evidence.

Inappropriate - given the word harmful can only mean "What we don't like". In other words prejudice.

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Is US prudishness ruining the internet?

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism
Go

With great power comes great responsibility

In one respect it is true that the USA is not prudish but it is the product of some very warped and hypocritical attitudes. Violence good, paid for nudity good, informative or artistic nudity bad. It is totally ridiculous that most of the sex related material available to young people is pornography and most of the information about how people look is from airbrushed glamour photography. No wonder young people have such mixed up ideas.

When there are a number of competing companies, of broadly similar size so that they really do compete, then leaving it to the market place is fine. When a company is dominant it is near impossible for anyone to compete (Microsoft, Apple, Facebook etc) and since there is no effective market the rules of the market place are no longer appropriate. They have enormous power but there is little or nothing to ensure that they use it responsibly. They can, and do, trample on freedom of expression according to prejudice of a few individuals or perceived popular prejudice. The consequences of that are widespread and serious harm.

Even within the UK we have the same effect. The only way to get magazines into the distribution chain is if either the Menzies or WHSmith censor approves of them. Courier may not be an option either. They also censor what they will carry and where they will deliver to.

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ACPO defuses impending photo row with police forces

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism
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Since when have police made up the law

Since 1986 and Public Order Act.

Since 1973 and Outraging Public Decency

Since 1974 and Protection of Children Act

Since any other piece of poorly defined catch all legislation.

The definition of all of the above can by summarised as "If we don't like it, or we think that somebody else might not like it, you are guilty." I exaggerate only a little in order to make a point.

NB Protection of Children Act, indecent photographs, is not about child pornography, it is "Anything that we think people will not like".

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Naturist club objects to erection of five storey tower block

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism
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The point of being a naturist

Paul 87 is quite correct that is shouldn't matter. Unfortunately the protection against prejudice is inadequate and a photograph appearing on the internet could cost somebody their career.

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MySpace fingers 90,000 nonces

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

Flawed and dangerous thinking

The politician is bringing child protection into disrepute but then when did some politicians ever let honest evaluation of facts get in the way of a bit of hysterical rabble rousing. Unless there is evidence to show what proportion of the registered offenders were using Facebook to further the abuse of children and unless there is evidence to show that that proportion is higher than for the population in general his statement is at best valueless and at worst positively harmful.

Did you know that 60% of people with characteristic X will go on to commit crime Y? Rabble rouser's answer - put them in gaol immediately! The public must be protected.

Now add another fact, 65% of the general population will go on to commit crime Y. Same conclusion? Unfortunately a lot of public policy is driven by sloppy thinking which owes more to emotion and prejudice than it does to facts .

Common sense cab be especially dangerous/ For example in the UK about 10 babies a week were being killed by the common sense advice to lay babies on their front so that if they vomited it would drain out.. Eventually somebody actually did the research, the advice was changed and cot death rates plummeted.

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Byron Review's internet enforcer goes into action

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

Biased representation and evidence base

I have read through the list of board members. As you would expect the industry interests and child protection organisations are well represented. Of more concern is the omission of anyone opposed to unnecessary censorship despite the inclusion of at least one group that actively promotes wide ranging censorship. We will of course be making our views known.

There is only one justification for censorship. Evidence that it is necessary to prevent harm. Unfortunately many people do not bother to distinguish between evidence and prejudice.

Malcolm Boura

British Naturism

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Hard 'core'? Birmingham City Council's net filtering

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism

Discrimination

The council can of course set any policy that they like provided that it is legal and of course that requires that it does not reinforce prejudice and that it does not discriminate.

I fully expect that they will have blocked naturist web sites including that of British Naturism. www.british-naturism.org.uk. The American prejudice against nudity is well known.

Blocking naturist web sites will encourage discrimination against the couple of million naturists in the UK. There are many council officers who can not do their properly if they are denied access to information.

British Naturism has written to request that any discrimination should cease.

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