Good-looking, groomed, docile. They were paraded around the arena, so that we could all see their body composition and their agility; so that we could see there were no signs of illness or infirmity. This is good stock, a fine …
MeToo lost me the love of my life
Dear Taylor,
Please, please don’t shove this in recycling and do hear me out. I apologise for disguising this letter in a NatWest envelope to make it look like one of your bank statements. I realise that appears duplicitous. But …
How far-Right are you?
A common form of classroom cruelty when I was at school involved a game we called “Contagion”. The instigator would touch the person next to them, having chosen a low-status scapegoat — usually “Holly”, who wore thick glasses and was …
What Western feminists can learn from Iran
Is this it? Could this, finally, be the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran? As huge crowds of women and men surge through the Iranian streets, burning hijabs and calling for “Death to Khamenei!”, is an impossible dream finally …
Why has Starmer banished feminists?
Are feminists welcome in the Labour Party? I mean the old-fashioned kind of feminist, who knows the difference between men and women. The answer appears to be that we’re not. Delegates to this year’s party conference in Liverpool will be …
The Left has mummy issues
A little friend of my daughter’s has just had one of her parents walk out, to start a new life with a new partner. Given that they were a heterosexual couple, and based on your observations about the world, can …
The curse of Miserable Older White Women
There is a corner of the internet that is obsessed with depressed middle-aged women. Or, specifically, is fixated on a four-year-old study, which suggested that 41% of Americans who use antidepressants are white, female and over 45. The obsession has …
What women coppers conceal
If a woman wanted to become a police officer in the Seventies, she joined the Women’s Police Department. Run separately from the mainstream service, its main purpose was to deal with “women’s issues” such as sexual assault and domestic violence. …
MeToo killed Game of Thrones
It must have been some time after the first brothel scene, but well before Jamie Lannister threw a child out of a window after being discovered mid-coitus with his twin sister, that the first audiences of HBO’s Game of Thrones …
The West is homeless
I was chatting to the log man as we unloaded chunks of dried beech into my driveway from his trailer. Usually he brings me ash, but ash is becoming harder to find now that ash dieback disease, imported into Ireland …
Beyoncé will be sorry
Beyoncé named her most recent album after the golden age of creative expression, the era that gave us the greatest art the world has ever seen. Renaissance was supposed to usher in another moment of wild, unbridled innovation. The album …
Why the Tavistock had to fall
For years, the seeds of the Tavistock’s downfall have been hiding in plain sight, as a picture has slowly emerged of its clinicians doling out harmful drugs to gender-confused youth as if they were sweets. At the same time, though, …
Was the sexual revolution a mistake?
One of the many clashes within the modern feminist movement is between sex-positive feminists and sex-negative feminists, otherwise known as the prudes. The former argue for the virtues of no-holds-barred sexual freedom, while the latter believe that liberal feminism’s focus …
Lena Dunham’s depraved comeback
Lena Dunham made her name pushing back against the extremes of sex positivity. In the second episode of the TV series Girls, which she wrote and starred in, her character capitulates to a sex partner’s insistence that they act …
How to save sex
“Is it okay if I touch you?” Half an hour after I’d started chatting with this guy on Grindr he was in my bedroom, beginning a series of questions meant to lead from touching to any number of other acts. …