Malaysia Orgy Raid

The Guardian reports that 37 men have been arrested, including one Briton in Malaysia. The arrest follows a raid by Police who say they were acting on a public tip-off. Officers raided a fitness centre in northern Penang island on Sunday while a sex party was in progress. The men arrested were aged between 20 and 45. The Police Chief is reported as saying: "This is against our culture, our way of life." The offence of sodomy can result in punishable by up to 20 years in prison and whipping. Police cited the discovery of used condoms, seven tubes of lube, 20 gay magazines, four pornographic videos and six boxes of new condoms, as evidence of "unnatural sex acts".

We should hesitate to condemn the Police. After all the UK Government currently has plans before Parliament on the possession of extreme pornography which will criminalise a considerable amount of gay and S&M material whilst the continued enforcement of the Brown decision renders certain S&M sex acts illegal. Not forgetting the continued criminalisation (albeit to varying degrees)of cruising,cottaging and dogging. The acts criminalised in this Malaysian case were only fully legalised in 2003 in the UK (and the sodomy laws only changed 40years ago). We remain far from a beacon of sexual liberation ourselves!

Read the story at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,2206087,00.html

A Very British Sex Scandal

Channel 4 celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 with a series of "gay" programmes this week with ga themed films also being shown on late night Film4. The first of these was shown on Saturday night. 'A Very British Sex Scandal' was a docu-drama seeking both to explore the arrests of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Peter Wildeblood et al and the emergence of the Wolfenden Comittee. If there was to be on criticism of this programme it would be the lack of a pipe in the mouth of John Wolfenden. I find it ahrd to belive that he would have been without one (at least available on the desk) during the meetings of the committee.

Conference Update: Wolfenden50

Every now and then a conference comes along that blows you away. The short Wolfenden50 Conference held at Kings College, London was one such conference (see: http://www.wolfenden50.org/ ). I wasn't able to attend the whole conference though I was able to attend the Thursday and Friday (the Friday being slightly disrupted first thing with the attempted London bombings). The conference was opened by Jeffrey Weeks who was as optimistic as ever and flogging a new (no doubt brilliant) book. I'm not sure I share his overly optimistic view of the world though. The latest edition of the Pink Paper is a good example (see: http://www.pinkpaper.com/pinkpaper/story.asp?aid=350 ). The front page reports that Sixty-five per cent of lesbian and gay school pupils have been bullied because of their sexuality. Whilst Weeks is absolutely right to point to the legislative achievements of recent years there remains a huge amount to tackle social attitudes. It's no good talking about how brilliant the repeal of section 28 was when kids are still getting the crap beaten out of them in the playground because their queer. The full figures are even more disturbing. 143,000 children have suffered from anti-gay name-calling, 64,000 have been physically attacked and 26,000 have had death-threats.

Other notable presentations at Wolfenden50 were an amazing presentation by Welby Ings (AUT University, NZ) who talked about the language and law relating to New Zealand Public Toilets 1860-1967. Welby is also an award winning film director and his presentation was fascinating. Over lunch we had a long conversation and it seems many of the themes and issues I've discovered in my own work (see earlier post for this month) are applicable in NZ too. There's clearly scope for some interesting comparative research in this area. Robert Reynolds (University of New South Wales, Australia) talked about Wolfenden's 'grandchildren' in the form of the current queer "youth" generation in Australia. He's publishing a book that focuses on a number of young people alter this year. His research found that many young people can't relate to 'queer culture' with its bars, clubs and saunas and so seek out alternative space. For some this meant their first sexual encounters might take place in a public sex environment. Worrying stuff.

The whole conference had been based around the 50th anniversary of the Wolfenden Report which ultimately paved the way for the Sexual Offences Act 1967 which legalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 in private. Fifty years! A lot has changed but there is so much socially still to be done.