Loving in Japan

Greetings from Tokyo. 

One of the interesting things about being in a different place is that different social norms and customs generate a commercial requirement for different types of services. 

Many single people in Tokyo live in small studio apartments, not much bigger than a student dorm room. They choose to do this to have personal privacy rather than to live in shared accommodation like many inner city dwellers in Australian cities. 

You can hear your neighbors! You need a love hotel. 

So you are single in your 20s. You pick up at a bar. You live in a dog box with clothes hanging from the ceiling and not enough room to swing a cat. 

You aren't going to impress your new friend at home, and with some enthusiastic intimacy, you will break a whole bunch of rules with your neighbors. 

What do you do? Go get a room. And thankfully, a whole industry called love hotels will rent you a really nice room for a perfectly decent price for either 3 hours ($40-50) or overnight.

Where are these love hotels? Right around the corner from the nightlife districts. It's a great example of the market delivering supply to satisfy a need. 

Let the market do its job - there is so much we can learn from other countries

One Direction mania - symmetrical faces, endorphins and sex

One Direction: the latest superstar boy band

British boy band One Direction have arrived in Sydney, to extraordinary scenes of screaming teenage girls reminiscent of the Beatles in the 60s, the Bay City Rollers in the 70s and Take That in the 90s.  So, why does this happen?

Attraction and symmetry - they are pretty boys

At an evolutionary level, Cute boys offer the potential for ideal genetic material.  One way to measure this is via symmetry.  Leonardo da Vinci's famous "Vitruvian man" demonstrated the perfect symmetrical figure. More recently, a number of studies have shown that perfectly symmetrical faces present a guide to health and strong genetic material.

I've tested this theory out on the five One Direction boys compared with my own face.  I score a rather paltry 90.5% symmetry score, while the boys range from Niall on 92.6% to Zahn on 96.6%.  Given that this was conducted with publicly available photos on an online tool, it isn't exactly scientifically rigorous, but it certainly heads in the right direction.

On a somewhat more subjective level, there is general agreement among teenage girls that these fellow are "hotties".  That proves that part of the argument than, they are attractive! Therefore, they would make ideal mating material.

Screaming, excitement, endorphins and sex

So, the boys are attractive. Yeah, we know that.  What about the screaming? Well, endorphins are a substance that is released during a variety of situations including exercise, excitement, pain, love and orgasm.  They are similar in structure and effect to opiate drugs.  Of these alternatives, for a teenage girl, excitement and love are two of the most attractive options.  So, when you combine a "crush" on a beautiful boy with the excitement of seeing them, you have the recipe for a release of endorphins.

Where does the screaming come in?

There are a variety of theories why girls scream at the boys in the band.  Certainly it is some combination of expressions of excitement, joy, and (immature) sexual desire.  Once it starts, that only heightens the endorphin release.  Due to the opioid effect, that encourages more of the same behavior, to receive more of the opioid.  The process is the same as for drug taking, and for orgasm.  In some ways, although they are unlikely to be aware of it, this is a young teenage girls form of simulating some of the same positives they will hopefully receive from sexual orgasm in years to come.

So it's all good then - let's all get carried away with some euphoria

If you believe the conservative dogma that young women should be mild mannered, meek and quiet, then you'd be critical of any form of "out of control" response, at any age.  I don't subscribe to this view - I prefer to encourage all of us to experience the full range of human emotions.

Some people will actively seek out pain through experiences like Tough Mudder, others will experience physical and emotional pain that is not of their choosing.  Fans become obsessed with their football teams, and scream at the players.  When people have sex, it can be done with a degree of control, or total abandon, releasing more endorphins. And everyone can benefit from energetic exercise.  All of these experiences, whether good or bad, are part of who we are.

Thanks girls and thanks One Direction, you've brought yet another human experience to bear.  Let your endorphins run wild.

Let me know what you think

Mark S

Julia Gillard to Press Club: "Don't write crap". News Ltd fails to listen on sex slave story.

While Julia Gillard was presenting a well-reasoned and factual case for the carbon tax, News Limited were proving again how lacklustre they are at journalism.  In response to Mark Riley's question about the press corp, her succinct advice was "don't write crap".

Olga the Russian karate hairdresser and bondage mistress hoax

Who is Olga really?

Unfortunately, while the PM was handing out this excellent advice, News Ltd weren't paying attention in class.  Today they ran with "Hairdresser karate kicks bandit, ties him up, feeds him Viagra and uses him as sex slave for three days"

It turns out that this is another one of those great "let's print a story even thought it's two years old" episodes.


According to the Courier-Mail, and most other News titles running the story, this was about a Russian hairdresser named Olga who supposedly was a karate black belt, overcome a robber named Viktor, tied him up and used him as a sex slave, feeding him Viagra for three days.

They took it from the UK's Daily Mail: Robber who broke into hair salon is beaten by its black-belt owner and kept as a sex slave for three days... fed only Viagra

The only problem is, the story is at least 2 years old! Hairdresser turns robber into sex-slave was first published in RT.com on 14 April 2009 and the Moscow Times on 15 April 2009 Hair Stylist Keeps Armed Robber as Sex Slave.


Don't you guys all learn!!

What's amazing about all this is that a simple search brings up a story two days ago on Forbes: Same Old Sex Slave, Brand New Gawker Story. So, not only didn't News do any checks, they actually missed the checks that others had done that proved it wasn't recent.

But there's more.  After ninemsn screwed up, they even posted a retraction yesterday! Correction: Salon owner kept robber as sex slave. That would be a major Australian site, guys. *sigh*

So, News Limited hack phones, copy articles and can't even plagiarise corrections properly!!

Let me know what you think

Mark S

The law is an ass - rape is rape

Credit must go to the Herald Sun for their front page story today, Sleeping woman rape trial sparks fury.  This story details how the Victorian Court of Appeal set aside a conviction for a man, Tomas Getachew, who raped a women who was asleep, who had twice rejected his advances, before passing out drunk.

The Court ruled 2-1 that the trial judge had erred in his instructions to the jury.  The minority judge, Justice Lex Lasry got it right when he said:

"The complainant had made clear her rejection of the applicant on two occasions before this incident occurred. When penetrated by the applicant, the complainant was in a position consistent with her being asleep. There was no positive conduct by the complainant which might have led Getachew to conclude that his sexual approach was now being welcomed.''

This is what the Slut Walks are for - to stop rape

Recently, as a man, I was proud to attend the Melbourne Slut Walk, where women joined others at Slut Walks around the world and proudly chanted "Whatever we wear, wherever we go—yes means yes, and no means no!".  As a man at this very civilised protest, it struck me that this message cannot be repeated often enough.  So many men have been brought up in a misogynistic world where they believe that "women are asking for it".

The key message of the Slut Walks is that "women retain the right to say no, and to be heard".

And this is why the decision by Justices Peter Buchanan and Bernard Bongiorno is so perpelexing, and wrong.  The victim of the rape by Tomas Getachew had said "no".  She had said "no" again.  Then she had fallen asleep.  To argue - as the learned Judges have done - that there is any way that she changed her mind after she fell asleep drunk, simply defies logic.

Remember the key message of the Slut Walk - once she said no, she had the right to be heard.

Whatever we wear ... or whatever we drink ... rape is never OK

The Toronto policeman who blamed women for the way they dress could just as easily have blamed them for getting drunk.  It's certainly been an argument put to blame victims many times.  It is simply wrong.

Worryingly, a psychology study in 2006 even found that: Juries blame women for 'drunk rape'.  The study found that jurors:

- decided it was 'reasonable' to assume there was consent even if a woman was too drunk to give it".
- blamed drunk rape victims for 'bringing it on themselves'.

So, it seems that two of our learned judges, who should not be influenced by the same biases as ordinary people, have the same views on victim-blaming that the Slut Walks are trying to highlight.

Let's hope the prosecution appeals to the High Court - and wins

In the words of the wise Home Office spokesperson on learning of these study results: 'We need to tackle the myths. Rape is never the responsibility of the victim.'

The prosecution is considering appealing to the High Court.  They should do so, and should win.

Let me know what you think

Mark S

From bikinis to gay rights, there are real costs of not supporting civil liberties

When it comes to economic matters, data and logic really are king.  But social attitudes are not so cut and dry.  I've spent the last few days researching data to support some thoughts on social liberalism, and then had an epiphany - not every comment needs to be supported by statistics!  Instead, the issue of social liberties comes down to a philosophical debate between two sides.

In the red corner - those of us who believe that adults should be permitted to act in whatever way they want, providing it doesn't cause any harm to person or property.
In the blue corner - those who believe that adults cannot be trusted to make good (or moral?) decisions, and need to be "protected" by the imposition of a set of rules by "society".

Of course there are an unlimited supply of examples that bring this debate to a head, so let's look at a couple of them, from the sublime to the ridiculous:

Wearing bikinis:
In the red corner, we say, if you want to wear a bikini, wear a bikini.
In the blue corner - well, it depends on what year it is, and where you are. Throughout history, the bikini has been acceptable, then unacceptable, then acceptable again.

Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily.
Source: Wikipedia

In 2006, in Kanab, in the US state of Utah, Council passed a ban on bikinis at the city pool, which was overturned in 2008.  The Kuwaitis rejected a motion to ban the bikini just this year, but in the neighbouring Saudi Arabia, no way.

Kuwaiti parliament rejects ban on bikinis

So, just for the moment, let's consider the blue corner has a point (which I don't accept of course), and this bikini ban is in some way a good decision for women.  Why should that decision vary from year to year, and even from State to State and country to country?  It's surely nonsensical.



Sex between consenting adults of the same sex:
In the red corner, we say, if you want to have sex, enjoy yourself.
In the blue corner - this is one of those issues where the wrath of God has been invoked against sin.  But of course, society's attitudes have differed over the centuries.  To the ancient Greeks, no problem.  To the Abrahamic religions, it is a sin.  For the Chinese, over most of its history, homosexuality has been OK.

When it comes to homosexuality, the battle isn't just theoretical.  Societies over the years have demonised and proscribed homosexuality, with 76 countries still criminalizing consenting sexual acts between people of the same sex.  4,000 people have been executed in Iran since 1979 for homosexual acts.

You see, when it comes to being socially liberal, there are real consequences. The costs of imposing rules on people, where no person is being harmed are very, very high.


Let me know what you think

Mark S