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The Blog Digest 2007: The Honourable Member – Sex

The beast with two backs. The mattress mambo. Touching the Void. Posting Yul Brynner first class. Where would the British be without euphemisms for the sexual act? In possession of a much more mature attitude towards sex, no doubt, but having fewer laughs along the way.

This year’s rash of political sex scandals (is that the appropriate collective noun?) heaped yet more ridicule on politics and politicians. The avid interest and disapproval aimed at those affairs by the media and the public showed us to be simultaneously – and paradoxically – both prudish and prurient.

Sex still sells big. It’s to be wondered how much envy plays a part in the voyeuristic intrusions we make into other people’s sex lives; is it that we would quite like to be doing those kind of things with our own John Thomases and Lady Janes?

…

January 2006 – Tim Ireland: ‘Our legal advice is that Mark Oaten is not a paedophile.’
If you ask me, the story of Mark Oaten and his predilection for male prostitutes brought out the very best and the very worst in British bloggers. The now famous Guido Fawkes (by ‘famous’ I mean that his blog receives more visits than any other in the country – many bloggers set store by such things, much like comparing manhoods) and his associate Recess Monkey, another political gossip-monger, tried to claim a role in Oaten’s outing. Many bloggers were pretty disgusted. Tim Ireland takes up the tale with a round-up of how the blogs saw the affair. The following pieces contain many links but they’re worth following to gain the full flavour of how the story played out in Blogland.

January 2006 – Iain Dale: Simon Hughes Deserves Both our Condemnation and Understanding
Shortly after Mark Oaten’s downfall, Lib Dem leadership candidate Simon Hughes was outed as gay by The Sun. Surely only a homophobe could have failed to be disgusted at the ‘Another One Bites The Pillow’ tagline and sniggering that went with it. Here, Iain Dale, former Conservative parliamentary candidate and current Cameron ‘A-lister’ speaks of his own experiences while sympathising with Hughes’ predicament.

March 2006 – Rhetorically Speaking: The best idea I ever had (this evening)
Bookdrunk has a suggestion for those God-bothering types looking to interfere in the bedroom (so to speak).

May 2006 – Biffovision: Porn-Oh!
Finding evidence of a youth being currently misspent reminds Mr Biffo of another youth previously misspent.

May 2006 – Harry Hutton: In Defence of John Prescott
Birds do it, bees do it, even Deputy PMs do it. In May, the story broke of John Prescott, his cocktail sausage and his diary secretary, Tracey Temple. Cue much hilarity. Harry Hutton reckoned a Deputy Prime Minister on the job was much less dangerous than one doing his job.

May 2006 – Acerbia: Bit Player
Acerbia is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of D. Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs, D has led many lives; continually reincarnated, he’s a boxer fuelled by sexual frustration one day, a patient at the doctor’s with a case of sentient ringworm the next. Here he explores the eternal triangle by way of a cinematic classic.

June 2006 – Chicken Yoghurt: Ask Tony and win: The winner is…
Shortly after the Tracey Temple scandal broke, Tony Blair held a webcast on the Number 10 website answering questions from the public put to him by two journalists. Being the cynic, I thought the searching questions would be weeded out and the chances of one being put to the Prime Minister were slim. So, I held a little competition on my blog. Anyone managing to have their question asked would win a prize. As it turns out I was the winner. My question was about a largely overlooked aspect of John Prescott’s conduct. But as you’ll see, asking the Prime Minister a question is one thing. His answering it is quite another.

June 2006 – A Spinster’s Quest: Speed-Dating
Lucy is on A Spinster’s Quest. She’s attempting to find 50 ways to find a lover – an anti-Paul Simon. She’s determined to try online dating, lonely hearts columns, singles’ nights and wherever else love may linger. Here, she tries speed-dating.

July 2006 – Emerald Bile: Achilles’ Cunt
Here’s a piece from Emerald Bile’s Noreen about her gynaecologist. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

October 2006 – The Sharpener: Talk amongst yourselves, we couldn’t possibly comment
Donald from the blogging collective The Sharpener performs a stylish high-wire act over the most divisive of issues.

Next, Chapter 3: We’ve Had A Bit Of A Falling Out – War