A Royal Pardon for Alan Turing takes effect today

Here's a chilling story from the BBC about the great Alan Turing, who effective today is pardoned in Britain from his 1952 conviction for homosexuality. The ghost of Christmas past reminds us that what is regarded as repugnant can reverse itself over time.

Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing

"Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon.

"It overturns his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated.

"The conviction meant he lost his security clearance and had to stop the code-cracking work that proved critical to the Allies in World War II.

"The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling.

...
"Turing's work helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. He also contributed some more fundamental work on codebreaking that was only released to public scrutiny in April 2012.

"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed," said Mr Grayling.

"Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."

The pardon comes into effect on 24 December."

Kinky sex becoming a less repugnant transaction?

The NY Times has the story: A Hush-Hush Topic No More. (The url writer was more explicit than the headline writer: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/fashion/bondage-domination-and-kink-sex-communities-step-into-view.html?hp&_r=0 )

"some real-life kinksters — a few of whom are appropriating the epithet “pervert,” much as gay activists seized control of “queer” — are wondering if they are approaching a time when they, like the L.G.B.T. community before them, can come out and begin living more open, integrated lives.

"But that time, it seems, has not yet arrived. Though the Harvard Munch Club, a social group of around 30 students focusing on kinky interests, was officially recognized by the university in December, its 21-year-old founding president asked that he not be identified. (“I’m interested in politics,” he offered as one reason.) He said that he had “encountered zero negative responses on campus,” and received messages from alumni expressing solidarity and wishing there had been a similar group when they were undergraduates.

"A 20-year-old college student and self-described submissive on Long Island who asked to be referred to only by her middle name, Marie, said that she was disowned by her parents when a partner’s lover outed her as kinky. “They were just beside themselves,” Marie said. “I think they were worried I would get hurt.”

"She saw how telling people could be complicated. “It’s like being gay in that it’s a sexual preference, but it’s not like being gay in the sense that it’s not who you love, it’s how you love,” she said, adding, “The coming out is a little bit different.” Still, she said, “among people my own age, I haven’t found anyone who thinks I’m weird or doesn’t want to be friends.”

Repugnance is not immutable

In a New Yorker article called Love on the March, Alex Ross writes

"I am forty-four years old, and I have lived through a startling transformation in the status of gay men and women in the United States. Around the time I was born, homosexual acts were illegal in every state but Illinois. Lesbians and gays were barred from serving in the federal government. There were no openly gay politicians. A few closeted homosexuals occupied positions of power, but they tended to make things more miserable for their kind. Even in the liberal press, homosexuality drew scorn: in The New York Review of Books, Philip Roth denounced the “ghastly pansy rhetoric” of Edward Albee, and a Time cover story dismissed the gay world as a “pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life.”
...
"By the mid-eighties, when I was beginning to come to terms with my sexuality, a few gay people held political office, many states had dropped long-standing laws criminalizing sodomy, and sundry celebrities had come out. ...But anti-gay crusades on the religious right threatened to roll back this progress. In 1986, the Supreme Court, upholding Georgia’s sodomy law, dismissed the notion of constitutional protection for gay sexuality as “at best, facetious.”
...
"Today, gay people of a certain age may feel as though they had stepped out of a lavender time machine. That’s the sensation that hit me when I watched the young man in Tempe shout down a homophobe in the name of the President-elect. Gay marriage is legal in six states and in Washington, D.C. Gays can serve in the military without hiding their sexuality. We’ve seen openly gay judges, congresspeople, mayors (including a four-term mayor of Tempe), movie stars, and talk-show hosts. Gay film and TV characters are almost annoyingly ubiquitous. The Supreme Court, which finally annulled sodomy laws in 2003, is set to begin examining the marriage issue. And the 2012 campaign has shown that Republicans no longer see the gays as a reliable wedge issue: although Mitt Romney opposes same-sex marriage, he has barely mentioned it this fall. "


*********

Here's a different kind of repugnant transaction, that affected a much smaller part of the population: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/the-sex-lives-of-conjoined-twins/264095/

Homophobia: gay sex remains a repugnant transaction for many

If a repugnant transaction is one that some people want to engage in and others don't want them to, then sex is surely the most ancient. Some of this comes from the desire to control procreation (and be able to identify the father of each child), but that doesn't account for the repugnance of homosexual sex.

Elsewhere I've posted how this ancient repugnance seems to be crumbling, as same sex marriage slowly becomes legal in more places (and as the U.S. armed services have been slowly pushed to more clearly welcome the service of gay soldiers). But two recent articles make the point that homosexual sex is still a widely repugnant transaction.

Gays in Africa face growing persecution, human rights activists say
"In Uganda, a bill introduced in parliament last year would impose the death penalty for repeated same-sex relations and life imprisonment for other homosexual acts. Local newspapers are outing gays, potentially inciting the public to attack them, activists say."

"In Uganda, we look at homosexuality as an abomination. It is not normal," said Nsaba Butoro, Uganda's minister on ethics and integrity and a vocal supporter of the bill. "You are talking about a clash of cultures. The question is: Which culture is superior, the African one or the Western one?"

"More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexuality. In May, a judge in Malawi imposed a maximum prison sentence of 14 years with hard labor on a gay couple convicted of "unnatural acts" for holding an engagement ceremony. Malawi's president pardoned the couple after international condemnation, particularly from Britain, Malawi's largest donor.

"Gays have also been attacked this year in Zimbabwe, and in Senegal their graves have been desecrated. Gays in Cameroon have been attacked by police and targeted in the media. In Gambia, President Yahya Jammeh has vowed to expel gays from the country and urged citizens not to rent homes to them.

"One exception is South Africa, whose constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and is among a few countries in the world that have legalized same-sex marriages."

And here's an article closer to home: Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian, about an artwork removed from the exhibit by the National Portrait Gallery recently.

Phone sex as a repugnant transaction

I was struck by the opening paragraphs of this story:

"In some ways, working as a phone-sex dominatrix is lot simpler than being on a college faculty. Your relationship with others is clearly defined, no one formally complains about anything you say to them, and you stand little risk of getting caught up in messy struggles over power.

"It gets complicated, however, if you try to do both jobs...."

That is from a Chronicle of Higher Education story about troubles in the English department at the University of New Mexico: In Professor-Dominatrix Scandal, U. of New Mexico Feels the Pain

Proposal for porn education in Switzerland

Bettina Klaus writes about a form of sex education that might not catch on everywhere (or even anywhere):

"The "Jeunes Socialistes" ("Schweizer Jungsozialistinnen und -sozialisten" in the  German translation) - a political party in CH - propose to add a module concerning porn to the schools' sex education curriculum (the idea being that kids have free access to porn in the internet anyway and thus it might be better to learn more about it in a controlled environment).

Here are links to the French and to the German online articles:

Du porno pour éduquer les écoliers? 

http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/suisse/story/14413141

and

Schüler brauchen Erfahrung mit Pornos

http://www.20min.ch/tools/suchen/story/21903530

The Craigslist market for erotic/adult services

Scott Cunningham at Baylor, who is a serious student of illicit labor markets (e.g. the market for sex), writes

"Not sure if you saw this or not. Adult services censored on Craigslist

"It's not clear whether Craigslist has shut down the adult services section or not. That it is censored from the US but not from the rest of the country, though, suggests to some maybe.

"You've probably at least been peripherally aware that in the last month, approximately 20 state attorney generals had begun a new public campaign calling for Craigslist to shut down "adult services" altogether. FWIW, I have a chapter entitled "Sex for Sale: Online Commerce in the World's Oldest Profession" (with Todd Kendall) in the 2010 forthcoming book _Crime Online: Correlates, Causes and Controls_ edited by Tom Hold through Carolina Academic Press in which we explore, among other things, what happened the last time Craigslist implemented a major change to its erotic services section (namely, requiring all cities/markets to pay the $5-10 per ad and replacing erotic services with adult services, which was more heavily screened by Craigslist staff to identify prostitution advertisements). There was a temporary drop in ads, but they began to grow again as the weeks and months went on. But more importantly perhaps, there was a sudden spike in prostitution advertisements at a separate classified website operated by Village Voice called "backpage.com". Before Craigslist implemented that policy, backpage was never really used at all, but after that policy, it both saw a shortrun spike, and a longrun trend upwards in terms of daily posts, suggesting if nothing else that the cross-price elasticity of supply for these kinds of ads is not zero in the shortrun, but especially the longrun."

And here's the NY Times story: Craigslist Blocks Access to ‘Adult Services’ Pages, and two further stories that note that it will be easy for prostitution ads to relocate to other sites: How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags; and  Pimp Mobile--Craigslist shuts its "adult" section. Where will sex ads go now?  More recently, the "censored" label has been removed but the section remains closed: Craigslist Pulls ‘Censored’ Label From Sex Ads Area

Update (Sept. 15): ‘Adult Services’ Closed, Craigslist Says
"Craigslist, for the first time since it unexpectedly blocked sex ads from its site this month, said Wednesday that it had permanently closed its “adult services” section but defended its right to post sex-related ads as well as its efforts to fight sex trafficking.

"William Clinton Powell, director of customer relations and law enforcement relations at Craigslist, made the remarks Wednesday in testimony prepared for a hearing on sex trafficking of minors before the House Judiciary Committee.

“Craigslist has terminated its adult services section,” Mr. Powell said in his prepared remarks. “Those who formerly posted adult services ads on Craigslist will now advertise at countless other venues.”

F.C.C. Indecency Policy Rejected on Appeal

The NY Times reports the story: A federal appeals court struck down a Federal Communications Commission policy on indecency Tuesday, saying that regulations barring the use of “fleeting expletives” on radio and television violated the First Amendment because they were vague and could inhibit free speech.

"The decision, which many constitutional scholars expect to be appealed to the Supreme Court, stems from a challenge by Fox, CBS and other broadcasters to the F.C.C.’s decision in 2004 to begin enforcing a stricter standard of what kind of language is allowed on free, over-the-air television.

"The stricter policy followed several incidents that drew widespread public complaint, including Janet Jackson’s breast-baring episode at the 2004 Super Bowl and repeated instances of profanity by celebrities, including Cher, Paris Hilton and Bono, during the live broadcasts of awards programs. The Janet Jackson incident did not involve speech but it drew wide public outrage that spurred a crackdown by the F.C.C.

"In a unanimous three-judge decision, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York said that the F.C.C.’s current policy created “a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here” because it left broadcasters without a reliable guide to what the commission would find offensive.

"The appeals court emphasized that it was not precluding federal regulation of broadcast standards. “We do not suggest that the F.C.C. could not create a constitutional policy,” the court said. “We hold only that the F.C.C.’s current policy fails constitutional scrutiny.” "

Here's my earlier post on the case: Fleeting expletives and wardrobe malfunctions: FCC vs Fox Television and CBS

marketdesigner.blogspot.xxx

Sex domain .xxx approved by regulators .
"ICANN, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, which is responsible for overseeing the creation and distribution of web addresses, finally gave the go-ahead for the special .xxx domain name at a meeting in Brussels.

The adult entertainment industry has long campaigned in favour of a special .xxx suffix, similar to the .com and .co.uk domain names used by other companies."

Changing sexual mores in China

Swinger Tests China’s Sex Morals
"On Thursday, a court sentenced Mr. Ma to three-and-a-half years in prison, a severe penalty for a crime that the Chinese government calls “crowd licentiousness.” Mr. Ma, now China’s most famous swinger, remains defiant and plans to appeal, saying his sex life is his own business, not subject to the law as long as he causes no social disturbance, according to his lawyer, Yao Yong’an. "
...
"The case of Mr. Ma, who was arrested last August and went on trial last month, has drawn attention across China not only for its titillating details, but also because it also raises questions about an authoritarian government’s attempts to curb sexual freedom and limit privacy in a society where rapid economic growth and the ubiquity of the Internet have upended traditional values. "
...
"The Communist Party no longer maintains the kind of tight control over people’s private lives that it did decades ago. Yet, some officials still try to prosecute citizens based on laws that seem increasingly out of step with social mores. One example is criminal law 301, under which Mr. Ma and 21 fellow swingers were prosecuted, and which can result in a five-year prison term.
Chinese Internet users and even some official news organizations have debated the case."
...
"The law against group sex, generally interpreted by judges as involving three or more people, is left over from an earlier law against “hooliganism” that was used to prosecute people who had sex outside of marriage, Ms. Li said. The hooliganism law was scrapped in 1997. One notable swingers case took place in the early 1980s, when the leader of a swingers club involving four middle-aged couples was executed, she added.
At least three recent surveys have shown that prosecution of group sex does not enjoy widespread support today.
Several Chinese news Web sites posted editorials echoing that sentiment after the verdict was announced. "

Faculty-student liasons repugnant at Yale

From the Yale alumni magazine: University bans faculty-student sex


"After more than a quarter century of debate, Yale faculty members are now barred from sexual relationships with undergraduates—not just their own students, but any Yale undergrads.
The new policy, announced to faculty in November and incorporated into the updated faculty handbook in January, is “an idea whose time has come,” says Deputy Provost Charles Long, who has advocated the ban since 1983.
In his decades at Yale, Long has seen many faculty-student romances. Most turn out fine, he says, but others are destructive to students. “I think we have a responsibility to protect students from behavior that is damaging to them and to the objectives for their being here.”
Previously, the university had prohibited such relationships only when the faculty member had “direct pedagogical or supervisory responsibilities” over the student. That remains the rule for affairs between faculty and graduate or professional students, and between grad students and undergrads."

Kim Krawiec on selling virginity

Kim Krawiec has a post commenting on recent news stories and linking to a new paper: Like A Virgin? We Sell That Here!

"A few days ago, an anonymous 19-year-old New Zealand student offered her virginity to the highest bidder on the Web site http://www.ineed.co.nz/ under the name "Unigirl," saying she would use the money to pay for her tuition. According to Unigirl, more than 30,000 people have viewed her ad and over 1,200 made bids before she accepted a $32,000 offer. Story from NPR. (HT: Tonja Jacobi)
Though the story is creating a ruckus, including international press, the attention pales in comparison to that bestowed on the very similar story of “Natalie Dylan,” a pseudonym adopted by a 22-year old UC San Diego graduate who auctioned her virginity on the website of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, a Carson City brothel, in January of 2009 in order to foot the bill for graduate research in women’s studies. In contrast to Unigirl’s paltry returns, Dylan reportedly received over 10,000 bids, the highest of which was $3.8 million, receiving both condemnation and praise in the auction process. Critics have argued that she is degrading herself and women generally, risks exporting Nevada’s poor morals to the rest of the country, and is selling something (virginity) for profit that should be cherished and freely given.
In an article I posted to SSRN over the weekend, A Woman’s Worth, I consider the reactions to Dylan’s virginity auction plan and the possible motivations underlying those reactions. What drives the attention and controversy generated by the Dylan auction? What are the perceived harms associated with Dylan’s actions, and in what ways are they greater than the harms associated with similar common activities? "

And here's the abstract to her paper on SSRN:

A Woman's Worth
Kimberly D. Krawiec Duke University - School of LawFebruary 6, 2010 North Carolina Law Review, Forthcoming

Abstract: This Article examines three traditionally “taboo trades”: (1) the sale of sex, (2) compensated egg donation, and (3) commercial surrogacy. The article purposely invokes examples in which the compensated provision of goods or services (primarily or exclusively by women) is legal, but in which commodification is only partially achieved or is constrained in some way. I argue that incomplete commodification disadvantages female providers in these instances, by constraining their agency, earning power, and status. Moreover, anticommodification and coercion rhetoric is sometimes invoked in these settings by interest groups who, at best, have little interest in female empowerment and, at worst, have economic or political interests at odds with it.

Keywords: Sex Work, Virginity, Prostitution, Oocyte Donation, Sperm Markets, Surrogacy, Medical Marijuana

See also her related post Chicago Students Have All the Fun

Sex ratio and competition, in China and American colleges

With more than 120 boys born for every 100 girls in China, parents of boys know that their sons will face a competitive marriage market. Shang-Jin Wei of Columbia and Xiaobo Zhang of the International Food Policy Research Institute argue that this accounts for a substantial portion of the high savings rate in China, as parents anticiipate that wealthier sons will marry more successfully, and that this spills over to the general economy:

The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China
NBER Working Paper No. 15093 June 2009

Abstract: While the high savings rate in China has global impact, existing explanations are incomplete. This paper proposes a competitive saving motive as a new explanation: as the country experiences a rising sex ratio imbalance, the increased competition in the marriage market has induced the Chinese, especially parents with a son, to postpone consumption in favor of wealth accumulation. The pressure on savings spills over to other households through higher costs of house purchases. Both cross-regional and household-level evidence supports this hypothesis. This factor can potentially account for about half of the actual increase in the household savings rate during 1990-2007.

And here's a summary by Wei at VOX: The mystery of Chinese savings

In the meantime, there's a shortage of boys on many American college campuses: this NY Times report suggests that this has changed the dating equilibrium in ways that concern not only savings behavior, but also sex . (The story doesn't explicitly mention savings behavior, the Times is a family newspaper): The New Math on Campus

Where repugnant transactions motivate 'honor crimes'

No More Honor Killings writes Melik Kaylan in Forbes (1/29/10), in a column suggesting the practice may date to pre-Islamic Arab culture.

Jordan Times: No legal exemption for 'honour crimes': "Currently, some defendants who murder their female relatives in the name of family honour could get a minimum of six months in prison if the court decides to invoke Article 98 of the Penal Code, which stipulates a minimum of three months and a maximum of two years in prison for a murder that is committed in a fit of fury caused by an unlawful act on the part of the victim."...
"According to Momen Hadidi, head of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, most female victims of honour crimes are found to be virgins during the autopsy. He noted that the "killers based their judgements of the victims on mere suspicions that they had improper relationships"." (In Jordan, see also a film: Crimes of Honour. )

Rights groups decry Gaza 'honor killing' "Honor killings usually target female victims of rape, women suspected of engaging in premarital sex, and women accused of adultery. They are murdered by relatives because the violation of a woman's chastity is viewed as an affront to the family's honor -- on the woman's part. In a statement, Al Mezan said honor killings were murder and "cannot be lawfully justified... the leniency with which the authority treats the perpetrators of such crimes, who usually allege that they were acting to preserve the honor of the family, has contributed to the noticeable increase in honor killings." " (see also Commodifying Honor in Female Sexuality: Honor Killings in Palestine

Al Jazeera reports on Social exclusion in southern Yemen in a video interview of girls and women living under protection.

Chechnya: “Honor killings” defended by President Kadyrov

In England (December 2009): Honour crime up by 40% due to rising fundamentalism

'Honor killings' in USA raise concerns (Nov. 2009)"Muslim immigrant men have been accused of six "honor killings" in the United States in the past two years, prompting concerns that the Muslim community and police need to do more to stop such crimes.
"There is broad support and acceptance of this idea in Islam, and we're going to see it more and more in the United States," says Robert Spencer, who has trained FBI and military authorities on Islam and founded Jihad Watch, which monitors radical Islam.
Honor killings are generally defined as murders of women by relatives who claim the victim brought shame to the family. Thousands of such killings have occurred in Muslim countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Palestinian territories, according to the World Health Organization.
Some clerics and even lawmakers in these countries have said families have the right to commit honor killings as a way of maintaining values, according to an analysis by Yotam Feldner in the journal Middle East Quarterly."

Update: this widely reported story came out the week following the above post: Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys: Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders

Sex for the disabled and healthcare

The London Times asks: Is sex for the disabled the last taboo?
"The sexual feelings of disabled people have long been ignored. Now the medical profession is debating the issue"

The issue is not sex, so much as sex workers as a part of health care, and the role that the health care system should play, particularly for the most severely disabled patients who may need logistical support from health care workers .

The report is in connection with a conference called " “Disability: sex, relationships and pleasure”, which is being hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine in Central London. It aims to educate carers about the sexual needs of patients and to introduce disabled people to available support networks. It is backed by the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance (SHADA) and the Tender Loving Care Trust (TLC), which help to put disabled people in touch with appropriate sexual and therapeutic services, and offer confidential support and advice on sexual matters.
Tuppy Owens, the founder of the TLC, campaigns for the sexual needs of disabled people to be recognised by care workers. “Sex is right at the bottom of the list when it comes to their care requirements,” she says. “But they have a right to enjoy all elements of life just like everyone else. It is also important that they have access to sex workers because they don’t have the same opportunities as the average person to explore their bodies."
...
"The Sexual Offences Act allows care workers to help disabled patients to book sex workers over the telephone, provided they do not become involved in the negotiation of fees. But there have been many reported cases of authorities stepping in to stop the practice.
“The problem is that many health professionals think it is illegal,” says Owens. “The TLC has had calls from carers who say that they have even considered giving in their notice out of frustration that they are unable to help patients seeking a sexual service that could make them happier.”
Many high-profile names have backed the TLC’s cause, including Lord Faulkner of Worcester, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and the philosopher and author A. C. Grayling, but no one has gone so far as to suggest that sex workers should be paid for by the NHS. "

More on repugnant language

While the Federal Communication Commission continues to regard the broadcast of some words as repugnant, language scholars continue to trace how taboo terms gradually become more acceptable. (See my earlier post Fleeting expletives and wardrobe malfunctions: FCC vs Fox Television and CBS.)


Oxford University Press has just issued a new edition of The F-Word. Their blurb begins:

"We all know what frak , popularized by television's cult hit Battlestar Galactica , really means. But what about feck ? Or ferkin ? Or foul --as in FUBAR , or "Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition"? In a thoroughly updated edition of The F-Word , Jesse Sheidlower offers a rich, revealing look at the f-bomb and its illimitable uses. Since the fifteenth century, no other word has been adapted, interpreted, euphemized, censored, and shouted with as much ardor or force..."

Indian court decriminalizes gay sex

Another court, in another democracy, finds that an ancient repugnance violates another constitution: Indian court decriminalises gay sex.

"An Indian court has ruled for the first time that consensual gay sex is not a crime, in a breakthrough for Aids campaigners and the country’s largely closeted homosexual community. "
...
"“Consensual sex amongst adults is legal which includes even gay sex,” said a two-judge bench after considering a petition against the law. "

Fertility and religion

The Bible encourages reproduction, but puts bounds on sexuality, and so religious couples seeking treatment for infertility need to navigate carefully. For orthodox Jews, the Puah Institute (named after one of the two Hebrew midwives in the story of the birth of Moses) helps with this navigation. Here's a story about rabbinical supervision of medical fertility treatments involving in vitro fertilization: How to make a kosher baby.

Some of the particular issues that arise with in vitro fertilization involve how to be sure, in a legal sense, who the parents are. (This is presumably also one of the reasons behind the restriction of sex to marriage in so many cultures, when sex was the only reproductive option.)

The problem of how to integrate new technological and commercial possibilities with ancient customs, rules, and practices is very clear when those are religious in nature. But similar problems also present themselves in secular society, in dealing e.g. with issues like surrogacy, or compensation for sperm and egg donors in ways that navigate around repugnance.

In only slightly related news (but still on the subject of being fruitful, and making sure your children have the right parents), the cost of arranged marriages is going up among Israel's most orthodox Jews: Haredi matchmaking rates skyrocketing

Fleeting expletives and wardrobe malfunctions: FCC vs Fox Television and CBS

Can television broadcasters, particularly of live events, be fined if the FCC deems some of the language offensive?

"Taboo language," particularly when broadcast over Federally regulated radio spectrum is a contentious class of repugnant transactions. Some of the relevant jurisprudence was discussed in a memorably titled (and clearly and informatively written) article by the OSU law professor Christopher Fairman: "Fuck," 28 Cardozo Law Review 1171 (2007).

There have been some pretty funny "workarounds" to avoid the wrath of the FCC, such as the frequent use of the neologism "frak" on the now-ended tv series Battlestar Galactica.

All this is brought to mind by the recent Supreme Court review of the case FCC v. Fox Television Stations. The FCC derives its authority to regulate language from regulations regarding sexual content. So the question before the court is, when someone like Bono says that an award is "fucking brilliant," does that statement have sexual content? (Judge for yourself, at around minute 5:40 in this video of the 2003 Golden Globes award in which U2's song "The Hands that Built America" won a best song award for the film The Gangs of NY.)

It's entertaining to read a carefully worded NY Times account of the recent Supreme Court decision sending the case back to a lower court. The column, called Gentlemen Cows in Prime Time, doesn't use any of the offensive words, and the title of the column is explained in the text:
"In 1623, the English Parliament passed legislation to prohibit “profane swearing and cursing.” Under that law, people could be fined for uttering oaths like “upon my life” or “on my troth.” In the Victorian era, the word “bull” was considered too strong for mixed company; instead, one referred to “gentlemen cows.” Times change, notwithstanding the fervent wishes of prescriptivists to keep dirty words dirty. "

Another account in plain (Anglo-Saxon) English: You Can't Say That On Television, makes it easier to understand the context of the case.

The Supreme Court also sent back to a lower court the case of Janet Jackson's Superbowl "wardrobe malfunction." The FCC had fined CBS, an appeals court eventually overturned the fine, and now the issue is up for grabs again: Court Sends Janet Jackson Case Back for Review.
"The high court on Monday directed the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to consider reinstating the $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Jackson's breast-baring performance at the 2004 Super Bowl.
The order follows the high court ruling last week that narrowly upheld the FCC's policy threatening fines against even one-time uses of curse words on live television.
In a statement, CBS said the Supreme Court's decision was not a surprise given last week's ruling and expressed confidence the court will again find the incident was not and could not have been anticipated by the network.
Last year, the appeals court threw out the fine against CBS, saying the FCC strayed from its long-held approach of applying identical standards to words and images when reviewing complaints of indecency.
The appellate court said the incident lasted nine-sixteenths of one second and should have been regarded as "fleeting." The FCC previously deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience," the court said.
The FCC appealed to the Supreme Court. The case had been put off while the justices dealt with a challenge led by Fox Television against the FCC's policy on fleeting expletives.
The case is FCC v. CBS Corp., 08-653. "

Market for sugar daddies

Not all dating sites have marriage as their goal.

The NY Times Sunday magazine has an article called Keeping Up With Being Kept, about the website SeekingArrangement.com, which advertises itself as "the elite sugar daddy dating site, for mutually beneficial relationships." As the site makes clear, money is part of the benefit in one direction, but as the story also makes clear, the line between dating and sex work is fuzzy, and some of the relationships that develop are potentially rewarding.

Apparently the law is on the side of the site: "...since the 1970s, courts have ruled that as long as the woman is paid for some service besides sex — housecleaning, companionship — the arrangement is not the equivalent of prostitution."

The complication is summed up by one young woman who apparently has some experience with this marketplace:

"“When these sugar-daddy relationships go the way I think they should go, the lines are pretty blurry between that and a typical boyfriend-girlfriend relationship,” she said. “And when they go the way I don’t think they should go, the lines are blurry between that and sex work.” "

The website also suggests that you "Visit our other dating sites: SeekingMillionaire.com (Millionaire Dating) & SeekingFantasy.com (Adult Dating)"

The Times story puts the matter in (market) context by considering some of the history of courtship :
"MOST PEOPLE WOULD LIKELY BE appalled to learn that a daughter — or father — was using SeekingArrangement.com. Beth Bailey, a Temple University historian of courtship, said that her first reaction to the site was “revulsion.” But when she reconsidered it within the historical context of dating, she had a somewhat different response.
Heterosexual relationships, including marriage, have long involved economic transactions, but Bailey points out that when men provided financial security, they traditionally did so in exchange for a woman’s sexual virtue (and potential to bear and rear children), not for sexual thrills. For that, they often turned to prostitutes and mistresses, involving a more frank money-for-sex exchange. It’s only in the last century that money has been traded — albeit indirectly — for sexual attention from “respectable” unmarried women. In the early 1900s, courtship shifted from girls’ porches or parlors to a commercial venture: a date. Etiquette manuals of the time were explicit — boys were to pay for meals, entertainment and transportation, and in return, girls were to provide well-groomed company, rapt attention and at least a certain amount of physical affection."