Thursday, June 24, 2021



Man sparks outrage on Twitter after claiming women shouldn't use the word 'vagina' because it's 'vulgar'

A man has sparked outrage online after saying women shouldn't use the word 'vagina' because it's 'vulgar.'

Eric Amunga, who goes by @Amerix on Twitter and is a reproductive medicine specialist, fat loss coach and men's health consultant based in Western Kenya, penned: 'Men, Stay away from vulgar women.'

'A feminine, respectful woman values what she speaks or writes. A woman who easily says or writes 'f***k', 'vagina', 'd**k' is a NO. Vulgar women are damaged women who come with emotional baggage. FOCUS ON YOUR LIFE.'

It wasn't long before the controversial post garnered over 11,000 likes and hundreds of comments, with many left perplexed over what women should call their intimate areas if 'vagina' wasn't considered appropriate.

'So how does one refer to the female parts?' questioned one woman, while a second commented: 'Vagina is vulgar?' I'm a gynaecologist. What am I supposed to call it, a pocketbook?'

A third wrote: 'Wow, have we retrograded to the Dark Ages and I didn't get the memo?'

Elsewhere, a fourth noted: 'You are a "medical specialist" in REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH or all things... and think it's vulgar to say the SCIENTIFIC NAME of a woman's reproductive organ???'

Another agreed: 'Um, "vagina" is not a curse word. It's a medical term. It is the correct name for a part of female anatomy. Why did you lump it in with the other two?'

Another sarcastically penned: 'Did not realise it was vulgar to use the correct anatomical terminology to discuss my own body.'

While at first many questioned whether Eric was being sarcastic, it wasn't long before many realised his comments were serious.

'This tweet is yet another example of fragile toxic masculinity that prefers the subjugation of women as second class citizens,' raged one, while a second commented:

'We ALL have baggage and anyone who judges for it isnt worth the time. I would rather know a woman that uses those words when they are expressing an emotion than one that uses God while lying to your face.'

However, one person defended Eric and suggested that his comment had been misinterpreted.

'Depends on what context you are saying the words. They are scientific words yes, there is now the vulgar side of it,' wrote one. 'That is what he is cautioning against. Just some decorum on the language. This is just simple to see his point of view. Who want a lady who is vulgar?'

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Don't tell the woke brigade! They are the forgotten heroes of the British Empire, including anti-slavers and veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. Now, a new charity is battling to restore their graves

Perhaps those of a woke disposition should sit down before reading any further. For this is surely anti-wokery of the most brazen kind.

At a time when the justice warriors of the Left are furiously trying to pull down statues, plaques and portraits of anyone remotely connected with Britain’s imperial past — from sea captains and sugar merchants to Winston Churchill and even the Queen — here is an outfit which is busily trying to keep them up.

What’s more, it even wants to restore them to their former glory and trumpet their existence to the world.

It wants to repair the broken effigies of colonial troops in the Caribbean. It is working to mend the cracked marble and faded inscriptions honouring imperial forces from Africa to the Indian Ocean — and here in Britain, too.

While others might want to ‘cancel’ the lot of them and consign them to the dustbin of history, this plucky young charity, the Remembrance Trust, has other ideas.

Its stated goal is to preserve the memory of those who made great sacrifices — and in some cases paid the ultimate price — in the name of the deplorable British Empire.

Just last week, the trust agreed to spend money restoring the grave of Guardsman John Cole, a veteran of Waterloo. Last month, his resting place was smashed to pieces by drunken yobs joy-riding on a tractor in Benfleet, Essex.

Whatever we might call the opposite of ‘woke’ — dormant? Comatose? — then the Remembrance Trust is surely it.

And, this week, I am glad to say, it is to receive royal recognition. The Princess Royal will unveil a memorial to dozens of the Duke of Wellington’s men — including a former drummer boy — discovered in a churchyard in Jersey.

Right now, the Remembrance Trust is going to need all the help it can get, for it sits in a very exposed position on the frontline of the ‘culture wars’.

If the cancel culture commissars feel entitled to destroy a new TV channel they have never watched on the grounds that it might feature the odd Brexity meat-eater; if it is acceptable to ‘cancel’ our most successful living author, JK Rowling, because she has expressed the view that women are women; then is it not borderline insanity to be lionising the men (and they are almost all men) who built the Empire?

Well, not quite.

Before you press the ‘cancel’ button, dear snowflakes, and invoke the Twitter pile-on, it may be worth taking a closer look.

Because we cannot rewrite history. Not everything about Britain’s naval and military operations over three centuries was irredeemably bad. Without the sacrifices of these men, most of the world would not be speaking English — but would French be any better?

As for the naive conceit that the world would be a happier place if Nelson, Wellington and their men had stayed at home, well, think again. That is why the Remembrance Trust and its work matter.

The charity was only registered three years ago to attempt to plug a hole in our national story. We have the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) which tends to the graves and memorials of every man and woman who has died for King or Queen and country since 1914. And a magnificent job the CWGC does, as anyone who has visited some of its beautifully maintained sites will attest.

But when it comes to those who died before the outbreak of World War I, there is nothing to preserve or protect their memory. And many of them lie in desecrated or neglected graves which are nothing short of a disgrace.

That is where the Remembrance Trust seeks to step in. Now, some will ask why anyone should give two hoots about some long-lost soldier or sailor whom no one alive knew and who died in another age. To which the volunteers behind the trust point out that all these people are part of our history and how a nation treats its fallen warriors, even those from 200 years ago, says a lot about the present.

And if you don’t think these things still exert a hold on our collective identity, then just recall those extraordinary scenes six years ago when tens of thousands lined the streets of Leicester in respectful silence to watch the coffin of that 24-carat child-murdering wrong ’un, Richard III, being carried to his new grave.

If he deserves recognition and a resting place, then what about Charles Brownrigg?

The captain of HMS London, Brownrigg was one of more than 17,000 men of the Royal Navy who died during Britain’s 80-year war against the slave trade.

He was leading a patrol off Zanzibar in December 1881 when he saw a suspicious dhow. Its Arab crew, having crammed 100 African slaves in unspeakable conditions in the hold, opened fire as Brownrigg’s launch came alongside. With his men all dead or overboard, Brownrigg fought on, blinded by blood from a head wound.

One report states he whirled his rifle like a club around his head until thrusts of an enemy sword severed his fingers. Whereupon he was killed by a shot to the chest.

Brownrigg and five of his crew are buried on nearby Grave Island, off modern Tanzania, along with 80 fellow anti-slavers. A few yards away, however, stands a marble memorial to another 24 sailors of the Royal Navy who were killed when their ship, HMS Pegasus, was shelled in World War I.

The graves of the dead sailors from HMS Pegasus remain in pristine condition because they fall under the auspices of the CWGC. Brownrigg and his men died just 33 years earlier. Yet they lie beneath cracked stones in a weed-strewn plot. Now the Remembrance Trust wants to refurbish it properly.

On paper, the trust appears to have an impossible task, given its remit spans every campaign from American independence and the struggle to contain Napoleon through to the Crimea and the Boer War. But the Remembrance Trust’s founder, ex-Grenadier Guards officer, entrepreneur and author, Algy Cluff, is undaunted.

‘There’s no database, so we depend entirely on people coming to us,’ says Cluff, 80. ‘They can let us know if they spot a grave or memorial and if they want to volunteer or donate, all the better.’

He is driven by an old soldier’s simple sense of kinship, having himself seen active service in West Africa, Cyprus and Borneo.

‘A lady called the Coldstream Guards recently to say “how dare you leave your men like that?”. She’d seen two graves in a terrible state in France but the regiment knew nothing about it,’ he explains. ‘So we’ve spent £2,500 to help get a contractor to restore them.’

The men had been killed at the Battle of Bayonne in 1814, a year before Waterloo. It might be more than 200 years ago but these graves are more than a resting place.

They are a corner of a foreign field which tell a story. By way of fostering goodwill, the trust has given the Bayonne Museum the funds to restore its most prized exhibits: two hats — one of them Wellington’s and the other Napoleon’s. The locals are delighted.

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UK to close loophole allowing child marriage by lifting minimum age to 18

The UK government is set to consider a bill raising the minimum age for marriage to 18 in a bid to close a legal loophole allowing child marriage "by the back door".

MPs said the current law, which allows marriage at 16 with parental consent, sabotaged girls' futures and condoned child abuse.

The loophole also undermines Britain's global efforts to end child marriage in other countries, campaign groups said.

"Child marriage is child abuse," former chancellor Sajid Javid told BBC radio before presenting the bill, which has cross-party support, on Wednesday local time.

"People think this is often something that just happens in developing countries. It doesn't. It's happening right here … it has to stop," he said, adding that thousands of minors had been coerced into marriages in Britain in the last decade.

The government has said it is committed to lifting the minimum age to 18.

Celebrating a 'big step'

"It's a big step in the right direction. We're celebrating this moment," campaigner Payzee Mahmod said.

Ms Mahmod, who was married at 16, said girls who wed young were pulled out of school and often subjected to marital rape and domestic abuse.

Girls from South Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds are seen as most at risk of early marriage in Britain because having relationships outside marriage is often considered shameful.

Britain set 16 as the minimum age in 1929. Living together out of wedlock at that time was socially unacceptable.

But campaigners say most girls who marry under 18 nowadays are pressured into it by their families, and that raising the minimum age would empower them to say no.

Parliamentarian Pauline Latham, one of the bill's sponsors, said the current law permitted child marriage "by the back door".

"I've spoken to a lot of ministers to say we cannot let this continue, and they've agreed. Boris is keen to get it through," she added, referring to the Prime Minister.

An attempt to amend the law last year — spearheaded by Ms Latham — was derailed by the pandemic.

But campaigners said they were confident the legislation, which applies to England and Wales, would pass by next spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

More than 2,740 under-18s were married in England and Wales between 2008 and 2017, according to official data, but this figure excludes minors wed in traditional ceremonies or taken abroad to marry.

Campaigners say government must go further

Karma Nirvana, which campaigns against forced marriage, said it had come across cases involving children as young as 11, and marriages between the ages of 13 and 15 were "not uncommon".

Campaigners, who met with Mr Javid on Tuesday, said it was crucial not only to close the loophole but to make it a criminal offence to assist any underage marriage, including religious marriages and those conducted abroad.

"Criminalisation is a strong deterrent and necessary to protect every child from all forms of child marriage in all settings," said Ms Mahmod, whose sister Banaz was killed by family members after leaving a husband they had chosen for her at 17.

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British Divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag: affairs don’t need to end a marriage

British people should be more French when it comes to extramarital affairs, according to a top divorce lawyer.

Ayesha Vardag, 53, has worked on some of the biggest break-ups and says that the pandemic has shown that “adultery is very far from the worst thing in the world” and more couples would stay together if society was less puritanical.

The pandemic has prompted a shift in why couples split up. With offices, bars and hotels shut, affairs withered. Inquiries mentioning adultery, made to her firm Vardags, fell by 63 per cent during the most recent lockdown.

However, contacts from those citing “bad behaviour”, which covers domestic abuse and coercive control, rose by 78 per cent as the pandemic took hold.

Being separated from illicit lovers had, in some cases, led to “arguments, tension and toxicity”, she found. It led her to a conclusion.

“It’s the way Brits have historically attributed to the French,” she said. “Never mind how many lovers we both have, just keep it discreet and we’ll continue to stay committed to our marriage, in a way that works for all of us. Could we learn something from that?”

Vardag, who has been married to her second husband for seven years, believes that some women fear criticism from “mums at the school gates” if they stay with cheating partners. “I think people would be a lot less upset about adultery if they didn’t have everyone else telling them that they ought to be upset about it,” she said.

Vardag believes that some couples would have a different attitude to affairs if they had pre-marriage counselling and discussed their approaches to fidelity before walking down the aisle.

“If somebody promises and swears they’re going to be faithful forever, they shouldn’t then be going and running around. But if those go into it with an expectation that, hey, we’re married, we’re going to have children together, we’re going to build something that’s going to endure for the whole of our lives ... [But] in the midst of that ... he might be interested in somebody, I might be interested in somebody ... Then I think that that is a perfectly reasonable, perfectly sensible, model to have,” she said.

Although she found cheating had fallen during the pandemic, clients said they had become victims of coercive control or gaslighting.

Working from home also led to an increase in nitpicking, she said, with tensions flaring over a husband not using a coaster or a wife eating too loudly.

The coronavirus also fuelled conflict, Vardag said. In some cases, a parent claimed that a child would not be safe because its mother had travelled abroad or its father was “sloppy” with protecting themselves from the virus.

She believes that there is a link between the fall in adultery and the rise in behaviour such as coercive control.

Since last year, the charity Refuge, which supports victims of domestic violence, has seen a leap in the number of people seeking help. Between April last year and February, calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline were up by an average of 61 per cent, with 13,162 calls and messages recorded.

“The pandemic hasn’t caused domestic abuse, but it has created an environment for it to thrive,” Ruth Davison, chief executive of Refuge, said.

Other law firms have noticed a surge in contact from those looking for divorce advice, with relationships falling apart after months under the same roof.

Stewarts said that demand was 122 per cent higher between July and October compared with the same period in 2019.

Sam Longworth, 41, a partner at Stewarts, said: “The pandemic really has put a mirror up, shone a light, on lots of relationships. Some of these relationships might otherwise have lasted for ages.”

He too noted an increase in controlling behaviour, or problems such as addiction, worsened by the pandemic, leading to marriage breakdown.

“Where there has been this physical closeness, it has been the opposite in terms of emotional connection ... Lots of times it has actually meant that your home environment, which is meant to be safe and secure, has actually been a point of strain and stress,” he said.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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