Why it's barbaric

The only reason I can think of that Liberal MP Justin Trudeau initially thought the word "barbaric" too harsh to describe such practices as female circumcision -- meaning sexual mutilation -- is he doesn't fully understand what it is.

If so, I'd refer him to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's powerful autobiography, Infidel.

In it, she describes the procedure as it was performed on her as a child in Somalia, and in other African countries, where she grew up surviving dictators, civil wars, severe beatings and misogynist interpretations of Islam.

Be forewarned: What follows isn't for the squeamish.

But it is for the benefit of people like Trudeau, who, in fairness, eventually apologized in the face of public outrage, after he made the bizarre complaint the feds should substitute "absolutely unacceptable" for "barbaric" in a citizenship guide for immigrants.

Speaking as the Liberals' immigration critic, Trudeau initially argued "barbaric" was too "jarring" and "pejorative" for use in government literature and would offend immigrants, presumably from parts of the world where such practices still occur.

Here's Hirsi Ali's description from Infidel:

"In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made 'pure' by having their genitals cut out. There is no other way to describe this procedure, which typically occurs around the age of five. After the child's clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off, or, in more compassionate areas, merely cut or pricked, the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made from the girl's own scarred flesh. A small hole is carefully situated to permit a thin flow of pee. Only great force can tear the scar tissue wider, for sex."

Here's how she describes what happened to her, while held down by her grandmother and two other women.

"Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: The long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma's words of comfort and encouragement ... When the sewing was finished, the man cut the thread off with his teeth ...

"I must have fallen asleep, for it wasn't until much later that day that I realized my legs had been tied together, to prevent me from moving to facilitate the formation of a scar. It was dark and my bladder was bursting, but it hurt too much to pee. The sharp pain was still there, and my legs were covered in blood. I was sweating and shivering. It wasn't until the next day that my Grandma could persuade me to pee even a little. By then, everything hurt. When I just lay still the pain throbbed miserably, but when I urinated the flash of pain was as sharp as when I had been cut."

Hirsi Ali writes it took her two weeks to recover and she was lucky, given that: "Many girls die during or after their excision, from infection. Other complications cause enormous, more or less lifelong pain."

Perhaps Trudeau now appreciates why, in Canada, we call such practices "barbaric."

lorrie.goldstein@sunmedia.ca

Bad romance: 10 surprising facts about the Irish and sex

What is it about the Irish and sex? Pre-Christian Irish attitudes to sex were decidedly more liberal than in recent times, where Cupid was saddled with a chastity belt by an outwardly pious nation. But have times changed? You be the judge. Here are 10 surprising facts about the Irish and sex:

1. Sexual Equality

Ancient Irish laws, called the Brehon Laws, provided women full equality with men. That’s right, they could inherit property or bequeath their own; they could marry or divorce the man of their choosing; even the right of a woman to experience satisfaction in marriage was enshrined in its legal framework. In Europe, where burning uppity women at the stake became a national pastime, the Irish attitude to sexual equality between the sexes was nothing short of revolutionary. Stamping out of the Brehon Laws, and with them the rights of women, was finally accomplished under Queen Elizabeth of England.

2. The land of sex and sinners

When it came to matters of love Edmund Spencer, the Elizabethan poet, was appalled by Irish men, who were in the main, he wrote, a bunch of lascivious bisexuals who offered themselves freely to both women and men before his shocked gaze. Spencer enthusiastically recommended the extermination of the Irish race but was himself burned out of his famous castle in County Cork.

3. Bad Romance

The Irish much prefer a dramatic finish to a promising start. Think of Diarmuid and Grainne, think of Charles Stewart Parnell and Kitty O’Shea. Most of all think of poor Oscar Wilde. Wilde’s affair to remember will still be passionately discussed by people not yet born. Having married a beautiful but unsuspecting woman before his latent homosexuality became blatant, the real love of his life turned out to be Lord Alfred Douglas, a whey-faced flaxen -haired youth who ruined his life and reputation. In response Wilde did what generations of Irishmen have, he wrote a ballad that has outlived them all.

4. Do You Take This Man?

According to Yale historian John Boswell, the early Christian church in Ireland included widely performed sacraments and marriage rites for men, which means that the first instances of same sex marriages were held in Ireland. Tell that to your bishop the next time he fulminates against the gays.

5. Yes, I said, I will, yes

James Joyce and Molly Bloom. Their names will always be inseparable. Molly was a facsimile of Joyce’s flesh and blood wife Nora and in Ulysses, Joyce’s masterpiece, both writer and subject scandalized Ireland two decades before it became the philistine Catholic gulag he feared it might.
Joyce understood the twin threats to Ireland (and in a way, Irish women) came from Britain and Rome, so he recorded and celebrated every aspect of the Irish themselves from womb to tomb, how they lived and how they loved, the better to keep Ireland safe from colonial powers and spiritual dominance.

6. There was no sex in Ireland before TV

Oliver J. Flanagan, the longtime Fine Gael politician, once famously said “there was no sex in Ireland before television.” Flanagan was appalled by the frankness of public debates on Irish television about matters he thought should never be discussed: sex, sexuality, women’s rights. But Flanagan lived to see his conservative standards collapsing all around him. This was in 1966, by the way. It’s safe to assume he would have been appalled by 2010.

7. There will be no sex in heaven

The only time sex is not sinful, according to the Catholic church, is when the intention or the possibility of conceiving are present. So no sex in Heaven, then. If we don’t have earthly bodies there will be no need to procreate. Don’t even be thinking about just enjoying yourselves sexually in the afterlife, because that’s sinful too. It was having sex on earth on earth that sent men and women to the other place. But if you’re dammed if you do and damned if you don’t, the Irish discovered, then you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

8. Do as I say not as I do

Hypocrisy, like money, makes the world go round. But when hypocrisy reaches the towering levels that twentieth century Irish society achieved, something’s got to give. It was the denial of sex, its existence, its allure, its wonder and its normality, that gave the Irish Church so much power. Ironically enough it was sex that stripped them of it too, in a slew of ever increasing scandals that saw clergy having affairs, fathering children or abusing them. Revulsion at the double standards transformed Irish society. It’s sex in all its permutations that historians will return to when discussing the nature of Irish society in the late 20th century.

9. A pint of plain is not your only man

30 years ago, contraceptives were still illegal in the Republic. And pints, believe it or not, were another thing women could not have. To tackle this head on determined women like writer Nell McCafferty went into famous pubs in Dublin’s city centre, ordered 40 brandies, waited for them all to served, and then ordered a pint. When the barman refused, they in turn never paid for the brandies. Hit them in the pocket and they’ll always remember you.

10. Now they’re on YouTube

Now everyone knows your business if they have a laptop. In the last decade you were no one if you’re private life wasn’t picked over in public. Even homegrown Irish celebrities joined the trend of discovering their privately made sex tapes had turned up on YouTube where the whole world laughed at their antics. In Ireland we have Colin Farrell to thank for this. Always first in line for a bit of trouble, in 2005 a sex tape featuring Farrell and a former Playboy modelNicole Narain appeared on the internet prompting a lawsuit by the temperamental Dubliner, who called it “the most expensive 14 minutes of my life.” It certainly wasn’t his most inspired.

Hot Sex at the Black Party: I Was Appalled For Eight Hours

"I missed out on all the really fun Black Parties," a thirtyish clubbie recently lamented to me about the annual gay debauch at Roseland. "In the good old days, you used to see live castrations, nipple torture, and a guy who put a live snake up his ass!"

I almost squeezed out a tear as I realized that those specialty acts are clearly as gone from the culture as roadside diners with homemade apple strudel and nice old ladies selling crocheted toilet-paper covers at the weekly church sale.

Or are they? Just to make sure, I pranced over to the 32nd annual Saint-at-Large Black Party on Saturday night, this time with an anal chastity belt and some notepaper. My plan was to stay till 2, then go home, sleep, shower really hard, and come back in the morning for the extra-desperate antics I've heard so much about. By 9:30 a.m., the goosey gays who've flown in from all over the country for this old-school catharsis are so cocksure, they would probably fuck a cantaloupe (as long as the cantaloupe didn't have a condom, ba-dum-pum). And this time I anted all those posteriors in my face for posterity.

"We like to stay on the down-low," murmured a promoter as I arrived at 1 a.m., sneaking me in and recommending I buy a $10 wristband for rear entry, I mean re-entry. (I did so.) Also arriving were multigenerational swarms of gays, lots of whom didn't speak English, though one group of young HK queens was pretty adept at it. "Safety first!" one of them urged his friends, looking as pained as Dina Lohan. "Yeah, you know how crazy I get," responded one of them, "so make sure to grab me!" Before someone else does!

As I entered the thumping dance floor, I noticed it was DJ'd by blah, blah, blah, had erformances by ya-ya, and featured lights by whoever. Now back to the sex. It makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Minneapolis-St. Paul, according to a friend who went last year with his defenses down!

But shockingly, I couldn't find any of it—just swarms of guys baring their flesh in leather jockstraps and studded harnesses, looking like seasoned bodega fruits waiting to be plucked by the right customer. It was a gi-frantic roomful of nipples and butt cheeks and an occasional drag queen, everyone sizing up their chances while coyly eyeing the "Free Test" signs everywhere. (Some were probably thinking, "Why test now? Makes more sense to do it when I leave.")

Back the next morning and sporting even more layers, I still didn't find the sex! At first! The macho-looking guys in their leather accessories were busy catcalling each other with swishy comments like, "Hey, Jordin Sparks!" and "Girl, work it!" Some of the studs were dancing on the stairs onstage so it came off like a fetish version of that Times Square stairway where the tourists hang, though these guys didn't look quite that blank, even if they'd been dancing in place for seven whole hours!

"Go to any dark corner, especially in the balcony, and you'll find the action," a regular had dvised me like a naughty leprechaun. So I sauntered upstairs, where I went through a swinging door and came upon a shock corridor with blue walls, crumbling ceiling panels, and garbage strewn everywhere. The mother lode!

Three guys had dropped to their knees faster than old socialites doing a Pilates workout. Down the hall—which was very The Shining as directed by Helmut Newton—I came upon a suggestively lit room with some more knee action, and next to it was an armpit-dark space that turned out to be the evening's gay outreach center, as it were. Go in there, and you could actually be done by your boyfriend without even knowing it—could you imagine anything more horribly appealing?

Strangely, I didn't see any kinky sex going on. No fists, hands, or butts. Not even plain old anal! Just some oral, a little nipple licking, plus one teensy handjob. And then, poignantly enough, guards stormed into the corridor at 10:30 a.m. and shooed everyone out of the area. I guess they had to bring in the ballroom dancing.

After that, sex was as hard to find as a sober gay or any female. The trippy party was finally wrapping up—and besides, the anonymous loving turns out to be not as much of an attraction as the overall atmosphere that engenders it. "The sex is secondary," one attractive Hispanic guy swore to me, eyeballs bouncing. It's true—it's more about the sexuality.

And the dancing! "The music was amazing," gushed a been-there regular in a leather cap and not much else. "Some of the younger 'Alegria' twinks didn't like it because they prefer pots-and-pans music, where you feel like you're inside a blender. But Danny Tenaglia took you on an amazing druggie journey, not all on one plane!"

And it was time to finally take that plane home and let the janitors get to work. At least they'd had it easy the night before, when a Hookie Awards audience member drank every drop of a porn star's urine onstage, as the crowd cheered. But right now, the club was vaguely redolent of manstench as the remaining chapped-lipped stragglers looked through their microscopic ensembles for their coat-check stubs and staunchly prepared for some after-parties.

Coalition offering love potion and a chastity belt

There is a great contradiction involved in the incoming coalition’s approach to the EU-IMF deal, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE

WHEN TRYING to resolve a perplexing puzzle, call in Sherlock Holmes. In The Sign of Four , he remarks impatiently to Doctor Watson: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth?” The strange and grotesque case of imploding Ireland demands Holmesian logic. Eliminate the impossible and we will be left with the highly improbable – a resurgence of our blighted democracy.

The new government has to confront two huge impossibilities. It is impossible for our existing political culture to eliminate the cronyism, corruption and lack of accountability that have led to the crisis. And it is impossible for the combination of public austerity and private extravagance in the EU-IMF deal to produce fiscal and economic recovery.

If the coalition faces up to these impossibilities, it will give substance to the improbable notion of an Enda Kenny-led government being the best administration we have ever had.

So how’s it doing so far? In the broad conceptual sense, quite well. The programme for government does actually recognise the dual impossibilities. It acknowledges the need for very radical reform of our political system and culture. And it also faces up, in theory at least, to the reality that current banking and fiscal policies are not working. It points to the “unknown but potentially enormous cost” of continuing the bank bailout and the “growing danger of the State’s debt burden becoming unsustainable”.

This is a polite way of saying we cannot afford the bank bailout, and a sovereign debt crisis is the likely outcome of current policies.

So far so good. We then turn to the key question of how these impossibilities are to be eliminated. And here, any fair-minded reader of the programme is faced with a stark contrast. In the first area, that of political reform, there is a genuine sense the new government could live up to the sonorous phrase with which it announces itself: a “democratic revolution” could be in the offing. In the second, that of banking and fiscal policy, there is an almost complete failure to follow through on the acknowledgement that current policies are leading us towards the catastrophe of a sovereign default.

Experience teaches us that reams of political promises rest on two tiny letters: “if”. But it would be churlish not to acknowledge that the coalition deal contains commitments which, if implemented, will amount to the most radical reforms in the history of the State – far more radical, indeed, than the new Constitution of 1937.

There are weaknesses and silences. The section on local democracy – the keystone of real change – is disappointingly timid. The idea of abolishing the Seanad before establishing a constitutional convention is ridiculous. Proposals on the funding of politics, while welcome, leave out the most obvious mechanism for transparency – requiring parties to publish full annual accounts.

Nothing is said about the need to end cronyism by limiting the number of public and private directorships an individual can hold. But there are real and radical changes that might actually make Ireland what it claims to be – a parliamentary democracy. Giving Dáil committees serious powers of scrutiny and investigation, limiting the use of the guillotine to push through unscrutinised legislation, ending the ability of ministers and senior servants to hide behind each other and evade responsibility, and forcing ministers to actually answer questions – these are key reforms.

Equally, the rights of citizens will be greatly enhanced by the restoration of freedom of information, restrictions on cabinet confidentiality, protection of whistleblowers and control of lobbyists. If the proposed constitutional convention genuinely engages with citizens, it could begin the process of restoring Irish democracy.

But what will this restored democracy actually do? Will we end up with a fine new set of democratic institutions, only to find they have no real power to make the lives of most citizens better? Will we construct a fabulous new vehicle only to be told it is allowed to travel in just one direction – towards national bankruptcy?

Here we have the great contradiction. The coalition parties interpret the “democratic revolution” of February 25th as a popular mandate for a radical renegotiation of the EU-IMF deal. They believe this mandate includes a revulsion against the basic inequity of shovelling billions into the banks while increasing child poverty. But they have effectively nothing to say about how they will implement that mandate. The first two years of the existing fiscal strategy will continue, with no notion of what happens then. The transfer of public resources into the banks will be postponed until after the current stress tests – which are likely to lead to a demand for more, not less, cash.

What we’re promised, then, is a great new surge of power to the people, with one small condition – that they don’t use it in areas such as the economy, fiscal policy or social justice. We are getting two presents in the same package – a love potion and a chastity belt.

The chances that this will not lead to unbearable frustration are, alas, highly improbable.

Katy Perry Is A Hit As Host of The 2010 Teen Choice Award Show

UNIVERSAL CITY, California - The 2010 Teen Choice Awards were held in Universal City, the city that has more teens than any other city in America.

The popular event was hosted by Katy Perry, who grew up just up the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Barbara.

Katy opened the show by singing her new song "Teenage Dream" while wearing some extremely skintight jeans. Everyone in the first three rows could definitely tell that Russell Brand's fiancee was not wearing any panties.

Although Katy is 25, she says that deep down inside her skintight jeans she is still a teen at heart.

Ashton Kutcher won the award for Best Comedy role in Killers. He also won Most Overexposed Actor for his hundreds and hundreds of boring Verizon commercials.

The Best Movie Animation went to Toy Story 3 - The Toys Get To Kickin' Some Real Life Human Butt.

The Best TV Personality went to Ryan Seacrest, host of the soon-to-be hardly recognizable American Idol. Seacrest also won the brand new category of Best TV Personality with a Hot, Hot, Hot Girlfriend (Julianne Hough).

Sixteen-year-old Justin Bieber won the Best Male Singer Award. The Canadian teen sensation thanked Kim Kardashian for giving him his very first hickey when the two attended the World Soccer Cup Matches in South Africa in June.

The Best Female Singer Award went to the singer with the redundant name Lady Gaga. The Gaga showed up wearing a borrowed 13th century chastity belt to avoid having to answer the obvious dozens and dozens of crotch questions.

Eminem captured The Best Rap Artist Award. The Missouri native's 45 second acceptance speech ended up being bleeped a total of 14 times. He later sang his brand new hit, "Yo Bitch, Is You Is, Or Is You Isn't My Main Bitch Anymore Fa Shizzle Ma MoFo Ho Nizzle."

And in one of the most popular awards of the night, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart received the highly coveted and extremely libidinous award for Best Movie Liplock. The stars of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, gladly demonstrated to the crowd their seven kissing scenes from the motion picture.

The award for Best Actress in a comedy went to Sarah Palin lookalike Tina Fey. The Teen Choice Award governing committee made a special addition to this category and awarded a secondary award for Best Comedian who is not an actress/and or comedian and who did not make a movie but who is downright funny to the point of being crazy to Sarah Palin, Levi Johnston's ex-future mother-in-law.

And speaking of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla Wonderboy, showed up with the fantastically gorgeous singer Brittani Senser on his arm. Britt told the reporters that Levi will be starring as the male lead in her upcoming music video for her rhythm and blues song "After Love."

Johnston was asked about Bristol Palin. He laughed and said that he did not want to talk about little girls and that he was here to talk about mature girls like Brittani.

He was then asked about his ex-future mother-in-law Sarah Palin. He coughed, spit on the red carpet, and said that he was here to have a good time with some really, nice, decent, honest people, and that he did not want to waste a single moment talking about "Snowflake" Palin, the woman who would rather stalk, shoot, skin, and saute a reindeer than have meaningful sex with her husband.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The much neglected Todd Palin.]

The Teen Choice Award for Best Reality Show went to Keeping Up With The Kardashians. And as all of the three sisters, Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney made their way up to the stage one could clearly see why the show next year will be known as Keeping Up With The Big Butted Kardashians.

The Best Country Music Band Award went to Lady Antebellum, who performed their hit song, "Need You Now" live on television for the 18,419 time.

And the show's host Katy Perry won an award for Music Single for her song "California Gurls." Katy apologized to the audience for misspelling one of the words in the title. She said that she has since been told that California is actually written with two n's.

The Best Female Country Artist Award went to Taylor Swift who literally had her microphone sewn into her dress just in case you-know-who showed up.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: It is my understanding that The Teen Choice Award Organization had hired six members of The Venice Beach Hell's Angels organization to make sure that if Kanye "The Pest" West did show up he would not have gotten his microphone stealing ass within 30 feet of the stage.]

The Best Male Country Artist went to Mr. Nicole Kidman, the singing Aussie Keith Urban. Keith managed to find his way up to the stage, with the help of MapQuest. He spoke into the mic and forgot that he was actually there because he apologized to the audience for not being there as he was on tour over in Portugal. His wife reportedly turned to Sandra Bullock who was sitting next to her and said that she wished that Keithy would cut back on his brewski consumption some.

The Best Hips in The Business Award went to the Colombian firecracker Shakira. The woman can literally get her hips to wiggling at speeds at upwards of 95 miles per hour.

And the nights final award Best Liked Females Who Have Recently Lost Their Jobs went to Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart who said, "I'm fine. I'm okay. I bear no ill feelings but I do hope that the Entertainment Tonight set burns down." American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi said "I bear no ill will to Ryan (Seacrest) or Randy (Jackson), but I do hope that Simon Shindlebocker's 80-foot yacht sinks." And Ellen DeGeneres simply said, "I just want to get home and have my sweet, precious, sexy wife Portia massage my toes, my ankles, and then make a pit stop at my playpen."

In other news. Adam Lambert and Clay Aiken have been cast to star in 'Brokeback Mountain 3 - Sidesaddle Riding Ain't Really All That Bad.'