Preventing pregnancy is not a low-frequency, high cost event,

This may be true of the recently married but not of all…..

Scotty Bowers, now aged 88, is unveiling what he claims were the antics of the Hollywood elite including Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn and even the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

He claims that he set up Hepburn with “over 150 different women” and other stories in his memoir relate to Spencer Tracy and Cole Porter.

In an interview with the New York Times, Mr Bowers said: “I’ve kept silent all these years because I didn’t want to hurt any of these people. And I never saw the fascination. So they liked sex how they liked it. Who cares?

“I finally said yes because I’m not getting any younger and all of my famous tricks are dead by now. The truth can’t hurt them anymore.” They can’t sue me for libel”

The joint letter states: “Psychological care for those who are distressed by unwanted homosexual attractions has been shown to yield a range of beneficial client outcomes, especially in motivated clients … Such therapy does not produce harm despite the Royal College of Psychiatrists and others maintaining the contrary.”

It concludes: “Competent practitioners, including those working with biblical Judeo-Christian values, should be free to assist those seeking help.”

Yes, it’s woo doctors trying to convert those who are of Teh Gays into solid heterosexual citizens, “solid citizens” as defined by evangelical Christianity.

There’s two sources of amusement. One, the undercover journo who started the whole thing by applying for such treatment:

In May 2009, Mr Strudwick attended a therapy session at Mrs Pilkington’s private practice, based at her home in Chorleywood, Herts, and recorded the session on a tape machine strapped to his stomach.

On the tape, Mr Strudwick asks Mrs Pilkington if she views homosexuality as “a mental illness, an addiction or an anti religious phenomenon”. She replies: “It is all of that.”

Last year, Mr Strudwick said: “Entering into therapy with somebody who thinks I am sick … is the singularly most chilling experience of my life.

Do stop being a twat laddie. Of course your therapist, your doctor, thinks you are sick. That’s why you’re there, in front of that therapist, doctor. If you weren’t sick then both of you could be ’round the corner having a pint.

The other source of amusement is rather more subtle. We have these woo doctors who insist that being Teh Gay is something that is curable. We also have everyone else who insists that a) it’s not something that needs to be cured and b) it’s innate and thus not curable.

The amusing thing is that both are correct.

We can argue about quite how human sexuality is distributed (might be a normal distribution, might be like Matthew Parris thinks, more like the neck of a champagne bottle, his simile) but there’s no doubt that there are those who are firmly same sex only, those who are firmly opposite sex only and a goodly number of those who are variable dependent upon chance, opportunity and situation. The difference in same sex behaviour among those in single sex and mixed sex environments is really all we need to know that.

Which means that there are those whose sexual behaviour, desires, are malleable and those whose such are not. There are men (alter as needed to describe women) who are only into getting it on with other men, who are never into such, who will if offered but not exclusively and those who will if no alternative presents itself. The first group aren’t going to be changed by being hectored by some fundamentalist wingnut:

Homosexual men are sent on weekends away with heterosexual men to “encourage their masculinity” and “in time to develop healthy relationships with women”, said Mrs Pilkington.

Those who would regard that as an interesting dating opportunity.

There are also those in the latter two groups who might well change their behaviour (if not their inner desires) as a result of such “therapy”. To offer an analogy, there are those to whom celibacy is the natural state. There are those for which it most definitely is not but they accept it for some other reason: might be religious, might be temporary having committed to one and only one other from whom they are temporarily separated etc.

This middle group of any port in a storm could well be convinced that certain ports are not to be entertained for social, religious or other reasons. Not saying they should be, only that they could.

Which is, as I say, a source of some amusement. Both those who say that all same sex attraction is immutable and those who say that all is mutable are wrong. It really does depend upon where on that distribution of sexuality the individual is. Thus the “therapy” “works” for some and not for others.

Bit like most therapy in fact…..

Undercover and uniformed officers have been monitoring three lay-bys off the A165 after residents of Skirlaugh and Coniston, East Yorks, repeatedly complained about the misbehaviour, known as dogging.

Despite 18 people being stopped in less than a month, none were found to be committing an offence and were given a leaflet with guidance on public sex.

No one arrested because no laws being broken! This isn’t good enough for one politician of course:

Matthew Grove, an East Riding councillor, said: “These public areas have been stolen from the community by individuals who are using them in a way they were never intended. These are not courting couples, these are large groups of people engaging in behaviour which is simply not acceptable.

Not acceptable to you perhaps but obviously acceptable to those engaging in the activity. Agreed that this all getting very close to breaching the not frightening the horses clause of liberalism but that’s just the way freedom and liberty pan out. Some people will do things that other people think they shouldn’t do.

To which the correct response is “tough titty mate”. Which at this time of year is probably what everyone is in fact getting.

The Independent Healthcare Advisory Service, which represents all the major cosmetic surgery chains, is calling on the government’s expert working group, which begins its investigation on Wednesday, to look carefully at new figures it has obtained from an audit of all its members.

The figures, from thousands of patients, show a rupture rate within the accepted norm of 1%-2%, says the IHAS. The organisation is publicly distancing itself from the figures supplied before Christmas by Transform, an IHAS member and one of the biggest cosmetic surgery chains. Transform reported a rupture rate of around 7%, but from a group of around 100 clients, triggering the government inquiry.

This still leaves the problem of their being made of industrial rather than medical grade silicone but at least, while the ingredients weren’t up to snuff, the actual manufacturing was.

But I have to say what interested me most was the picture the Guardian (of all places) used to illustrate the story.

That’s an airbag and a half, isn’t it? Suitable, one would have thought, only for strippers and a certain type of “actress”.

Which I rather thought the Guardian was against really.

Made from bronze and smaller than a ten pence piece, the coin depicts a man and a woman engaged in an intimate act.

Experts believe it is the first example of its kind to be found in Britain. It lay preserved in mud for almost 2,000 years until it was unearthed by an amateur archaeologist with a metal detector.

On the reverse of the token is the numeral XIIII, which historians say could indicate that the holder handed over 14 small Roman coins called asses to buy it. This would have been the equivalent of one day’s pay for a labourer in the first century AD.

A survey has found that just 6 per cent of new mothers agree that Britain has become a better place for families since the election.

Birnberg Peirce and partners have commenced legal action against the Metropolitan Police on behalf of eight women who were deceived into having long term intimate relationships with undercover police officers.

The five undercover officers* were all engaged in infiltrating environmental and social justice campaign groups between the mid 1980′s and 2010 and had relationships with the women lasting from seven months and the longest spanning nine years.

The women assert that the actions of the undercover officers breached their rights as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 3 (no one shall be subject to inhumane and degrading treatment) and Article 8 (respect for private and family life, including the right to form relationships without unjustified interference by the state).

The women are also bringing claims for deceit, assault, misfeasance in public office and negligence, and seek to highlight and prevent the continuation of psychological, emotional and sexual abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers.

That the women are hurt, have been in some sense betrayed, yes, I get that.

But this is men lying to get women into bed. Naughty, shouldn’t be done, but trying to make it illegal rather upends the human experience doesn’t it?

Three in four women believe there is no such thing as the perfect man

So only 25% of British women are entirely deluded then. For, being human, there is no such thing as perfection. And we’ll leave aside whether there is in fact such a thing as the perfect woman.

It is rather to be hoped that those 25% of women who are deluded have a considerable overalp with those 25% who do not marry.

We call it prostitution when women’s bodies are rented out and slavery when they are sold, not fashion.

Allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia will be ‘the end of virginity’

For as has been pointed out, perhaps the greatest social effect of the Model T was the decline of virginity at marriage as people worked out what the back seat was for.

But Paris is almost entirely unanimous on one point: that Epstein’s very readable piece is predicated on an assumption of competence by the UMP dirty tricks department that’s nothing short of fantastic. “That lot couldn’t conspire their way out of a paper bag” is the consensus.

It’s not the most flattering of explanations but it does have the ring of truth to it.

Actually, in at least one case, an accusation of sexual assault on a white woman.

100 years ago they would have lynched Cain even for the allegation. Today they’re still mulling over whether he should be a Presidential candidate.

Yes, it’s still possible to see “black man as voracious sexual predator” (you might have to squint hard but you can see it in some of the reactions) but I would submit that this is an advance, that the place has got better over the past century.

Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, faces questions about his partner’s conduct after it emerged she sought lobbying work.

If a politician starts bonking the PR help (and these days it’s hardly unusual, perhaps the modern replacement for bonking the secretary) then of course there’s going to be a bit of difficulty if they set up home together. Doing political PR work when the partner is a Cabinet Minister is going to be a bit of a minefield.

Just one of these things about two career relationships that we’re still working out….not entirely dissimilar from Huhne’s actual wife having to leave a government job (BoE economist? Treasury economist?) when he joined the Cabinet.

“Selfish, moi?” Mother and Father, amicably divorced, might say. Too damn right – and why not after 30 or 40 years toiling at the matrimonial rock face? It’s never too late to put the fun into the ex-factor.

If there is a Mr. Roberts I think I’d be checking the pre-nup and the split of the pension rights just about now…..

Hugh Bonneville, who plays the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has received a Walpole Medal of Excellence as “a shining example of Britain’s best creative talent”.

At the ceremony, which celebrates luxury goods, the actor gushed: “I’ve admired these brands from afar for a long time – I’ve had to because I can’t afford them.”

Whatever does the actor, who has previously starred in the film Conspiracy of Silence and the play ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, spend his money on? Sadly, he wouldn’t say. “I’m not talking with the press or the papers at the moment,” he declared, sniffily.

(Spotted by an alert reader. An alert reader I won’t name but who is in the industry and knows about these things.)

It’s really rather good to get the words in using the film and play names. Perhaps a film script could be constructed from this and this. Hugh might fancy trying out for one of the parts.

BBC newsreader Jane Hill is to ‘marry’ a woman cameraman
Jane Hill, the BBC newsreader, has accepted a ‘marriage’ proposal from her girlfriend, Sara, a television cameraman.

What’s with the ‘ ‘ ?

We don’t have or use the phrase “to civil partner” and marry and marriage are perfectly acceptable descriptions. Might not be the legal description but is the sort of language that would be commonly used.

Come on, “marry” and “marriage” is the way people coyly describe introducing their pedigree lab to another for the puppy making purposes.

The big mistake made by libertarians is to assume that economic and social liberalism go together. Liberal capitalism requires social conservatism.

Apparently the buying and selling of apples and pears in a market requires that adult men must not stick their cocks up each others’ bums.

I have to say that I really can’t see it, don’t get the relevance of one to the other.

I can see conservatism in both being logically sound: you adults can only do what we say you can. I can see liberalism, libertarianism, being logically sound: consenting adults get to do what consenting adults wish to do as long as it’s not frightening the horses.

But I really cannot see that in this corner of life consenting adults are just fine and over in this corner of it they may only do what Tim Mongomerie thinks should be allowable. That’s as nutty as the social liberals and economic conservatives over on the left who insist that the bumchummery is so admirable it should be promoted while the selling of apples is so dangerously close to that trade that no respectable person would do and therefore must be banned.

You’re either a liberal and consider your fellow adults to be adults capable of acting like adults or you don’t.

Miss El Mahroug was one of 33 women who attended the parties and at which it is claimed – among other things – that they dressed as nuns and police officers to perform seductive pole dances and stripteases.

It has now emerged Mr Berlusconi was named in this year’s State Department’s Trafficking in Persons 2011 report which details the parties and describes how one of the guests was a minor.