What would interstellar war really look like? Part 3 - Tactics with nearly-instant transit systems

Having looked at why an interstellar war might happen, and what the strategic goals for winning might look like, the next question is how the warring parties might go about achieving those goals. In other words, tactics.

In considering strategy, I introduced the terms NITS (Nearly Instantaneous Transit System) and NSF (Natural Space Flight) to refer to two different types of potential technology that would produce interstellar economies, and therefore, the potential for interstellar war. I discussed how the different approaches would lead to different strategic considerations in conducting a war. Since the strategic considerations are different, the tactical approaches would most likely be different as well.

NITS is much simpler in terms of getting to a new arena of war. As discussed in Part 2, a NITS system, while probably having as its usual form both a sending and a receiving station, would also need to be operable remotely, without the need for a receiving station in order to send people and goods. That means that in a NITS economy, it would be possible to send soldiers and armaments to any desired location on a target world, from some other world. While capturing the enemy's NITS bases would still be strategically important, it would also not prevent the enemy from also sending soldiers and armaments into the battle, and it would not prevent the target world from receiving assistance in the form of food and medical supplies (the usual point of a siege tactic). To cut off the target world, one would first have to destroy the NITS stations on all the neighbouring worlds, requiring one to attack those worlds first. This quickly would become impractical, and with each new world the assault would face the same questions as the initial assault on the target world. NITS economies would almost entirely remove the possibility of siege.

The strategic purposes of capturing the NITS stations on a target world would be

To prevent the enemy from sending goods and equipment from the world

To enable one's own side to attack deeper into enemy territory

To make it easier to bring in one's own troops and equipment to the target world

In order to claim control of a world, it would be necessary to capture or destroy all the enemy's NITS stations within range of that world. Otherwise, the enemy can continue to send arms and soldiers through its own wormholes or teleportation devices, and it will be constantly necessary to defend against these attacks. Alternatively, the armed forces one commits to holding the world need to be sufficiently numerous as to deter any thought of assaulting it.

A key element in what approaches would be practical in a NITS war would be the size of the NITS system in terms of the practical and technological limits for how much can be sent through it at a time. If the teleporter or wormhole can only accommodate one or two people at a time, then it is different from a system that can accommodate large goods wagons or even things the size of an aircraft carrier or bigger. We might assume that for a functional economy to be based on the NITS model, that a certain size of system would be necessary. Some products cannot be broken down into smaller pieces to be reassembled at the other end, and the NITS would need to be able to accommodate those otherwise the economy will be very inefficient. We may imagine, then, that for practical commercial purposes the NITS would need to be able at the very least to be able to accommodate a loaded rail wagon or a rigid vehicle truck such as this one.

That might still be a little smaller than the requirements to transmit, say, an armoured tank. We can therefore suggest that smaller NITS technology will require the main approach to be based on smaller numbers and lighter armaments, but if it is a bigger system then the ability to send armour and larger numbers of troops through at a time makes the option of larger deployments more attractive.

A small NITS therefore will most likely lead to a "special forces" style of deployment and warfare, based on the techniques developed by such regiments as the British SAS, the US Navy SEALS and Delta Force, and so on. Because the smaller groups will need to be relatively self-sufficient, and not reliant on the link from their own NITS station, the insertion location will need to be relatively close to the objective, but not so close as to make detection likely. The stealth tactics of the special forces will be the key element in achieving the objective of capturing the enemy's NITS station. Once the NITS station is captured, and the link established to one's own sending station, then heavier weapons and lager troop numbers can be sent through to take control of the world.

It seems reasonable to posit that the longer the insertion NITS bridge is open, and the more people are sent in, the greater the chances of detection. Once the enemy knows that your forces are on the planet, they will seek to locate the insertion point and cover it. They will also seek to locate and destroy any forces already inserted. Finally, they will use heavy or numerous forces to defend the objective. The special forces troops will need to evade detection and then in some way defeat the heavy defences to secure a bridgehead at the NITS base.

The nature of a NITS situation means that typically, the worlds most at risk of invasion will be easy to identify, and therefore deploying large numbers of defensive forces to those worlds will be practical. The detection of and search for enemy insertion, therefore, can afford to use large numbers of troops while still leaving the objective well-defended. This could make it impractical to use the tactic of sending through troops to defend the insertion point to enable a gradual build-up of numbers before the assault. The larger numbers building up will make detection easier, and the larger numbers of defending troops could be sufficient to overrun the defending troops before significant numbers of attackers can come through the NITS bridge.

If this approach is going to be used, then opening multiple NITS bridges into the enemy world would be the best option, forcing the enemy to divide their troops while also enabling larger numbers of one's own troops to arrive on the world in the same amount of time.

It seems likely that a combination of small special forces insertions and larger bridgehead insertions would be used in the course of a war. One of the most effective defences against a NITS incursion by an enemy would be to disrupt them at the sending end. To do that, one would need to know where the NITS sending base was, and then attack it. The best way to do that would be to have special forces in place on several nearby enemy worlds who could carry out surveillance and attack the enemy army's NITS base if necessary to slow down the transit of enemy troops through it.

One question arises about the special forces approach especially, which is whether the sending station can also pick up people from the receiving end, without having a matching sending station. Typically in science fiction, the technology is presented as being able to do so (for example, Star Trek's transporter beam; an opened wormhole is also usually portrayed as being transited in either direction). If it can, then a likely part of standard operating procedure for a surveillance team at least, would be to have a fixed time and location at which reports could be sent back, or the team could be extracted. This would also make resupply of the teams possible. If it can't, then every assault or insertion would be a one-way deal with no possibility of retreat if the assault should be foiled by the enemy. Surrender would be the only option for the defeated invading troops.

It can certainly be said that that the small-NITS tactics would lead to a very fluid military situation, with no clear way to see whether a battle is being won until either the invaders successfully take the defenders' NITS base and bring through their own troops, or the defenders manage to capture or kill everyone who came through the attackers' NITS bridge.

With a large-NITS situation, the same question about transit-direction arises, and when one is contemplating sending large amounts troops and equipment through the bridge, it becomes a much more significant one. If it is a case of "either they win outright, or we lose the lot", then sending troops through becomes a much bigger gamble for a general when the numbers are approaching thousands rather than hundreds or a few tens.

The question about resupply and enemy detection of the insertion is much less significant. With a large-NITS assault, it could be practical to send through an entire battalion, brigade or even division. Supplies for several days' fighting and/or travel could also be sent through, meaning that the insertion point can be much farther away from the enemy's NITS base(s) than with the special-forces insertions. With armour including artillery and tanks as an option with large-NITS, defending the insertion point is also much easier.

With the much larger troop numbers, and necessarily longer times that the NITS bridge is open, then detection of the insertion becomes much more likely. If it is given that the enemy will learn of your presence before long, then there is no point in limiting the duration for which it is open, and that means that there can be constant resupply to the base of operations at the insertion point. If this bridgehead is established a few days away from the enemy's centres of population and their NITS stations, then this also represents a period of time that can be used to establish defences around the insertion point from the attacking army's NITS. While air strikes can be used by the defenders to disrupt and weaken the attackers during this period, the potential is for large-scale military deployments and manoeuvres. That means that the tactics will in essence be those familiar to military commanders throughout the ages, albeit with whatever adjustments that technology and weaponry of the future dictate.

It is quite likely that a battle would be very large in scale, because both the attackers and the defenders would be able to send considerable reinforcements and supplies of weapons, ammunition and food to their respective troops on the target world. As with the small-NITS situation already discussed, one possible way to gain an advantage for the attackers would be to open bridgeheads in multiple locations on the target world to force the defenders to split their forces. Such a large-scale assault would have the disadvantage for the attackers that there are more likely to be neighbouring worlds held by the defenders than by the attackers, meaning that defenders might be able to resupply and escalate troop numbers faster than the attackers can.

This means that the "bleed-dry" tactic of forcing the enemy to commit large numbers of his troops to a single arena (the tactic attempted by the German forces in World War 1's Battle of Verdun) would be especially effective in a large-NITS situation, and on a larger scale it might be that several large deployments on different neighbouring worlds at once would be used to force a breakthrough.

***

Overall, it seems that a NITS-based economy is likely to produce tactics and battles that are broadly similar to various types that are familiar to present-day commanders, either in large-scale formations or the use of guerilla or special-forces deployments to achieve the key objectives. Because of the nearly-instant transmission of troops and equipment into a war zone, war in a NITS situation is likely to be very fluid, but confined to worlds close to the borders between the warring empires. The borders could move quite quickly if one side or the other gains the upper hand in the war zones, but it is more likely that the area affected by the war will increase quickly than that either side's area of control will do so, because of the likely prevalence of deployments "behind enemy lines" in the form of surveillance and sabotage missions.

In my next piece, I will look at the implications for tactics of the Natural Space Flight form of transit.

What would interstellar war really look like? Part 2 - Strategy

Almost a year ago, I started looking at what interstellar war might actually look like, and initially considered the economic conditions that might make such a war possible and more likely to occur. In it, I suggested that a practical maximum transit time from centre to edges of an interstellar economy would be in the region of 1 year, before fighting for anything became worthwhile. That led to the conclusion that a minimum requirement was a faster-than-light drive capable of speeds at least 100 times the speed of light.

The next step to consider is what the strategic considerations of an interstellar war might be: how would victory be measured, and what overall objectives would lead to achieving it?

Taking, again, as our starting point the idea that most wars are in some way fought for economic reasons - to gain or keep possession of resources, or the means to acquire those resources - then victory comes when the other side cannot viably wrest control of the desired resources from one's own side, or when the other side makes the calculation that they can no longer do so (and therefore, surrenders). In past conflicts, this has been achieved by destroying the other side's means to make war, or else by maintaining a sufficiently strong military presence as to deter attempts at retaking resources. Usually, the two go hand-in-hand; as a nation's armed forces are depleted, then it takes a smaller force to convince them that they cannot mount an effective attempt to retake lost territory.

An army's ability to make war depends essentially on its ability to obtain new supplies. The essential ingredients for an effective fighting force, before we get to anything else, are: food and water for the troops; weapons, and ammunition for the weapons; means of transport, and fuel for the means of transport. Supply lines are nearly always a key point of a war, which is one reason why guerilla war often involves sabotage of supply points.

At this point, it becomes necessary to consider not just the minimum requirements, but other possibilities for transit methods, since these can have a big effect on the types of supply lines that interstellar war would have.

I am going to consider two different approaches to solving the problem of interstellar travel that have been posited by various science fiction writers. I am going to call these the "near-instant transit system" (NITS) type and the "natural space flight" (NSF) type.

NSF refers to the more commonly proposed system, whereby starships fly between solar systems using some form of faster-than-light drive but otherwise travelling in "normal space" (though how normal it is depends on the details of the fictional technology).

NITS refers to some system that appears to bypass "normal" space to travel instantly, or nearly instantly, between two points. The transporter beam in Star Trek is an example of a NITS, although it is not posited there as a means of interstellar travel, only as ship-to-ship or surface-to-orbit travel within a single planetary system. The most commonly suggested NITS is actually the use of wormholes to create shortcuts through spacetime between two worlds or two solar systems. Typically, a NITS is seen as being limited in range (as with the Star Trek transporter beam), due to the requirement of a central sending/receiving station from which goods and people depart and at which they arrive. The further one travels from the central station, the less practical the system becomes until there is a technological limit on how far it is possible to travel from the central station. At the extreme range, a new station might be built enabling one to string several transits together to increase the overall range from the origin point, which adds transit time as one has to travel from one's arrival point to ones departure point at the new system (or else, reset the system for the next stage of the journey)

Arguably, some versions of "hyperspace" drives combine the two. The system of hyperspace used in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" saga allows a starship to travel instantaneously between two points in interstellar space. Flight time between worlds is a result of the time needed to calculate each jump (with longer jumps being more complicated) plus the time taken to travel into the solar system after arriving outside it.

In considering the minimum speed requirement, I was looking at NSF transit, for which I estimated that the maximum radius of an interstellar economy would be approximately 1 year of travelling time. As travelling times decrease, their significance decreases in terms of the requirements of supply lines, but the basic principle will remain fairly similar.

Interstellar space is big. Really, really big. It is also pretty empty as far as any form useful economic or military resources are concerned. It cannot realistically be controlled in any meaningful way to prevent transit through it between one point and another, without expending vast amounts of resources for very little gain. That means that in an interstellar economy based on NSF, then attempts to control supply lines will most often occur within solar systems, where the desirable resources are located and where it is much easier to try to impose blockades because the amount of space to be controlled is that much less, and detecting and intercepting enemy supply ships will therefore be that much easier.

There are two possibilities for an interstellar fleet seeking to control (either by capturing from the opponent, or by defending against an opponent) a solar system. The first is to rely on supplies being brought in by supply ships. The second is to rely mostly on using the resources that exist in the solar system itself. As transit times and costs decrease, the value of the first option increases. However, in much of military history, relying on the occupied territory to supply an army's needs has been the usual way of solving the supply lines problem. For example, Julius Caesar's War Commentaries describe how his legions in Gaul typically took what they needed from the local populace while conducting their wars against rebellious tribes. Similarly, the most likely way for an interstellar war fleet to be able to sustain itself is by being able to produce or acquire its own food, weapons, ammunition and fuel from the local environs. Resupply would only be used where these resources were not available in the local solar system. For instance, where the system's colony or colonies were purely mineral-wealth based, then food would not be obtainable easily and supplies from elsewhere would be needed; and a system that did not produce fuel would obviously leave the fleet short on that until supplies arrived for them. In general, we can say that the starships of the interstellar war fleet would need to be more or less self-sufficient, carrying (or producing on board) enough supplies each to conduct a campaign to take control of a solar system's resources, that they can then use to replenish themselves.

This gives us our first hint of the likely size of a starship, or at least of an effective war fleet. The US Navy's carrier battle groups have supply ships with them that carry food for about 70 days before they need replenishing. The current aircraft carriers in the US Navy carry about 5,700 people (including the air crew) and we don't yet know if a starship would need that many people. We also don't know for sure how long they might need to stay on duty in an enemy solar system. The key point is the transit time to the enemy solar system. As noted above, the maximum radius of the empire is likely to be 1 year travel time, or approximately 400 days (to 1 significant figure). Let us assume that there will be opportunities to resupply at other points besides the centre of the empire, so the ship will not need to carry quite as much food as that to get to its target. Even with these considerations, there is likely to be a need for several days to the target, and various activities before an assault is possible once the ships arrive in the target solar system. When considering starships, thinking in terms of size as being at least comparable to the combined volume of a US Navy carrier group looks like a good starting point, before we start to consider what sorts of operations the starships might have to carry out.

***

With a NITS based economy, transit time is much less significant because it is nearly instantaneous. The key point for NITS is that it is based on obvious bottleneck points: the base stations for sending and receiving goods and people.

It seems reasonable that for a NITS to be viable, it does not need a fixed arrival point. If it did, then there would be no way to establish the network other than to send the necessary technology via NSF to reach the destination point. This would very much reduce the efficiency and viability of the technology as the basis of a growing economy, and in terms of discovering solar systems for economically viable colonies would require a viable rival NSF option already functioning. Typically, the reason for having a receiving point is presented as making the network more cost-effective per transit, and making it more reliable in terms of landing in exactly the right place. An additional benefit for civilian and commercial use is that it provides a useful focal point and that retargeting the system for each passenger or cargo could be costly and time-consuming.

This means that using NITS for military deployments is practical (because the cost of retargeting will not be incurred as often, but only a few times for each operation), and also means that capturing a NITS base will not be enough to stop a solar system from being supplied from elsewhere (because the system only needs to be retargeted to once, to a new reception point, to break the siege). Capturing the base prevents supplies from being sent by the enemy, but not from being received. It does, however, offer the possibility of using the base to send one's own troops and supplies into a new combat area.

A NITS system therefore presents a great tactical challenge for any defending army, but those issues are for another essay. The key point here is the strategic value of taking control of NITS bases as the central element in the enemy's economy.

***

In this piece, I have discussed the likely points of strategic importance, and how the type of interstellar travel would affect which points are most important. In my next piece, I shall look more at the tactical elements, that is, how might the objectives discussed here be achieved?

Don't you dare to fix me

This is a post that has been sitting at the back of my mind for the last two or three years.

There was a time when I thought that Coldplay's "Fix You" was a really romantic and moving song about being supportive of someone you love in hard times. But as I went through some hard times myself, my feelings towards the sentiments in the song changed. It stopped being romantic and became controlling, and invasive. Discussions with some of my friends online talked about some of these feelings and helped to crystalise the problems I was starting to have with the song.

Here's the official video on youtube (lyrics available here):



I am not an undamaged person. I am, for want of a better word, broken in various ways. Most people have struggles, experience pain or suffering, difficulties, in their lives, and these leave their marks on us. Those marks become a part of who we are and they don't need fixing.

More, there's a strong feeling that I have, at least, that I want to face the hard times in my own way, on my own terms, and I want to win. I do not want someone shielding me, trying to "fix" me, I want to fight it and make my own decisions in that fight. If it turns out I need to retreat or call for back-up, then you can come and help. But if all I need is someone to listen as I recount the latest bloody battle in the war, then I need you to stay out of the fight for the time being. I have had to use help of various kinds: medication sometimes, talking about things at others, but always I have had to be the one who says "This is what I need". Anything else feels like defeat, feels like losing, feels like giving in. And that in itself does damage.

So Coldplay's lyrics became about taking control away and assuming that a damaged or hurt person needs fixing in the first place, regardless of how they might feel about it.

And slowly, a parody version - a retort, indeed, began to form in my head, trying to express these feelings that fixing me is unwelcome, unnecessary and invasive. It also captured the feeling that very often it is about something the "fixer" wants to feel good about themselves rather than what the "fixee" needs.

In my head, this is loud guitars, and screaming, angry vocals.

Well, I tried my best but I won't succeed
Cos you give what you want, but not what I need
When I feel so tired but I can't sleep,
You make it worse

Now the tears come streaming down my face
Cos you took something I can't replace
And you love someone and it goes to waste,
You make it hurt.


Life may turn to stone
And may break my bones
But don't you DARE
To fix me.


And high up above or down below
You were too in love to let me go
But if you never try, we'll never know
Just what I'm worth.


Life may turn to stone
And may break break my bones
But don't you DARE
To fix me.


Tears stream
Down my face
When you take things that I cannot replace

Tears stream
Down my face
But I...

Tears stream
Down my face
I promise you I can work it out at my pace

Tears stream
Down my face
But you...

Life may turn to stone
And may break my bones
But don't you DARE
To fix me.

I can live with being broken and held together with duct tape - I have been for most of my life, after all. I can't live with being fixed (by someone else). So please, nobody, ever, dare to try to fix me.

Google+ and legal names

I have been sitting and waiting to see what, if anything, comes out of the Google+ social networking project and whether or not it was something I would be happy to join, given that I already know I am never going to be comfortable with facebook and so haven't joined that - and that generally I struggle with social networking sites anyway.

The verdict is in: No, I will not be joining Google+.

The reason is the requirement of using one's "legal name". I saw a couple of comments about this via various links pages on feminist blogs (notably, Feministe's Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday and The F-Word Blog's weekly link round-up). Bug Girl asked, Does Google+ Hate Women? (acknowledging that "hate" may be overstating it slightly), while Cheshire Bitten explains that it's not his community. The basic problem is this:

Banning pseudonyms puts those whose lives are on the boundaries of what is accepted or tolerated, at risk. This can be anything from the LGBTQ-alphabet soup of identities, a history of mental health issues, being kinky as all get out, having a history of which they are not ashamed, of having worked in the sex/adult entertainment industry, or even simply being female and online (and what does it say about so many online communities that being female and in them should be seen as on the boundaries of what is acceptable and tolerated?)

And yes, I claim some, more, but definitely not fewer, of those identities (check the "What's My Gender?" box in the right hand column! - also, see Cheshire Bitten's remarks about requiring gender to be public, which makes me very uncomfortable.)

Bug Girl writes:

There are many, many resources that can explain to Google why adopting this policy is a stupid idea (aside from the obvious business advantage of not alienating early adopters and potential G+ evangelists). One of the best can be found at the Geek Feminism Wiki:

The cost to these people {of denying pseudonym use} can be vast, including:

• harassment, both online and offline
• discrimination in employment, provision of services, etc.
• actual physical danger of bullying, hate crime, etc.
• arrest, imprisonment, or execution in some jurisdictions
• economic harm such as job loss, loss of professional reputation, etc.
• social costs of not being able to interact with friends and colleagues

That page goes on to list, in detail, the various ways that these groups can be harmed.   We know that women experience 25 TIMES the amount of harassment online that men do.  We know that 50% of LGBT teens are bullied online, and many of them consider–or commit–suicide.  We know that women are stalked and killed by ex-lovers. We know that LGBT folk are the victims of hate crimes.

So, I have a problem with the whole "no pseudonyms" thing.

But, even better, English law doesn't really recognise the concept of a "legal name" as such - for a name to be your legal name, it simply has to be a name that you use regularly and are known by, and that you do not use for fraudulent or deceptive purposes. A deed poll can be used as a legal notification to others of your desire to be known by a different name from before (and again, as long as you have a first name, a last name, and don't claim any titles to which you're not entitled, and don't intend to commit fraud, just about any name is allowed - you can even have non-gendered titles now, with the addition of "Mx").

To all intents and purposes, Snowdrop Explodes is as much my legal name as the name on my birth certificate is, since plenty of people know me by that name only, or by both names, and I could easily get a letter from someone in a position of authority stating that I am known to them by both names, if I wanted to get legal documentation in the name Snowdrop Explodes (I don't, but I could if I did). There are enough ways in which both names are linked, that for all my desires to keep my online, kinky, somewhat genderqueer, sex-pos feminist, recovering depressive, etc identities insulated from my real name, in actual fact anyone who really wanted to dig deep enough would be able to find me. So as far as I can see, there is very little to say that I could not, according to the letter of Google+'s requirement, use Snowdrop Explodes there as I do everywhere else online; but I expect that they would refuse to accept it as such and require that I provide proof, and that would mean getting into complicated situations - a deed poll, according to the links I gave above, requires you to abandon your old name and I don't want to do that. I want to be able to have final control on who gets what about my life, and due to the nature of the internet, that means having some sort of boundary (however leaky it may in practice be) between my meatspace identity and my online self; that boundary is the difference between my birth certificate name and the name I use online.

The Wikipedia entry on US name changes talks about a distinction between a "legal" name and a "true" name, although Google did not help much in trying to find out what the distinction is, or if any such distinction exists in UK law. Certainly, the process of changing your name seems a lot simpler in the UK than in the US, so maybe that distinction doesn't apply here. All of which leaves me thinking that Google+ is not worth the hassle of trying to get my name (Snowdrop Explodes) recognised as being a legal name.

Sex Prude-ucation Show?

As long-time readers may know, a couple of years ago I wrote about a television series called "The Sex Education Show vs Pornography". I skipped watching the last series, which was about the sexualisation of young people (it's a topic that riles me up, but I wasn't feeling up to getting riled up about it at the time that series was on). A new series is on now, with the original general topic format.

However, the first programme of the new series revisited pornography, particularly its availability through the internet. Clicking on the link above, you will discover (if you read further down) what my attitude was towards the programme's attitude towards porn, and it hasn't changed. For those who don't want to read the other piece, let me summarise it thus: I felt they were trapped in a prudish attitude towards not just porn, but sex as well, and an overbearing attitude towards young people's developing desires.

The segment on internet porn was introduced as a "Parents' survival guide to porn", and the underlying premise was that parents should be able to restrict as much as possible their children's access to sexual materials not approved by the parents.

I probably don't need to point out the huge amount of cis, het, 'nilla privilege that resides in this summation at the end of a segment on "kids asking their parents about sex":

You see? Your parents really have been there, done that, and they are the best people to talk to, because they've only got your best interests at heart

[sarcasm]Yeah, that's really great advice for a gay teen whose parents are openly homophobic.[/sarcasm]

After all, if their parents are disapproving of their sexual expression and orientation, then teenagers actually need to have some way of finding out about it from sources that feel safe to them - the internet, because of its anonymity and accessibility, actually makes it seem much safer than talking to people who know you.

Ms Richardson introduced the piece thus:

In 2011 ... sex is literally everywhere - internet, mobile phones, social networking sites, they've got an array of gadgets and devices, and they're way ahead of their parents when it comes to using technology to access sex.

Teenagers love to have the upper hand - why would you want your parents to know what you're up to online? But there's no excuse for ignorance on this. Mums and dads, it's time to take control.

Again, see the objection above.

It's time to let [these] parents find out what some of the kids are watching online, and give them a unique lesson.

The presenter then explained that the pupils at the school had admitted to watching the material that was about to be shown to the parents, who comprised 5 mums and 2 dads.

The selection of clips that were described in the voiceover (the screen of the computer was blurred out on the broadcast) were: a "gangbang" (several men with one woman); a girl-on-girl fisting, and a scat-play clip.

All three clips produced reactions of disgust from the parents; the first clip was mostly non-verbal vocalisations - grunts and moans of disgust - although one woman said, "Very uncomfortable watching this."

The second clip, showing the fisting, produced the strongest reaction and I was somewhat surprised by it. However, I recognise that for the woman who reacted in that way it was a valid reaction and her distress must be acknowledged. She became tearful, and said, "I'm not watching, sorry". The video was stopped and the presenter commented that, "It's sort of - shocking stuff." The woman replied, "It's really degrading."

Try as I might, I cannot see what is so degrading about fisting, unless that person doesn't want it. It is often, in porn, a very vigourous activity and I can imagine how someone not used to that might feel very distressed by watching it (and even, on that basis, how one might describe it as "shocking") and to be honest, it doesn't matter what activity or type of activity was being shown, if the viewer found it distressing then she had a right to feel distressed and to retreat from the situation (as in fact she did on the programme). I do have a problem with people who take that and project it into a moral judgement on the material in question, and assume that all people must view it in the same way. While it is possible that porn fisting may be one type of thing while the fisting that happens in a relationship is different in style, the fact is that fisting does happen between loving couples, or between fuck-buddies who are just having recreational sex, and one imagines that these people do not feel degraded by the act, for the most part (as always, there will be situations where it could or does constitute a sexual assault).

Finally, the clip showing scat play produced a different type of reaction from the gathered parents: disgusted laughter, or "gross-out laughter". I am tempted to suggest that this gross-out reaction is precisely the form of entertainment that (most) teens might find from watching such material.

We then got a wonderful list of the prejudices and unsupported claims or myths about porn (and/or teenagers):

Ms Richardson gave us the classic, "If they're viewing this kind of thing a lot, do you not think that is going to influence them?"

The mums and dads produced the following classic myths/claims/complaints:

• "Yeah, they're going to see that woman as just an object for them to get pleasure out of."
• "They're just gonna think it's right, it's normal. It's not like a loving relationship" [I'll come back to this point in a bit]
• We're worried about the amount of unprotected sex that's being shown, and the message, erm, with that."
• It worries me hugely that they may feel that that is what they're expected to do if they're in a sexual relationship

There was also this exchange with one of the mums and Ms Richardson:

Mum - "The videos that we're watching - there's no respect."

Presenter - "It's got nothing to do with love."

Mum - "It's got nothing to do with love."

In summing up, and in the bullet points for parents dealing with teens and porn, this point came up again and again:

Text on screen: "Remind them porn is not love"; presenter's voiceover: "Tell them that there's more to sex than this. Sex is about relationships and emotions. Pornography isn't.

...

We just need to keep banging that story home, that sex and love is part of a loving relationship, and it's certainly not degrading or abusive.

Sex feels good. It's about huge and satisfying sensations, it's about being physical and full of fun hormones and endorphins and neurotransmitters and stuff. It's about enjoying each other's bodies and your own. None of that has to be "relationships" or "emotions" in any long-term sense. Why should sex have to be anything to do with love, for it to count or be viewed as a good thing? As Tina Turner sang, "What's love got to do with it?"

People may feel that the stuff that I did with Julie or with SNS had "nothing to do with love", if they watched it on a video, but they would be wrong to reach such a conclusion.

Of course sex should not be abusive or degrading. The problem is that when it comes to what is degrading, a lot of the times it is in the eye of the beholder. Some people would, again, argue that what I do with my sexual partners is degrading, but neither they nor I found it to be so.

One final point before moving on: for me anyway, a lot of the time what I find a turn-on in porn is when i can see that it is about emotions, and very powerful ones, at that - but then, that's my sadomasochist and D/s kinks playing a part.

The parents all reacted negatively to the idea that teens (or anyone) watch porn. however, the sex survey that accompanied this series is available online, and one can discover pretty easily that over 3/4 of those surveyed said that they watch porn. I cannot help but wonder if there is not a large vein of hypocrisy in the attitudes being displayed in this show.

The rest of the advice for parents:

• "Be realistic" - kids will find a way to see porn, or it will get shown to them by their friends at some point.
• "Talk to them about it" - explain that it's an unrealistic version of sex.
• "[Explain that] porn doesn't show safe sex"
• "Computer in family space" - If you're really worried ... so you can monitor what they're up to.

Now, I have written before about the importance of explaining the ways in which porn is unrealistic. However, unless you actually have the knowledge about what makes it unrealistic, it is hard to be convincing. This is stuff that should be in sex ed classes in school! All the preparation, filming requirements, fluffers, and so on that make up the realities of producing a porn movie, and that generally aren't a part of preparing for sex in the bedroom, unless you've got something particularly special planned! I think we should teach children how porn is made, and then they are at least forewarned and forearmed to make the choice if they should be interested in working for the adult entertainment industry. I really don't know how many parents are really in the position to talk about the mechanics of porn sex versus non-porn sex.

The segment is rounded off with Ms Richardson's earnest remark:

Equip your kids with the knowledge that porn really isn't reality, and help them to go on to have happy and fulfilling sex lives of their own.

I could not have come to terms with my sexuality without access to internet porn. Kids really cannot take risks, especially if their sexuality is different from the cis, het, 'nilla norms, in talking openly to their parents about sex. Parents have such power in their kids' lives, and no wonder teens "like to get one over on their parents" as a result. But when it comes to something like this, that is a source of very powerful emotions and "moral" judgements, could you really run that risk? Using the internet not just for porn but for information, was really the only route I had.

***

The rest of the show dealt mostly with teaching the teens about female puberty, and changes during the menstrual cycle. Some of the information was stuff that at my school, we had already been taught by the age of most of the pupils that they spoke to on the programme and I was surprised by how little the audience seemed to know. On the other hand, there were some things that I didn't know, like the average amount of blood that is lost during a period (apparently, it's 40ml), and that growth spurts contribute to teenagers' reputation for being clumsy - it seems that literally, growth happens too quickly for muscle-memory to adapt to the changes in proportions, or something. I was also surprised that chocolate wasn't listed as an essential supply at certain times of the month (don't tell me that's a myth as well!?)

Finally, this series has a regular segment on disabilities and sex: this programme featured a man with cerebral palsy and a woman with brittle bone disease (both of the wheelchair users) who, from the interviews, sound like they have a vibrant sex life. I did feel as though there was a huge dose of TAB privilege in the tone that Ms Richardson took in her comments (such as, "I'll never complain about my sex life again after talking to them"), but fortunately the comments and tone of the two people in the piece showed just how wrong-headed that was, not by countering the argument directly but just by them talking openly about how much they enjoyed each other and their relationship to one another.

I don't know if I am going to follow the series closely and keep on posting but, once again, I felt compelled to point out the prudish approach to sex that the show takes, and my feeling that for a show that is about sex education it seems a little on the negative side.

Oh, one last point to mention: they announced that in their survey results, during sex people are "most self conscious about their body shape". However, checking the results online, I find that actually the biggest result (with roughly 30%) was actually "nothing". Again, this seems like trying to find a way to whip up some controversy over nothing.

Congratulations to the Japanese women's football team!

Just a few seconds ago, as I am typing this, Japan won the FIFA Women's World Cup after having to come from behind in normal time, and again in extra time, and then finally winning it on a penalty shoot-out.

They beat the USA who looked physically more dominant, and more threatening to win throughout, but somehow the heart and skill and composure of the Japanese women got them to the shoot-out. And then, a more relaxed team facing the "lottery" of the penalty shoot-out, I have not seen.

Japan's victory represents a step forward for the women's game globally: a new name on the trophy, proving that the number of competitive teams is growing; and they are the first team from Asia to lift the trophy.

***

It is interesting to note that, in the group stage, England beat Japan. They are the only team this tournament who did that.

***

From what I have seen, this tournament was football at its finest, and although the speed and sheer size of the players is not quite that of the highest levels of the men's game, the skill and passion and entertainment are easily its equal. Women's football should be a priority in future for broadcasters. It is shameful that so little of this competition was available to view on the BBC.

A conscience is a consumer commodity

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a while now, and letting the concept settle in my brain.

The concept is that, in today's society, having a conscience is something that is sold to you. I was thinking along these lines before I saw this video on youtube, an animation using Slavoj Zizek's speech on consumer ethics and charity as part of "cultural capitalism": but the ideas that Slavoj Zizek talks about clearly are closely related to the ideas I have been contemplating (especially about 4:20 to 5:10):



I would very much like to shop ethically. Most particularly, I would like to buy meat that is not factory-farmed and I would like to buy "fairly-traded" produce where the workers have been given a decent living wage and a bigger proportion of the price of the produce as it is sold to us, the consumers. In terms of sustainability, I think it is a good idea to avoid where possible the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, and I think that there are serious sustainability risks to the use of GM (the threat posed by using monocultures is well-known, and modern farming does not only use GM monocultures). In short, I would like to buy "fair trade" items. I would like to buy free-range items. I would like to buy "organic" items.

NB: Quote marks used for "fair trade" because I do not believe any trade in capitalism can be fair, and used for "organic" because technically, anything animal or vegetable is "organic"; but the term is used to differentiate between certain kinds of human intervention that are perceived to be more "artificial", and those that are perceived to be "natural" - even though any farming involves artificial intervention by humans to encourage growth; an example is Archimedes' Screw, which IIRC was used to raise water to allow artificial irrigation of fields.

Right, where was I? Oh yes - I would like to by organic, fair trade, free-range and all that "good", "ethical" produce. I would like to shop with my conscience, in other words.

As Slavoj Zizek mentioned, there is a catch to this: it costs more. I notice this a lot, becuase I am unemployed, and living on benefits: my Jobseekers Allowance is based on "what the law says you need to live", meaning I do not get a lot of spare money left over, and must look to cut any costs I can in order to make ends meet. I do not know what cuts might be foisted upon people in my situation in the future, either.

Going around the local supermarkets, the difference in price between the "artificial" items and the "organic", free-range and/or "fair trade" items is anywhere between 25% and 200% more for the "ethical" stuff, depending on what type of items you're trying to buy. Again, as Slavoj Zizek mentions, there is not really all that big a difference (at least, in the minds of a lot of consumers) between the "good" and the "evil" produce: the reason for the mark-up is that there is something else, extra, that you are buying. Namely, a good conscience. A sense of, "I am at least trying not to be part of the problem." But, obviously, you do not need a good conscience in order to live (although it makes it easier to live with yourself), so that price is not included in "what you need to live".

Of course, giving a bigger proportion of the retail price to the producers of items will mean that the labour costs are higher for the item, which will push the retail price upwards. When you don't factory-farm your animals, you need a lot more land to house them, which pushes up the land costs; there may be extra costs in terms of veterinary bills or feed for your animals, I don't really know. But it pushes up the price of the end product, anyway, when you make free-range instead of factory-farm produce. While organic farming can save costs on pesticides (and on paying Monsanto or whoever for the right to use their patented genetic material), it again takes more land to produce the same amount of crops, which pushes up the price. That's before we get into issues like farming subsidies and so on.

So, free-range, organic, fairly traded: it all costs a bit more. If there were no added benefit to be had from paying a bit more, then there would be no fair trade business; there would be no free-range farming; there would be no organic farming. We would all choose the cheaper option. The only reason why "ethical" goods can be sold at a higher price is because people are willing to pay more in order to have a good conscience. At the same time, this means that the poorest people are priced out of having a conscience. A conscience becomes not just something that you choose whether or not to buy; it becomes a luxury item that you can choose to buy only if you have the spare readies to do so.

In this way, the relative poor in the Western nations such as the UK, become adversaries against their will (that's if they have a will in the matter) of the poor in the developing world, because we are given no choice in the matter but to subsist by exploiting their poverty. And if those exploited people should win better pay and rights, then that will make life harder for people on low incomes here. (See also my post on the poverty-sink theory of capitalism.)

One reason why "non-ethical" businesses flourish is because there is no penalty for their behaviours that fall short of what we might consider a basic standard of decency (if they are "unethical", as compared to businesses that are "ethical", then that implies they do fall short of some basic standard). Of course, under capitalism it would not be possible to pay the same minimum wage to producers as to consumers (see the poverty-sink theory again), but if businesses were to be fined for failing to meet certain acceptable levels of fairness (which might not be completely fair, but anyway) then arguably, the costs of "good" and "evil" products would start to even out (it would also help to sort out some of the budget problems that bankers and warmongers landed us with). Of course, that has knock-on effects in other ways (for example, companies choosing to withdraw their business from the countries that choose to enact such ethics-enforcing legislation, though one might hope that "ethical" businesses might step into the breach).

The bottom line is really that capitalism cannot help but make a conscience into a consumer commodity. Something that many people would say should be viewed as a matter of the heart and mind is in fact a matter of economics and privilege.

Wobbly wheels

For no obvious reason, this week has just felt like the wheels have started to wobble on my life. The routines and patterns that I have developed to make things run smoothly have themselves not been running smoothly and there's no real explanation for it all happening together. Some of it might be down to me, but some things seem to be completely random (or at least, things from outside of my ability to control). Nothing particularly dramatic, just little things that somehow have managed to throw my usually reliable and stable system into a spin.

The good news is that, compared to where I was a year ago, even, this is not a disaster. The routines and patterns exist, and thanks to them, it should be possible to get things up and running again quickly and with the minimum of fuss, whereas a year ago it would send my life into chaos for weeks.

Still, it is frustrating to see my well-laid plans turned into a rattly old rustbucket for the moment.

This guy does not deserve cookies

Via the Yahoo news/highlights thing that pops up when I open their IM client, comes a piece by a man called Aaron Traister, writing something called Redbook, which appears to be yet another women's/girlie magazine, with all the usual crap you get from those. He writes about taking 4 weeks to "become a better husband".

Given the source, and my usual reaction to these "lifestyle" pieces (I would say that I don't know why I keep clicking on them, except that it's obvious that I like getting riled up and blogging about being riled up by them!), I expected to get - well - riled up! Instead, I think a lot of this can be field under "Well, DUH!" The rest - well, well get to that in a minute.

Mr Traister says that:

During a recent argument, my wife, Karel, told me I needed to "grow up," so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'd spend four weeks making myself over, and I wouldn't tell Karel, just to see if she was paying attention. Among other things, I changed up my clothes and returned to my teenage wrestling workouts — because nothing says maturity like playing dress-up and trying desperately to relive high school.

His first change was to reintroduce his courtship policy of buying her flowers every day, which I guess is nice, although what that has to do with being grown up is beyond me. The "well, duh!" bit of this is that if you like someone (say, enough to marry them!) then why wouldn't you want to give them nice things every so often, just because you like them?

He reports:

I put the first bouquet on the dining room table in our "fancy vase," and Karel noticed immediately. She couldn't stop talking about it and kept asking me what she'd done to deserve random flowers. Clearly, this needs to happen more often.

It's a little bit annoying that it's so stereotypical, but hey, in terms fo what he's doing, it's part and parcel of part 2:

Karel and I hang out together every night, but I surf the Internet while I'm sitting next to her, so she gives me static about only being present physically. To be with her more completely, I scaled back my Internet time

Again, I file this under "well, DUH!", because if you like someone that much that you marry them, then I would have thought that when you spend time with that person, you want to spend the time on that person (no, not like that, you filthy people). When I am at my computer, I am often multitasking, and may have two chats going on, I'm listening to music, and reading or writing something at the same time. But when I'm in meatspace with another person, then (although by conventional body language it may not always appear that way) I am completely focussed on that person - or, I make it clear that I need to focus on something else, and that that is my focus. I don't try to split the difference, because it becomes an example of Solomon's wisdom (trying to split my attention ends up meaning neither gets any of it really). What Mr Traister has rediscovered is that basic thing of paying attention to his partner. (Do you now get why I called this post "this guy does not deserve cookies"?)

There was one jarring element to this:

No dice for Karel, though. It irks her every time I touch my laptop after the kids are in bed, and maybe she's right to police my cyber habits. Next time I'll try no computer at all after 5 p.m., but only if she quits BlackBerrying after work too.

These days, the internet is an important way of keeping in touch with friends. While I clearly believe that Mr Traister should pay attention properly when he is with his wife, and has said he's being with her, I do not think it is reasonable for anyone to be so jealous of their partner's social life as to try to restrict it to the extent that's implied here. 15 minutes emailing seems like a very fair amount of time to spend on one's friends, and to make it "this time is for me and my friends, and it is not yours" seems to me perfectly appropriate. For Karel to resent even that time starts to seem controlling and even resentful of him having friends.

The story gets more interesting, and a little less obvious for most of society (though still pretty basic from most feminists' point of view, I think), when we come to his next change:

Karel complains that I never let her initiate sex. She says I seize every opportunity for action I see: a hug has to turn into sex; folding laundry has to turn into sex; getting back from the vet has to turn into sex. I don't let things develop "organically" or let her make the first move and show me how "sex-positive" she can be. So I took a step back. The first week went well: I don't know if Karel noticed my restraint, but she did take the lead. (And, by the way, organic sex doesn't feel that different from conventional or processed sex.)

It may not have been much different for him, but I wonder about how Karel found it? Was the fact that she was initiating, and having sex when she chose and was most enthusiastic for it, something that made a difference for her?

Unfortunately for proving how good a feminist sex life can be, it seems Karel was not quite as on board with the project. While Aaron may have stopped trying to buy sex from her (as evidenced by waiting for her to initiate), it seems that she did not stop trying to use sex to buy things from him:

The trouble started in week two, when Karel announced she was cutting me off sexually until I finished a book proposal that should have been done a year ago.

He did, eventually, finish the proposal (despite, according to him, the sex ban actually making him ore distracted by sexual thoughts than ever...) and "earn" sex with her again, but sex should not be a bargaining tool like that. When Mr Traister reports that "I've gotta tell you, I don't know if I learned anything from this one," I think the reason is because the underlying framework of a feminist, non-commodity interpretation of sex wasn't there. Like the "cargo cult" phenomenon, he did the right things (by letting her be enthusiastic for sex and initiate it) but because they hadn't negotiated that sex is for fun, a zero-sum game, and therefore not a trading token or a prize that she gives him - the experiment failed to produce the proper results.

I got in shape.

I ran or exercised for at least half an hour every day (except two) last month. Karel complimented me on my rapidly improving physique... But the biggest impact was on me alone: I felt healthier, stronger, more alert, and just generally better. Even if Karel hadn't noticed, I'd try to stick with this one for me

It's true - exercising regularly does make you feel better. I am bothered by the emphasis on physique here, because there's enough of fat-shaming in the world as it is. But even tubby bitch me knows that exercising is good as its own thing (to some extent - I have a problem with extended exercise for its own sake, which is why I am seeking out team sports as a way to get exercise). Even the 5-10 minutes of strenuous exercise a day I do (plus every other day, 40 minutes or so of walking to the shops, half of which involves carrying heavy bags) has made a huge difference (as it happens, I have lost over a stone in weight since Christmas, which is a bonus).

His final change was an attempt to (in his words) "dress like an adult" - although I am not sure what that means, although apparently, "flannel, jeans, and thermals" aren't it (they are, he says, "like a refugee from a 1993 Alice in Chains concert." though that means nothing to me in terms of what an adult looks like). He got some ashion advice from the fashion columnist of the magazine, but as it happens, this wardrobe change got vetoed by Karel, who told him, "you're too scruffy to wear clothes like that." (Reminds me of my own feelings about dressing up smartly). I suspect that a more carefully-planned attempt to change the wardrobe, that actually took into account the sort of person he is, might have had better effects, but that's just my thought.

Mr Traister concludes thus:

With the exception of the clothes, she seemed genuinely surprised that all my new habits were staged for an assignment — and after some reflection, I could see why. I'd been meaning to make all of these changes; I just hadn't gotten around to them. I know how lucky I am to have an amazing wife and kids, and I don't want to take them for granted by treating my body like crap and checking out early, or failing to show them how much they mean to me ... But I'm going to keep after the other improvements, the ones I've had percolating inside me for a while now, plans for the man I'd like to become.

Everyone needs a round tuit. But old jokes aside, this reveals two things: people often need a specific push to get to a better place, somewhere they actually want to be; and Mr Traister himself admits he was not performing to minimum standards, and therefore does not deserve a cookie.

Some phrases that confuse me

There are some things that people say, that my immediate interpretation of the phrase is strongly opposed to the intended meaning, which causes a strange discord in my brain.   It's like, I'm following the emotional sense of what their saying and then they say something that produces an emotional sense that is completely out of place, and I have to go back and look at it again to work out what it's really supposed to mean.

A trivial example is the use of "fight with" to mean "fight for" or "fight on the same side as".   I am very much socialised with the use of "fight with" to mean "fight against", for example, "I got into a fight with a boy at school today", "We're having a big fight with the council over their plans to close a local school" and so on.   Context usually gives me enough to work out whether "fight with" means "for us" or "against us", but when it's "for", I have to take a few moments longer to figure out the sense of the statement.

This post was really motivated by a phrase that until now I had only heard in one place, but it came up again recently with this:

Before this, I had only heard it in the lyrics of Coldplay's song "Fix You" (a song that annoys me quite a lot, but that's another post entirely).   In both contexts, it obviously is meant to mean something good (although Google has not yet been much help in working out what good thing it is supposed to mean, exactly).

But to me it means something bad - the image that it conjures in my head is of bones literally bursting into flame, of burning, and pain, and crippling devastation of the body.   I cannot shake that horrific image, and the meaning that i would expect the phrase to have would be along the lines of "My arthritis gets so bad sometimes, it feels like it ignites my bones" - for a literal expression of being in a lot of pain.   I would think to use it also of an emotional situation where a person feels extremely hurt and hamstrung by what someone else has said or done.   Like the phrase "it burns me up inside when you do that" but coupled with the specific thing of the cause of the pain also making it impossible to manoeuvre or escape it.

That one really does require a mental screeching of brakes to go back and reinterpret the emotional content of a person's speech.

The other one that I have had on my brain lately is "fill your boots", which is really something like "Make free with it!", "Make hay while the sun shines!" "Help yourself!" etc.

The image that it conjures for me is one of fear, akin to "fill your pants" meaning to crap oneself with fear, although the image that it produces for me is not excrement but urine: what "fill your boots!" produces is the idea of piss running down a person's leg into their footwear, again, as related to the physiological reaction to extreme fear.

(It turns out that there are some uses that do mean what I thought it to mean, but I have never heard it used in that context, only in the sense of "help yourself" etc.)

The example given at Urban Dictionary of: "Are those sweets free?" "Fill your boots!" gives some idea of the dissonance that this can produce: "Are those sweets free?" "Be so afraid you piss yourself!" reveals the sort of mental reinterpretation I have to do to fill in the blanks with what it's supposed to mean instead of what I take it to mean.

The frustrating thing with all of these is that even though I a now aware of what the phrases really mean (or mean most often), I still have my initial "instinctive" interpretation first, and then have to go back and write over that with what I know intellectually is supposed to go there.

One other point occurs to me.   On all three examples mentioned here, my interpretation produces a negative emotional response when a positive emotional response is intended.   What (if anything) does that say about my worldview!?

Things that make me go WTF!? part whatever

Yesterday, I was walking into town and without any warning, encountered this:

(phone numbers blanked out by me, partly to hide the area-code for where I live, partly because I am not sure I want to make someone else's numbers available without their permission, however cross they made me)

That was taken with my crappy little mobile, so you can't see the full detail. The woman depicted also had the stereotypical full, red lips, for example.

I waited this long to mention it because I wondered if there could be any way in which it would be a mistake to call it disgusting and blatant racism? I know nothing about the business except what appeared on the car door (the web address appears to be defunct - every time I have tried it, the result comes back "domain name doesn't exist"). My suspicion is that the owner's surname happens to be "Black", but I pondered that maybe it was owned and run by women of colour; maybe it was even a collective of women of colour so that all of the workers took an equal share in the profits and the decision-making, and they were all okay with the name and the artwork. If that unlikely scenario were the case, would it still be racist, or would the owners' ethnicity and happiness with the design be acceptable?

Also - I'm not a person of colour myself so maybe the people living in these parts who are have already discussed it and decided it doesn't bother them, so maybe it's not my place to say anything.

However, it comes down to this. I was walking along, minding my own business, and I saw that logo and that business name, and had nothing else to go on to interpret it. The same would be the case for anyone else - let's say, a woman of colour.

Quite apart from the stereotypical image that could come straight out of the 1950s, what's the message that the logo and business name sends?

I suppose in the USA, where the slave trade has a much stronger historical resonance, the impact would be much greater, but that slave trade also led to African men and women being brought to Britain to work for poverty wages (or payment in kind - i.e. bed and board) that is indistinguishable from slave labour in practical terms. In the 20th century, people came from the West Indies to fill the bottom-rung positions. These days, the classic stereotype is the Filipino maid: poverty wages for domestic service nowadays going to women of colour from the Far East. But the message is still the same, and the image and the business name still seem to be loaded heavily with the racism of those former times, and the latent racism that still hangs around in British culture today.

All that message about a woman's place, and a Black woman's place specifically, is carried in that logo and business name, and I would be willing to guess that many women of colour would understand the message (and many White men, on a subliminal level, would get it, too).

I am sure you could go around and pick up a nice collection of vox pops videos of Black folks telling you they don't feel offended by the stuff in this image. But to do that, you would ignore a lot of people who did find it offensive. You would also probably get a lot of people saying they're not angry about it just because they don't want to cause any trouble and, when people are put on the spot, they tend to water down their true reactions (I have seen it happen, and have done it myself).

Racism is most often not this blatant - it still exists, but is more subtle than that.

I think I am filing this under "I cannot believe they could still do that!"