Just who would you not kick out of bed....

After being egged on by the wonderful Stroppybird and the fact it is a Sunday and I am also in kinda frivolous mood, we thought that as have done posts on shooting, sex and religion (not strictly in that order..) and it seems to bring the punters in. We decided to ask you lovely commenters about who you would and would not kick out of bed in the morning (well, it is a Sunday afternoon and maybe you still are in bed..)

Anyway, I will kick off with my list (remember this isn't po-faced seriousness)

Who I would kick out of bed

Jude Law (pretty boy and no talent)
Brad Pitt (just soooo brainless)
Hugh Grant (cos he is witless)
Chris Martin (isn't it obvious)
Guy Ritchie (what does Madonna see in him?)

Who I would not kick out of bed

Madonna (cos she is fantastic)
Gael Garcia Bernal (..gorgeous)
Antonio Banderas (pre- Hollywood years mind you)
Susan Sarandon (sexy)
Vincent D'onofrio ("weirdly attractive")


Please feel free to rip the list to shreads and even put your own forward

The AWL, dodgy fantasies and lefties you wouldn't kick out of bed..part 2 of the sex survey results

The second part had a number of questions looking at attitudes around sex.

Would a committed relationship for you be:


Marriage, kids and a Labrador (and no, nothing odd with the dog!) (13.6%) 9
Monogamous. (56.1%) 37
Sleep with other people but not tell. ( 9.1% )6
Open relationship, the odd shag with others. ( 24.2% )16
More than one partner. (10.6% )7
Not into commitment . (1.5% )1


Interestingly the majority (56.1) favoured monogamy , though about 34% did see commitment as taking less onventional forms and a few took the well worn path of not telling.

Those who added comments to ‘other’ included :

Different strokes for different folks, but honesty is mandatory.

Emotional commitment, think monogamy is negotiable but irrelevant

I have all the commitment I need for the revolution.

but i find it hard to do (in relation to marriage, kids , Labrador).

I suppose I tend to think its about real choice, not following what society, religion or families expect. Its shouldn’t be about conforming , but I do think the key is honesty and treating people, whether a one nighter or a partner, with respect.

The next two I think highlight that for many lefties sharing at least some politics is important for a partner but not when its just sex.


Would you knowingly sleep with a Tory ?

Yes (33.8%) 23
No (30.9%) 21
Depends how drunk I was (35.3%) 24


Is it important to share similar political views with a partner?
Yes 73.4% 47
No 26.6% 17

Comments :

Helpful, not essential. Share some views, not others

Depends how emotionally committed relationship is! If so yes, if just sex, no

Depends how divergent their view are

It is important that they are not shared.

I don’t think its possible to agree on everything (and that would be dull!), so I suspect for many there will be issues that are more important to share than others.

The next few focus on the leftie variation of work/life balance, yep shagging or selling papers .

How many sexual partners have you had ? And no, let’s not nitpick on the definition like Clinton!
(Though knowing the left, I gave a nit pick option )

1 7.6% 5
2-5 27.3% 18
5-10 4.5 % 3
10-15 19.7% 13
15-25 10.6% 7
25-30 6.1% 4
30-40 1.5% 1
40-50 1.5% 1
50-60 1.5% 1
60-80 1.5% 1
80-100 4.5% 3
100+ 6.1% 4
Can’t remember ! 3.0% 2
Well you see it does all depend what you mean by sex 9.1% 6

Of course this isn’t cross referenced with age, gender or sexuality, so is is just a snapshot. A few ticked more than one, including the “well you see it does all depend” answer as well.

One person added ‘none’.

So far we have lefties busy shagging every day and only a few too busy overthrowing capitalism, so what do they do on Saturday morning ?

Saturday morning , what’s your priority ?

Sex 38.1% 16
Getting down to reading some serious theory 16.7% 7
Writing a blog post 21.4% 9
Leafleting/paper sale/canvas 23.8% 10



Although the highest number said sex, there were quite a few (25) who added their own priorities :

Rowing
First three in order.
Sleeping (8)
I do not get up before noon
Housework
Dealing with the kids/ kids/childcare/Children waking me up when I'd rather stay in bed. (4)
cup of tea
coffee
Walk the dog, buy the Guardian, make breakfast for my lover
Breakfast!
Leafleting outside the local Conservative Club, where their posh yet not that old women's section is having a coffee morning, so I can get invited in
Getting up for work
Writing or producing a magazine/newspaper, or helping out at a food co-op


Now regular readers will remember this blog has been described as all about ‘Fisting, fucking and fishnets .'
I think those less well acquainted with the blog were a tad confused by the question and skipped it. To be honest no idea what the question meant; word association , words beginning with F, stream of leftie consciousness…


This is Stroppyblog, soooo

Fisting 16.0% 8
Fucking 68.0% 34
Fishnets 40.0% 20


Those that people added were :
Sucking the stilletto
Cunnilingus. Giving.
Nah
Eh?
Light S&M
What?
SouthpawPunch
Felines
Fellatio
all 3
Fantasy


Now how sectarian are we in the bedroom (or wherever)?
This wasn’t tick box, people added what they wanted.

Here are some highlights !
1)What groups/parties/sects have you shagged members of?

You name it, I've shagged it
"Apolitical, mostly... "
"SWP, AWL, CPGB "
"Tory, Labour, Lib.Dem. Trotskyite, Marxist, CND, Maoist, Quaker, Catholic, CofE, many others"
"labour, green, tory, lib dem, swp, awl, sparts, various more or less organised anarchist groups
ISG, Workers Power, IS, SWP, Workers Fight, Militant, WRP, the other WRP, Labour Party NEC "
"SWP, Socialist Labour (crap), SA, Green Party (REALLY don't go there!), Labour (but only as an act of class warfare), CBGP "
"Fond memories of RCP chicks in the early 1980s; hit on 'em and their knickers were as good as off. "
"SWP, Respect, Left List "

2)Which was the best ?

Libertarian leftie women
SWP
Anarchist Federation and (tragically) the RCP
The best was undoubtedly the Maoist.
Greens
definitely the anarchists, both on average and individually (and collectively :-) )
Militant, as it was soooo forbidden by the church of Grant and Woods
I haven't kept notes... but, there were these two Lib Dems...
AWL
Most quite crap, though I do have fond memories of a Millie

3)Is there a group, that no matter how much you fancied someone, their membership of it would mean you wouldn’t shag them?

None
BNP (any fascist basically) ( a few on this theme, though I was really meaning leftie groups)
Tories and rightwards, pro-Stalinists
Respect Renewal
NO!
SWP And, historically speaking and more so, WRP. And Furedisti
Shag, yes. Have a relationship, no.
Sparts
Nauseating yuppie liberals
I would only have highly abusive anonymous sex with a neoconservative or libertarian.
AWL
Hackney Constituency Labour Party
English bit of Lutte Ouvriere,
SWP CC
SWP/RCP/WRP
WRP - I don't fuck apologists for rape
Respect
Can't imagine shagging anyone in Socialist Action.
CPGB-ML (wouldn't shag under any circumstance)

What came across from the survey was that the AWL are sort of leftie marmite, people either seem to love em or hate em. They figured highly in who someone wouldn’t shag , but as you will see later they figure quite highly in lefties you wouldn’t kick out of bed or as part of role play fantasy…and Jim is their most popular member !

Which three lefties wouldn’t you kick out of bed ?

I have just listed all the names people put in the survey. Quite a mixed bunch. Some are not that 'left' and one person said they don't 'do' lefties!

Most got one vote, those that got more were :

(some just said one person three times, counts as one)

3 votes

Marsha-Jane

2 votes

Jim Denham
Jim Jepps
Catriona Grant
Stroppy (no I did not vote for myself !)

1 vote

Mary Partington
Sofie Buckland
Gregor Gysi
Hind Hassan
Hannah Sell
Salma Yaqoob
Sian Berry
David Miliband
Segolene Royal
Beauvoir
Luxembourg
Daniel Randall
David Broder
Jeremy Browne
Nick Clegg
Jackie Grunsall,
Lucy Adler,

Bob Browne (Australian)

“Margaret Thatcher, Mussolini's granddaughter, Segoline Royal, Sargosy's bird (I don't do "bed with lefties").”

Carolyn Leckie
Houzan Mahmoud
Barak Obama
Katja Kipping
Owen James
Jeremy Dear
Caroline Lucas
Gail Sheridan
Jon Rogers
Will
Mark Fischer
China Mieville
Angela Eagle
Matt Wrack,
Dave Osler
George Binette

comments...

Er...my girlfriend and all the girls I've slept with?,
ALL OF THEM.
Three persons known to me.
Errrr.
Can't name third
None.
Um, I'm shit with names.
Really not sure, those dead Russians had some sexy beards though
Not telling you!!!
there aren't that many lefties i would kick out of bed.
“If there were three lefties in the same bed they'd be so busy arguing they wouldn't have time for the sex!”
my partner
Oh god. NEXT!
I daren't comment about anyone associated with this blog...
Too embarrassing to say - even anonymously
Silent ones

Lefties and fantasy…

Can I just say all these role play.fantasies were new to me. I mean i'm as vanilla as they come and any fantasy would be very right on and equal and probably involve gambolling through meadows being very respectful. These were all Jim Jepp's idea .
Hmmm, not convincing am I ;-)


Anyway, gave me some new ideas …


Have you ever fantasised (or role played )about :

Melanie Phillips, spank me baby! 7.0% 3
Nuns, with or without guns 34.9% 15
Women in burquas 23.3% 10
Margaret Thatcher 7.0% 3
Jim Denham 9.3% 4
Yvonne Ridley 4.7% 2
John Mcdonnell 11.6% 5
John Rees and young enthusiastic cadre 2.3% 1
Policemen or women 34.9% 15
Tory business women in French underwear 32.6% 14
Nazi orgies with hookers 14.0% 6
Ruth Kelly in bondage gear 11.6% 5
Harriet Harman, in full riot, telling you what a very naughty boy/girl you had been … 7.0% 3
Lefties in uniform – firefighters, nurses, rail workers… 60.5% 26
Or anything else you want to share ? 16.3% 7


And quite a few did indeed share ...

are you trying to put me off sex for life?
I don't go for authority figures. I like the unconstrained play of equals.
Sex in riots.
dom/mes, /bondage
SPP here again, I forgot to mention fantasising about armed workers in struggle, e.g. the IRA, RIRA, Provo IRA, Batasuna, the Welsh Firebombing Nationalists, the UCK/KLA, FSLN, SDLP, Gadaffi's women bodyguard troupe, South American guerrila movements, and the French Tories Womens Institute (Armed Section). Hang on, not the SDLP.
that famous picture of uniformed Maoist girls,
East German fashion chic
Waterfalls au natural
S&M
I am the only true revolutionary, I am SouthPawPunch, spell it properly,!
My girlfriend can't get enough of John McDonnell, if that counts
Pirates
soldiers, obviously.


And a few that said No!!
And
Good grief, none of the above.

Next up...theory as foreplay, lefties talk dirty and threesomes with TU general secretaries...

Jodie Foster : out of the closet at last !!

So Jodie has finally come out !:

The Oscar-winning actress thanked "my beautiful Cydney" after winning an award at the Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast in Los Angeles.

She went on to praise Cydney Bernard, saying the film producer "sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss".









Hardly a shock as rumours have been around for many years. Jodie (pic above with her partner and their family) is famously very guarded about her private life. She is not one of those celebs who are all over the tabloids and glossy gossip mags. She seems to do whats needed to publicise her films and that's all.






So does it matter that she never confirmed or denied that she is a lesbian? Should famous people be out and do role models matter?

Well if someone is playing the family card and pretending to be straight yes it does matter. If its a politican or religious leader who spouts one thing and does the opposite it does matter. They deserve to be outed as hypocrites.


What if someone does not pretend and just remains private like Jodie? Is it any of our business? Haven't times moved on since the days when actors like Rock Hudson had no choice but to go into fake marriages and play the heterosexual pin up on and off screen ?
I suspect for many up and coming actors it might still not be too good a career move at the beginning . Much of course depends on the target market. Boy bands often have members who play straight for fear of upsetting their teen girl fan base.



I don't think any famous person has to act as a spokesperson for lesbian and gay people . Some may want to be more vocal and political, that's up to them. I think though it should just be like it is for a straight person, so on the red carpet they would just be with their same sex partner . They would just thank them, as Jodie did, at awards ceremony. Perhaps Jodie would have been as private if she had a male partner, who knows. Her reticence may be due to her experience of being stalked while a student.

I do though think it helps if people in the public eye are open about being lesbian or gay. Of course it really is no one's business but unfortunately we are still in a world where homophobia exists. A world where kids are teased or bullied if they are thought gay as being gay, where in many areas a lesbian or gay person will feel very isolated. In many parts of the world its still illegal, being lesbian or gay can lead to physical violence.We need to remember that the issue of sexuality is still one that is fought over and whether we like it or not is not private . It is political and for many people being able to be with the person you love, or perhaps just want to have sex with for that one time, is not a real choice and can result in violence and imprisonment and being rejected.Even where I live, which is seen as a LGBT friendly place with all its pink pound businesses and entertainment, there are still homophobis attacks . So yes, to many young people growing up it does help to see famous people who are lesbian or gay . Not necessarily in some in your face or political way, but just being , just there with their partner and families.



Lots of pics Jodie to make up for the cockroach that has now been deleted! .As I said in the comments box of a post , I wouldn't kick her out of bed ;-)

What lefties do in bed...Sex survey results part 1 !

Yep, the results of the sex survey. Almost as eagerly awaited, and slow, as those in Zimbabwe. No rigging though, honest.

It’s my first blog survey, so it was a bit hit and miss, but hopefully learnt from it for the next. I tried transferring tables over to blogger and it went all wonky, so hope its readable.

Many of the questions are humorous (I hope), but there was a serious purpose. The left aren’t great on sexual politics and I am curious as to how we live our lives. Do we challenge gender roles; do we buy into bourgeois monogamous family units? Do we live the theory or do we muddle along with contradictions.Personally I think muddling along with the contradictions and trying to challenge the accepted norm is the best we can do in this society where the Labour Party bangs on about hard working families (the new deserving poor), when the media still has double standards about laddish men but slutty women and married monogamous bliss is still seen as the gold standard (which is fine if that's what you want rather than expected). Oh and then there’s the role religion plays in moralising about how we live our lives and the odd leftie bemoaning our godless society (if only).

Right, back to the survey !It seemed that most were genuine, with only one obvious spoof. That was someone who said they were 70+, Queer, Transgendered, AWL and had sex everyday. An ‘expert ‘ on the AWL informed me no such member existed, though I think it is Jim and he is just quite well preserved for his age (in whisky I suspect ).

Right, what did it show.

Well the responses were
Pt 1 87
Pt2 69
Pt3 64

The dropping numbers I think a consequence of being in three parts. It was over three surveys because there is a limit on questions with the free package. That has meant its more anonymous, but harder to make links between gender/sexuality/party etc and answers.

What political party/group/alliance are you a member of, if any?

Although free text, and so the option to say none was there, 35 people did not answer this. I suspect some of those were independent and others reluctant to say for whatever reason.

Those who did specify (and it was up to them how they defined it, It was not tick box) :

The Labour Party 9
New labour 1
Labour/LRC 2
Labour Party – Mcdonnellite 1
Green 8
SWP 3
Scottish Socialist Party 3
antifaschiste linke, Berlin 1
SPPP (TORP) SouthPawPunchParty (TheOnlyRevolutionaryParty) 1
AWL 2
CPGB 1
“Prefer not to say – Trotskyist” 1
Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire 1
Socialist Party 1
Independent Anarchist 1
Respect 1
Libertarian left 1
Workers action 1
Solidarity (US) 1
Lib Dem 1
Independent /None 10
Tory 1

So a fair mix. One Tory seemed to miss the whole point of the survey, as it was for lefties. And of course we could argue about the Lib Dem as well.Oh and Punchie has said it wasn't him from SPPP, so must have been one of his members (so there are two !).

In terms of sexuality :

Straight 67.4% 58
Bisexual 17.4% 15
Gay 3.5% 3
Lesbian 1.2% 1
Queer 5.8% 5
Other 4.7% 4

From what I could tell it was mainly women who defined as bisexual . No one elaborated on ‘other’.

Gender :

Male 62 (72.1% )
Female 20 (23.3%)
Transgendered 4 (4.7%)

Age

16-21 (16.1%) 14
22-30 ( 29.9%) 26
31-40 (20.7% ) 18
41-50 ( 23.0%) 20
51-60 ( 8.0%) 7
61-70 (0.0%) 0
70+ (2.3%) 2


On average, how often do you have sex?

Celibate ( 4.7%) 4
Oooh that was sooo long ago I can't remember (10.6%) 9
Once a year (1.2% ) 1
Twice a year (2.4%) 2
3-6 times a year (2.4%) 2
Once a month ( 17.6% ) 15
Once a week (10.6%) 9
two or three times a week ( 25.9%) 22
Every day ( 3.5%) 3
More than once a day ( 4.7% ) 4
Depends what you mean by sex ! ( 11.8% ) 10
I’m sorry, but I'm much too busy working to overthrow capitalism to bother with all that. ( 8.2%) 7

Now it does all depend what you mean by sex and also it varies from time to time, so I suppose this was just a snapshot. A few people ticked more than one box.

Glad to see some people prioritising the overthrow of capitalism, not like those having sex more than once a day…comrades what about the revolution ;-)

The porn and sex work ones were interesting and I think reflect the complexities that this survey could only touch on.

Around 2/3rd s said they used porn. In terms of whether it degraded women the majority were unsure. Quite a few straight men said they thought it degraded women but they still used it. Quite a few women said they used porn and it was mixed in terms of whether they considered it degrading. Gay men used it and the survey did not cover whether they felt it degraded men. Whether it should exist under socialism had a mixed response and again the question could not really cover the complexities. Is erotica alright but porn not? What really is the difference between erotica and porn, is one more middle class and arty? Is erotica any less stereotyped about gender roles? Would control by women make a difference .Where does that leave lesbian porn (and not the supposed lesbians performing for men )?
The question is quite general, its talking about the present. But does porn, or erotic/sexual material have to be degrading under socialism?

The sex work question again showed the differences in views on this and also that much depended on what was meant by the definition. Again it did not separate out sex work in terms of straight, gay or lesbian.

How often do you use porn?e

Never ( 35.3% )30
Daily ( 8.2% ) 7
Weekly (22.4%) 19
Monthly (7.1%) 6
Only occasionally (21.2% ) 18
Between relationships ( 5.9% ) 5
With my partner ( 8.2%) 7

Quite a few ticked more than one box, such as with a partner and weekly.

Do you think porn degrades women ?

Yes ( 33.3%) 28
No (26.2% ) 22
Hmmm, not sure . (40.5% ) 34
answered question 84

Should porn exist under socialism ?

Yes ( 72.5%) 58
No (27.5%) 22
answered question 80

Should sex work exist under socialism?

Yes (32.1% 27
No (22.6% ) 19
Depends what type (47.6% ) 40
answered question 84

Do you support the existing age of consent?
Yes (56.5% ) 48
No (10.6%) 9
It should be higher (3.5% ) 3
It should be lower (17.6%) 15
Shouldn't be one (17.6%) 15
answered question 85


Right, coming up...the sexual fantasies of the left, lefties you wouldnt kick out of bed and more...