lip magazine: for girls who think feel create speak out live

Did anyone see the show on SBS about sex between a man and his non-human? I missed the beginning, but the cybersex stuff was creepy. The women were so fake looking I couldn’t figure out why that would be remotely attractive. The dolls, on the other hand, both life-size and doll size, were interesting. I mean, hey, I think dolls are cute too - I own a few. But I don’t want to fuck them. They are, like, babies. But some of the dolls were really beautiful or cute and very realistic (aside from, you know, no pores, wrinkles, cellulite or body hair). I guess I could understand how you would feel an emotional welling towards something that cute - that seems quite human and natural - but to want to have sex with it…. it’s like having sex with a little girl (and many of them looked like school girls) or, I don’t even have the words, it’s just wrong. At least if you have sex with yourself it’s with a real person.

Oh, and, yay for the Canadian gals.

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Darling Daughter,
Could not pass this up - Canada so far has 16 medals at the Olympic games - 5 for the men and the rest are for our WOMEN. - yeah we came, we played, we conquered. We are woman , hear us roar!!
Your Mom

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Making counselling honest on the abortion option
The Age, 22 Feb 2006
-Natasha Stott Despoja

Now that the Health Minister has lost the RU486 debate, he has produced a back-up plan including money for a pregnancy counselling hotline and Medicare rebates for pregnancy counselling.

This sounds reasonable until you realise that the Government does not fund any dedicated pro-choice counselling services and those services it does fund are not accredited or prohibited from engaging in false or misleading advertising.

There are only two dedicated pro-choice pregnancy counselling services in Australia -Children by Choice in Queensland and the Bessie Smyth Foundation in NSW. Neither receives Commonwealth funding.

But the Government allocates more than $240,000 each year to the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services for pregnancy counselling services (the federation is an umbrella organisation linked to pro-life organisations). This was boosted in November, when the Government granted the federation a further $100,000 to support its national phone counselling line.

Many of the pregnancy counselling organisations that receive Federal Government funding through the federation give the impression in their advertising and notification material that they provide information on all three pregnancy options: keeping the baby, adoption and abortion. But in fact, they do not refer for terminations. Often, if they do provide information about abortion, it is misleading and not based on up-to-date, objective research.

To tackle this, I have introduced the Transparent Advertising and Notification of Pregnancy Counselling Services Bill 2005. It seeks to prohibit misleading and deceptive advertising and notification of pregnancy counselling services; promote transparency and full choice in the notification and advertising of pregnancy counselling services; improve public health; and minimise the difficulties associated with obtaining advice to deal with unplanned pregnancy. It would force pregnancy counselling organisations to be upfront about whether they do or do not refer for terminations, so women can be clear about what sort of organisation they are contacting.

The bill is necessary because although the Trade Practices Act outlaws conduct that is liable to mislead the public about the nature, the characteristics, the suitability for their purpose or the quantity of any services, most pregnancy counselling services are not subject to the Trade Practices Act. This is because they usually do not charge for the information and other services and are thus not engaging in trade or commerce.

My bill would make pregnancy counselling services subject to the same laws regarding misleading advertising as organisations that are engaged in trade or commerce.

I have been campaigning for greater transparency in the advertising and notification of pregnancy counselling services since concerns about the way one pregnancy counselling service, Pregnancy Counselling Australia, was listed in the White Pages were brought to my attention in 2004.

Those who contacted me were concerned that the way Pregnancy Counselling Australia was listed gave the impression that it was an impartial or non-directive pregnancy counselling service yet, in fact, it is run by a pro-life organisation and does not refer for terminations.

I raised this issue in the Senate and wrote to Sensis urging it to remove Pregnancy Counselling Australia from the emergency and community help pages of the White Pages, and replace it with a non-directive pregnancy counselling service. I also urged Sensis to engage in corrective advertising to advise the public of the true nature of the service Pregnancy Counselling Australia provides.

Sensis said it had, in conjunction with Pregnancy Counselling Australia, already altered two previous listings.

Sensis explained that Pregnancy Counselling Australia complies with its rules, which include that the content of the listing must not misrepresent the nature of the service.

However, Birthline, the group behind this service, is not mentioned in the listing, nor is the fact that Pregnancy Counselling Australia does not provide referrals for terminations.

This has encouraged me to continue to push for greater transparency, to ensure women are able to make informed choices about who they contact.

Given the Government’s record, I am concerned about its proposed national pregnancy counselling hotline - and the proposed Medicare rebate for pregnancy counselling. A rebate for voluntary pregnancy counselling might not be such a problem if the counselling was objective and impartial and included information on all three pregnancy options. But it is clear that the majority of existing counselling does not meet these criteria.

Before the Health Minister throws more money at pregnancy counselling, perhaps he should address some of these outstanding issues.

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I just wanted to hear what your thoughts are on the new vanity fair cover. On the one hand I’m thinking ‘wow they are daring, i’d never be able to bare all (despite the airbrushing). And then the more i think about it the photo shows how much the world isn’t moving forward….i mean if this is art, why isn’t the guy baring all too? The way they are displaying themselves it just seems old-man dirty.

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Women make it to the Super Bowl
Finally, professional female grid iron players have made it to the super bowl. Sure they were all models who played in their lingerie during half-time, but if you’ve got to watch female professional sports players, then they may as well be hot!

One for the father, One for the mother, One for the Country
In a move that would make Tony Abbott smile, a Japanese royal wife has become pregnant again quelling fears that they may have to change succession laws to allow women to take the throne. Already the mother of two teenage girls, Princess Kiko was pressured to become pregnant again, or else:

“Some suggested the revival of the feudal practice of using concubines, adoption and resurrecting dead branches of Japan’s aristocracy to widen the pool of heirs. There has been continual pressure on Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Princess Masako, and, in recent weeks, gossip about a divorce so he can try again with a new wife.”

They should be so lucky, if they were in England, they’d have chopped off their heads!

Women get choice: dehydration or rape

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women’s latrine after dark.

Yeah, fighting in a foreign country to get raped by your own soldiers - and who said women couldn’t make it on the front line.

Satan, thy name is God
A new type of protesters have emerged in America, gathering at funerals of dead soldiers who have fallen in Iraq.

The small, odd band of protesters — followers of a rogue Kansas Baptist preacher with a Canadian history — believe Kyle, and every other soldier, died to punish the U.S. for its acceptance of homosexuality. At more than 90 military funerals, the Westboro Baptist Church congregation has prayed and paraded an anti-gay message — waving placards which carry slogans like “USA=Fag Nation” and “Thank God for Sept. 11″ and “Hate is a Bible Value.”

Yeah…no amount of sarcasm can do justice to this one.

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I just quickly want to applaud the new Pink video clip for “Stupid Girls”. Not only is it a complete piss-take on clips such as Jess Simpson’s “These boots were made for walking”, but also includes lyrics such as “What happened to the dreams of a girl president, She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent”. Just to get you thinking…

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I recently received this email from a guy about the apparent exclusiveness of women’s magazines:

It really pxxxxs me off when I see contemporary publications calling for submissions of work from exclusively female contributors!
Haven’t you (the female gender) got over your precious fragility sufficiently to allow your work to stand on its own merits yet??

I mean, come on! Aren’t you interested in seeing what the other 50 percent of the population might have to contribute to your magazine?

This was my response:

I agree with you completely. In striving for equality it often happens that women exclude the very gender they aim to be equal with.

That being said, have you actually ever picked up a copy of lip? lip’s main goal is to provide an alternative to women’s magazines such as Dolly and Cosmo, and yes, we are a feminist publication. As such, the content is obviously going to be directed towards women and therefore the contributors are mostly likely going to be women, and we do encourage that.

However, we do not exclude men from having their work published in lip. We have male writers and columnists, our fashion editor is male, and until recently we had a male artist on the staff. I am currently looking to fill that gap, and am interviewing a guy next week to join the art team.

I will take your comments on board, and ensure that all future call-outs for submissions do not come across as exclusively female-only.

So the questions I pose now are: how do our readers feel about this? Do you want to see more male content, that is, written and artistic contributions from guys, or are you happy with the current content? Are we being too exclusive? Or is this guy being a bit unreasonable?

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