The Max Mosley case

Initially I was reluctant to comment on this because of the distress it was causing for MM and his family and also for four of the girls involved. However, with the court case having more or less run it's course there are many fascinating issues that - without wanting to rake it all over again - bear scrutiny.

• The girls and MM himself all appear to have done a fantastic job in court of giving people who were probably of the view that those who partake in such activities must be all be deviants and nutcases reason to think again. They put forward clear and strong arguments why there was nothing wrong with S&M activity between consenting adults. The reports suggest they are sensible, intelligent and highly articulate and probably nothing like most people would expect.
• Given that MM says he's been involved in such activities for a long time, it's a credit to most people in the community that he's never been publicly outed until now - it should give confidence to many - like myself - who've been too apprehensive about privacy issues to get involved.
• I may be wrong but - while the News of the World reported the working names of at least two of the girls involved - I don't think I've seen the name of the one who had the secret camera and filmed the event for the paper. She was/is presumably active in the scene and I for one would like others to have the opportunity to protect their reputation by knowing to avoid her.
• When I first read that MM had paid £2500 for the afternoon with the five I guess I thought some along the lines of "lucky bastard being able to afford to pay that" - on more reasoned reflection I think it seems pretty reasonable. Now maybe I wouldn't be able too indulge as often as he did and I probably couldn't afford five girls at a time, but a couple of girls a couple of times a year seems very fair...
• One of the points of dispute is the terminology used to describe the girls - unsurprisingly (because it suits their case) the papers were using words like hookers and vice girls. The problem with that is that words like hooker and prostitute were originally used to define women who had sexual intercourse in return for payment. Then, as people discovered there was more to sex than just intercourse and we could be sexually pleasured without intercourse, there has been a tendency to use the term for anyone who receives payment for anything at all that is related to sex... - except it isn't. If I go to a newsagent and buy a copy of GQ magazine I may be buying it for the sexual arousal from some of the pictures or articles - that doesn't make the girl who took the money from me in the shop into a prostitute. The more useful definition of prostitute might be to talk about those who receive payment for either indulging in sexual intercourse or a close simulation (masturbation, oral sex, anal sex and so on) but not the wider blanket term of just anything that might involve sexual arousal. I don't regard the girls in this case as engaging in prostitution.
• During the case - probably because they were having some problem providing evidence of the Nazi them they originally claimed as the public-interest justification for the privacy intrusion - the News of the World resorted to suggesting that the "public interest" angle could be down to the possibility that it isn't legal to carry out such acts even with consent. The old "Spanner" case from 1990 has been mentioned where a group of gay men were convicted of assault for consensual S&M activity. To quote from a website devoted to the Spanner case:-

In law, you cannot, as a rule, consent to an assault. There are exceptions. For example, you can consent to a medical practitioner touching and possibly injuring your body; you can consent to an opponent hitting or injuring you in sports such as rugby or boxing; you can consent to tattoos or piercings if they are for ornamental purposes. You can also use consent as a defence against a charge of what is called Common Assault. This is an assault which causes no significant injury.

• Although there was apparently a small amount of blood drawn here, surely nobody could see this as being an assault causing significant injury? Any why is it okay to consent to someone trying to cause you brain damage in a boxing ring?