Every now and then, I re-read this book to be reminded of the utter foulness of the diamond industry. And Hart doesn’t even get into the really gruesome bits. Indeed, most of the book reads like a paean to the diamond, with an impressive array of famous diamonds featured in the pages of Diamond, along with rapturous discussions about the diamond industry. But there’s an undercurrent in this book, in the form of delightfully sardonic asides, which reminds the reader that the dark side of diamonds is never far from the surface.

Hart talks about conflict diamonds briefly, something I think most people are familiar with at this point, but he also talks about the abuse of workers by the diamond industry, environmental pollution, and the fact that the market for diamonds is largely manufactured. De Beers, a notoriously close-lipped company, does not come off favorably in these pages, and neither does its complex cartel system which has historically controlled the bulk of this market.

I find this book fascinating from a historical perspective, because it goes into a lot of the history of diamonds, as well as the science and political implications. I can’t imagine buying/owning a diamond, for a variety of reasons (poor investment, they seem ludicrous to me, it’s impossible to prove provenance), but reading about the global lust for diamonds is, quite simply, fascinating.

Demographics:

Diamond: The History of a Cold-Blooded Love Affair, by Matthew Hart. Published 2002, 275 pages. History.

I really have to say, if I haven’t said it lately, how much I love Feministing. Those ladies are so many degrees of awesome that it blows my mind, and they are constantly posting material which feeds my mind, and my ever-simmering rage against people as a whole. Every now and then, they post about something and I feel compelled to respond/join in, which is how I felt about the discussion of upskirting which started last week.

What is upskirting, you ask? Oh, you poor, innocent soul. Upskirting is a form of exploitation of women in which people, uhm, there’s really no way to say this. People attempt to photograph the private parts of unsuspecting women while they go about their daily business. I know, it sounded totally bizarre to me when I first heard about it, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. But apparently, the sight of a woman wearing a skirt is just too much for some people to handle, and they feel compelled to violate said woman by sneaking an illicit photograph of what’s under the skirt.

I tell you what, it’s enough to make me never want to wear skirts again.

One of the interesting things about this type of pornography is that it is heavily rooted in lack of consent, which differentiates it in my eyes from pornography in general.* Posed upskirting photographs with a consenting model are not popular. What people want are “illicit” photographs in which a woman’s private parts are photographed while she is unaware. This, my friends, is repulsive. It is disgusting and foul and wrong and it is, in my opinion, a prelude to rape.

Upskirting fans defend the practice, claiming that you lose your expectation of privacy when you go out in public.** But, as the ladies at Feministing rightly point out, there is a huge difference between being snapped on the street while you walk by, and being violated by someone who positions a camera in such a way that the lens goes up your skirt. Or who slips mirrors under women’s skirts.

Women don’t wear skirts for your pleasure. They most certainly don’t wear skirts in eager expectation of being violated by gross photographs. They wear skirts because the like them, or because they feel like it, because it seems like a good day to wear a skirt so, by Pete, let’s wear one.

When people tell me that exploitation of women isn’t an issue in modern society, I want to point them to the numerous completely foul upskirting sites across the Internet (some of which contain pornographic photographs of unconsenting minors, which is just doubly disgusting). And let’s not forget downblousing, the correlary practice.

It astounds me that this form of voyeurism isn’t illegal, thanks to the old “reasonable expectation of privacy” excuse. Apparently, every time I wear a skirt, I am issuing an open invitation to people who want to attempt to photograph my underwear. Ugh. I can’t help but wonder how people would feel about “uptrousering,” and if men were being violated in this way, how society would respond.

What’s wrong with porn with actual naked people? Or, if you’re really into voyeurism, is it really that much of a sacrifice to look at consenting voyeuristic porn? Do people not understand that any form of pornography which lacks consent is a form of exploitation, and that it basically condones violence against the subject? Do you really need to exploit and oppress someone else to get off? Because, if so, ew.

*I know that some feminists are opposed to all pornography, and I respect their rationale, I just happen to disagree with it.

**Which is something that irritates me immensely.

Allegedly, when you are freshly bathed, you tend to be less judgmental, although I don’t know how much credence I lend to these findings. For one thing, I’ve noticed that people with high hygiene standards for themselves tend to object to lower standards in others, which is pretty judgmental if you ask me.

I wasn’t aware of the fact that society has become so degraded that behaving like a reasonable human being is now enough to get you branded as a “hero.”

Stealing a building in New York City is apparently as easy as…well, go read about it yourself.

This ain’t no steekin’ culture war.

Want to read a paean to American cars? (Disclaimer: I owned a Ford once, and loathed it with a fiery passion for the poorly designed piece of crap that it was.)

City employees got a little fast and loose with their gas cards in Jackson this summer.

HIV/AIDS isn’t the only huge public health problem in Africa, thanks to rising tuberculosis rates.