“who for a while became the semi-official mistress of the future Edward VII. When Edward once complained, ‘I’ve spent enough on you to buy a battleship,’ Lillie retorted, ‘And you’ve spent enough in me to float one!’”
While I find such a thing utterly uninteresting, I must admit the sheer logistics of pulling something like that off successfully is somewhat impressive.
ratelimitsteve•6mo ago
ben_w•6mo ago
Slightly more recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley's_Lover
And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse
ratelimitsteve•6mo ago
"She's eighteen."
"The law says she has to be eighteen."
"It says she has to be at least eighteen. We'd be more comfortable if she was twenty one. Or if you'd at least stop mentioning that she's eighteen."
"But...the law says she has to be eighteen."
"Do you really want to just the bare minimum? Look at Jim over there, he exclusively makes GILF content."
camera pans to Jim, chatting with a lovely older lady
"So she has to be eighteen?"
"Yes, but you have to tell people she's at least twenty one."
ben_w•6mo ago
Same topic, the age of consent in the UK is 16*, so there's already a weird mixed standard of "you can do this, but for the next two years it's a crime if you share a recording of yourself doing a thing you are allowed to do".
* or was when I was that age, possibly with exceptions for gay men but not lesbians, it was around when gay equality for the age of consent happened and I remember the exact rules being weird even then
ratelimitsteve•6mo ago
I just wanted to focus on this one because at the bottom of it is an effort to make it illegal to follow the law but in a cheeky way. That, I think, is the part that UK culture has that US doesn't. As a rule we're generally encouraged to find ways to adhere to the letter of the law but not the spirit, it's considered clever.
chrisjj•6mo ago
chrisjj•6mo ago
Not /yet/.
> in a way that the people who wrote the law didn't intend ...
We've seen nothing indicating the writers didn't intend it, though.
Otherwise, I agree.