Category Archives: sexuality

history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

It’s that time again! Time for our monthly round-up of items you may have missed the first time. Let’s go …

Science, Technology & Natural World

DNA isn’t the only intricate code used by life. There’s a really subtle and intricate coding of sugars coating every cell (diagram below). [£££]
Here’s another look from The Conversation.

DNA continues to shine light on the domestication of dogs.

From dogs to cats … apparently cats can recognise their own names. They just take no notice!

A “missing link” four-legged fossil shows how walking whales learned to swim. [£££]

Meanwhile the Antarctic Icefish expands our surprise at the variety of colours of blood.

Asian hornets (above) predate honeybees and are an invasive, alien, pest as they have no natural controls in Europe. Much as it grieves me to see anything destroyed (and especially given my defence of wasps) we are being asked to report any sightings. London’s Natural History Museum provides the low-down, identification guidance, and links for reporting sightings.

And now to the physical sciences …

Some brilliant science has led to the first picture of a black hole.

It has long been known, but often disputed, that the Northern Lights make a noise. Now scientists have worked out how this might happen. [£££]

Clouds of hot volcanic gas, rocks etc. (pyroclastic flow) can move at deadly speed. It seems the speed of pyroclastic flow is is due to a “hovercraft effect”.

Health & Medicine

It seems we’re getting our calorie counting all wrong.

Which brings us nicely to the understanding that our microbiomes need fibre to flourish and not the oft believed fermented foods.

This American woman lived to be almost 100 despite having almost all her organs in the wrong places.

The story of one young lady with an unusually obstinate hymen.

Sexuality

Well, yes, as you might expect, sex therapists really do hear it all.

So then, girls, how do you perk up your breasts? Spolier: you can’t. [£££]

Laura Dodsworth muses on vulvas, vaginas and the stigma of talking about them.

Environment

We know the Chernobyl disaster was caused by errors, but it was also followed by cover-ups.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

Article 13 is the EU’s new rules on online copyright enforcement. So what is it all about? [£££]

Art & Literature

There has been dispute over the authorship of Beowulf for many years. Now the latest research suggests it was the work of a single author.

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

One day, long, long ago, a humongous meteor crashed into Earth causing the death of the dinosaurs. Now one maverick palaeontologist believes he’s found a fossil site encapsulating the instant of the disaster. [LONG READ] [£££]
And here are two somewhat shorter summary articles: the first from New York Times [£££], the second from National Geographic.

Slightly more up to date, palaeontologists have discovered what they believe is another “human” species in a Philippine island cave.

So did Homo sapiens inter-breed with Denisovans more recently than we previously thought? [£££]

It seems that the Ancient Egyptians mummified mice (above)!

Experts now tell us that the Romans brought rabbits to Britain. Did we not already know this?

Dutch marine salvage teams, looking for lost shipping containers, have found the remains of ship wrecked in 1540 complete with its cargo of copper plates.

London

Although this is 18 months old, it is worth highlighting the disgraceful decay of the Houses of Parliament.

The Victoria & Albert Museum has a cast of Trajan’s Column. Now you can stand inside it.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

And finally … Japan is entering a new era wth the abdication of Emperor Akihito on 1 May 2019. The reign of each Emperor is given a name (gengo), which is used in the Japanese calender (alongside the Western calender). Emperor Akihito’s current gengo, Heisei, which means “achieving peace”. The era of the new Emperor, Naruhito, will be called Reiwa (right), signifying order and harmony.

history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

So here goes with this month’s selection of items you may have missed the first time round. And there is quite a lot in this month!

Science, Technology & Natural World

Death-Cap Mushrooms are spreading across North America. But why? [LONG READ]

If you don’t like stinging things, look away now … The world’s largest bee has been found in Indonesia, after having not been seen for almost 40 years. And as stinging things go, it is huge!

One from the “I didn’t know that” box … Apparently (and I’ve not yet tried this) grapes can ignite in the microwave. And now scientists have worked out why.

After a long period of relative stagnation, scientists are now trying to work out why the magnetic north pole is moving fast towards Russia.

Health & Medicine

There are male and female brains, right? Wrong; there aren’t; just brains which are moulded slightly differently by our sexist culture.

The hormone testosterone is the thing which makes boys, well boys. Well not entirely: there’s also androsterone which is not produced in the testes. Also it seems that boys also go through several periods of “puberty”.

It seems that there are molecules in ginger which can remodel our microbiome (the flora & fauna that live in our guts).

Sexuality

Book Review: 100 women reveal their vulvas in words and pictures.

The clitoris is a gift, and we need to get over this if we are to really tackle FGM.

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that pornographic adult consensual sex is no longer taboo. “In principle, anything which is legal to consent to doing is now legal to consent to distribute images of, providing the likely audience is over the age of 18.”

Apparently the female human body blocks weak sperm. Well who would have guessed?

Social Sciences, Business, Law

Ocado, the grocery supplier, recently lost a huge warehouse to a major fire. BBC reporter Zoe Kleinman visited one of their warehouses to see how their leading edge automation in action.

Art & Literature

After far too many years, the British Library are finally making their collection of obscene writing more generally available online – through accredited institutions and in their reading rooms.

London’s National Portrait Gallery has an exhibition of Elizabethan miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver, including one of Sir Walter Ralegh (right).

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

There is a cave, in Siberia’s Altai Mountains, where Neandertals and Denisovans set up home – and it’s challenging our view of cultural evolution.

The first evidence of beer brewing in Britain has been found in Cambridgeshire.

At the other end, the remains of a three person, 12th-century, loo seat is going on display at the Museum of London Docklands.

A guy called John Harding has spent the last 20 years tracking down and cataloguing carvings of naked women showing off their genitals (aka. Sheela-na-gigs) on Britain’s churches.

After which we can only go to the gateway to Hell! A cave in Nottinghamshire has been found to contain a huge number of anti-witch graffiti.

HMS Victory – taht’s the one before the famous one – is an abandoned shipwreck in the English Channel. And now there’s an argument over whether it should be raped by archaeologists or left to decay in peace.

London

Ianvisits goes to London’s newest cathedral.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

In Sweden there’s a “stylish” shopping mall where everything is recycled, reused or upcycled.

There are people around who have decided to make not buying new closthes a lifestyle and a business.

Women across the world stopped depilating for Januhairy. Here four of them talk about what they learnt.

There’s a new emoji for menstruation. But it seems to me, and many others, to be a bit too weak.

Fed up with being positive all the time? Then don’t. Take note of what makes you annoyed and feel negative; and just see the benefits!

Food & Drink

So do you eat mouldy jam? The Prime Minister says she does, but should you? The experts consider.

Shock, Horror, Humour

And finally … There’s a woman in Glasgow who can taste your name. I feel for all the jacks and Johns out there.

Toodle Pip.

books, sexuality

One Small Step

After an almost infinite number of years the British Library has finally opening its “Private Case” – ie. writing it has considered too obscene for general access – and digitised the 2500 books it contains. The digitised images will be made available online.

But don’t all rush. Although the “Private Case” collection has been accessible to the public through the British Library’s rare books collection since the 1960s, the digitisation means the titles will now be available to a wider audience: by subscription to libraries and higher education institutions, or free at the BL’s reading rooms in London and Yorkshire. So you’ll still have to be a bona fide person to get access. Why, I don’t know as much of the contents are already widely available on the open market.

But let’s rejoice! It is a small step forward for freedom and the removal of prudery.

history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

WTF happened there? Where has this year gone? It’s already the end of November and we’re deep into SAD season. But let’s not despair ‘cos here’s our monthly selection of links to items you might have missed the first time round.

Science, Technology & Natural World

If you’re an AI designer the Law of Unintended Consequences is never far away. Such systems are well known for gaming the system with a solution that satisfies the stated objective but fails to solve the problem according to the human designer’s intent. There’ll be some examples at the end of this post.

A violent storm on the Sun could cripple communications on Earth and cause huge economic damage, but why are solar storms such a threat?

Health & Medicine

Here are six surprising drug interactions which often fly under the radar but which you should know about. Even I knew about only two of them.

This one is definitely straight out of the “I Don’t Believe It” drawer … apparently llama blood may provide clues to beating the flu.

Researchers at the University of Portsmouth are investigating how the proportion of fat and glandular tissue affects the perkiness of boobs, and why one bra design doesn’t fit all.

Our favourite OB/GYN, Dr Jen Gunter, takes a look at the menopause, and her personal experience in deciding how to manage it.

GPs in England are being encouraged to prescribe social activities to their patients as part of the government’s strategy to combat loneliness. But this is raising some ethical questions: are the consequences acceptable and does the initiative respect people as people?

As so often, the ancient Chinese had an inventive way of doing things: pay your doctor as long as you’re healthy; when you’re sick they’ve failed and don’t get paid.

Sexuality

Here’s one good example of why we must not be too scared to talk about teenagers having sex.

Labour MP Jess Phillips is campaigning to ensure girls are taught about their sexuality from a young age so they form healthy sexual relationships as adults and not just “how to handle and dispose of men’s pleasure safely”. Read her views here and here.

On the other side of the coin, a survey confirms that stress damages many people’s sex lives.

So now relax ‘cos you’re unlikely to be masturbating too much.

Environment

Scientific American looks at why we really do need innovative nuclear power.

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

Researchers have been taking an in depth look at Neanderthal teeth, and discovering some surprisingly intimate details of their daily life.

Meanwhile others have been dating the oldest known animal painting which has been found in a cave in Borneo. I’m glad they know it’s an animal.

Still with animals but much closer to home, archaeologists at the Vindolanda fort have uncovered a Roman dog with fur intact. Well they say it’s Roman, but they also say it is 2000 years old: both cannot be true!

Yet another group, this time at the British Museum, have been delving into Egyptian fashion and examining a 1700-year-old child’s left sock.

Since Ancient Roman times, and right up to Hollywood, witches have been seen as figures of fun as well as malevolence.

From at least 1000 years ago the Peruvians were into making holes in their heads.

Finally in this section, and coming almost up to date, a dredging project at Blenheim Palace has uncovered over 30 rooms flooded when Capability Brown created the estates lakes.

Food & Drink

The Marine Conservation Society has been looking at the humble fish finger and found that they are surprisingly sustainable and some of the best products to buy are also the cheapest.

Shock, Horror, Humour

Finally, we promised some more on the unintended consequences of AI. There are quite a few examples in a Google document, including these two:

A self-driving car which was rewarded for speed learnt to spin in circles.

In an artificial life simulation where survival required energy but giving birth had no energy cost, one species evolved a sedentary lifestyle that consisted mostly of mating in order to produce new children which could be eaten (or used as mates to produce more edible children).

Remember: If a system can be gamed, someone or something will game it.

Enjoy your Christmas turkey!

beliefs, current affairs, sexuality

Teenagers and Sex

Three (I think) important articles recently about teenagers and sex. As usual we bring you key quotes, although I would recommend reading the articles themselves (none is long).

The first article reports on Labour MP Jess Phillips’ contention that the discussion of female pleasure is essential to redress the gender power imbalance.

Teach schoolgirls about orgasms (Guardian; 8 November 2018)

Schoolgirls should be taught about orgasms in sex education lesson … girls should be taught about sex from a young age in order to form healthy sexual relationships when they become adults.

[It is] vital to discuss female pleasure in order to “break down the culture of power imbalance between men and women” …

“I’m not suggesting we teach children how to masturbate, I’m suggesting we talk to them about the things they’re doing anyway.”

Women’s expectations “should be greater” and they should “start demanding more” during sex.

“I’ve made a career out of being able to talk about difficult things, and that comes from growing up in an environment where nothing was embarrassing.”

Phillips is campaigning for sex education in [all] secondary schools to be compulsory by 2020 … [E]ducating children about healthy relationships and their anatomy will reduce the risk of violence against women: “To liberate women and end violence is to break down the culture of power imbalance. Let’s stop people feeling ashamed.”

The second article is by Jess Phillips herself.

Yes, yes, yes: why female pleasure must be at the heart of sex education (Guardian; 13 November 2018)

By the time they started talking to us about [sex] at secondary school, I think in the third year (year 9), most of the girls in my class had had their first sexual encounters … The teachers were clearly counting on us not having had intercourse (although some of us had) because our sex education was about Aids … and babies. It was essentially a lesson in contraception.

Sex and relationships were never discussed in our contraceptive education. It was all about the dangers of a man climaxing … We were shown how to handle and dispose of men’s pleasure safely.

[T]he average member of the British public thinks men need sex more than women … This is a cultural norm we have all accepted and it seeps into how we live our lives and teach our children. Men don’t need sex any more than women, they just enjoy it more because it has a guaranteed payoff.

“Just say no” doesn’t work, so perhaps we need to try teaching young people about why they might want to say “yes”. What does good, healthy and happy sex look like, for example?

Girls masturbate, girls know all about what they like and want. They also know what boys like and want. Boys only know the latter. Girls and boys spend at least the first 10 years of their sex lives focusing exclusively on what boys want … Would it hurt to talk to both boys and girls about how sex should be for both parties? Giving girls a bit of hope that shagging won’t just lead to them dripping in breast milk or being a witness in a trial.

I don’t want young girls growing up thinking that sex is just something that happens to us. I want boys and girls to know that it should be about both people not just agreeing, but also enjoying it.

The third article is from a young Nigerian, Jennifer Amadi, who lost a close friend to a DIY abortion because everyone had been too scared to talk to teenagers about sex.

The world must not be too scared to talk about teenagers having sex (Guardian; 9 November 2018)

[T]the world is too scared to talk about teenagers having sex. And young people are losing their lives and livelihoods as a result.

I see these attitudes everywhere, from Nigeria to the UK. Parents who are too uncomfortable to have “the talk” with their kids, nurses who deny young girls contraceptives because they think they’re “too young to have sex”, education ministers who believe the best policy for addressing teenage pregnancies is a sound beating paired with expulsion rather than comprehensive sex education classes.

[P]oliticians … worry that supporting programmes that increase youth access to contraception will cost them their jobs … fearful leaders … earmark foreign aid for politically safe initiatives like abstinence-based sex-ed or programmes that only provide birth control to married women.

There are 1.2 billion people in the world between the ages of 10 to 19 and most live in developing countries …

[W]here the world fails to deliver for its young people … teenagers continue to have unintended pregnancies. Millions of girls experience health issues stemming from pregnancy and childbirth their bodies aren’t ready for, and efforts to improve gender equality are upended as teenage mothers are forced to drop out of school and face lifelong economic insecurity … this has the potential to put the economic and social progress of entire countries at risk, and has lasting implications for global trade, migration and foreign affairs.

[I]nvest in our young people so they can get reliable information about reproductive health and birth control. They decide when to have children and how many to have. They become the biggest generation of educated, empowered, working adults the world has seen. They break the cycle of poverty for their families and shape the future of their countries.

As I keep saying, time to wake up and smell the coffee. With the UK government currently looking at reforming sex education in the classroom this country has the opportunity to lead the world. But it needs imagination and bravery, something for which the UK government has never been noted.

beliefs, books, freedom of speech, medical, people, photography, sexuality

Womanhood: The Bare Reality

Laura Dodsworth, author of Manhood: The Bare Reality has a new book coming out, but unfortunately not until next February.

Its title: Womanhood: The Bare Reality.

You can, of course, pre-order it on Amazon or from the publishers Pinter & Martin.

The book promises to do for women, what Manhood did for men: tell of the variety and the stories of man and manhood. As the blurb an Amazon says:

100 women bare all in an empowering collection of photographs and interviews about Womanhood.

Vagina, vulva, lady garden, pussy, beaver, c**t, fanny … whatever you call it most women have no idea what’s ‘down there’. Culturally and personally, no body part inspires love and hate, fear and lust, worship and desecration in the same way.

From smooth Barbie dolls to internet porn, girls and women grow up with a very narrow view of what they should look like, even though in reality there is an enormous range. Womanhood departs from the ‘ideal vagina’ and presents the gentle un-airbrushed truth, allowing us to understand and celebrate our diversity.

For the first time, 100 brave and beautiful women reveal their bodies and stories on their own terms, talking about how they feel about pleasure, sex, pain, trauma, birth, motherhood, menstruation, menopause, gender, sexuality and simply being a woman.

Laura comments further in a recent Facebook post:

“A major issue for women is that men and society are really interested in defining womanhood for us and without us. A lot of the time, women don’t have an awful lot of input into the definition of womanhood, yet we’re judged against it. Women have to make choices that men don’t ever have to make.”
From Womanhood: The Bare Reality

A bold first quote to share from Womanhood. I’ve already been #notallmen-ed on Twitter, so let me say, I love men, this is not anti-men. (I LOVE men.) Remember Manhood?

But this is the point; Womanhood is an exploration of female experience through the embodied stories of 100 women. We define Womanhood on our own terms and in our own words. We reveal ourselves to ourselves and to each other. And it’s about time.

Laura’s previous books (Manhood: The Bare Reality and Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories) were amazing, revealing and informative, so I’m really am looking forward to reading Womanhood: The Bare Reality. My copy is already on order.

Full disclosure: I was one of the 100 men featured in Manhood.

arts, beliefs, nudism, sexuality

Life Drawing

Thanks to @ldsdrawingclub on Twitter for drawing attention to this piece from the Daily Telegraph of a few days ago.

Life drawing can help teens overcome
social media body confidence issues

The Telegraph website is paywalled, so here are a few snippets:

Experts including the former president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters have advised that drawing nude models could help youngsters understand what “real” people look like, compared to those on social media.

What is out there online for youngsters is often superficial and does not accurately represent what people look like in real life … images seen online and on social media are having an impact of distorting reality and … cause people to have body confidence issues or think how they look is different.

I would urge people to get involved in life drawing which has the benefit of allowing people to question what the ‘ideal’ body is.

Life drawing is an opportunity to study the human form, folds, blemishes and all – not wondering if the image you’re obsessing over has been photoshopped.

Those who follow along here won’t be surprised to learn that I entirely agree. I can’t draw for toffee – I was so bad I wasn’t allowed to take O-level Art at school, but I have been to an art class since school (to little effect, I may say). But in many ways one’s drawing ability doesn’t matter. What’s important is the exposure, the ability to see so many different forms, the opportunity through drawing to see how all the pieces and shapes fit together, and to realise it is all normal.

More power to these people for doing their bit to cure us of this toxic ethos and these ridiculous taboos.

beliefs, personal, pleasures, sexuality

Who’s Day

Today (2 June) is International Whores’ Day, aka. International Sex Workers’ Day.

As regular readers will know, and you don’t have to look too far back in the archives to find out, I am a firm believer that sex work should be decriminalised. I’ve never used the services of a sex worker, and I have no plans to do so, but I fail to see why people should not be able to pay for sex, or to sell sex, if that is their choice.

Prostitutes (of all types) perform a valuable social service. In part they may be considered part of the leisure industry, providing what might be called “alternative entertainment”. But they also provide service for many who would not otherwise have sex, or have the sex they want, and that can be a significant factor in preserving mental health.

Fortunately there does seem to be a growing body of academically rigorous evidence that decriminalisation is the best way to protect the human rights of sex workers, and ensure they can follow their chosen profession in safety, with unobstructed access to legal recourse where there is violence or abuse. New Zealand has shown the way on this, as have the World Health Organization and Amnesty International.

I don’t want to have to write at length about all the reasoning, so here are just a few relatively recent reports of some of this research.

Decriminalising sex work is the only way to protect women – and New Zealand has proved that it works; Independent; 29 May 2017

Decriminalising prostitution could ‘dramatically’ reduce sexual violence and STI transmission; Independent; 20 December 2017

Decriminalising Sex Work Is Better for Everyone; Big Think; 12 December 2017

Amnesty International policy on state obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of sex workers; Amnesty International; 26 May 2016

Q&A: policy to protect the human rights of sex workers; Amnesty International; 26 May 2016

Decriminalising sex work in New Zealand: its history and impact; Open Democracy; 21 August 2015

I don’t understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn’t selling fucking legal? You know, why should it be illegal to sell something that’s perfectly legal to give away?
– George Carlin

Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?
– Anna Quindlen

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Interesting Links

As regular readers will realise, I read a lot of articles in consumer science, consumer history and the more general media over the course of a month – articles which look as if they will interest me. (I don’t generally read politics, business etc.). What I post here are only those items which I think may be of more general interest to you, my readers, being mindful that the humanities people amongst you might want a bit of “soft” science; and the scientists a bit of humanities. So I do try to mostly avoid difficult science and academically dense Eng.Lit. or history – ‘cos you don’t all want to struggle with/be interested in that, though some may. And I obviously don’t expect everyone to read everything, but just to pick the items which interest you most; if you find one or two each month then that’s good.

So, having restated my aims for this series, let’s get down to business – because there is a lot to cover this month.

Science, Technology & Natural World

We start off with something which surprised me: the engineers building Crossrail had to take the curvature of the Earth into account, because of the length of the line and the precision with which some of the tunnels had to be threaded through between existing structures.

Staying on an engineering theme, scientists have developed a method of making wood as strong as steel, and thus potentially useable as a high strength building material.

Changing themes, what really is biodiversity and why is it so important?

The curious history of horses’ hooves, and how five digits became just one.

Following the attack on a pair of Russians in Salisbury, several of the scientific media have been asking what nerve agents are and how they work. This is Scientific American‘s view.

Health & Medicine

A strange, six inch long, “mummy” was found in Chile some years ago, and many people decided it was an alien – hardly surprising given its appearance. However, following DNA testing it has finally been confirmed that it was a very deformed, female, human infant.

Musician Taylor Muhl has a large birthmark on her torso, but it turns out that it isn’t a birthmark but that she’s a chimera, having absorbed a twin sister in utero in the very early days of gestation.

Influenza is relatively common, and benign, in may non-primate species which provide a natural reservoir for the virus. And there are many other such viruses out in the wild which are a concern as (like Ebola, Zika, SARS) they could mutate and jump to humans.

On a similar theme, researchers are coming to realise that there is a genetic component to our susceptibility to many diseases and that disease prevalence partly depends on the genetic mutations we carry.

Sexuality

From consent advice to sex toys and masturbation hacks, YouTube has taken over sex education.

Language

While on sex, the Whores of Yore website has a history of Cunt, the word.

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

Researchers have analysed a huge number of DNA samples to discover that Homo sapiens interbred with Denisovans on multiple occasions, as we did with the Neanderthals.

Why did Oxford and Cambridge have a monopoly on UK university education for several hundred years, when universities proliferated across the rest of Europe?

Long before the height of the slave trade and the British Empire, black Africans lived freely in Tudor England.

In 1600 Giordano Bruno burned at the stake as a heretic and it looks likely that this was for believing in the existence of planets outside our solar system.

The oldest message in a bottle has been found on a beach in Western Australia.

London

Mudlarking: the pursuit of archaeological treasures hiding in the mud of the River Thames foreshore. Warning: you need a licence!

John Joseph Merlin, a wizard in Georgian London.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

Brad Warner, one of our two favourite Zen Masters, on waking up happy.

So just how many beak-ups does one have to have before one finds “the one”? Search me!

The exorcists are coming, and it doesn’t look good.

We’re living through a crisis of touch where lots of basic human contact like hugging is no longer acceptable – and it is having a serious effect on our mental health.

OK guys, this is for you: 100 easy ways to make women’s lives better. Basically: be considerate!

Finally, following on from the above two items, an article I found rather nauseating about the supposed crisis in modern masculinity. Gawdelpus all!

More next month! Meanwhile, be good!

beliefs, personal, sexuality, thoughts

How to Be a Better Spouse

For Valentine’s Day, yesterday, Scientific American posted an article entitled How to Be a Better Spouse. You can read the detail in the article, but the four headline tips are:

  1. Be nice as often as you can
  2. Think about what your partner needs, even when fighting
  3. Just notice them
  4. Ignore the bad, praise the good

Yes, well, they’re sort of obvious really. But do we do this? Well, not as much as we probably should – I certainly don’t despite 38 years married (eeeekk!!!!), although I must be doing something not too wrong.
But then do these all not amount to the old adage: Communicate, communicate, communicate?
And think on this too … Are these ideas not things we should be doing to everyone, and not just our partners? Do they not all fall under the umbrella of Treat others as you would wish them to treat you? Reductio ad adsurdum.
On the other hand we do have to have these things pointed out to us occasionally so we don’t forget them.