Quote: Rood Eye @ 6th March 2019, 8:59 AMAnd it's a choice that a man in her position wouldn't be offered.
Bollocks. When I was at university, a woman let me live in her house, free of charge, providing that I was willing to provide her with intimate companionship. The arrangement lasted for six months without any unpleasantness.
Quote: Kenneth @ 6th March 2019, 10:19 AMBollocks.
I'm not sure it's actually "bollocks", although I readily concede that it isn't literally true.
I usually try to write with as much precision as I can muster but sometimes, if what I'm saying isn't literally true but is nevertheless true enough to demonstrate the point I'm making, I'll go ahead and say it.
I should know better by now.
Interestingly, my own experience has been the opposite of yours: on several occasions during my life, women have offered me free accommodation in their homes on the strict condition that I do not attempt to provide them with intimate companionship.
It's a funny old world.
Also, there are plenty of shirt-lifters who will come to accommodation arrangements with young chaps. A banker in London once offered to let me stay as long as I wanted at his house, but he was looking for intimate companionship, so I declined.
Wasn't he good-looking enough?
Apparently, the Ministry of Justice has said that offering accommodation in exchange for sex is inciting prostitution, an offence which can carry a sentence of up to seven years in jail.
Really? Well, good luck with that one, Ministry of Justice! My understanding is that it is perfectly lawful to incite another person to become a prostitute as long as the person doing the inciting does not expect that he or any third party will gain financially from the prostitution.
If they want to start putting some of these landlords in jail, the authorities' best bet by far is surely to arrest landlords who have had sex with reluctant tenants in lieu of rent payment and charge them with rape on the basis that consent obtained under the threat of being rendered homeless is not actually consent within the meaning of the relevant statutes.
Of course, the above legal sanctions would not work in cases where a tenancy is and has from inception been based on "sex in lieu of rent" but they would be applicable in the sort of case that Teddy was highlighting where a previously paying tenant has become unable to pay rent and, upon being offered the opportunity to avoid eviction by having sex, has very reluctantly accepted the arrangement as the lesser of two evils.
Quote: beaky @ 6th March 2019, 1:24 PMWasn't he good-looking enough?
I was very naive in those days. Hopelessly naive. I'd never before had a bloke try that sort of thing on me. He got very drunk and cried and threw me out when I spurned his advances.
GIRL 1: The landlord came round for his rent while you were out.
GIRL 2: What did you tell him?
GIRL 1: I told him we didn't have the money.
GIRL 2: So is he chucking us out?
GIRL 1: No, he said if I let him pop it in for five minutes, it'd be all right. So I did.
GIRL 2: Brilliant! And the rent's all sorted till next week?
GIRL 1: Not quite: he's coming back for your half at 6 o'clock.
ENDS
Quote: Kenneth @ 6th March 2019, 1:22 PMAlso, there are plenty of shirt-lifters who will come to accommodation arrangements with young chaps. A banker in London once offered to let me stay as long as I wanted at his house, but he was looking for intimate companionship, so I declined.
Kenneth, I understand you're using the phrase "shirt-lifters" in a semi-ironic, knowing sense, but please do be aware such language is still not really acceptable, and we have received a complaint. Do be mindful that this is a public forum not a private club.
Kenneth, you are Jim Davidson and I claim my £5 ! 
Comedy notes: at its simplest level, my joke works because Jim Davidson is well known for his straightforward, non-PC language. However, comedy and TV aficionados may remember that Jim was booted off the reality show "Hell's Kitchen" in 2007 for using the very word about which somebody has just complained. The joke is therefore much cleverer than it appears at first glance. I thank you.
Quote: Aaron @ 6th March 2019, 4:52 PMKenneth, I understand you're using the phrase "shirt-lifters" in a semi-ironic, knowing sense, but please do be aware such language is still not really acceptable, and we have received a complaint. Do be mindful that this is a public forum not a private club.
A complaint? I can understand someone taking offence but telling teacher instead of objecting in public seems a bit strange.
I wonder if Kenneth would be allowed to use the term to describe a shoplifter who specialises in the theft of shirts?
Come to think of it, that would have been an absolutely cracking joke in an episode of "Are you being served?" 
But seriously though, folks - I can understand that it might well have offended somebody.
What are we more shocked by?
The term or the complaint.
Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 6th March 2019, 6:13 PMWhat are we more shocked by?
The term or the complaint.
I'm not shocked by the term or the complaint.
The term itself (together with its feminine equivalent which refers to the chewing of floor coverings) does not offend me in any way if used for comedy purposes. If used as a deliberate slur against homosexuals intended to hold them up to ridicule or contempt, it's a different matter.
The complaint doesn't shock me either - or even surprise me. If I were someone (or a friend of someone) who had been subjected to homophobic harassment over the years, I'd probably be offended myself even if no offence had been intended.
These are sensitive times.
We also have to take into account the fact that Kenneth is Australian and I'd bet a pound to a penny that the term is not as offensive in Australia as it is in Britain. I'd certainly bet that the term is used far more frequently in Australia than it is in Britain.
Quote: Rood Eye @ 6th March 2019, 6:05 PMI can understand that it might well have offended somebody.
I guess it's another one of those terms that didn't manage to cross the Atlantic. Can't recall ever hearing it before.
Quote: DaButt @ 6th March 2019, 6:29 PMI guess it's another one of those terms that didn't manage to cross the Atlantic. Can't recall ever hearing it before.
Many years ago, an English friend of mine moved to America and shortly after arriving and starting his new job, he jokingly referred to a work colleague as a "bugger".
The work colleague was deeply offended and there was a hell of a row about it and my friend had to explain to the colleague and his bosses that the term is almost a playful comedic insult in Britain and that nobody in Britain would take serious offence if anybody used that term to describe them.
Foreigners are funny things.