In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk Royal Infirmary, performed a pair of amputations on two men. Neither of the men involved had anything physically wrong with them, but both were suffering from apotemnophilia – a rare psychiatric condition involving the desire to have healthy limbs amputated.
Sufferers, counterintuitively, claim not to feel “whole” with four limbs and obsess over having their unwanted body parts chopped off. Smith argued the surgeries were life-saving, claiming the patients would commit suicide otherwise.
Apotemnophiles, like autogynephiles, insist that there is no erotic element, but it was later discovered that one of the men Smith operated on ran an amputee fetish website.
But in fact the headline on the STV News website – whether intentionally, through innocent misunderstanding or, as we suspect, a result of being deliberately misled by government ministers – is a flat-out lie.
In fact the Scottish Government has done the exact opposite. It has taken Dr Hilary Cass’s four-year report and set it on fire, so that it can continue to irreversibly destroy the lives of Scottish children in the name of gender ideology.
You’d have to be living in a pretty strict prison not to have heard the big story from today’s Olympics in Paris, in which male Algerian cheat Imane Khelefi was put in a boxing ring with young Italian woman Angela Carini and allowed to hit her in the head for 46 seconds until she retired, in tears and in fear for her safety, saying “I had to preserve my life”.
Sound like your kind of fun, men? It’s surprisingly easy!
The average rape sentence in Scotland is seven years, so to get six years plus three years’ supervision for the technically lesser crime of sexual assaults means they must have been pretty grim ones.
So we know that Cameron Downing is a very bad man. Which does rather invite the question of why he was so popular in the SNP.
Last week’s controversy around the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre put the spotlight on the need for single-sex services to protect vulnerable women, but it’s very far from the only example of how Scottish women are being let down in this regard by both the Scottish Government and civic organisations.
The homelessness system in Scotland has collapsed. Emergency accommodation is dangerous, sub-standard, and overcrowded. There has been an epidemic of deaths in hotels and B&Bs in recent years.
As a writer, feminist and literary events organiser in Scotland, I’m regularly sent links to information someone thinks might be of interest to me. This week it was a document commissioned by one of Scotland’s leading and most powerful publicly-funded literary organisations, Literature Alliance Scotland (LAS).
Nobody, of course, objects to transgender writers being included or supported, but the content of the guidance raises several extremely serious and concerning issues.
Mridul Wadhwa, a man with whom Wings readers have been familiar for some years, was found by the tribunal judge to have been “the invisible hand behind everything that had taken place” as Roz Adams, a conscientious, caring and highly professional woman with a long history in the sector, was systematically and methodically hounded out of her job for holding, privately and sensitively, the belief that biological sex is real.
Frank Gillougley on Points Into Prongs: “Having just read all this political bollocks above, the simple thought occurred to me that to compare and contrast what…” Jul 18, 19:47
Andrew scott on Points Into Prongs: “O/T REV YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A FIELD DAY WITH THIS SHAMBLES IN FIFE” Jul 18, 18:45
Confused on Points Into Prongs: “Frankly: The revelatory memoir from Scotland’s first female and longest-serving First Minister the greatest living englishmen provides us with much…” Jul 18, 18:36
twathater on Points Into Prongs: “It just shows the level of contempt this arsehole Swinney and his fellow lying scum noncers have for the people…” Jul 18, 18:32
Dan on Points Into Prongs: “Sheesh… I only got halfway through the first paragraph and haz concerns Robin is morphing into Kelly Given… https://robinmcalpine.org/scotland-has-no-controlling-intellect/ https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-stupidity-of-vanity/…” Jul 18, 18:23
twathater on According As We Need Them: “NC I am not a dedicated lover of poetry but I am a lover of the Scots language, our culture…” Jul 18, 18:19
100%Yes on Points Into Prongs: “Alf Baird, I would have thought you would have been the best person placed to continue Iain Lawsons blog, Welcome…” Jul 18, 18:07
socratesmacsporran on Points Into Prongs: “Mark Beggan @ 4.33pm You posted: “Swinney isn’t useless. You are quite correct, Swinney isn’t even competent enough to pass…” Jul 18, 17:45
Alf Baird on Points Into Prongs: “Swinney and previous SNP leaders since 2015 have been very effective at delaying independence, which is clearly their main purpose,…” Jul 18, 17:38
joolz on Points Into Prongs: ““the way to deliver independence is only with an emphatic SNP win in 2026”. Goodbye indy. They never learn ?” Jul 18, 16:39
Mark Beggan on Points Into Prongs: “Swinney isn’t useless. Useless was the other one.” Jul 18, 16:33
agent x on Points Into Prongs: ““Nicola Sturgeon compared to Barack Obama in ‘sycophantic’ review of new book Nicola Sturgeon was mocked after she was compared…” Jul 18, 16:33
Hatey McHateface on Points Into Prongs: “It’s a valid point, x. The state of Britain today should be all the evidence a competent Indy movement needs…” Jul 18, 16:24
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “James, back in my student days we fuckology students used to look down on the wankology class. Since graduating, I’m…” Jul 18, 16:15
Young Lochinvar on Points Into Prongs: “Aye, he’s a real firebrand of a political leader..” Jul 18, 16:13
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““Scotland, there is no better country in the world” Hmmm. I can defo think of a few. But that’s not…” Jul 18, 16:11
agent x on Points Into Prongs: ““But I will also be urging people who were not persuaded of the merits of independence in 2014 to see…” Jul 18, 16:02
sarah on Points Into Prongs: “Thanks for this, Cynicus – I thought Cup hook was updating Diderot. It is even better to know of the…” Jul 18, 16:00
Mark Beggan on Points Into Prongs: “The BbC used to be known as Aunty until it was revealed as a perverted old Uncle who the rest…” Jul 18, 15:59
Mike on Points Into Prongs: “Exactly. If Scotland ever achieves independence there will be no need for the National cheerleaders, nor for the SNP, who…” Jul 18, 15:57
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““the Scots might produce works which show the Scots existing without, before, in no need of, and in no relation…” Jul 18, 15:56
Hatey McHateface on Points Into Prongs: “That’s 10 minutes I won’t ever see again.” Jul 18, 15:48
Doug on Points Into Prongs: “Professional politicians of all estlished parties continue to separate themselves from their traditional support base. I can see Swinney greetin…” Jul 18, 15:35
100%Yes on Points Into Prongs: “If people commenting in The National about Swinney being useless and lets remember these are the Sturgeon loyalist so It…” Jul 18, 15:29
agent x on Points Into Prongs: ““Dr Pitt outlined what happened on that night when she came across Dr Upton, saying she “looked very shaken, distressed…” Jul 18, 15:28
100Yes on Points Into Prongs: “I just want to take a minute and have a little giggle. For me I left the SNP in 2015…” Jul 18, 15:24
Andew scott on Points Into Prongs: “He was SOBBING big girls blouse(that’s the problem) -he is a six foot man +peggie much smaller” Jul 18, 15:09
Alison Rollo on Points Into Prongs: “Ian I’m in Swinney’s constituency too and this latest announcement confirming no Independence convention and not making it a plebiscite…” Jul 18, 15:00
Mark Beggan on Points Into Prongs: “The BBC is falling over itself to tell us how Upset Upton cried and cried till he was sick.” Jul 18, 14:57