Holidays In The Sun
Recorded live in Tokyo or Osaka, Japan, August 1996
Released on Holidays In The Sun (Japan only) [JVC Victor VICP-60403], 1998
Entire album reissued with a slightly different running order as the Japan disc of Home From Home, [Oyster OYS0017-2], 1999
Also issued as a bonus track on Cabaret 79 reissue [Castaway Northwest CNWVP003CD], 1997
[Lyrics new to this version are marked in bold]
The British Police are the best in the world
I don’t believe one of these stories I’ve heard
‘Bout them spending three million to bust up a ring
Of consenting leathermen doing their thing
It might have been private, where no-one complained
But the judge put an end to their fun and their games
He sentenced the members to four or five years
I can’t believe that sort of thing happens here
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
The liars of Wapping are really the pits
Commissioned by bigots and written by shits
They plaster their pages with bingo and tits
Then add all the scandal and slander that fits
They pick out their victims, destroying their lives
They sneer as they smear as they damn and despise
If it’s paedophile teachers or lesbian nuns
If it’s filth and it’s fiction it’s there in The Sun
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
And now there’s a nightmare they blame on the gays
It’s brutal and lethal and slowly invades
The medical facts are ignored or forgot
By the bigots who think it’s the judgement of God
Attacked by the Vatican, bashed by the bill
With cheap politicians all making a kill
The message is simple and obvious, please
Just lay off the patients and let’s fight the disease
And sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
For 21 years now I’ve fought for the right
For people to love just whoever they like
But the right-on and righteous are out for my blood
Now I live with my kid and a woman I love
Well if gay liberation means freedom for all
A label is no liberation at all
I’m here and I’m queer and I do what I do
And I’m not gonna wear a ‘straight’ jacket for you
No, I say –
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy this way
Explanatory notes:
“’Bout them spending three million to bust up a ring
Of consenting leathermen doing their thing
It might have been private, where no-one complained
But the judge put an end to their fun and their games
He sentenced the members to four or five years
I can’t believe that sort of thing happened here”
This refers to the Spanner Trial – named after the police operation against them – in 1990. The state prosecuted a group of sixteen gay men for having S&M sex. They were charged with Actual Bodily Harm under the Offences Against The Person Act 1861 and keeping a disorderly house under the obscure Disorderly Houses Act 1751.
It had all happened in private, it was all consensual, nobody had complained of any injuries, or of anything else for that matter. The judge ruled that consent was not a defence, therefore the men had assaulted one another and they were found guilty.
I’ve yet to hear of any police raids on boxing matches or prosecutions of tattooists (ironically the profession of one of the convicted men). By this rationale, they could successfully prosecute you for leaving a lovebite on your lover.
The men at the Spanner Trial received sentences of up to four and a half years. Lives were ruined. The Court of Appeal, the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights all upheld the convictions. More information here.
Somehow I thought those days had gone. But no.
In 2006 the British Government moved to outlaw the possession of images depicting sexual violence, carrying a sentence of up to three years imprisonment. Their framing is a sexual image that shows – or realistically appears to show – something that threatens a person’s life, or is likely to result in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals.
As the whole point of much S&M is to play out extreme roles, photos of it could certainly appear to show such violence.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said, “the vast majority of people find these forms of violent and extreme pornography deeply abhorrent”. In other words, if most people don’t like doing it then we should jail those that do it.
When the law was passed – Section 63, Criminal Justice & Immigration Act 2008 – they inconsistently failed to recriminalise homosexual acts or ban the eating of brussel sprouts, even though most people don’t like doing these things.
The Spanner Trust – named after the trial – campaigns to defend S&M practitioners and get consensual S&M made fully legal. They report that there have been several successful prosecutions for consensual S&M sex since the Spanner case. It could, and probably will, happen again.
