Failed Architecture: Photo Essay: The Fading Glory of Brazil’s Disappearing Love Motels

Brazilians are often stereotypically described as passionate, sensual and flirtatious. Paradoxically however, the country is still relatively conservative when it comes to sexuality. Infidelity, homosexuality, prostitution and other ‘debaucheries’ are being kept under the radar. Moreover, large families, mostly in cities, often live in small houses with kids not leaving home until marriage. It’s not the kind of place you bring your lover to. [...]

Their main fascination is with the design of the motel interiors, many of which have recently been stripped. The look and feel of the rooms ranges from austere and shabby, to 1983-neon-chique, with mirrored ceilings, chrome details and shiny leather, to outright bizarre. Many of them come with a host of erotic amenities such as sex chairs, Jacuzzis, champagne service and dancing poles.[...]

Privacy is perhaps the most important feature of the accommodations, so naturally their staff and guests aren’t always happy with nosey outsiders. “The cab driver helped us communicating with the motel owners,” says Vera. “He came up with all kinds of stories to have them let us take photos in the motel’s common spaces as well. Sometimes he introduced us as two Dutch tourism professionals doing research on the love motels, because it’s a phenomenon foreign to the Netherlands.” Once, they wanted to photograph a motel named Luxemburgo. “It’s façade was decorated with a large depiction of a skier descending a mountain. When the owner spotted us and asked what on earth we were doing, the driver told her we were tourists from Luxembourg looking to take a snapshot of the exterior because we though it was funny. To which she responded with the question of whether we even had any mountains in Luxemburg..”

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Failed Architecture: Craigslust: “We’ll Have Sex and You Don’t Need to Pay Much for the Flat”

Upon opening the room share section users are immediately confronted with titles such as: “Free accommodation for gorgeous female” or “Live rent-free in luxury – avail 4 cute female”. Such adverts make “sex for rent” schemes between a male seller and a female buyer seem not only obvious, but presumably socially accepted. In this instance, the assumption that it is acceptable to request “sex for rent” originates in patriarchy, a societal structure in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded. More specifically, it originates in the patriarchal claim of a man’s rights over female bodies in both the domestic and the public space.

As Carole Pateman describes it, through the marriage contract, the woman at home is expected to perform both sex and domestic work for economic support and protection. The public aspect of patriarchal right, through what Pateman names a “prostitution contract”, manifests through the demand for female bodies to be sold as commodities in the capitalist market. Sex for rent appears to be a compelling hybrid of the two contracts, which is helping to fuel a resurgence of oppressive relations in ostensibly socially liberal societies. And while these oppressive relations manifest differently based on the subject’s ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation and physical ability, it’s worth exploring how the basic patriarchal dynamic plays out in some of the world’s most overheated housing markets. [...]

In all these adverts, a familiar yet increasingly contested pattern of discrimination is unrestrained and painfully evident. The majority of property owners and renters are middle-aged, Caucasian men describing themselves as “successful”, “professional”, and “fit”, whilst the target audience for these advertisements are predominantly young, financially unstable women or members of the queer community. Without data on people responding, it is impossible to assess the level of exploitation underlying a particular advert. But given the fact that one is more likely to experience housing precarity as, for instance, a working class woman of colour, it is safe to say this dynamic has even more troubling implications for women affected by other sources of oppression. [...]

What should be surprising, however, is the normalisation of a deal in which one needs to abandon one human right — not to be held in servitude — in order to satisfy another — the right to adequate housing. If the exploitation of housing by real-estate were not so rife, and the home was universally accepted as a place of security, then perhaps “sex for rent” would cease to exist. The breakthrough for female emancipation is historically associated with the removal of housing from the market and the growth of the welfare state. Yet, as long as we apply to housing what Mark Fisher described as a ‘business ontology’ in which it is “simply obvious that everything in society should be ran as a business”, the underprivileged will continue to experience widespread erosion of their historic strides toward equality.

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UnHerd: Can history help us redefine our ‘national interest’?

The recent publication of the historian David Edgerton’s book, the Rise and Fall of the British Nation, is, therefore, a timely one. It argues that Britain was only convincingly a nation for a period between 1945 and the 1970s, which took in the end of Empire and the start of our membership of the EU, and was finished off decisively by the miners’ strike. Of 1950, Edgerton writes: “the new British nation increasingly knew only itself…politics was now national interest, based on the politics of class, of production and of national social services.” [...]

The book outlines the distinct form of national coherence that was generated after the war – helped, no doubt, by the unifying effect of shared trauma and victory, but also by policies consciously designed to boost British industry, agriculture and social cohesion. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was advertised as ‘A Tonic For The Nation’ (a billing quite unlike that of previous events such as the 1938 Empire Exhibition). [...]

While the 70s, for example, may have been beset by strikes, cultural argument and unemployment, it was also a time when “British social democracy and the welfare state were to be at their peak”. Yet, economically, “by the 1970s British was no longer best…the products of British genius went unsold”. Even so, the benefits of greater integration with Europe were not universally perceived, particularly by those on the Left. When Heath took Britain into the EEC, “the majority of Labour MPs voted against joining”. They were, perhaps, mindful of Hugh Gaitskell’s earlier 1962 speech warning that with EEC entry would come “the end of Britain as an independent nation state”. [...]

Another question is whether Britain – with the weight of its historical role – can bear to step back from seeking greater influence, and consciously become a smaller player on the world stage. Post-Brexit there will be no going back to the past, but there must surely be a conscious effort to reshape a future British identity: not one that plays out to nostalgic strains of Land of Hope and Glory, but a benign, inclusive form of Britishness that fits a modern, multi-racial society, one that operates with humility in the national interest rather than swaggers in the interests of nationalism.

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TLDR News: Have May's Red Lines Made Getting a Deal Impossible? - Brexit Explained

May has been talking about red lines for months, her hard limits when it comes to Brexit negotiations. However, there's a case to be made that these red lines are exactly what's sabotaged the Brexit process. We discuss why the red lines have limited the chances of getting a deal and how the EU sees the process.

Jacobin Magazine: Italy’s War on the Roma

Nevertheless, he proposed a census of Italy’s Roma population such that the non-Italian Roma might be expelled from the country. As for the Italian ones: “Purtroppo te li devi tenere in Italia” — “Unfortunately you have to keep them in Italy.”

Sane observers immediately denounced Salvini’s plan of action, warning that, besides not really being legal, an ethnicity-based population tally was reminiscent of a certain Benito Mussolini. Then again, maybe that was the point. [...]

Such affronts to justice are bolstered by public animosity toward the Roma, who are estimated to number up to 180,000 in Italy. A 2016 Pew Research Center survey, for example, found that 82 percent of Italians held anti-Roma views — much higher than any other European nation listed.[...]

Salvini’s “Italians first” slogan — while clearly not encompassing those Italians who happen to be Roma or black or Muslim — recalls the rhetoric of another right-wing icon across the Atlantic who is similarly working to sanitize racism and xenophobia. Yet unlike Trump, the more Salvini plunges into full-blown fascist whackjobbery, the more popular it seems he becomes. In a recent interview, Italian actor Moni Ovadia argued that the reason Italy has ended up with the likes of Salvini is that the country never properly came to terms with its fascist past — a history that, it bears reiterating, also saw untold thousands of Roma exterminated at concentration camps.

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Politico: Italy’s governing parties struggle to find path forward on vaccines

While the 5Star Movement and the League are united in their pledge to not force parents to inoculate their kids, they’ve so far been unable to forge a policy that satisfies both public health concerns and their populist base. [...]

A persistent measles outbreak is complicating the government’s effort to unwind Italy’s compulsory vaccination law after the country recorded the second highest number of new infections among EU countries in 2018.

The 2017 Lorenzin decree, named after former Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin, made 10 vaccines mandatory for children between 0 and 16. It mandated children between 0 and 6 be excluded from day care and kindergartens if their parents don't provide a proof they were vaccinated, and fines for parents of children between 6 and 16 years old. [...]

Italy’s government in February noted the success of its mandatory vaccination plan, saying that coverage for children increased in the first six months of 2018 compared to the end of 2017. “In several cases the minimum threshold recommended by the World Health Organization of 95 percent has been reached and exceeded,” the health ministry said.

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Politico: Little debate (literally) over best Spitzenkandidat

But with just seven weeks to go until the European Parliament election, the two main contenders — Manfred Weber of the European People's Party (EPP) and Frans Timmermans of the Party of European Socialists (PES) — are scheduled to go head-to-head in just one EU-wide debate.

By contrast, current Commission President Jean-Claude Junker of the EPP and his main rival, former Parliament President Martin Schulz of the PES, faced off in nine debates in 2014, including four times for an EU-wide audience. [...]

The main liberal party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), has refused to put forward a single nominee, viewing the Spitzenkandidat process as unfairly benefitting Weber and the conservatives. Instead, ALDE has put forward a slate of candidates and said that different members of that list would represent the party in debates, notably European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a Dane, and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE's group leader in Parliament.

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Politico: The battle for Spain’s empty center

Sánchez has good reason to be focusing on the interior. Polls predict that the Socialists will replace the Popular Party (PP) as the biggest party in a majority of inland provinces. But it's not because rural voters are flocking to the Socialists; it's because the far-right Vox party and the liberal Ciudadanos are taking votes away from the PP. [...]

Spain is divided into 52 electoral districts, and the rural areas are valuable. The 28 most sparsely populated constituencies have just 20 percent of the population but 30 percent of the seats in parliament — 103 out of 350. On top of that, the electoral system becomes less proportional in these areas because of the reduced number of seats per district, giving the winning party a bonus.

In 2016, the PP won 40 percent of the vote in rural districts and 51 percent of the seats. A poll of polls for El País forecasts the conservatives will lose almost half their seats in those constituencies, while the Socialists will grow from 29 to 48. [...]

Ciudadanos unveiled a plan to cut personal income tax by 60 percent and bring fast internet to underpopulated areas. The PP has defended its rural track record and its role negotiating the CAP in Brussels. The far right has focused on defending hunting, fishing and bullfighting. The far-left Podemos, which risks losing all its current 15 lawmakers in the least populated provinces, has promised better social services and infrastructure.

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