Slumming it

The rise and rise of slum tourism - tourists visiting the poorest neighbourhoods to see how the worst-off survive rather than heading for the well-known sights - attracts mixed reactions. Some see it as positive, others as cynical exploitation.

It's nothing new of course. The trend was well under way in Victorian London over 130 years ago, when the upper class wanted to see for themselves the poverty in the East End. It took off again when Nelson Mandela was freed from jail in South Africa and tourists flocked to the townships and places linked to apartheid.

Now it's big business in cities like Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing and even New York City, home of the Tenement Museum.

There's a similar trend in Belfast. Not so much slum tourism as conflict tourism. More and more tourists are curious about the areas that suffered heavily during the Troubles, as well as all the paramilitary murals and peace walls.

But opinions are divided over whether this fashion is good or bad. Those in favour say that as well as bringing money into desperately poor areas, it opens the eyes of people who may have lived in comfortable conditions all their lives and know nothing of serious hardship except what they see on TV.

Those against point out that a lot of the money raised doesn't go to the locals at all but to outsiders who've never set foot in the areas visited. And people's eyes may be opened for a few days but when they return to their normal privileged lives they soon forget what they've seen.

At its worst it's a voyeuristic search for cheap thrills and titillating squalor, taking away the dignity and privacy of those they're gawping at and not leaving them with any long-term benefit.

I'm of two minds about it all myself. Yes, there's little financial gain for the places the tourists visit, and little change to the prevailing poverty and degradation. But then again, I think many of those tourists are quite sincere in wanting to know about the wretched lives some people have to endure, and they return home genuinely enlightened and humbled.

The more people experience the grim reality of those forced to exist on the crumbs falling from the millionaires' well-stuffed mouths, the better.

My thanks to James Melik of the BBC for his article on the subject

Mixed motives

I have very mixed feelings when I'm watching one of those frank and gritty documentaries about the people who get shat on by society - families coping with squalid housing or loan sharks or chronic unemployment.

Am I someone with a social conscience, keeping in touch with what's happening outside my cosy middle-class cocoon? Or am I just a gawping voyeur, drinking in the sordid details of other people's miserable lives that I can do little to change?

I asked myself this when I was watching a particularly grim TV programme about tenants being conned and abused by ruthless landlords who let their homes disintegrate, jacked up the rent or evicted them overnight.

I wondered why I was continuing to watch a parade of humiliated and distraught people when I was already very familiar with the problems they were talking about, problems that have been going on for decades. What more would the programme tell me apart from how thoroughly wretched the victims were?

It's glaringly obvious that many people are struggling to survive and have decent lives. Why was I conspiring with journalists to make a pointless spectacle of their private anguish?

Apart from the voyeuristic element, there's the feeling of helplessness such programmes create. Naturally I want to relieve the suffering of these downtrodden people, but what can I actually do about it? As a solitary powerless individual, virtually nothing, so I'm left feeling inadequate and irrelevant in the face of overwhelming need.

Alternatively, I'm prompted yet again to rage against the incompetence of politicians who allow these injustices to go on year after year while they themselves enjoy decent lives in comfortable homes. And what does that rage achieve except to raise my blood pressure and remind me of other people's smugness? Nothing.

Is my ambivalence about these programmes just squeamish over-sensitivity? Or am I right to be dubious about such muck-raking journalism?

Was he a voyeur?

When is voyeurism not voyeurism? Is taking photos of man boobs as offensive as taking similar photos of female breasts? Or doesn't it count?

The English Court of Appeal had to grapple with this tricky issue last week after a care worker appealed against a court verdict that his secret photos of another man's chest made him a voyeur.

The law* says it's voyeurism if a person's breasts are involved, but it doesn't specify if it applies equally to men and women.

So Kevin Bassett, 44, was convicted after he snapped a male swimmer's torso at a swimming pool with a video camera hidden in a plastic bag.

He appealed on the grounds that male breasts don't count and the law applies only to women. The three Appeal Court judges agreed that only female breasts could be seen in a sexual light and therefore no offence had occurred.

Well, it seems to me there's something wrong here, as clearly there was an offence of some sort, in that the targetted swimmer's privacy was invaded and the other man was taking an undue physical interest in him.

If it's not forbidden under this particular law, there should be some other law that prevents it, or it's a green light for all men to be sexually spied on. On the other hand, maybe most men would just be amused by such absurd interest in their unexciting chests. I certainly would.

But the really sad part of the story is that the man boob-fancying Mr Bassett is a Christian who has hidden his homosexuality for many years as he just "wanted to be like everyone else".

After his conviction he received counselling and support from his friends and family. I only hope they persuaded him there's nothing wrong with homosexuality and he should embrace his true leanings and enjoy them.

PS: Perhaps men with sizeable boobs should do the decent thing and wear a bra??

* The 2003 Sexual Offences Act
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