Nazi chic bruised by tabloid whipping

Everyone knows that the Nazis had the best uniforms. This basic unalterable fact forms the basis of a judgement I’ve formed on the Max Mosley controversy in that, whatever else you say about him, if his S&M party had an SS theme, the man’s apparently got taste.

Who’d have thought it? The man who runs Formula One – the most boring sport, and the one most bereft of style, that the world has ever known – has a penchant for Nazi chic and likes a spot of CP.

This is so his own private business it’s positively depressing that his being outed as a fetishist is supposedly the ‘price of free speech’, according to Nick Cohen, in the most ridiculous quote of the year (in the Evening Standard – hello).

Free speech is apparently something of an illusion, anyway, if we’re to believe the story by Lotus on folo that one of the prozzies in the Mosley video is the wife of an MI5 intelligence officer, who has since been ‘forced to resign’. If there is fact behind this allegation it’s interesting that the newspapers haven’t been chewing much on the meat of that material.

What breathes life into the Mosley story is the fact that his dad, Oswald, was a real-life fascist. This is the cynical sensationalist centrepoint around which the honeytrap was insidiously contrived. The implication that Mosley may be some kind of covert Nazi is palpably stupid. There are five adults in my immediate family (including me) and NONE of us share the same political position (although we don’t beat each other up about it).

If Mosley and his companions had been sporting KKK costumes and burning black kids, that might be of interest to the public and worth informing the Crown Prosecution Service about, but a bit of themed hanky panky is hurting no one. And if people are offended, they should pay no heed to the contents of a secret video that was filmed without consent because it’s none of their business, anyway.

The video, of course, has been broadcast on the web. If you’ve seen it (research purposes, darling), you’ll know it’s actually pretty dull. As the fetish scene can be. On my first foray into that world I made a beeline for a gang of fiercely gesticulating transvestites who I thought looked like they were talking about something pretty wild, only to discover they were sharing advice about keeping their car engines clean. It takes allsorts.

But I’m loathe to take the piss out of the fetish scene, because while papers like the News of the World and the Daily Mail are apt to mount their hypocritical high horses and cheerfully bemoan the decrepit state of the nation’s family values, the trusting networks of quasi-family setups that connect within the fetish community are often quietly going about the business of caring, nurturing and supporting each other, with respect for individuality, privacy and consent (a corruptible dominatrix or two being a disappointing exception to the rule). Meanwhile, the children of the ultra-conservative learn the language of shame (DEAD silence), living but partly living, in the fear that their dark secrets will someday be exposed.

Those cunts at the News of the World deserve a fucking good hiding.