Not to sound like a serial killer or an angsty teenager, but I am obsessed with pain at the moment. This is partly due to an excellent essay by Lili Loofbourow, recently published in the Week, on “the female price of male pleasure”.

The article has gone viral, so you may be familiar with it already. If not, the premise is that, when it comes to sex, “we live in a culture that sees female pain as normal and male pleasure as a right”. Loofbourow points out, for example, that PubMed, a biomedical search engine, “has almost five times as many clinical trials on male sexual pleasure as it has on female sexual pain”.

Loofbourow’s piece was prompted by the #MeToo movement and focuses on heterosexual relationships. However, the politics of pain stretches much further than the bedroom and engenders a discussion that goes well beyond sex. Indeed, the way in which we talk about pain provides an important insight into how society institutionalises, and perpetuates, prejudice.

For example, I live in the US, where painkillers have, tragically, become prolific killers. Last October, Donald Trump, in a rare act of good sense, declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. Now, I’m not underplaying the horrors of the opioid epidemic, but, well, I want to know why it has been declared a public health emergency when, in the 80s, the US’s crack-cocaine problem was painted as a criminal justice issue? Why has opioid addiction been met with empathy and compassion rather than condemnation and cruel jokes about crack-babies?

I mean, it’s qwhite obvious: the victims of opioid addiction have largely been white, while the crack crisis was mainly a black crisis.

But why is painkiller addiction an overwhelmingly white problem? Ironically, it is because of racism. There is a wealth of research that suggests medical professionals are less likely to prescribe pain medication to non-white patients. A 2016 study, for example, found that black Americans were half as likely to receive pain medicine as white patients with the same symptoms.

This pain gap is partly explained by bigoted beliefs about racial biological differences that, shockingly, still run rife. A recent survey of first-year medical students in the US found that 40% thought black patients had thicker skin than white patients. Racial bias in pain assessment has also been attributed to medical professionals assuming minorities are more likely to become addicts than their Caucasian counterparts. Turns out highly addictive drugs are highly addictive no matter what colour your skin.

The link between pain and racial prejudice has a long and well-documented history. In 1896, for example, a British medical student complained in the London Hospital Gazette that foreigners such as “Jews, Turks and Heretics” groaned gratuitously with pain as they were treated. He compared them to a “fine British working man” who, during surgery, was “silent – motionless – till all is over”. And, in 1914, a surgeon in the US wrote in a medical journal that “the Negro submits to pain with resignation, his sensibilities being less acute than those of a more highly wrought nervous nature”.

This pair of historical descriptions perfectly encapsulates the present paradox of pain. There is only one sort of pain, we are subtly told, that is legitimate: and that’s the pain of white men. Women’s pain, on the other hand, is often dismissed as psychological rather than physiological; as “hysterical”. At the same time, we’re told that white men bear their pain more bravely than anyone else. They’re stoic and “silent – motionless – till all is over”.

All of which is to say: pain is political. Don’t let anyone negate how you feel or tell you that your pain is in your head, rather than your nerve endings.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Don’t all rush at once: participants in the Pyongyang marathon wait at the start line, 2017. Photograph: Wong Maye-E/AP

Would you want to visit North Korea as a ‘tyranny tourist’?



A friend of mine is off to North Korea in April to run the Pyongyang marathon. As you do. Apparently, the tour group he is booked through has sent him a long list of dos and don’ts that must be adhered to while in the Democratic People’s Republic. He must, for example, be prepared to bow down to a statue of the great leader. I would love to tell you what other stipulations he is signed off on but he refused to give me any more details when I mentioned I might insert them into an article. “Don’t get all preachy, OK,” he texted.

Well, I’m afraid I’m going to get moderately preachy, OK? There are, of course, various arguments for and against holidaying in countries under authoritarian regimes. More tourism means more international scrutiny – but it also legitimises oppressive governments. Ultimately, I think, the ethical assessment might be weighted on the side of not heading to North Korea right now.

Nevertheless, I understand why my friend is taking the trip and I certainly won’t pretend I am above doing the same. After all, we live in an “experience economy”, where exotic Instagram photos have more social clout than material things. In an age where everyone of a certain socioeconomic group has a photo of a Sri Lankan sunset or a view from Mount Kilimanjaro on their social media feed, a holiday somewhere such as North Korea is hard to resist.

Then there’s the question of what counts as “tyranny tourism” in the first place. What are the ethics, for example, of a trip to Trump’s America at the moment? You might argue that travellers around the world are currently wavering on that point. According to a recent analysis by the US Travel Association, tourism to Trump’s US is significantly in decline. Which, I imagine, is news to Kim Jong-un’s ears.

Smugs, squabbles and denials: some collective nouns for the modern age



Quick grammar question: what is the collective noun for a group of middle-class men? The correct answer is “a podcast”. That’s not my joke, sadly; it has been bouncing around the internet for a while. However, the gag got me thinking about modern gaps in grammar and the collective nouns best suited for contemporary times. A collection of London-based hipsters, for example, is probably “a Shoreditch”. Then you’ve got a “basement” of internet trolls; a “squabble” of Twitter users; a “smug” of gluten-free vegans; a “denial” of Brexiters. And, of course, a “bubble” of Bitcoin enthusiasts.