A prurience about women and murder
The ‘Foxy Knoxy’ case has stirred a deep prurience about women and murder
Why the case of 'Foxy Knoxy has gripped the British psyche'
It was true in Orwell’s day and it’s no less true now: there is nothing the British public likes more than a good, old-fashioned, grisly murder. Sixty-odd years ago, when Orwell wrote The Decline of the English Murder, the crucial ingredient was some hidden, shameful, sexual misdemeanour - almost always adultery, but sometimes homosexuality. The implication being that back then committing murder, and thus risking a possible death sentence from the courts, was preferable to some sordid secret leaking out. The English murders, the ones the public liked, were those committed in desperation by the deeply ashamed - a consequence, as Orwell saw it, of a hypocritical society.
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Lucan C. Heraclitus
November 15th, 2007 6:46pmThis issue ties feminists up in knots but everybody else understands the need to see women as being above and beyond the worst of excesses of human nature because they have the primary role in the nurturing of children.
Janey
November 15th, 2007 10:35pmThe Erasmus scheme is not about taking a gap year free from study, but about taking part of your university course in another country. The Unfortunate Ms Kercher was studying in Perugia, not holidaying.
cvabunting
November 17th, 2007 10:29amA lot of the comments from readers on Daily Mail stories about this case have deplored the use of the tag 'Foxy Knoxy' and the way that the story is being reported. The prurient details being paraded in the press are merely a reflection on the Dirty Old Man values still prevalent in the Street of Shame.
janie
November 28th, 2007 10:51pmI think too that because there are so few women involved in crimes like these (in direct proportion with men) - it seems even more shocking. No, it's not 'expected' of a woman, nor is it routine for women to be involved in something as violent as this - if it was, there would be hundreds more cases.
Tazia
January 10th, 2008 7:54pmMs Knox was denied her VCCR entitlements, opinion has switched in her favor in the United States. It would appear that she was hit by the Italian police and various witnesses are asking to retract statements. It is possible, perhaps, that the UK perception is colored by circumstances pertaining to UN treaty compliances in the UK. It is no longer possible for Amnesty to go to a female jail in Alabama and say X, Y or Z, because the jail in Alabama will have higher standards than Britain. There is also something else very peculiar about Britain, More US children are sexually victimized via the internet by British teachers than by American teachers. Our FBI are being obliged to keep lips sealed in relation to the 'English disease', and that is the electronic verification that your foxes are far better cotton-wooled than your children.