Not long ago there was a political sex scandal in NSW, with Labor luminary John Della Bosca admitting to an affair with a young woman called Kate Neill. While the scandal broke months ago now, it's still heavily invoked in reporting about the politician.

Now, in South Australia, there are allegations that the Premier Mike Rann was having an affair with a former employee of Parliament House. Like the Della Bosca scandal, this will go on for a while, I think.

It might have some impact on Rann's electoral chances, but I doubt it will be great. Australians are generally pretty tolerant of the private shenanigans of public figures.
 
 
Not surprisingly, the scandal over NSW politician John Della Bosca's extra-marital affair has sparked a debate over whether it should have been reported at all. No law was broken after all, and many people would argue it had little impact on how he carried out his duties as a minister.

My own feeling is that the media should lay off these things. But that will never happen, of course. Even if the vast majority of media outlets decide not to expose politicians' sexual shenanigans, there'll always be at least one that will. Once the secret's out, it's news. They all have to report it then! Only politicians in rock solid marriages within which there has been no infidelity on either side have nothing to fear from the media.
 
NSW sex scandal 09/01/2009
 
Political sex scandals seem to be as certain (and as old) as politics itself. The latest involves a NSW Labor politician called John Della Bosca. He has quit as a result.

There must be a lot more blokes like him in politics who are very nervous about being found out about their own sexual shenanigans. If every male politician who had an affair were to quit, then there'd be anarchy!
 
 
The Australian Sex Party is now registered as a bona fide political party. It will be interesting to see whether it becomes a substantial force in Australian politics.
 
 

At any given time there always seems to be at least one high profile politician embroiled in a sex scandal. The latest is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He doesn't seem to be too worried, though.

 
 

Unscrupulous scammers have been using dating sites to trick people into sending them money for a while now. But here's an interesting - and morally justifiable - variation on that technique:

A 46 year old Cuban-born man living in Florida created a false online identity as a glamorous young woman from Colombia. He tricked Fidel Castro's son Antonio into having a cyber affair with this creation over several months. During this time Castro revealed many details of his lavish lifestyle and access to large sums of money, thereby exposing the hypocrisy of his father's regime.

 
 

Dinkum political organization the Australian Sex Party is now campaigning over in Perth. Party convener Fiona Patten points out that while the people of WA have very relaxed attitudes to sex and related issues, the two main political parties (Labor and Liberal) have consistently ignored this.

Maybe this has something to do with the state's geographical isolation.

 
 

If you thought that naturists were always placid, gentle types, then you might have to think again. It seems that they are the main suspects in a series of arson attacks in the South of France that left several swingers clubs burned to the ground.

The motivation seems to be that the nudists believe that public nudity should be non-sexual. Swingers, obviously have no such scruples. 

If they were the culprits, then they seem possessed by a very unusual form of puritanism!

 
 

We're definitely living in tumultuous times when single issue political parties start to spring up. The Australian Sex Party is an example. Much of the reason for its existence is the Government's proposed plan to filter the internet.

I suspect that the next party like this will be one campaigning aginst the impending Emmissions Trading Scheme (though I doubt very much it'll have a name anywhere near as attention grabbing!)