Commenters on a previous post have deprecated my perviness and the depressing air of sexism on my blog. I owe them an explanation.

First, note the paradox here. This blog's name is taken from one of the great feminist artists of our time, and it has occasionally supported quite radically feminist positions. Why, then, the lapses into apparent sexism?

One reason is that I am (sometimes subconsciously) making a point, that intellectual activity is very often a thin veneer, behind which lies a lust - for sex, power, wealth, tribalism or ego gratification. And, indeed, such activity is sometimes a means of achieving or legitimating those drives. A few years ago, Paul Johnson wrote an indifferently-received book pointing out that many great intellectuals had murky morals and private lives. The only surprise was that he looked so far afield for examples. The bitchiness of academic politics, and the long history of "respectable" intellectuals and technocrats touching up younger, less powerful women tells us that the high-minded and the low-minded co-exist.

This point was precisely what I was driving at in the post in question - and, indeed, in my many day-job writings on behavioural finance; the way we think about financial markets is much the same as the way we've thought about Kylie's arse. The well-paid apparently serious men who are managing your pension fund are prone to the same cognitive biases and deficient attention as ordinary people. They are not much different from the typical Nuts reader.

And nor am I. One of the nastiest habits amongst those have have taken an interest in the cognitive biases research is the tendency to ascribe irrationality to others but not to themselves. The government's behaviour insights team, for example, seems to underweight the possibility that cognitive biases afflict the decisions of voters and ministers and not just consumers. Those "sexist" pictures are a reminder - to myself - that I'm not just a dessicated calculating machine.

There is, though, a more personal, idiosyncratic reason for doing so. I don't care about impressing people (I'd be out of luck if if did), so I try to eschew the non-rational tricks writers have of impressing their readers. I don't try to claim any moral high ground. I don't try to be boring in the hope of convincing people I'm serious. I try not to seem like a nice guy. And I don't write long-winded pieces with the intention of appearing thorough or analytical. Although I sometimes cross-post at Liberal Conspiracy, I don't write for idiots. I assume my readers are too clever to be fooled by the rhetorical ruses that writers use in an attempt to be taken seriously. I'd rather take the risk of looking like a perv than looking like a technocrat. I ain't never gonna be respectable.