Tuppy Owens obituary
In 1972 she launched The Sex Maniac's Diary, an annual directory which, in a pre-internet era, covered the minutiae of sexual activity across the world in granular detail. Owens carried out assiduous research with the aim of being the best compendium of sex services, including different international standards and mores – 'like a yachtsman's diary but about sex'.
In later years, mindful of the risks of Aids, the diary was rebranded in 1987 as The Safer Sex Maniac's Diary and Owens continued to publish it from her bohemian basement flat in Mayfair, central London, until 1995.
Alongside this, Owens's charity work gathered pace. She became interested in the sexual rights of disabled people, and with a visually impaired colleague, Nigel Verbeek, in 1979 started the Outsiders Club, a social and campaigning group for socially and physically disadvantaged people.
Owens believed that disabled people were infantilised and their intimate lives denied, and asserting their sexual rights became her abiding interest. Outsiders Club offshoots include the Sex and Disability Helpline, SHADA (Sexual Health and Disability Alliance) and the TLC Trust, through which disabled people can find responsible sexual service providers.
Steve, a long-time member of Outsiders, remembered Owens's 'sense of fun, mischief and frankness', while Emma Buckett, who co-wrote Owens' biography, said: 'Most people want to help me by curing me or changing me to fit 'normal' society. Tuppy accepted me as I am.'
In the 80s Owens trained at St George's hospital medical school, in London, as a sex therapist, gaining a diploma in human sexuality from the University of London and, later, an honorary doctorate from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.
She led conferences such as Disability: Sex, Relationships and Pleasure at the Royal Society of Medicine in 2009. But her interest in sex was more as activist than academic.
She presided over hedonistic events, including the Sex Maniacs Ball – which became the Night of the Senses – and the Erotic Awards, which evolved into the Sexual Freedom Awards, with golden-winged phallus trophies for those offering pioneering sexual services. Many of the events raised funds for Outsiders and pushed sexual boundaries. Owens was, said a friend, 'very good at getting people to give their time and effort', and to select candidates for the awards, she went on 'field trips to stripper bars, fetish clubs and all points of the London sex-positive scene,' her secretary Anna María Staiano recalled.
Owens also advocated for sex workers and strippers, and as one supporter put it, 'our right to follow our own forms of consensual adult expression'. She felt sexual pleasure should not be circumscribed by religion, state or social shame, and was militant on this matter. She lobbied against local councils that disallowed sex events and for the decriminalisation of sex workers.
Keen to be an enabler rather than a guru, she said she hoped to speak 'plainly about sex and disability in a way that people feel they are really being listened to ... I enjoy helping people feel better about themselves and enjoy their bodies.' Her brother, Jonathan, described her 'unerring drive to have a good time, and her principled and open-minded desire to support and encourage less able people to have the best time too'.
She was born Rosalind Owens, in Cambridge, the second of five children of Peter Owens, a photographer, and his wife, Mary (nee Hall), and was nicknamed Tuppy - short for tuppeny-ha'penny - by her family.
After leaving the Perse school, Cambridge, she studied zoology at the University of Exeter, then in the late 60s joined the staff of the Natural Environment Research Council. She did not enjoy the work, and took better paid work in pornography, with her breakthrough book being Sexual Harmony (1969) for Highbury Press. Her films as an adult model included Lasse Braun's Sensations (1975).
In 1995, Owens met her future husband, Antony Niall, while campaigning, and they moved to a croft in northern Scotland. She founded the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance, stewarded the Sexual Freedom Coalition and published Supporting Disabled People with their Sexual Lives (2014), as happy in the countryside as in central London.
In 2015 Owens received awards for her work from Unesco and from Directory of Social Change.
Last November, a joint 80th birthday and launch party for her autobiography, The Sex Lady on the Hill, was held at Heaven nightclub in London. Owens had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2019, and her illness was apparent, but she presided from a throne as guests paid moving homage to a grande dame and pioneer of sexual freedom.
Owens is survived by Antony, whom she married in 2014, and her four brothers, Christopher, Tim, Jeremy and Jonathan.
Tuppy (Rosalind Mary) Owens, sexual rights campaigner, born 12 November 1944; died 28 February 2025
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NBC News
24-07-2025
- NBC News
After Cleveland Clinic expanded to Florida, patients say surprise fees followed
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — When the Cleveland Clinic started acquiring hospitals and medical offices in this palm tree-lined region six years ago, many Floridians were excited. The Ohio nonprofit, ranked among the top hospitals in the world, pledged to bring expert care and an infusion of cash to the state's Treasure Coast, an area north of Boca Raton brimming with 55-and-up gated communities. But in the years after the Cleveland Clinic's blue and green signs popped up outside dozens of medical offices, patients began receiving unexpected bills: an additional $95 for a consultation with a neurosurgeon. An extra $112 to see a family medicine physician. And $174 more for a neurologist appointment that previously cost only a $50 co-pay. Baffled, the patients contacted their doctors' offices and insurers and learned that the new costs were 'facility fees' — charges that hospitals have traditionally billed for inpatient stays and emergency room visits but are now increasingly charging for routine appointments in their outpatient clinics. The fees, which are often not fully covered by insurance, are meant to support the higher level of care that these doctors' offices provide, according to hospitals. For blindsided patients, that can mean paying a hospital fee — even if they never set foot in a hospital. 'My heart dropped,' said Brandy Macaluso-Owens, 43, a social worker who lives in Port St. Lucie. She received a $174 facility fee after a visit in March with a Cleveland Clinic gastroenterologist. 'I probably met with the doctor maybe as little as 15 minutes.' The Cleveland Clinic defended facility fees in an email, saying they are an 'appropriate practice' that align 'with government regulations and industry guidelines.' 'These fees help support just some of the costs of maintaining outpatient facilities so that we can continue providing high-quality, compassionate care to all patients,' the Cleveland Clinic said. The Cleveland Clinic is far from the only hospital charging facility fees, which amount to billions of dollars annually for patients across the country. The fees have become pervasive in recent years as major health systems have snapped up doctors' offices, making it harder for patients to find independent practices: More than half of all physicians nationally are now employed by hospitals or health systems, up from just a quarter in 2012. For more on facility fees, watch NBC's 'Nightly News with Tom Llamas' at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT and 'Top Story' on NBC News NOW at 7 p.m. ET. At the same time, facility fees have become more noticeable because of a rise in high-deductible health insurance plans, which leave patients paying a larger share of their medical bills before their insurance kicks in. A study last year found that the average deductible for employer-sponsored coverage had risen about 47% in a decade. These factors are affecting many patients who are already teetering financially. About half of adults in the U.S. say they would be unable to pay an unexpected $500 medical bill or would have to go into debt to pay it, according to the health policy group KFF. Facility fees can run into the hundreds of dollars, and even small amounts can quickly add up. 'People are getting really high bills for simple, routine care,' said Christine Monahan, an assistant research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University who has studied the issue. 'They don't expect to be paying high bills for this. And it's not realistic to expect people to be able to afford this.' Opposition to outpatient facility fees is a rare area of agreement between patient advocates and insurance companies, which argue that hospitals are unnecessarily inflating the cost of care. While efforts to restrict facility fees have drawn bipartisan support at the state and federal levels, the hospital industry has pushed back, arguing that the fees are necessary to help fund core services like 24/7 emergency departments, and that insurers should cover them. These national forces are all colliding in southeast Florida, where 11 patients told NBC News that the Cleveland Clinic had charged them unexpected facility fees in the past several years. For some, the fees were a mere annoyance, a sign of the escalating cost of health care. For others, the bills were a financial burden too big to shoulder. And some are refusing to pay them. Billie Paukune Boorman, a waitress, was recently charged a $174 facility fee for her 13-year-old daughter's ear, nose and throat appointment, along with over $200 in other unanticipated charges. 'I don't have that kind of money laying around,' she said. The Cleveland Clinic declined an interview request from NBC News and declined to comment on individual cases but said in its email that patients are charged facility fees in doctors' offices that are classified as hospital outpatient departments, which must meet stricter quality and safety standards than nonaccredited physician practices. The facility fees reflect 'the significant added costs to hospitals of complying with these standards,' the Cleveland Clinic added. The Cleveland Clinic told NBC News that it has sent more than 250,000 letters to its Florida patients informing them of the fees ahead of their appointments, and said it posts signs at its offices saying that they are hospital outpatient departments. 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The Guardian
18-03-2025
- The Guardian
Tuppy Owens obituary
The sexual rights activist Tuppy Owens, who has died aged 80, an elegant, imposing figure with a frank, no-nonsense attitude, played an important part in the shifting of attitudes towards sexuality that began in the 1960s and 70s. In 1972 she launched The Sex Maniac's Diary, an annual directory which, in a pre-internet era, covered the minutiae of sexual activity across the world in granular detail. Owens carried out assiduous research with the aim of being the best compendium of sex services, including different international standards and mores – 'like a yachtsman's diary but about sex'. In later years, mindful of the risks of Aids, the diary was rebranded in 1987 as The Safer Sex Maniac's Diary and Owens continued to publish it from her bohemian basement flat in Mayfair, central London, until 1995. Alongside this, Owens's charity work gathered pace. She became interested in the sexual rights of disabled people, and with a visually impaired colleague, Nigel Verbeek, in 1979 started the Outsiders Club, a social and campaigning group for socially and physically disadvantaged people. Owens believed that disabled people were infantilised and their intimate lives denied, and asserting their sexual rights became her abiding interest. Outsiders Club offshoots include the Sex and Disability Helpline, SHADA (Sexual Health and Disability Alliance) and the TLC Trust, through which disabled people can find responsible sexual service providers. Steve, a long-time member of Outsiders, remembered Owens's 'sense of fun, mischief and frankness', while Emma Buckett, who co-wrote Owens' biography, said: 'Most people want to help me by curing me or changing me to fit 'normal' society. Tuppy accepted me as I am.' In the 80s Owens trained at St George's hospital medical school, in London, as a sex therapist, gaining a diploma in human sexuality from the University of London and, later, an honorary doctorate from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. She led conferences such as Disability: Sex, Relationships and Pleasure at the Royal Society of Medicine in 2009. But her interest in sex was more as activist than academic. She presided over hedonistic events, including the Sex Maniacs Ball – which became the Night of the Senses – and the Erotic Awards, which evolved into the Sexual Freedom Awards, with golden-winged phallus trophies for those offering pioneering sexual services. Many of the events raised funds for Outsiders and pushed sexual boundaries. Owens was, said a friend, 'very good at getting people to give their time and effort', and to select candidates for the awards, she went on 'field trips to stripper bars, fetish clubs and all points of the London sex-positive scene,' her secretary Anna María Staiano recalled. Owens also advocated for sex workers and strippers, and as one supporter put it, 'our right to follow our own forms of consensual adult expression'. She felt sexual pleasure should not be circumscribed by religion, state or social shame, and was militant on this matter. She lobbied against local councils that disallowed sex events and for the decriminalisation of sex workers. Keen to be an enabler rather than a guru, she said she hoped to speak 'plainly about sex and disability in a way that people feel they are really being listened to ... I enjoy helping people feel better about themselves and enjoy their bodies.' Her brother, Jonathan, described her 'unerring drive to have a good time, and her principled and open-minded desire to support and encourage less able people to have the best time too'. She was born Rosalind Owens, in Cambridge, the second of five children of Peter Owens, a photographer, and his wife, Mary (nee Hall), and was nicknamed Tuppy - short for tuppeny-ha'penny - by her family. After leaving the Perse school, Cambridge, she studied zoology at the University of Exeter, then in the late 60s joined the staff of the Natural Environment Research Council. She did not enjoy the work, and took better paid work in pornography, with her breakthrough book being Sexual Harmony (1969) for Highbury Press. Her films as an adult model included Lasse Braun's Sensations (1975). In 1995, Owens met her future husband, Antony Niall, while campaigning, and they moved to a croft in northern Scotland. She founded the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance, stewarded the Sexual Freedom Coalition and published Supporting Disabled People with their Sexual Lives (2014), as happy in the countryside as in central London. In 2015 Owens received awards for her work from Unesco and from Directory of Social Change. Last November, a joint 80th birthday and launch party for her autobiography, The Sex Lady on the Hill, was held at Heaven nightclub in London. Owens had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2019, and her illness was apparent, but she presided from a throne as guests paid moving homage to a grande dame and pioneer of sexual freedom. Owens is survived by Antony, whom she married in 2014, and her four brothers, Christopher, Tim, Jeremy and Jonathan. Tuppy (Rosalind Mary) Owens, sexual rights campaigner, born 12 November 1944; died 28 February 2025
Telegraph
16-02-2025
- Telegraph
Want to stop ‘insect Armageddon'? Draw your curtains, say scientists
People living in the countryside have been urged to draw the curtains and turn off outside lights to protect wildlife. Animals living in rural areas are more susceptible to bright lights from bulbs than those living in urban areas, and it can have a devastating impact on their health and behaviour, a specialist in light pollution research has warned. Dr Avalon Owens, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, said country dwellers should try to duplicate the blackouts of the Blitz, cutting off as much light as possible from reaching the outside. Her work on moths has found exposure to bright bulbs can affect insects so they do not know which way is up and down. Urban areas are awash with light pollution from lampposts, bridges, cars, homes and offices, creating a glowing halo around cities that blocks out the stars and confuses animals. Light pollution in country now greater concern But many urban-dwelling creatures have adapted to this environment, with smaller sources of light pollution in more rural areas now a greater concern, Dr Owens told reporters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference in Boston. 'It's people's vacation homes in these beautiful remote areas where it's the only light visible for miles and miles – that's just so much more impactful,' she said. 'There's a giant aggregation of insects that you'll get at lights. We don't know exactly how fatal it is, but one estimate is that 33 per cent of insects attracted to light die before morning. 'And even if they don't die, they're spending all their time at the light instead of doing all the things they're supposed to be doing. 'In these rural places, it's good to remind people that there's this really special dark sky and if you take care of it, you can appreciate it.' Shutting curtains is an easy way to make a significant difference, she said. 'Windows are a huge source of light pollution, but you don't have to walk around your house in the dark. You can even get automatic curtain-closing technology so you don't need to remember,' she added. Outside lights are also problematic for wildlife, she said, and rural homes should consider what they can do to minimise light pollution from these. 'I'm also not saying you should get rid of your outside security lighting, but you could use motion activators,' Dr Owens suggested. 'If you don't like insects, turn off your lights and they won't come to your house.' Buglife, a UK-based charity, is running a campaign called Curtains for Light Pollution in an attempt to convince people to stop contributing to the issue. Light pollution has been identified as one issue contributing to what some scientists have called 'insect Armageddon', with a 75 per cent decline in insect populations in 30 years. Small individual actions make an impact David Smith, the advocacy and social change manager at Buglife, said: 'We're in the midst of a nature crisis, yet one of its drivers, light pollution, remains largely ignored. 'The science is clear. Light pollution disrupts natural rhythms and ecosystems, pushing insect populations into decline. Thankfully, solutions are simple. Small individual actions such as drawing curtains can make a big impact to our smallest creatures. 'It is possible to tackle light pollution in a way that protects both our way of life and the environment, but we need leadership to curb the impacts of light pollution on a global scale. 'It's time for policymakers to stop treating light as harmless and legally recognise it as a pollutant. Just as we set limits on air and water pollution, we must establish clear targets to reduce excessive light pollution.' Some rural villages in the UK are already adopting changes to decrease their light pollution footprint. Bulmer, Crayke and Coxwold in North Yorkshire have joined the 'Dark Skies' scheme to reduce light pollution and preserve the view of the night sky. An audit on streetlights, residential lights, and public building light fittings was carried out to assess which areas need illuminating after dark, and where harsh lights can be replaced with dimmer alternatives. Ampleforth Abbey has replaced more than 100 lights as a result of the programme. Mike Hawtin, the North York Moors National Park's head of nature recovery projects and Dark Skies lead officer, said there has been a 'step change' in how people are seeing light pollution. 'People are realising just how much a dark sky needs to be cherished and this, together with a community's sense of pride and passion for protecting their neighbourhood and wildlife, is creating the momentum,' he said.
