What should I do about these boobs?

OP was it Sticky Mikes on Middle St? If so then it's a bar not a pub and it's over 18s only, also they've been showing this film for yrs.

mates

Was it Brighton? A mats club night has those images as a backdrop for their 60s night.

I agree as well with that Tei.

Porn is something which has been produced with the main or sole purpose of sexual titillation, surely. What form it takes and how society reacts to the different forms varies but at it's heart that's what it is.

Good point.

The first response in this thread asked "Was it a pornographic movie showing?" and the response was "Not a porno as they weren't having sex" but I think it was. If we say something is only pornographic if there's actual sex, then I think we're showing that we've accepted the escalation of pornography, and the milder material has fallen off the bottom and become something else, an annoyance in some way, while "real porn" is the nasty stuff.

I'd rather keep the definition of pornography as being body exposure for a sexual purpose, and since our society regards women's breasts as erotic, that makes this tit-show into pornography. In my opinion anti-porn activists are sometimes wrong in concentrating on the worst forms of pornography, because they're leaving behind the soft-core forms which build up the idea of women as sexual objects. Maybe objects which the viewer can see really exciting things done to later, when not so many people are watching. It's all part of the same outlook.

I think topless is only a problem in terms of "entertainment" if it is live? I am sure there are differences in rules when there are women there in the flesh and images.

I was in a pub the other day which had a cartoon drawing of a topless woman I was it was advertising a golf night or something.... I was baffled as to why it needed to be a topless woman to advertise it.

If you are on a train sitting next to a man looking at Page 3 you are not choosing to look at it and that is not uncommon (although less common than 20 years ago).

Also the wording around men looking at women who have chosen to go topless on the beach seems to imply that the women are doing it knowing / because men will look which is not the general purpose! I'm sure you didn't mean it to sound like that

I do think the peanut women were topless maybe they put bikinis on them in the 80s/90s? I am sure as a little girl I saw them in the pub, although I was little so maybe they were covered more than remember.

As far as I recall the peanut pictures weren't topless and there are oddities in public performance legislation and public performance licences.

Choosing to look at topless pictures in a magazine you have bought or to look at women who have chosen to be topless on a public beach is not the same as inadvertently stumbling into this performance.

A pub is not strictly a public place. It is a place to which the public has access subject to its licence.

I'm clutching at straws but the lack of any warning of what OP was going to see might be a valid point.

That's a nice thought lass but I'm not sure the law has changed since pubs used to have pictures of topless women under the peanuts, and of course it's not illegal to look at topless images in public, or indeed be topless on a beach say.

It's not the same as the underpant area being exposed (male or female).

whirlpool thanks.

OP I've seen your explanation but I'm not sure I would have stayed even then.

I don't know the law on this and licensing laws have regional distinctions but it might just be possible this is a breach of licensing.

A theatre for example may have a play with nudity or explicit sexual or violent content but that will be disclosed in the information about the performance. A lap dancing club is obviously upfront about what it's offering as is (I assume a pub with strippers)

If this pub wasn't giving any prior warning that might be a breach or indeed showing the film at all might be.

& not all of them obv. DH for example says that sort of thing makes him feel uncomfortable. But others, not so much. And I don't think that this would make any of them leave a venue if they were out without any female friends or partners.

Ah sorry Lass I misread your sentence - missed the all important "but" out of that line!

We'll have to agree to disagree I think most UK men esp younger demographic would really not be bothered by this. They might find it a little surprising, but they wouldn't mind. The men I know would have no problem with it - they would however know that if they were out with their OH they would be ill advised to sit there looking well pleased with the torn of events!

OP I'm still puzzled why you and the other women didn't vote with your feet. If the men in your group were genuinely embarrassed then presumably they would have left with you; if they stayed, well a useful indicator of what they are really thinking.

, and anyone who says that actually they think your DH is the exception rather than the rule is being vile

I did not say that . I said the pub was vile but you were being unreasonable in saying most/all men would have no problem with it.

But whirlpool you are doing plenty of extrapolating of what men are like . This pub sounds vile. It's very little different from a lap dancing club. Plenty of men find them unacceptable.

Well sure but you can't then extrapolate that most men in the UK are like your DH, and anyone who says that actually they think your DH is the exception rather than the rule is being vile.

I think we must move in different circles. As I said I'm speaking for the men I know well and socialise with. None of them would think this was normal or acceptable nor that the sort of pub you describe is normal or acceptable. And we don't do girls or lads' nights out.

I mean, the OP says the pub was packed, and these images were on the walls.

Ergo, everyone had not left in disgust. Neither the men nor the women. My guess would be that the men were quite comfortable having this imagery around them, as a backdrop and something nice to look at, and the women either didn't mind either or didn't want to make a fuss or be seen as prudish or whatever.

If large numbers of people left when they put the film on, they wouldn't do it.

Yes but your husband is not representative of the bog-standard british male. Maybe an older married british male. You can't extrapolate what all men in the UK are like based on one man and the people he chooses to socialise with.

Where on earth do you lot go out? Are you honestly saying that you think in a bar or club full of 20 somethings if this happened most blokes wouldn't like it?

it's not utterly vile to suggest that most men like it at all If men don't like looking at scantily dressed / half naked / topless women then this is news to the world surely What's the Sun for? What were the Star and Nuts and Zoo for? Why do so many pop videos feature scantily clad women grinding? It's not for women, it's not for gay men, and it's not for lesbians. It's to appeal to the heterosexual male eye, and it's so prevalent that people don't even notice. On mainstream US shows the characters go to have a quiet lunchtime work drink in a strip club (bizarre to the british eye) and you don't hear loads of men piping about about how odd or terrible that is. I know a pub in town where they randomly have women stripping and then going around collecting pound coins in a beer tankard. This is a "normal" pub not a strip joint, mixed crowd, it's just a "thing" they do.... And on and on and on.

I guess all that can be concluded is that people move in different circles.

Again I'm 100% confident my husband if he was with a group of men would leave. It is no different from a lap dancing club and he's never been in one of them and feels very strongly they are wrong.

And actually my husband would never be in any social situation which was exclusively male.

No I mean with any women, ie if Dh and his mates were out as a group of blokes and me / other girls weren't there, not any women in the whole room!