To wonder if anyone else was banned from teenage magazines

[Dylaninthemovies1]

Completely random. But did anyone else’s mum ban them from reading certain magazines as a teenager? I wasn’t allowed to read More, just17, cosmopolitan or Marie Claire. In fairness the reason I wasn’t allowed Marie Claire was that I read an article about FGM when I was 10 and then got home and was a bit hysterical that this was in store for me. My mum had no idea that FGM was a thing until then.

I was only allowed to read shout, smash hits, the NME and melody maker.

Yabu: they weren’t banned in my family
Yanb: yes, they were banned in mine

I am super-passionate about Just Seventeen. It was really positive about girls, and always made it really clear that boys weren’t worth changing yourself for or making yourself miserable over. The problem pages were open and unpatronising, and always made clear that “to be sussed is a must, but sex under 16 is illegal”. I learned a lot (theoretically) about sex from them, and I actually do think it was in quite an age-appropriate way (I was a reader from age 12/13 to probably 16) which teenagers now don’t really have.

Just Seventeen, specifically, also featured kooky fashion spreads, thin but otherwise nice and ordinary-looking models, and good-quality fiction. It was the best of its ilk, in my view.

I read my older neighbour’s copy at first, then bought it with my pocket money, then my mum got me my own subscription with the papers. After they rebranded as J17 I didn’t like it as much.

My mum used to let me have them but would glue together the problem pages (just 17) and rip out the page with position of the week (more).

Bless her.

I think reading about FGM was an important thing. It informs us so we can campaign against it. Nowadays teen magazines are all about anal sex and pronouns. My parents never banned them, but I would not want to buy that shite for my kids.

Yeah I wasn't allowed any (born 1984). Also had zero sex education from parents or school and I was too shy to discuss it with friends other than vaguely confident bluster.

Suffice to say my teenaged years were an absolute shitshow.

I was allowed magazines but weirdly not the official Spice Girls book and I'm still bitter about it.

I never really had them at home but it was because I never really asked, I think. I don't think mum would've minded me reading Sugar or whatever. She got me a Tatler subscription at 11 & I used to read other people's Sneaks at school, I think. Mum certainly never batted an eyelid if I read MC or whatever at the hairdressers (although Heat and things of that ilk wouldn't have cut it due to being lowbrow, and I didn't want them). For all her faults, mum grew up in the dark and wanted better for me, so I was given the facts of life at an early age, questions were answered and very little censorship. I was allowed to read adult books (especially Jilly Cooper) from quite early on, too, so the idea of casual sex and enjoying sex wasn't alien or forbidden either.

Think I often bought MC or Cosmo at uni- when I was the target age. I moved to a boarding school for sixth form & read all sorts there as people used to donate their mags - we had a serial heat reader and a few people shared Cosmos. More was the only one we hid because it had a lot of sex tips and "sensational" stories. I know my house mistress was very disappointed about us reading Cosmo. She accepted it would find a way in but she was really judgy if she saw us reading it. Especially a couple of us who she considered her straight-A, head girl types, she got really pissy if she saw us!

I was born in 1990 and we got sex ed at school. Facts of life & periods in year 6 (and various biology lesson refreshers) then more indepth contraception, stds etc in yr 9 and again in sixth form (different school). I think I saw the "controversial" sex ed vid in yr 6. I recall the junior head asking mum's opinion on it after some complaints and mum saying it didn't go far enough in her opinion!

Yes - my.mum banned me..thet were all about boys and sex lol

Sheenais what 'teen' magazines do you read that are all about anal sex and pronouns? I ask because there are no teen magazines anymore. They have all gone. Shout is still around - but that is aimed at about 10 - 12. There are a few specialist ones like Teen Breathe (a mindfulness mag) but essentially teen mags are no more. They've gone.

Yes I was banned from Mizz magazine as it showed you how to do an Ouiji board (not the correct spelling sorry). So mum banned that.
Then I had another I can't remember which one, which explained what a blowjob was on the problem page.
I decided to announce to my parents at the age of 12 all smug that I knew what a blowjob was. Whyyy .

My parents were reluctantly ok for me to read them (I was the kind of teen who would read anything i could get my hands on, not sure they were always aware of what I was reading!), but I remember visiting my grandparents and my auntie had left behind her copy of Marie Claire for me. Minus a 12 page section on achieving the best orgasm that my grandad had ripped out before I could read it Obviously this only made me even more curious about it, if he'd left it in i probably wouldn't have paid it much attention!

I loved Just Seventeen, it was funny and it was an education, especially for a very shy teenager who couldn't even talk in the presence of a boy she fancied. Plus my mum was quite uptight about puberty and other things so it gave me answers to questions I wouldn't have felt comfortable asking her. I'll definitely let DD read magazines when she is old enough, but I'll read them too and encourage her to talk to me about what she's read. Of course, I say that now...!

My mum found Just 17 once and declared I was too young to read it (I was 12 or 13, but also she thought it was the UK version of the American 17 which is like Cosmo).
Obviously I just hid the magazines better after that.

We had s28 come in while I was in secondary, but our teachers were obsessed with sex ed (all girl boarding school, pill prescribed for many, but obtained from a different pharmacy to the rest of the school meds...). Had an entire year of 'RE' on contraception as well as lots in biology.

The bio teacher cut out parts of the problem pages and stuck them round the door of her classroom so we'd all read them. Key message was 'if a boy says, if you loved me you'd do x', he's wrong and doesn't love you.' Brilliant advice for life.

• I decided to announce to my parents at the age of 12 all smug that I knew what a blowjob was. Whyyy confusedblush.

Perfect 😂😂😂

Oh, this brings back memories! I used to read Girl magazine as a tween, and they had a special summer edition devoted to all things Beauty. My mother found it, and gave me the biggest dressing down ever about how disappointed in me she was, that she hadn't realised how superficial I must be, that I needed to remember what was really important in life, etc etc...then she ostentatiously marched me to the outside bins to dispose of it!

It was like she'd gone Mormon overnight .

I used to love J17 but my mum would never buy it so I binge read them at my best friends house. My mum would buy mizz, bliss, sugar etc but that was the extent. They weren’t prudish but thought it was inappropriate to read the more ‘crude’ stuff in my early teens.

I remember aged about 13 I had a copy of more. Think it was the first one if seen and to be fair it was pretty explicit, I think there was an article about how to give the best blowjob. My dad, who was usually pretty relaxed and liberal about these things, asked what the mag was about and picked it up... upon seeing the contents he was horrified and actually tore it up! Never known him to do anything like that before or since...

To be honest I did learn quite a lot about sex, relationships etc from teen mags mainly because I was quite naive/innocent and would’ve been too embarrassed to ask anyone in person!

ColourMe that’s hilarious about your grandad 😂 did he rip it out to stop you seeing it, or was he looking for tips for your grandma?!!

@bumblenbean

We really didn’t have any sex Ed or education about periods! My mum told me about periods at the age of 9 as I was getting early signs of puberty. I was quite old when I realized babies came out of a woman’s vagina. And I was horrified (my older sister told me, she had a baby at 17 and was trying to ensure that I didn’t !). I was 12 when my sister fell pregnant and my mum came in and told me what had happened, and that I should wait until I was engaged to have sex (I wasn’t quite clear at that point what sex was). All my dad told me was that sex wouldn’t make you blind, but my mum would tell me about it later. Still waiting...

I had a few gay friends and my mum had to gently explain that homosexual meant gay, and not two people having sex in the home!

Before reading this thread, I thought I was the only one who'd had incredibly prudish and controlling parents in this regard. They both attended a strict pentecostal church and sex/periods/growing-up were completely off limits. We never ever had deep or open conversations. I once asked my dad to buy me Shout or Sugar magazine whilst we were grocery shopping in Asda. Once we'd been through the check out, we sat on the benches by the exit and he went through the magazine ripping out every page he thought was inappropriate. I was left with the front and back page, plus a couple of adverts. I found out about sex via friends at school and through sneakily reading Mizz and More.

Not banned at all here, I used to love magazines and buy loads!
Blue Jeans, Patches, Just Seventeen, Mizz, More! were my favourites

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

They were banned in my house for me (she got pornographic magazines for my brothers in their teens though, boys need that stuff).

Also banned were factual conversations, actual names of body parts, the word period and anything else 'female'.

Her justification for me not learning about sex, or having these magazines - if I knew about sex I would do it.

Plus George Micheal was in them and he was gay, and Robbie Williams used to wear rave dummies and I would instantly start taking drugs if I laid eyes upon a rave dummy, or see being gay as perfectly normal if I was to lay eyes upon an openly gay person.

I remember once I watched the Smash Hits Pole Winners Party, I thought she would spontaneously combust when she caught me (EYC were grinding away on the screen when she walked in)

My mother was a very, very fucked up individual, with very fucked up morals.

I'll say. Porn is OK but teeny pop stars aren't?

Given your sister got pregnant at 17 I would say your mum was wrong to try and pick and choose which things you were allowed to read. Early sex education has been proven to lower teenage pregnancy rates. I read all those magazines from an early age and was not sexually active till 18, so they certainly didnt encourage me!

@bookmum08 do they still do Elle girl and teen vogue? Teen mags are rubbish now compared to our day! But I do remember one mag I had that circled all celebrities bits of cellulite on the beach!

I remember feeling really mature at age 11/12 being allowed to have sugar, bliss, cosmo girl etc as long as I didn’t let my younger sister read them! She was around 8 at the time and she did steal one but I think a lot of the mature stuff went straight over her head! More was a few years later when my nan saw one lying around and started reading it aloud to my mum in front of my dad and grandad to prove how filthy these magazines were!

I remember learning so much from them about periods, puberty, sex etc as it was when we didn’t really have access to the internet at home (limited dial up with parental supervision!). We didn’t learn a great deal until the last year of primary school when we had a chat with a nurse about puberty but by then it was too late for a lot of us!

I do remember finding out how babies were made by seeing it in a kids book about how the human body works, by comparing bodily functions to household objects/machines.

I distinctly remember being 10 years old and seeing the page with two trains, one had a bit sticking out and the other had a hole. The blue train easily slotted into the pink train and that was it. I was horrified and disgusted. My first thought was “no! Not there! It wouldn’t be so bad in the bum but that must hurt!”

Luckily the magazines showed that sex can be pleasurable as well as for creating babies. Didn’t have a negative effect on me as I waited until i was 18.

MinnieJackson Teen Vogue exists online but that's it.
There really aren't teen mags now. If a teenage girl was picking a mag to read on a train journeys or something they would probably pick something like Heat Mag. I'm not sure which is worse - a good ol' Just 17 problem page or some paparazzi shots of some vague celeb coming out of Costa? Poor teens of today.
#bringbackcathyandclaire

I used to read Take a Break as a child and my mum put a stop to it because of how violent the stories were I was more into music magazines but I did read the odd issue of Sugar. Was never really into More but I remember a lot of girls in Yea r11/Sixth Form reading it.