to not want to be bombarded by tits/porn (i.e. the sport/fhm etc etc when i go to the newsagent with my toddler?

[shazzg]

hello
i am getting more and more annoyed about the ammount of porn in every shop i seem to go in -it seems so in your face constantly and now that my 2 year old is asking questions it's making me really uncomfortabl and angry.
I don't want her growing up with this sad and warped view of girls and women.
I know other people feel the same - so why oes nothing get done.It can't be healthy for kids to be bombarded with sex/naked women/the sport/maxim etc every time they go with mum to buy milk/cat food can it???
Somoene elso tell me i'm not going mad!!!!???

I have just asked DH what he would make of having all the magazines with scantily clad/suggestive women on the front on the top shelf/covered.

He said fine, maybe top shelf for proper porn and second top for nuts etc and any other random magazines that happen to have suggestive women on them.

But he would only be happy with that if cosmo etc and magazines with scantily clad hunks (for want of a better word) and headlines screaming things like "better sex positions we show you how" were up there too.

What does everyone make of that?

That's an interesting point JazzHands.
I suppose headlines are less obvious to a child than pics (and obviously completely unobvious to a child that can't read yet!). Cosmo headlines like that could be explained to a curious child (would they even think to ask?!) as 'enhancing' the lives of both men and women - as opposed to just objectifying women in a narrow way.

I turn the 'Loaded' style magazines around when I am in Asda. It's my own personal protest.

I think DH thinks that a lot of magazine covers present men in a way that conforms to a stereotype of a male physical ideal and he sees it as no different.

He knows that I say "it's not the same" as the women on magazine covers in provocative postions but still thinks male physical stereotypes are damaging.

I think the interesting thing is that, thinking about it, I only notice the scanty women, and my eye passes over the scanty men without even registering, let alone getting upset about it.

Maybe this is why a lot of men can't understand what the fuss is about - they simply don't register the images.

If moving the images of females meant that all scanty men had to be on the top shelf too, I would say fine.

I think he's thinking of "men's health" type magazines.

The "guaranteed orgasm" headlines were a separate thing he didn't like.

Jazzhands

I don't think it is the same. I think you need to imagine how men would respond if the pictures of men were the exact equivalent of the pictures of the women - very suggestive yet submissive poses, underwear similar to the women, high heels, glitter painted breast area and a lot of make up on. Men would be horrified to see themselves in such a way, while I would not be that disturbed to see women on magazines posing in the styles that men adopt on the cover of Men's Health.

I do consider it to be sexist to suggest that Men's Health is similar in objectification to Nuts. Does Men's Health do features on the murdered swim suit model you'd most want to sleep with? I doubt it, but Zoo did a feature on that.

Dunno Dittany and I generally agree but will ask DH what specific magazines he means...

I think a lot of men don't really see the difference and see their portrayal in the media as being out of line - ads depicting men as incapable etc always get his goat.

You don't need to convince me though... although there are quite a lot of things aimed at men to "enhance their sexual performance" and make them more attractive etc. The difference lies in the fact that men are generally still more powerful than women...

Thank Milly. You don't need to convince me! But DH is a fairly reasonable and average man and I wanted his input. That was what he said.

I have told him what you said and that people think he is sexist as he can't understand the difference between the sexually available images of women in day to day media and images of men who have "nice" bodies, but are not presented as sexually available in other (possibly less common) images.

He is upset, and has gone very quiet, but that's by the by.

Dittany I have told DH your points as well.

He says he was simply saying that it should all be on the top shelf, that that is where semi-nudity/nudity and obscene cover stories belong.

I have told him that he is perpetuating the pornification of women and sexual stereotyping which is so damaging, and that his comments are going down as damning evidence of his tacit support for the entire porn industry and all it's consequences.

yanbu

bored bored bored with it

just becasue it is everywhere doesn't mean that it is acceptable or useful

He is quite upset and at pains to point out that he knows the difference (although I'm not sure if he can really quite "get" it).

He says that he is offended by headlines containing sexually explicit material - sex tips etc and that he would rather that was out of sight too.

Have shown DH the website and he claims that that is exactly how men are portrayed in adverts a lot of the time.

I wonder if we all notice more the things that we are sensitive to.

That's another thread though.

I'm going to bed soon so don't want to get into a big debate when I feel that fundamentally most of us agree with each other on the board, and what DH may or may not be thinking re. obscene images of women is a side issue... and one I'm not particularly worried about as I know him and he is one of the decent ones

I don;t think he's saying that they are equivalent or as prevalent, just that he'd rather not see them either.

He's for a kit-on default for both genders

there is something so all pervading in it's presence that it becomes part of the country's psych that all girls next door could be types with their tits out
all mothers milfs
ordinary workers as high street honeys etc

objectifies women in everyday settings to objects of pure sexual gratification

degrading and downgrading in everyway

bit of a straighforward rant on my part sorry

I think Jazzhands DH has a fair point and agree with him in some ways. However it is not essential to take on the whole world and its' problems to make a valid point - I think the wank mags are enough to be going on with. I totally agree about the blokes looking at stuff on the tube and drooling bit. Around the time I had my chat with the co-op bloke, when he was arguing that it was reasonable because no-one else had complained and because they got paid money to put them in a certain shelf spot I had an idea that sprang into my mind. I thought "Well if it's so fucking reasonable then surely it must be reasonable in real life. Let's do a bit of improvisation/ art whatever. Lets act out the poses shown on the front cover in our undies and see if that's acceptable." As I am over 40 and a bit wobbly I think it would have given everyone a good laugh at the same time as making a cetain point about what constitutes decency and what is acceptable in a public place. Like a kind of alternative flash-mob. Who would warn you off, who would complain and would you get arrested?

I think most intelligent people, women and men, find the whole Cosmo approach to sexuality and experience pretty tawdry and misleading. Most people grow out of it at best, but there is obviously always a new generation to temporarily buy into it unfortunately.

However,no matter how many times Cosmo churns out the same old embarassing orgasm headlines, it really, surely, can't compete with the amount, the history, the all pervading nature of the material that caters for men (nuts, zoo et al). I appreciate Jazzhands husbands complaint, but think it is a little bit disingenuous to really argue they are on the same scale.

well - it is saturday morning and i will be going to my local sainsburys to tell them to move the 'sport' and all other gross, offensive stuff out of my line of vision.

i am relieved that others feel the same.

less intellectualised debate and splitting hairs and more action and gut instinct i say!!!!

back later.....

look up
www.oneangrygirl.net for further inspiration also
www.charlielittle.wordpress.com

also MP Claire Curtis Thomas has been cmpaigning to gt mags moved for ages but non-one seems to have heard of her.some interesting stuff about her on the net if anyone's interested...

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