What do we think of...lads mags?

[monkeytrousers]

not a great article but it is interesting

(apologies if the writer is a mumsnetter)

Ah Cust, but if I end up cooking grits for a revolutionary, does that make it my revolution?

Saw too mush of this sexist shit in the local laour clubs, sorry. Socialist men can be every bit as sexist, but hypoctitical along with it

And I don't have a vibrator either!

And my 'throwaway# marriage is 18 years old this morning! Yipee!

You do have a point, Custy. Men are just as short-changed by the image of masculinity these mags sell. But men and boys feel that there they reveal some primal truth about their sexuality, and there is a smidgen as the attraction they feel when they see pictures of scantily clad women is undeniable for many of them. A door is opened in their heads and a torrent if hormones pour out. It's very difficult to control that torrent, especially for younger men (who, as the article says, have free access to these magazines) and men who have no skills of self analysis ? a skill thoroughly discouraged by our whole consumer culture as we need to be gullible idiots to buy into the meaninglessness of it all.

There are already incidents of sexual assault and rape perpetrated by youngsters who force the girls to pose in these 'soft porn' images, there is an epidemic of gang rape in inner cities amongst school age children where the boys are imitating footballers - and they get the details from the tabloids not even magazines like this. Specifically because it appeals to the absolute lowest common denominator that is sexual primacy. This 'spit-roasting' phenomenon is probably the most pernicious of them all - even to utter the phrase in the company of a woman is to demean her. The word itself is pornographic as some images of violence are pornographic as it sears an image onto the brain that nothing can erase. It's there for good, a permanent symbol of degradation, objectification and inhumanity. It?s akin to the downloads of beheadings lads pass about on their mobile phones. It?s an absolute atrocity of morality where a threshold is irrevocably transgressed.

Feminism has a role in debating this and drawing such parallels, but they need to be vigorously debated and not just accepted if we?re to get to the core of their validity. There needs to be a cultural conduit for both male and female sexuality to be celebrated but these magazines don?t celebrate either. It?s all a con.

And your right, Anne Summers and vibrators are part of it. We don't need any of it!

What is Ann Summers about? Can't say I've ever been in one. Is it like La Senza?

It's a sex shop for women. But it basically panders to all the lazy male fantasies. At some level though there's nothing wrong with dressing up and feeling sexy - nothing wrong with masturbation and enjoying sex - it becomes something different however when it's what's expected and you feel somehow lacking if you either can't live up to the ideal (in which case we?re all eventually doomed) or just don't want to. That's the pressure these shops, mags, the whole commodified sex industry puts onto women. Sex is natural yes, and crucially you should be able to opt in or out but this pervasive culture takes it a step further and makes it compulsory.

I am with you RIGHT up until the vibrator thing. I think we need those... speaking personally.
one thing I object to - the more I think about it - is the standardisation of sex and of women. all women must look like this, otherwise they are not sexy.
cars all start to look the same too
and houses (this might be slightly off topic... )

congrats hmb xxxx

custy as ever - spot on!

Sorry if this has been said and I missed it, but...
The culture celebrated in the content of the mags persists into their working practices, too.
When interviewed about womens' perceptions of promotion prospects (or something) the editor of one of these mags said something like 'if women spent more time on their jobs and less moaning round the water cooler they would be taken more seriously' - or something similiar. It was in the observer last week, I think.

I'm still building an ark.

and these mags survive through advertising. What did that guy from one of the biggest ad agencies in the world say? women copy writers are crap and are always leaving to "suckle something".

As long as it's not his nob