“Lads mags”. Naked girls. Cars. Gadgets. And more naked girls. They’re what every man looks for in a magazine, apparently. Twenty years ago I might have dared to believe that this sort of thing would have become unthinkable by now, but this mainstream pornography has become acceptable again, covered with a thin veneer of irony and some feeble words about women’s empowerment. This morning I heard a spokewoman for one of the magazines talking about how their august journal promoted respect for women. This, from a title that cheerful publishes a “Rate my breasts” column.
I mention this for two reasons.
First, because one of the magazines is launching a tv channel today.
New shows include Gender Bender, in which “three lads and three girls go to eye-popping extremes to prove they know they most about the opposite sex”, and “Will Beauty Call?” featuring three lucky chaps “fighting for the chance to give their phone number to Miss England, Miss Liverpool and Miss Glasgow”
That sounds edifying. I can’t wait.
The comes the news that FHM has been chastised by the Press Complaints Commission for publishing a picture of a topless 14 year old
The Emap-owned title was heavily censured by the self-regulatory body for breaking rules on privacy and the protection of children after the parents of the girl, who was 14 when the picture was taken in 2005, complained.
So-called lads’ mags, which enjoyed huge popularity in the 1990s but have slumped in appeal in recent years, have made reader contributions a key plank of their attempt to arrest declining sales.
The rise in material submitted by readers has gone hand in hand with the ubiquity of camera phones and competition from weekly titles that increasingly rely on naked female flesh as a selling point.
The PCC said the decision to publish the picture of the girl without adequately establishing consent represented a serious intrusion into her private life.
Can anyone explain to me why they weren’t prosecuted for the publication of paedophile material?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Larry B 09.13.07 at 2:54 am
On the first note, I can’t explain the no paedophile charges.
Secondly, I’m with you, I can’t believe how acceptable the mainstream pornification of women has become and how it’s even embraced by a lot of women as a form of empowerment. It’s quite bizarre.
We seem to have shamed people into giving up smoking (at least here in the US), but there is no shame whatsoever surrounding the use of sex in mainstream media and culture. Seems a bit weird to me.
Paul Martin 09.13.07 at 1:28 pm
They clearly failed to implement the most basic checks. They were lucky no to face prosecution (as I am sure that you and me would have been in similar circumstances). I just hope they learn from their lucky escape.
these rags certainly do nothing to encourage respect for women.
Sarah 09.13.07 at 4:44 pm
Its shocking what passes for entertainment, even in the mainstream media (just pick up any one of a number of sunday ‘newspapers’ and you’re faced with the same thing..).
And the issues highlighted above are those which can obviously be spotted as ‘pornography’, or at the very least demeaning to women and ignorant of their basic human rights. However, its not just in magazines and tv shows like these. Women themselves participate in this business; celebrities. singers, actors, using their ‘assets’ to get where they want to go. Is this not the same thing as these lads mags flaunting naked women?
What hope is there for this type of thing to stop, when the very people its harming are happy to play along, under the guise of ‘girl power’?
malc 09.13.07 at 6:10 pm
My favourite mags come with either bows&arrows, model trains or hills on the front cover. For some quite shameful reason scantily clad women just don’t seem to fit in with the themes….
Pamela 09.15.07 at 11:17 am
I agree wholeheartedly with Sarah.
In fact, i think i feel a blog coming on….
On the no-paedophile charges, this is something currently very close to my heart, as one of the teachers who only left my school last term is currently in court for a very similar offence - showing such images to underage children.
While I can totally understand the desire of every parent everywhere to not want their children taught at school by someone who is on the sex-offenders register, it suddenly becomes rather more a casue for some deep thought when the man involved is a friend, and you do not believe him to be guilty, yet you’re watching his career evaporate before his eyes……….
So if the magazine really did publish explicit pictures of an underage girl, then i would possibly call for them to be closed down. Or at the very least, put under such restrictions that the same ‘mistake’ cannot occur again!