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Re: Ban "Lads Mags"?
To be accurate:
(a) nobody is suggesting that the magazines should be banned - the legal argument is that the public display of them may breach the law in several respects in relation to people who do not wish to buy them or see them. Cigarettes are also legal - but the public display of them is now illegal. Whether you agree with that or not, the law says that cigarettes may not be displayed in public, and the campaign here is making the same argument for these "mildly pornographic magazines" using existing legislation and case law to support them. They have a valid argument, and nowhere are they asking for this literature to be banned.
(b) you need to be very careful with that argument that things shouldn't be banned just because "people don't like them". A great deal of pornography - and not just pornography - is banned because "people don't like it". But it continues to exist and be sold illicitly because some people do like it! If said literature is naked girls under the age of 14 years, should we unban it because it's only some people who don't like it? What about bestiality magazines, violence, cruelty or degradation? Some people actually like this sort of stuff - they must, because there is a market and a rather "healthy" market for it. There is a lot of money being made in the country and worldwide for lines of product which are banned because "some people don't like it". Whether we like it or not, there is a blurry line between what is acceptable and what isn't, and it is a line that not everyone agrees with. Some people would ban it all, some would want to see certain items freely available to them which are not now available to them legally. Who decides where the line is drawn?
(c) and I do not think that the amount of money that someone makes out of something makes it "right", whatever "right" means. Yes, I personally think it is demeaning no matter what the pay cheque is. I'd also have to say that I think men are mugs to be willing to pay to be voyeurs, and that it demeans them too. If their measure of another human being is in cup sizes, they seriously need to consider their values.
And what I think is most dangerous about this literature is not that it is or may be pornographic, or demeaning, or totally extortionately priced to make £millions out of objectifying people to other people; it is the effect that such images (and others) play in the minds of both men and women about body image and what is desirable or not in the eyes of others. We have children, boys as well as girls, who are making themselves seriously ill in order to mould their bodies into the shapes that are desirable - in some cases to the extent that these children are damaging themselves permanently as a result. We have adults doing the same thing - you can argue about the fact that they are adults and make their own decisions, but the fact is that for a whole variety of reasons, many people do not have the reserves or capacity to rise above the prejudices of society about body image. We have children and adults who are bullied because their body shape does not fit some idealised form of "beauty". We have an insidious market for carving people up for no other reason than to make their natural body into something that isn't natural to them because they believe that they will be "better" if something is bigger, smaller, or a different shape. And at the other side of the spectrum we have people who look away when they see someone whose body is not perfect, broken by disease and disability, because they cannot see beyond the surface. Beauty is not skin deep - it is not even skin deep. When we can all look beyond what is on the surface and see people for what they are and who they are, then we won't need to ban such literature - there simply won't be a market for it and it will disappear of its own accord.
Originally posted by wales01man
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(a) nobody is suggesting that the magazines should be banned - the legal argument is that the public display of them may breach the law in several respects in relation to people who do not wish to buy them or see them. Cigarettes are also legal - but the public display of them is now illegal. Whether you agree with that or not, the law says that cigarettes may not be displayed in public, and the campaign here is making the same argument for these "mildly pornographic magazines" using existing legislation and case law to support them. They have a valid argument, and nowhere are they asking for this literature to be banned.
(b) you need to be very careful with that argument that things shouldn't be banned just because "people don't like them". A great deal of pornography - and not just pornography - is banned because "people don't like it". But it continues to exist and be sold illicitly because some people do like it! If said literature is naked girls under the age of 14 years, should we unban it because it's only some people who don't like it? What about bestiality magazines, violence, cruelty or degradation? Some people actually like this sort of stuff - they must, because there is a market and a rather "healthy" market for it. There is a lot of money being made in the country and worldwide for lines of product which are banned because "some people don't like it". Whether we like it or not, there is a blurry line between what is acceptable and what isn't, and it is a line that not everyone agrees with. Some people would ban it all, some would want to see certain items freely available to them which are not now available to them legally. Who decides where the line is drawn?
(c) and I do not think that the amount of money that someone makes out of something makes it "right", whatever "right" means. Yes, I personally think it is demeaning no matter what the pay cheque is. I'd also have to say that I think men are mugs to be willing to pay to be voyeurs, and that it demeans them too. If their measure of another human being is in cup sizes, they seriously need to consider their values.
And what I think is most dangerous about this literature is not that it is or may be pornographic, or demeaning, or totally extortionately priced to make £millions out of objectifying people to other people; it is the effect that such images (and others) play in the minds of both men and women about body image and what is desirable or not in the eyes of others. We have children, boys as well as girls, who are making themselves seriously ill in order to mould their bodies into the shapes that are desirable - in some cases to the extent that these children are damaging themselves permanently as a result. We have adults doing the same thing - you can argue about the fact that they are adults and make their own decisions, but the fact is that for a whole variety of reasons, many people do not have the reserves or capacity to rise above the prejudices of society about body image. We have children and adults who are bullied because their body shape does not fit some idealised form of "beauty". We have an insidious market for carving people up for no other reason than to make their natural body into something that isn't natural to them because they believe that they will be "better" if something is bigger, smaller, or a different shape. And at the other side of the spectrum we have people who look away when they see someone whose body is not perfect, broken by disease and disability, because they cannot see beyond the surface. Beauty is not skin deep - it is not even skin deep. When we can all look beyond what is on the surface and see people for what they are and who they are, then we won't need to ban such literature - there simply won't be a market for it and it will disappear of its own accord.
uke:
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