Thursday, March 31, 2005

I Suddenly Lost My Appetite...

Guess where I was when I took this photo. Go on, guess.

I can almost guarantee you are wrong.

I was in Marks & Spencer! Marks and Spencer!!!!

M&S, selling porn? Surely not... I could not believe my eyes, that in the middle of the tasty food section, I was faced with this.

I sent them an email (which you too can do, from here), which said,
I was in the M&S store in Sheffield City Centre and was horrified to see a selection of pornographic 'lads' mags' amid the food section.

I have no idea how this was ever thought to be a good idea by your shop. Your main customers are surely women, many of whom will feel offended and intimidated by naked women on the front of magazines.

I treat myself to your food from time to time as it is high quality, but will certainly re-consider doing this if I am to be faced with pornographic images at children's eye level.

I am, as the cliche goes, shocked and appalled!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Metatron

I agree to an extent. Cosmo, Marie Claire etc. *are* offensive and demeaning to women. They make us judge ourselves and other women on the basis of our appearance, weight, thinness, socially imposed beauty standards. They sell us a product of disatisfaction with ourselves and so we starve, spend and starve some more.

Porn mags are offensive and demeaning in different ways, as well as the above ways. They promote to men a view of women as sexually available, easily manipulated, men's playthings, there for men's pleasure. They sexualise and objectify women in ways which have been proven many times to be a 'how-to manual for rapists'. They teach men and boys a view of women's sexuality which is twisted and abusive.

There are of course crossovers. The societal beauty standards are ever present in porn mags, and sexually prescriptive standards are promoted in women's glossy mags.

But it is not about counting articles about sex. It is about the whole message that these magazines teach their readers.

Women's glossy magazines, *and* porn magazines are both offensive and detrimental to women and feminists. Just in somewhat different ways.

Debt Advice said...

Informative site with some great historic posts - is it ok to link to some of these from my blog?