The demonisation of lads mags isn't about equality or respect. It's a sexist assault on healthy masculinity, says writer Peter Lloyd

guywithaccount · 2013-08-11T22:57:25+00:00

That's a damn fine article, especially toward the end when it starts hammering away with the Chair Leg of Truth.

Paladin327 · 2013-08-11T21:50:57+00:00

So a woman in a swimsuit on a beach is inappropriate, but a man in a swimsuit on a beach is perfectly acceptable. Gotta love these "feminists" logic...

JayBopara · 2013-08-12T01:46:19+00:00

Peter Lloyd is a legend. What incredible guts for a man to stand up against the feminists and conservatives who care nothing about men and their love of the female form, or women who enjoy modelling.

YetAnotherCommenter · 2013-08-12T07:40:40+00:00

I'm not a fan of these magazines but really, it does seem like a large swathe of feminists think that anything catering to men specifically is automatically sexist.

The avaliability of porn has increased dramatically, and the rate of rape has dropped. This alone should invalidate the idea that naughty pictures of women create domestic violence. Not only that, but "lads mags" don't explain domestic violence in same sex couples.

In a way, Britain's coalition government between the conservatives and the lib-dems (basically the PC left) is like a throwback to the Feminist Sex Wars where the Radfems and Religious Right teamed up to attack pornography.

theegrimrobe · 2013-08-12T09:59:27+00:00

I like his writing ... Always have It's a shame he writes for the mail (it's shunned by many in the uk as a shitrag, with the readership of the mentally deficient and nimby wankers)

He makes a damn good point in this article

If they (feminist whiners) want to ban the lads mags (soft core if you prefer) then a Ban on the equally or more damaging gossip mags must also happen (but of course that won't ever happen as they just want to attack male sexuality again)

tyciol · 2013-08-11T20:39:53+00:00

Holy shit Peter Lloyd makes so many good points I want to call him an MRA

Yes people, it may be 2013, but we've swapped the repression of women for the repression of men.

It's so fucking good I'm not even mad about the whole implying women were repressed in the past thing.

It's so good that, in case any DailyMail haters out there don't want to give the site traffic, I'm going to copy it here so that people can read it without all the sexy man pics. See below

The demonisation of lads mags isn't about equality or respect. It's a sexist assault on healthy masculinity, says writer Peter Lloyd

Co-op has removed Nuts from its shelves for refusing to use modesty bags

Feminists are threatening supermarkets with legal action under equality laws

Despite anti-page three campaigns, half naked men are pictured everywhere

By PETER LLOYD

PUBLISHED: 11:35 GMT, 11 August 2013 | UPDATED: 13:58 GMT, 11 August 2013

For the past few months Britain's feminist community have taken affront with men's magazines. According to their Lose The Lads Mags campaign, publications such as Nuts, Loaded and Zoo objectify women while green-lighting domestic violence in a nation of misogynistic men.

In a bid to have these titles banned, activists are using equality legislation to scare retailers into submission, arguing they'll face legal action if they disobey their orders.

Banned: Lad's mags such as Loaded and Nuts and Zoo have been banned by the Co-op for refusing to use modesty bags

Concerned: Peter Lloyd says that the feminist assault on lad's mags is a sexist attack on healthy masculinity

So far, they've had some success. Earlier this month, it was revealed that The Co-Op have removed weekly title Nuts from their shelves because it refused to be bullied into a modesty bag, even though their covers have consciously been more conservative in recent weeks.

The magazine's publisher, IPC Inspire, eloquently described the supermarket's ultimatum as 'an unreasonable attempt to prevent shoppers from freely browsing a legal magazine that is already displayed according to Home Office guidelines'.

Meanwhile, IPC's managing Director, Paul Williams, added: 'The objection that niche lobby groups have against certain sectors of the media should not mean that the right to purchase a perfectly legal product is restricted for the over half a million readers.

'This is no longer a question of whether you like men’s magazines, it's a question of how far you can restrict the public’s ability to consume free and legal media before it becomes censorship.'

And he's right. Because this campaign has nothing to do with equality - it's simply another fashionable attack on our young men.

In the same week that The Guardian's Suzanne Moore wrote a creepy, cruel, boy-bashing guide on how males should manage their penises - printed in what is supposedly our country's most progressive and big-hearted newspaper.

We're told that only women need protecting from sexism in the big, bad media. Clearly not.

Despite the fact we live in a post-sexual revolution society, where people can enjoy the human body without shame, here we have women taking a moral standpoint on men's free choice as adults.

Yes people, it may be 2013, but we've swapped the repression of women for the repression of men.

Ironically, what these women fail to realise is that it's their actions that are sexist, not the magazines they despise.

When Stephen Fry made a throw-away comment about female sexuality in 2010, he was attacked by countless women who said he had no right to voice an opinion.

Apparently, female sexuality is sacred and not up for discussion - especially by men. After all, that would be patriarchal oppression.

Yet, in a blatant example of hypocrisy and double-standards, here we have women telling men how and when they should consume their own sexual pleasures.

Creepy: Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore wrote a 'cruel guide' on how men should manage their penises

Attacked: Stephen Fry was criticised for commenting on female sexuality... but Cosmo can show naked men

Fortunately, anybody with a brain appreciates that lads mags are a celebration of male sexuality, not a chauvinistic plot against women.

In fact, these magazines are much more about men than they are the opposite sex, which is probably why they're being targeted in the first place. Anything enjoyed by men is now considered sexist.

To be fair, the most compelling part of this movement's argument is that children should be guarded from explicit images, which is of course true - but their defence is incomplete.

Because if children need protecting from inappropriate material, shouldn't this also include posters for Hollywood movie Magic Mike? David Beckham in his pants? Men casually being obliterated in computer games?

They should probably also be shielded by pop stars who promote girl power whilst standing in their pants.

And if so-called 'lads mags' are the building block for domestic violence, how do these campaigners explain the rates of spousal abuse in lesbian relationships?

LGBT charity Broken Rainbow show that rates of abuse between gay females are the same as heterosexual couples. Yet they don't have a lads mag in sight.

This abuse is often non-physical too. More than 40 per cent of women who took part in the Broken Rainbow study confessed that that they'd been humiliated, degraded, insulted or verbally harassed by their female partner. Worse still, 12 per cent had been pressured into sexual activity.

Disturbingly, the women at LoseTheLadsMags.com overlooked this.

Exploitation? Feminists don't complain about the treatment meted out to men in films such as Magic Mike

OK: Why is it fine to show male stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo in their pants but not female ones?

Quite frankly, these feminists - both male and female - need to get their priorities in order. If they're really so dedicated to gender equality and fairness, they should be addressing the bigger, more pernicious issues that underline society: the fact that three million UK men have no access to their children, the worrying trend of schools nationally failing boys and the painful reality that young men's suicide rates are at a ten-year high (for a reason: misandry).

Last month, women gathered at London's Trafalgar Square to protest the current feminist hot-topic of female circumcision - commonly refereed to as FGM.

There they demanded an end to the genital mutilation of girls, and only girls, despite the fact that millions of baby boys are routinely circumcised across the world each year. Many of whom suffer infections, damage to the penis and even death.

Only this week the media obsessed over the worrying case of barrister Robert Colover, who described a 13 year-old sex attack victim as 'predatory', but earlier this year a judge allowed a female paedophile to walk free from court saying: 'it was a one-off...and your [male] victims have largely recovered.'

Unsurprisingly, there was no CPS review and no backlash - especially from veterans of the gender war.

Which begs a very important question: if feminism is such a benevolent force for good, as lads mags protesters say, why has it done nothing to change men's disadvantages in the 40 years it has been the political and social status quo?

The life expectancy gap rages while the pay gap closes, even though they are manifestations of the same thing. Home Office statistics prove that men are at least 40 per cent victims of domestic violence, but not one UK shelter exists for men.

There is also a huge sentencing disparity in criminal courts, which sees men get longer sentences for exactly the same crimes.

And while it may be true that women suffer most when it comes to being sex objects, the world equally objectifies men as success objects - just look at WAG culture. The divorce courts are no better: men are constantly objectified as walking cash points and sperm donors.

Quite frankly, I'm more concerned that our young people will see this rather than a woman with no clothes on.

We are perilously close to becoming a society that wants women treated equally - except when they're treated better. But if we're ever going to achieve equality, this approach is never going to work.

Lads mags may not be tasteful or even sexy, but their existence must be tolerated. If only to reiterate that male sexuality is perfectly fine exactly how it is.

So yeah that was pretty great.

Cthulusbaby · 2013-08-12T09:52:02+00:00

I'm worried about the effect all these fake naked female bodies are having on young girls, but I don't think "lads mags" are the problem so much as the relentless exploitative advertising from the fashion and makeup industries. Most adverts featuring naked or scantily clad women are aimed at women themselves - ads for yoghurt, cosmetics, clothes, celebrity magazines, etc. All of them are CGI enhanced and airbrushed.

Although I also notice that this campaign isn't so much about healthy women and girls, but yet again what men are doing wrong and what they want to change about men. Is it that they've given up on the cosmetic and clothing industries and are going after an easier target? Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm...

2013-08-12T00:07:20+00:00

Peter Lloyd hits it out of the park with this one.

BalllsackTBaghard · 2013-08-12T04:11:13+00:00

I think it is time to stop calling them lads' mags. I mean that term is annoying, just call them softcore magazines or softzines for short.

ShawnS4363 · 2013-08-12T07:30:04+00:00

I now want to buy all of those magazines, its like a male version of Cosmo.

WhatIsTheWorldComing · 2013-08-12T09:17:05+00:00

Actually I didn't think it was terribly well written, though I agree with where he's going. Sorry.

Title	The demonisation of lads mags isn't about equality or respect. It's a sexist assault on healthy masculinity, says writer Peter Lloyd
Author	MHRA_Leander
Upvotes	85
Comments	28
Date	August 11, 2013 7:30 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1k5qp7/the_demonisation_of_lads_mags_isnt_about_equality/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-demonisation-of-lads-mags-isnt-about-equality.1166618 https://theredarchive.com/post/1166618

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