Spot1990 said:
EDIT: My intent wasn't clear here. Wasn't trying to say the latter justifies the former, that was purely in defense of the equivalence argument. There are in fact women't mags with the same kind of stuff as lads mags.
I''m sure there are, but the attempt here is to equate some fairly boilerplate stuff with some more radical stuff. Even your example of Zoo has more routinely titilating material on the cover than his given example of Cosmo. I've looked through like 500 covers of Cosmo for point of reference and can only find a handful, tops that are even remotely risque. Even if you only assume "nipple sized censor dots," that's not remotely the same level as Cosmo.
That's not to say Cosmo is necessarily good, either.
Now, allow me to get down to the nuts and bolts of the matter, if you don't mind the pun.
As far as this news goes, I'm actually of the "zero fucks given" variety. I came into this thread initially because it looked like this was actually a government action. Unlike most people who commented, I seem to have read the source article. It's a single company targeting very specific magazines (not even all "lad's mags"[footnote]Getting the attention, that have already been targeted by the "black box" routine, and are the only ones whose response has been covered, so just fill this in for any such instance I make mention of it[/footnote]). I don't support the action beyond supporting the right of the company to choose whether or not to stock such magazines. I know that in our good friend rjd's mind, I am committing some egregious sin by not condemning women's magazines as well, but the thing is, I was never actually condemning these in the first place. I'm pro-sex and don't give a damn about magazines because they're a symptom more than a cause. To borrow a line from that evil feminazi Anita Sarkeesian, I doubt anyone ever became a misogynist by seeing titties in the checkout line.
However comma, that does not change the fact that, as an equivalence argument, the one I commented on fails. In fact, it fails on multiple levels; as I have already pointed out, rjd's carefully cherry picked example is not only the exception rather than the rule, but drew the exact sort of controversy he claims us evil feminists don't create. It's a perfect example of someone's prejudices dictating a narrative that does not reflect the real world: he thinks feminists are hypocrites and thus works backwards to justify it.
As I'm currently being asked (not by you) to defend feminist activity I'm not involved in on matters I don't pay attention to, I'm currently flying by the seat of my pants. My interest was predominantly in a false equivalence fallacy, and little more. But I am trying to be clear here because I don't really give a damn outside the intellectual argument and the logical fallacies involved.
-"Lad's Mags" routinely show more skin than even the examples given thus far. I can only comment on what I see, however. Perhaps there are worse ones, but since RJD has a fetish for Cosmo I have only gone so far as to look at Cosmo covers in relation to the four magazines specifically covered by this restriction.
-Since it is only the four mags[footnote]See footnote 1[/footnote], I have to assume that there is at least SOMETHING that makes them stand out. Hell, a couple of the ones named have pornographic content on their websites and ostensibly in their magazines. I say ostensibly because the ads and the sites seem to indicate that but I've never owned a copy of "Front" or "Loaded" or "Zoo" or....Whatever the last one was, I forget and at this point, don't care enough to check. Lad's mags in general may not be pornographic, but I kind of wonder if one or more of these ones are.
-However, there is a limit to my patience and the amount of time I will spend researching this sort of stuff, since my interest is already slim. In fact, I probably wouldn't have spent as much time as I did if not for the pictures of naked or partially naked (topless/bottomless) women I came across in the progress. Nudity tends to make the research process easier.
-It is possible, due to the limits of my research, that this is quite common, and it's unfair to single them out. I don't know. I don't even pay attention to these magazines in my own country. However, Front's website has material that's only slightly less explicit than Playboy, if at all, and they use it to advertise the publication, whereas Playboy just tries to advertise more behind the paywall. Still, we are talking porn vs a "lad's mag," so I wouldn't assume any level of equivalence.
-Also now important to my overall point, though it shouldn't have to be, is that this is not some feminist conspiracy. This is only an issue because I apparently touched a nerve by pointing out false equivalence. Again, not you.
Is it right to bag them? *shrugs* Should we apply things equally? Probably, but then, it seems more lad's mags will fall under that category than what is currently targeted[footnote]See footnote 1[/footnote]. Should we cover books, too? Good luck with that (and really, I agree it's nto an issue of naked/not naked by itself), but why not? You know, if the customers are concerned or the story feels that way. I mean, in the States a lot of Wal-Marts cover up most of the lifestyle magazines with men or women on the cover behind black boards similar to the boxes the Co-Op was using for Front and stuff. And they're weird, too; there's an age gate in parts of the country for Dan Brown books, but according to everyone I know who's shopped at one of those Wal-Marts, none for 50 Shades of Softcore Bondage. It's weird, but not necessarily hypocrisy (emphasis on necessarily, since I'm sure this post will be quote-mined by someone else down the line....It's happened every time I've written something in this thread).
But yeah. My concern begins and ends with the histrionics. The accusations that feminists are conspiring to end male culture as we know it or whatever. The hypocrisy that we're apparently okay with anything a woman does and actively condemning what men do. And if it seems a little hyperbolic to phrase it that way, it is entirely for effect. I don't care if they're bagged, made more modest, pulled from the shelves, or shut down.
That is, of course, unless it's because of government censorship or the like.
I don't even really care if they stay as-is. I honestly think they're more a symptom and treating them as the issue is probably more harmful in the way masking mild symptoms can give the false impression of making an illness go away. We could burn down all the presses that print off these magazines (all the ones that show women in scanty clothing or whatever), and all it would mean is that we had the same fucked up view and less to wank to.
And I'm a fan of masturbatory material, pornographic or otherwise. I don't think that one needs to hate it to have a realistic assessment of women as human beings. None of my girlfriends are[footnote]Don't let them all find out about each other! I meant "have been," meaning an entire chronology, but this way looked funnier, so I kept it[/footnote] exactly "lad's mag" material, but I've been attracted to them, both physically and for qualities I don't look for in porn.
I'm rambling a bit due to the late hour and the fact that I can't take pain meds for the week (chronic pain, getting injection to treat it at end of week), so I will just close this already massively TLDR post off with the words of the immortal Tom Lehrer:
I do have a cause though. It is obscenity. I'm for it. Unfortunately the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it owing to the nature of the laws as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on but we know what's really involved: dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution unfortunately.
(Emphasis mine, of course)
