Shops could face legal action over 'lads' mags'

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22674928

Shops could face legal action over 'lads' mags'

Retailers are being warned they could face legal action if they continue to sell magazines showing naked and semi-naked images of women.

Pressure groups and lawyers say displaying the magazines or requiring staff to handle them could amount to sexual harassment or discrimination.

Campaigners say shops could be in breach of the Equality Act 2010.

The British Retail Consortium said its members do not sell anything illegal and have long followed industry rules.

Gender equality groups UK Feminista and Object have joined forces with 11 lawyers to launch the Lose the Lads' Mags campaign.

They have written an open letter to launch their national campaign, which was published in the Guardian newspaper on Monday.

"High-street retailers are exposing staff and, in some cases, customers to publications whose handling and display may breach equality legislation," the letter said.

"Displaying lads' mags and pornographic papers in 'mainstream' shops results in the involuntary exposure of staff and, in some cases, customers to pornographic images."

The letter says there are examples of staff successfully suing employers in respect of exposure to pornographic material at work.

Sexual harassment can be defined as unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment.

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[klr]

Does that mean The Sun couldn't be sold either?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Buncha wankers.

[Pappa]

For what reason should handling nudity or semi-nudity be regarded as sexual harassment or discrimination? It's little more than prudishness and belief protectionism.

[Audley Strange]

Funnily enough I noticed in one of the newsagents near me that almost every magazine featured a young woman on it it various states of dress. Some of the low rent chin wag rags and one of the glossies had pale young women in bikinis on them.

Does this smack to anyone else of the "I won't do this part of my job because it's against my beliefs" shit we pour scorn on those who won't marry gay people or perform abortions or hand out morning after pills?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

For what reason should handling nudity or semi-nudity be regarded as sexual harassment or discrimination? It's little more than prudishness and belief protectionism.

They're playing Buzzwordwang.

[Rum]

It's the Muslomids again!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I blame the liberal media.

[fretmeister]

What a load of shit.

Some religious people have attempted to sue employers because they had to unload lorries full of bacon or alcohol.

In every case the court said - it's in a packet, so shut up.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Seems like they are looking for a way to subvert free-and-open speech, nothing more.

[Trinity]

I guess from one female's point of view, I'm not offended by these mag covers, I merely find them yawn worthy because as Audley says, there are so fri king many of the same old same old. If that's what sells the mags then they're not going to put pictures of neck to ankle Victorian dressed elderly spinsters are they? However, it's a pretty sad state of affairs if pictures of scantily dressed women are the ONLY thing that'll sell these mags- surely they're lifestyle and not just soft porn publications?
Maybe the women's lifestyle mags (which also usually have beautiful women on the cover but with more clothes on) should start displaying barely clothed muscle heads to keep everyone happy. It wouldn't make me any more likely to buy that formulaic shit anyway!!!!

[Audley Strange]

I guess from one female's point of view, I'm not offended by these mag covers, I merely find them yawn worthy because as Audley says, there are so fri king many of the same old same old. If that's what sells the mags then they're not going to put pictures of neck to ankle Victorian dressed elderly spinsters are they? However, it's a pretty sad state of affairs if pictures of scantily dressed women are the ONLY thing that'll sell these mags- surely they're lifestyle and not just soft porn publications?
Maybe the women's lifestyle mags (which also usually have beautiful women on the cover but with more clothes on) should start displaying barely clothed muscle heads to keep everyone happy. It wouldn't make me any more likely to buy that formulaic shit anyway!!!!

Well it's coming into summer season so even the lifestyle mags tend to go formulaic, which was my point. As for a picture of some young nubile with naught but her ankle showing, I think would, if shot well, be novel enough to look ground-breaking in the sea of homogeneous Disnified faces. If the lifestyle mags did as they claimed in "celebrating" womanhood, one would think their covers would be more divserse and less exploitative too. That they don't and that the array of bitchfest mags love exposing every flaw and inch of celluloid in some kind of jealousy porn, that the red-tops love the voyeuristic "tit" expose of everyone from professional slatterns to teenage movie stars, to forthcoming monarchs is all equally as tasteless and should be considered worse because at least the lads mags, as puerile as they are, are fucking honest about it.

[Trinity]

Agreed. I sometimes wonder if people who buy these magazines would get withdrawal symptoms if they all ceased to be printed tomorrow. It seems to be a pandemic obsession and it's just so fucking WEIRD.

[Audley Strange]

Haha. Yeah I remember some guy a while ago who was an enthusiast of that kind of Japanese demon tentacle porn shit told me that "yeah this stuff is legal and they have a lower incidence of sex crimes blah blah blah" I pointed out that if he was claiming that was causation that he was saying that without demon tentacle porn shit, Japanese men would go on a sex-crime spree.

Honestly though, magazines are just adverts with articles amongst the catalogues to keep them "legit"so they can charge the dupes that buy them.

[Pappa]

I guess from one female's point of view, I'm not offended by these mag covers, I merely find them yawn worthy because as Audley says, there are so fri king many of the same old same old. If that's what sells the mags then they're not going to put pictures of neck to ankle Victorian dressed elderly spinsters are they? However, it's a pretty sad state of affairs if pictures of scantily dressed women are the ONLY thing that'll sell these mags- surely they're lifestyle and not just soft porn publications?
Maybe the women's lifestyle mags (which also usually have beautiful women on the cover but with more clothes on) should start displaying barely clothed muscle heads to keep everyone happy. It wouldn't make me any more likely to buy that formulaic shit anyway!!!!

Well it's coming into summer season so even the lifestyle mags tend to go formulaic, which was my point. As for a picture of some young nubile with naught but her ankle showing, I think would, if shot well, be novel enough to look ground-breaking in the sea of homogeneous Disnified faces. If the lifestyle mags did as they claimed in "celebrating" womanhood, one would think their covers would be more divserse and less exploitative too. That they don't and that the array of bitchfest mags love exposing every flaw and inch of celluloid in some kind of jealousy porn, that the red-tops love the voyeuristic "tit" expose of everyone from professional slatterns to teenage movie stars, to forthcoming monarchs is all equally as tasteless and should be considered worse because at least the lads mags, as puerile as they are, are fucking honest about it.

Very good point.