Re-assessing men's magazines

A new study to be published in the British journal of Psychology is set to have massive ramifications and has already kick started a re-assessment of soft core pornography.

The study by Psychologists from Middlesex University and the University of Surrey, showed participants quotes from men's magazines such as FHM, Loaded, and Zoo.

The participants were also shown quotes from convicted sex offenders which were taken from 'The Rapist Files: Interviews with Convicted Rapists written by Sussman & Bordwell

Participants were not informed which source the quotes came from, they were asked to assess for themselves based on the content.

Most participants were unable to distinguish the source of the quotes; the study also revealed that most male participants identified more strongly with the language expressed by the convicted rapists.

Dr Miranda Horvath from Middlesex University said:"We were surprised that participants identified more with the rapists' quotes, and we are concerned that the legitimisation strategies that rapists deploy when they talk about women are more familiar to these young men than we had anticipated."

The study has already had an impact in the UK where retailers have agreed to move all men's magazines to top shelves and censor front covers.

This issue has been big in the UK for a number of years; the release of this study will contribute immensely to the push for classification of men's magazines.

Going back to 2008 Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas called for men's magazines to be classified as pornography "The Sport or Zoo or Nuts are far harder, more sexually explicit, the women in these magazines are dehumanised."

Curtis-Thomas went on to say; "Zoo's Dictionary of Sex goes beyond anything we consider normal. You wouldn't think of defecating on a human being. Yet this is the type of 'education' made available in this literature."

Specific concerns lead Curtis-Thomas to initiate a report into the matter stating her concerns about the ease of access to the material and the detrimental impact it could have on young males.

The report surveyed students and found that 100% of girls found images in men's magazines to be offensive, only 11% of males felt the same and one-fifth admitted that the material encouraged them to see women as sex objects.

Lead researcher Dr Peter Hegarty showed similar concerns to Curtis-Thomas and stated "There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people. But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalise views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders?"

If we accept Curtis-Thomas's view that men's magazines are a form of pornography, the language and content of men's magazines shows we haven't come very far in over 30 years.

In 1979 feminist Andrea Dworkin stated; "Feminists are often asked whether pornography causes rape. The fact is that rape and prostitution caused and continue to cause pornography. Politically, culturally, socially, sexually, and economically, rape and prostitution generated pornography; and pornography depends for its continued existence on the rape and prostitution of women."

It becomes a chicken or the egg type question, is it sexual perpetrators who are influencing men's magazines or are men's magazines influencing young males views and pushing them towards dehumanisation and objectification of women.

Many of the rapist quotes talked about coercing women into sex, rapists justified their actions suggesting that women lead men on.

The following quotes are from men's magazines presented in the study, the similarity lies in the language that pressures women for sex.

'I think girls are like plasticine, if you warm them up you can do anything you want with them.'

'Mascara running down the cheeks means they've just been crying, and it was probably your fault . . . but you can cheer up the miserable beauty with a bit of the old in and out.'

'Girls love being tied up . . . it gives them the chance to be the helpless victim.'

Lead researcher Miranda Horvath stated that she was concerned magazine editors were not doing enough moderation of content; "A lot of debate around the regulation of lads' mags has been to do with how they affect children but less has been said about the influence they have on their intended audience of young men and the women with whom those men socialise."

In light of the results and information, we need to ask ourselves; by allowing young boys and teenagers access to this material, are we in-fact doing them a great disservice?

The potential exists that exposure to material which denigrates women could hinder the development of realistic expectations and in turn affect a young mans ability to form healthy and fulfilling sexual and emotional relationships?