Colin McGinn forgot someone for his all-male contrarians list. Toby Young should be on it, because he’s very like Colin McGinn, right down to the thinking he’s funny when he isn’t.
He doesn’t like feminism. Wo, that’s original!
Right, that’s it. I’m not shopping at the Co-op again. The bog-standard supermarket chain announced this morning that it has caved in to growing pressure from loony Left feminist campaigners and given the publishers of lads’ mags an ultimatum: place your magazines in “modesty bags” before 9 September or we’ll no longer sell them.
Needless to say, this decision has been welcomed by Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem Under-Secretary of State for Women, Equalities and Politically Correct Mumbo Jumbo Foisted On Us By New Labour That The Present Government Is Too Cowardly To Get Rid Of.
“Exposing children to lewd pictures that portray women as sex objects is not appropriate,” Ms Swinson told the Guardian. “That’s why the Co-operative’s decision to implement the Bailey review recommendation for publications with overtly sexual images on the cover to be displayed and sold in modesty bags is very welcome.”
“Modesty bags” is a horrible phrase, and concept – but the magazines are displaying women as if they were pork chops – pork chops with their legs spread. Thinking that’s not great for equality between the sexes is not “Loony Left.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if UK Feminista and Object – the organisations behind the Lose The Lads’ Mags campaign – do start clamouring for the Beano to be taken off sale. Give ’em a finger and they’ll take a hand. These puritanical fanatics are the Left-wing equivalent of the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. At this rate, they’ll soon be patrolling our city centres in Toyota Land Cruisers, administering on-the-spot punishment beatings to any man caught looking at a woman’s cleavage for more than a second. Like most red-blooded, heterosexual males, I’ll never be able to leave the house again.
Got that? He’s not gay. That’s the important thing.
Yeah great, now I’m going to cringe in terror* every time I see a Land Cruiser.
* Or guffaw. Either way.
Think of how nice it will be for so many people if he never leaves his house again, though.
Well, that’s one less alpha the rest of us will have to out-peacock.
If he really can’t leave the house again, the world will be the better for it.
I must say, to an American ear “lads’ magazine” sounds unusual. But the rest of his message is deluded and poorly argued. Wanting respect for women is not puritanical. Treating women like walking slabs of meat put on earth for men’s use is much much worse in my view. This type of response to anything related to improving the status of women is getting old. It’s not clever, it’s not amusing, and it is not right.
And this guy runs a school? A school for the next generation of men and walking slabs of meat?
It’s too much to hope that he’s being serious… isn’t it?
Love the implication that men with actual demonstrated control over their eyes/hands/bits/mouths are apparently not “red-blooded”, possibly not even heterosexual.
Do these jackhats ever have any idea what they make men LOOK like?
Because exercising any hint of self-discipline, restraint, or discretion is obviously not an option, right? Men can’t do that, don’t you know? They’re like swarms of blow-flies mindlessly drawn towards the scent of a rotting cadaver. That’s why the onus is on the women to cover up (and whatever you do, ladies, don’t be naked underneath all those layers of clothes!) if they don’t want men’s eyes and hands and drool all over them.
If you have to invent some completely implausible and totally imaginary future persecution to object to something, maybe you should consider your objection a little more carefully.
Left unchecked, I wouldn’t be surprised if Toby Young starts prowling the streets of London, naked and smeared in his own shit, humping random cars and bits of street furniture, whilst singing “I’m Walking Backwards For Christmas” in a bad impersonation of Neddie Seagoon.
The Cosmo magazines at my supermarket are covered with black sheets all the time.
Anyway, it’s not as if having “modesty bags” prevents him from purchasing FHM.
QFT.
I see quite a bit of this. There are only two possible attitudes – Women are invisible and there is NO SEX AT ALL (or as close to that as we can manage) or else women are naked and sex is (almost) compulsory.
And both sides refuse to admit that they have so much in common. They both think they get to decide what I do with my body, and they both totally ignore all the bits that I think are important: my brains, humour, creativity, courage, love for my son, experiences etc. etc. etc.
Are they really that dense, or just pretending?
Sweet. This one’ll be easy to catch. He’s clearly none too with it.
Priuses*, dude. That’s how we’re a-gonna be rolling. We’re the loony left, duh! So if you’re watching out for Land Cruisers, you’re just gonna be standing there like a chump looking the wrong way while we sneak up silently behind you on electric**… And then it’s gonna be all over, pal.
(*/Priae? Priora? Priores? Guess we’re gonna have to get this straightened before the beating-red-blooded-over-time-limit-leerers squad builds up much of a fleet, at any rate.)
(**/Heck, we’ll probably even parallel park neatly ‘n everything, too. It’s just antisocial, and by no means an example of decent community values, this parking in the middle of the intersection and piling out all over both lanes for mid-intersection beatings nonsense… Snarls traffic, too. Very not-left. But let’s face it, that’ll probably still catch this guy flat-footed.)
Egad. What nonsense. That’s not a “modesty” decision on the part of retailers — it’s a business decision. They’re trying to protect the magazines from being too thumbed-through to be salable.
In just about every airport in the US and many other retail outlets, the “men’s magazines” are put in racks that have covers that hide the front page. Some go so far as to place these magazines inside plastic “modesty bags”, so that men can’t just flip through them while they’re waiting for the 9:15 to Albuquerque. You have to buy them to look at them.
But if you look at the front cover of the average “men’s magazine”, you’ll find them to be pretty modest about how much skin most of them show most of the time. Cosmopolitan, Shape, and many other “women’s magazines” routinely show models in much-more revealing poses.
Compare, for example, the cover of Maxim Magazine that has Megan Fox on the front cover with the Vogue that has Rihanna on the front cover. Both photographs are aiming at the same thing — displaying a very attractive famous woman on the cover to promote sales. The Vogue is much more risque. But at most retail outlets, the Maxim front cover is behind a covering sheet, while Vogue is in the open.
The issue, then, isn’t the cover of the magazine. It’s what’s inside. Most women’s magazines, the cover is about as overtly sexual as the photography gets (with exceptions). Men’s magazines (by and large — frankly you’d be surprised at how tame magazines like Maxim are), promise more inside. And, of course, the overtly sexual rags like Penthouse and Hustler base their sales on the nude photography.
With the “modesty bags”, retailers are saying “you want to look — fine. Please be so kind as to make a purchase and don’t ruin the merchandise before that. Nobody wants to buy a magazine with your thumb print on it.”
And then there’s the “wrong hands” question — meaning teen-aged boys. Frankly, I’d rather have them look at pictures of an attractive woman than brutal war photographs. But that’s not the culture we live in.
Ugh, I remember suffering through this guy as a judge for two seasons of Top Chef. The producers apparently looked at the ratings for American Idol and figured that every reality show needs a smug British asshole judge, and he certainly checked those boxes.
Every week he’d unleash a couple of nasty comments that were probably supposed to come across as spontaneous wit, but that you could just tell he’d spent hours rehearsing in front of a mirror. Then he’d smirk and bask in his own alleged cleverness.
I was quite happy when he was quietly replaced between seasons.
Heh – I remember that too – along with the fact that he seemed out of step, because people were used to judges being harsh, but being foody-harsh – not snotty supposedly-witty harsh-for-the-sake-of-it harsh.
Toby Young was just on Newsnight! With Oolon!
Well, on the same *show* as Oolon.
Young was actually on with Stella Creasy who wiped the floor with him.
I’m gathering. God he’s horrible.
Oolon was on Newsnight? Seriously? I saw that the Twitter exec recommended a fix that perfectly described the block bot – I didn’t realize Mr Block Bot was on hand!
Stella Creasy was awesome, unfortunately they ushered me into a dark room away from any celebs so I didn’t get to hang out with anyone :-D. Apart from Paul Mason who is a nice bloke and *really* motivated to stick it to the misogynistic assholes on Twitter. Newsnight have done a good job on this story and not felt the need to fall for the “freeze peach” bollocks … Apart from wheeling Toby out, who well and truly got his arse handed to him, I emerged from behind the sofa long enough to LOL at that.
@Ophelia, did you miss Rebecca Watson appear on YT? I was on and answered a couple of Qs after that…
Ha! This is brilliant, also hilarious.
Hey, oolon, want to write me a quick guest post about it? I keep chasing down new bits of info and not having time to post!
Off to bed and your latest one looks pretty good. I’ll put something on my blog when I get time and link you to it … About the options for blocking abuse and the Newsnight interview, short as it was! Maybe the uncut “insider” discussion about their investigation.
Yeh, I got caught up with the info so had time to post something.