Kick Out The Pricks

I’ve been boning up on the protest over so called Lads Mags and the stiff pressure to cover up their covers and wrap them in cellophane at grocery stores.

It’s created quite a round of comment, from young feminists who say they are disgusting and degrading, to the magazine owners who say they purely reflect the views of millions of young men, from those who feel the cover up is an attack on freedom of speech, to those who feel it doesn’t go far enough.

Well, let’s clear this up.

These publications should not be covered at all, nor should they be hidden on the top shelf to keep them away from the prying eyes of toddlers.

No.

They should be piled on high and set afire.

There should be no place for this kind of abusive trash in an evolved society.

These rags are despicable, meretricious, without a mitigating feature.

They do not reflect the view of millions of young men, they feed on baseness and force them to remain in a state of mental bondage.

It doesn’t matter whether your argument is for or against these publications.

They are wrong and should have been banished from our collective psyche long ago.

We must stop this outmoded and sick mindset and not let a bunch of unprincipled meatheads stuff any more filthy lucre into their cum drenched fists.

These magazines are not a bit of fun, they are about perpetrating the idea that the objectification and subjugation of women is perfectly acceptable.

Well it’s not.

It’s painful, hurtful, morally reprehensible, fucked up.

This is not a pornography issue, let’s be clear.

This is not about soft core as in Mags Fags and Shags shops.

No, this is about misogynistic bile vomited up by the likes of Loaded.

There was a boy a few days ago who with bravado egged on by the editorial content of all that bilge Tweeted in scatter gun pattern callow thoughts about the sight, size, and smell of a middle aged woman’s vagina.

When threatened to have the beans spilled to his mother he was forced to examine his actions through her eyes, a middle aged woman, and was terrified, appalled, contrite.

People cry that every one is entitled to their opinion.

Well no, they are not, not when it's dripping in hate.

It isn't big, it isn't clever, and the only people laughing are the nervous under peer pressure and the profiteers, be they from Loaded, Twitter, Facebook, the local Co-op.

There is no altruism in this cover up, not when there are bucks to be made.

I am heartened to see that young feminists have taken this up.

I was beginning to think that there were no young feminists.

If you are someone who thinks that there is no need for feminism today, then please think again.

This is one clear example of why you are wrong.

Now look around you.

Those billboards bursting with photoshopped shots of barely clad girls selling us stuff we neither need or want are part and parcel.

It is slavery.

I am not one for censorship.

On the contrary I believe in the maxim ban nothing, question everything, with the proviso it causes no harm.

A bald man being called bald may feel uncomfortable, though it's true.

A woman threatened of rape in her own home for being a woman is a crime.

Degrading women is about control, power, based on fear, insecurity.

As an evolved, mature, enlightened species which we know in our hearts we are, we must not, cannot stand for it.

We are so much better than this.

Kick out the pricks!

Julia Brightly

August 3, 2013