Lads' mags too explicit for Commons
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A woman MP who wants to curb the sale of lads' mags has been banned from quoting sexually explicit extracts in the House of Commons.
The magazines, such as Zoo and Nuts, shocked the House authorities with their explicit sex tips for readers, including necrophilia and wrapping a girl's head in cellophane.
Claire Curtis-Thomas, who is campaigning against pornography in magazines, was warned that if she quoted directly from Zoo today when she introduces a Bill to limit them to "top-shelf" displays in shops she would be expelled from the Commons for a week.
She has attacked the topless pictures in tabloid newspapers in the past but says the lads' mags have gone further and are now hard porn. She said Playboy magazine, which was restricted to top shelves in newsagents shops, was tame by comparison.
She had planned to use explicit references to the "unnatural" sex acts in a recent edition of Zoo but was censored by the Speaker's office. "The Speaker has ruled the language inadmissible on the floor of the House. I can use it but only with the threat of being barred for a week," said Mrs Curtis-Thomas, Labour MP for Crosby.
Mrs Curtis-Thomas, who has three children, said she had no worry about being classed as a modern Mary Whitehouse or compared to Clare Short, who campaigned against page three girls in the 1980s. "There is a very wide line between titillation - girls enjoy that as much as boys - and hardcore porn and obscenity, and bestiality and necrophilia. We are in a hardcore world where people could be prosecuted for some of these activities," said Mrs Curtis-Thomas.
"It's crude and intolerant of what an adult might find to be acceptable in a normal relationship.
"I am not concerned - if adults choose to defecate on one another that is up to them. It is not something I would want to do. But what I do object to is this literature is open to children and it's being bought by minors.
"Playboy is tame by comparison - it has some photographs of women in the nude, they are beautifully shot, they don't demean or objectify women, they are quite glamorous in their own way and there are articles about safe sex.
"But when you get to the lads' mags, which are on sale next to the Beano and the Dandy, you are in the land of hardcore porn."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments