Softcore Porn selling newspapers. Right or Wrong?

You’d like to think the world is a little more classy than that, but then you’d be wrong. Sad.

They should have covered the cover, but why would it be wrong to make it?

How long has England’s Sun newspaper had a Page 3 girl? Over 30 years I’d say. I’d say putting it on the front cover is a bit offensive overall-especially when considering children, but some girls on Page 3 are pretty nice to look at. (Note: link opens to a girl in lingerie-no nudity)

@Blackberry Shouldn’t they at least think about how it may look to the kids?

@Adirondackwannabe In regular stores I’ve been in with adult magazines behind the counter, they have a black separator with a tab labelled ‘Adult’ on it so you can’t see the magazines at all. They should use those, but simply not producing it over fears that some kids will somehow get it and look at it is pretty futile.

@Blackberry We’re adults, so we know a lot more of how fake that stuff is, but the kids are a lot more impressionable, so yeah, it should be screened from them. I like looking, but I also know what I’m seeing.

Considering that what you saw is intended to be a newspaper, we can probably assume that it doesn’t have a risque cover every day (or week, however often it’s published). If that’s the case, the newspaper wouldn’t qualify as “adult” and so wouldn’t be one of those that’s displayed in the “adult” section.

I don’t think it’s right for such a publication to put a photo like that on the cover. I know there are some papers that have the girly photos inside (the Sunshine Girl in the Toronto Sun, for example), and while I don’t think that’s necessary in a “news“paper, putting them on the cover is a different matter. Further, displaying it low enough for a kid to get an eyeful is disrespectful as well. I would complain to the paper if I were you.

I agree that it should have been behind a cover. It looks to me from this cover that it is in the habit of risque covers.

@marinelife – that link just shows a bunch of publications by the Destinations brand :(

@Seelix Hmm, when I click on it, it shows a scantily clad women on the cover of Daily Sport.

Advertisers know the truth behind the expression, “sex sells.”

We are all born with a natural sense of curiousity of sex and the human body. It is how we reproduce and one of the sincerest expressions of love. Advertisers play on this aspect of human nature to make money in numerous industries including music, movies, books, magazines, clothing, food, drink, et al.

Maturity is an inevitable part of every healthy person’s life. As a person matures, modesty becomes part of your basic human instinct. Intimacy and sex are sacred and precious expressions of love when shared between two consenting adults.

We have, for several generations, allowed advertisers to push the limits, brainwash us and slowly eroded our sense of public modesty. It is sad that our morals and judgement are being dictated by advertisers for the love of the mighty dollar.

Just MHO.

@wenwen Where do you live? I’m wondering if you’re in the UK, considering you used the terms fuel and petrol.

I’m just glad you can’t find Playboy and Hustler in the grocery stores anymore. The 80s were a crazy time.

@Seelix You have to go to the dropdown bar and click on the Daily Sport. They’re there.

@marinelife, @Adirondackwannabe – Yup, found it. Apparently this paper also has something titled “Girls Kissing”, but I would have to subscribe to see it. Sounds like a great source for news.

It is wrong and the newspaper companies should be more respectful and discreet.

The Daily Sport is a joke, they even used to have a nipple count for every issue displayed oh so proudly on the cover. I used to work in the building trade and that paper was a staple on every site.

Although Shaun Ryder did used to write a very amusing column in it.

What one thinks is wrong another thinks is right. Kids do not see what you see when you look at that picture so you can stop worrying about them.

@Blackberry , you should really think about what you just said, you know what you are looking at is completely fake, and comes from a smutty industry, but you like it anyway.
@Simone De Beauvoir I agree that young kids don’t see it the way I do, AT FIRST, but if it just becomes a way of life & accepted that when they go to the petrol station or news agents they are going to see women pretending to be sexually aroused and hardly clothed in sexual positions plastered on the front of papers they A: aren’t going to have a very high opinion of women and B : think that , that may be the way you have to behave to be accepted by men in society. Think about it.
The porn industry sucks – excuse the pun.

@wenwen It is my job and yours, as parents, to discuss every message our kids see out there in the world – I discuss sexism and any other ism with my kids daily.

@wenwen And…...lol. Yes, men like porn even though we know it’s somewhat fake.

@wenwen perhaps we should teach women that their bodies are something evil that they need to cover at all times, lest a man see their sinful flesh? Teach them that their bodies are the embodiment of sin and they should feel ashamed about who they are?

Quite frankly, if everyone walked around naked all day, “newspapers” like this probably wouldn’t exist, and people would probably have much healthier attitudes about the human body, sexuality, and respecting others. It sure beats the Adam and Eve spin that we are all shameful beasts who need to cover up because of our inherent evil (so come to church and be saved—- oh an please tithe 10% to us on your way out).

gorillapaws, I don’t know where you live, but it’s snowing here. I’m just saying, I don’t know about correlating nudity with sin or respecting your body or nudity making people have more respect for others… I’m just saying; but walking around naked isn’t practical for people who have to go outside their homes today where I live. It is a tit-bit-nippley. Bbbrrr.

@bkcunningham1 I’m not saying it’s practical for year-round attire, but most parts of the world have warm seasons. I’m also not saying it would be practical to implement, simply that the thought experiment can teach us much about how we perceive sexuality, and the human form in our culture.

Softcore Porn sells EVERYTHING.

Skin and sex are good for sales. They attract male eyes and encourage them to buy. Some attract female eyes as well. So once these pictures are no longer prosecuted, they are going to be there and stay there.

As always, when we see something we don’t like, our response should not be to censor. We must educate. It is through education that we can encourage the behaviors we want to see. If we try to hide things from our kids, they will only get more curious. It is up to us, the adults, to explain to our children what they are seeing, and why they are seeing it and what we think about it.

We might not like to do this at age 4 or whatever, but we have to, or we aren’t doing our jobs. In fact, something like this could be a teachable moment, allowing you to talk about good touch and bad touch, and what to do when someone wants to touch them the wrong way.

Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. It’s what is there, and what we teach our children. Resist the urge to censor. Instead, take it as an opportunity to teach.

@wundayatta This sort of material should be kept out of sight of children. I would find it embarrassing and unnecessary to have to look at this sort of thing with my children present. There are no opportunities for ‘education’ here I’m afraid. It can teach children nothing of what they should know.

@flutherother Leave your kids at home if you feel that way. That material isn’t going away. The only way to keep them from seeing it is to leave them at home.

Responding with a kneejerk censorship reaction puts a parent in grave danger of teaching their kids to be ashamed of their bodies and their reactions to sexual stimuli.

Kids are really smart. They see when parents are uncomfortable about something, and they do everything they can to make sure their parents are never faced with such a situation. I.e., the kids are protecting the parents from what the parents what to protect their kids from.

wundayatte, suppose, for the sake of discussion, your child has been the victim of a molestation and they encounter a pedophile magazines. Or what if it is a magazine about beastiality or BDSM? Where do you, if at all, draw the line in your world?

I’m just trying to imagine how much softcore porn Fluther is selling as a result of this thread. And voting for @wundayatta “teachable moments”.

@bkcunningham1 My responsibility is to teach my kids to deal with the world. If they have been molested, I doubt they will be venturing out of the house, unless that’s where the molestation occurred.

I can teach them how to avoid places where they are likely to see this stuff. I can teach them coping techniques to deal with their fears. I can get them therapy to deal with the PTSD.

What I can’t do is rule the world and make it into the place I want it to be. As the Serenity Prayer says, “accept the things I cannot change, have courage to change the things I can and have the wisdom to know the difference.”

I can’t change the obscenity laws, nor do I want to. I can equip my children with tools to handle the world. When I think about what has been happening to little kids in the Congo or in other war zones around the world, dealing with this is a piece of cake. Human beings are amazingly persistent. Kids survive all kinds of hell. I think they can survive seeing stuff we really wish they hadn’t seen.

@wundayatta This isn’t a kneejerk censorship reaction, I have felt this way most of my life. I don’t see any benefits in exposing children to pornography. I disagree, we can make the world the sort of place we want and we can start by returning the pornography to the top shelves.

@bkcunningham1 what would the world look like if every bit of it had to be designed to accommodate every person with particular attention to their specific damage and idiosyncracies to their particular level of comfort and ability to deal with it equitably?

Well, yeah, okay. It would be pretty ‘comfortable’, I suppose… and bland, unexciting and tasteless (as in “lacking flavor”). I agree that it’s also “tasteless” to present magazines and newspapers such as that to four-year-olds, but that’s part of the price we pay for living in a relatively free society: sometimes we get offended and uncomfortable. So we learn to deal with it, and the sooner, the better.

@flutherother I have a much greater fear of censorship. It’s a risk I’m betting I can handle. Well, my kids are 10 and 14 now. They have had way more exposure to all kinds of things than I had at their age. I’m dealing with it. I don’ think we can put the genie back in the bottle, and I also think it is a price I’m willing to pay in order to protect other freedoms.

Just out of curiosity… where do you stand on the wikileaks thing?

To me the point the original poster made was this was seen by her child when she was doing something as innocent as paying for gas. It isn’t like she had her child in an adult book store or a place where you would commonly find pornographic material.

I’m not trying asking for anyone to burn books. Just use some good old fashioned commonsense. I’m more worried about losing any sort of filter in society and not having any boundaries for appropriate and respectful behavior in public settings.

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. ~Chinese Proverb

@bkcunningham1

Spare us the ‘slippery slope’ argument.

What, exactly, is the detriment here?

@absalom what, exactly is the harm? Isn’t it as much of a slippery slope on the other side to argue that seeing a woman in a bathing suit will turn this fragile child into some kind of sexually deviant person when they grow up?

@gorillapaws

You’ve misread me.

@absalom fair enough.

absalom, I’m sorry, I don’t think I made any sort of “slippery slope” comparison.

@wundayatta I fear censorship also but I don’t see how exposing children to pornography can be considered freedom.

I’ve not quite made my mind up about the latest Wikileak revelations. For society to work people have to have some privacy, even government employees. If everything people say is made public they just won’t say anything.

Porn sells is a fact, neither right or wrong. What is wrong is a society that is so hung up on bodily functions that pleasurable activities are actually swear words.

I just think it should have been covered with the black things mentioned above. Otherwise I dont see the big deal.

@bkcunningham1 you seem to have hit the nail on the head. A bit of decency and common sense would be wonderful.