Stand by Your Manhood by Peter Lloyd Read Free Book Online Page A

media.
    Agreed. So, hang on – if we know there’s no proven link between men accessing porn and society’s evils – what exactly is the problem? Why can women go into a shop like Ann Summers and buy a dildo or read clit-lit, yet men are restricted in buying a legally permissible magazine in which models pose freely. Have I missed something? Am I going mad? Or can somebody please name and claim the 7-tonne elephant in the room?
    ‘When I was in my early twenties,
Loaded
magazine came onto the market and scared the shit out of me. I knew nothing of human sexuality. I’d had sex, but not explored who I was as a sexual being. And, it goes without saying, I knew even less about male sexuality. So I was confused,’ says Paula Wright, an academic who, in her spare time, performs a stand-up comedy smackdown on the idea that sexy isn’t sexist. Yep, the radical notion that men finding women attractive isn’t discrimination.
    The feminist rhetoric at the time fuelled that fear. Men were out to get us, to humiliate us. But it was just another salvo response across the barricades. The truth is that it’s all about power. The urge to control female sexuality is about keeping their exchange rate with men high.
    She points me in the direction of a study called ‘Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality’ by Florida University professors Roy Baumeister and Jean Twenge. It states: ‘Sex is a resource that men desire and women possess. To obtain sex, men must offer women other desired resources in return, such as money, commitment, security, attention or respect.’ In other words, life’s a marketplace where women are the sellers and men are the buyers. Like eBay, but played out in restaurants and nightclubs.
    ‘The harder it is for men to obtain sex, the more they’ll be willing to offer women in return,’ it continues.
    Sexual scarcity improves women’s bargaining position … whilst the general suppression of female sexuality reduces the risk that each woman will lose her male lover to another woman. Throughout history men have been willing to leave one woman for another, especially when the new one is sexually more appealing.
    Explosive? Yes, but also true. It’s the classic ‘treat them mean, keep them keen’ incentive – which is undermined when the lads’ mags give it away. Trouble is, the internet has already thwarted this. Sex is already out there.
    More importantly, who exactly do these objectors represent? Is their campaign the result of a lengthy consultation with the glamour models themselves – womenwho, terrified of their readership, ran to them for help? Is this actually some makeshift workers’ union – or just a storm in a D-cup? ‘They haven’t spoken to me or any of the women I know, so they certainly don’t represent us,’ says Hayley Ann Newnes, a model who’s appeared in
Zoo, FHM
and
Nuts
. ‘Nobody bothered to ask us for our opinions. They assume either we’re too stupid to understand or will contradict them. It’s classic propaganda. They’re the ones using us for their own gratification, not men.’
    I put this to both UK Feminista and OBJECT, but am greeted with radio silence. Lose the Lads’ Mags have suddenly lost their voice.
    ‘I grew up in a family with a lot of feminists and, although they might not like my career path, they ultimately respect it,’ Newnes tells me.
    The old feminism used choice as their mantra – that summed up the movement in the ’60s and ’70s: choice to have an abortion; choice to sleep with whoever you want; choice to use contraception. Now, modern feminists focus on buzzwords such as ‘objectification’, which might sound good, but actually just hide the fact they’re attacking other peoples’ choices. There’s no logic behind it. It’s simply women attacking other women.
    Quite frankly, if feminism is about making choices, why are feminists the only ones trying to take choiceaway from me? I’m not brainwashed – this is a decision I