Thursday 9 September 2010

Northern & Shameless

Here's a short article from the Daily Star:

FREE PORN IN FERTILITY CLINICS SLAMMED BY THINK TANK

Hosptial bosses were last night slammed for supplying porn in fertility clinics.


Think tank 2020health.org said providing DVDs and magazines to help men produce sperm samples promoted “adultery of the mind”. Some health trusts spend £100 a year on the material.


Julia Manning, the report’s author, said: “Pornography deprives women of full human status and reduces them to sex objects.”

So how does the Star decide to illustrate a story about a report that criticises porn for its 'debasing treatment of women' and for 'reducing women to sex objects'?

Like this:


The bit that I've blacked out shows six women in various stages of undress in various poses.

The Star has taken the view that this story is the perfect time to advertise porn. And not just any porn but Television X - owned, like the Daily Star, by Richard Desmond.

(Other cross-promotion from the Star today: two mentions of Matthew Wright celebrating ten years at the Desmond-owned Channel Five)

8 comments:

  1. There's two elements to this that make me laugh. Firstly, let's remember that this is The Star - any mention of pornography, however slight, is an open season for this kind of, er, frontage.

    Secondly, I actually find it harmless - the report is a typical noveau-feminist rant and shouldn't be taken seriously anyway. It's hardly 'porn in the workplace', is it? It's not as if the trusts are leaving hardcore skank in the waiting room or in the nurse's station. 100quid a year to stick a few copies of Razzle in the (very private) donation room - do me a favour!

    The report is merely a vehicle to come down on porn per se - the NHS link is very tenous. I have no great love for the Star, but I think that it's difficult to come down hard on a comic simply for being a comic.

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  2. When I try to visit the Daily Star website while at work I have to click through a "Do you really want to visit this site" warning from the office's filtering software. It says the site contains "Incidental nudity, news". In that order.

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  3. It really would be nice to think that the Star just faded and died as people realised how degrading the whole experience of reading a copy really was. But then the Sport keeps going...

    I am guessing this think tank is made up of two people and if it didn't mention porn wouldn't get picked up even by the Star. Maybe time for me to establish a forward thinking progressive and radical influential think tank - I have a half hour spare to knock out some crappy ideas and thoughts.

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  4. `some trusts spend £100 per year', OOOH! Throwing money away like it's gone our of fashion lol. That's not even petty cash FFS, they could get that from the collecting odd change dropped on the floor!

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  5. I'm sure there's precious little thinking going on in that tank. "Adultery of the mind", what a load of cobblers. Would they preferred if donors cracked one off whilst thinking of Jesus?

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  6. And it's never even good porn. (C.F Coupling).

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  7. anonymous - but porn does encourage a view of women as objects.
    one of the most famous porn movies in the world, deep throat, is a film of a woman who was kidnapped and repeatedly gang raped.
    the stuff they give out at fertility clinics might not be 'hardcore' but it does treat women as objects - doesn't seem to me like there's any harm in saying so.
    what if your partner wasn't comfortable with you looking at porn and then sees you being given if for free in a clinic? what if the donor had a problem with porn?

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  8. Sianandcrookedrib, the porn is optional, of course.

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