[lbo-talk] Straight Porn vs. Fashion Magaiznes

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> Perhaps Chip means that Hustler is a very egregious example of male  
> supremacist media, and that's why we should not submit articles.   
> This is the assumption I'd like to challenge: that there is  
> something distinctly pernicious about Hustler, compared to other  
> media that reflect and reinforce male supremacy.  Consider the  
> effects of Hustler compared to (say) mainstream fashion magazines.   
> Far more people read and see images in fashion mags than in Hustler  
> (I'm sure Yosh or Michael P. will dig up the numbers).  Moreover,  
> pretty much everything that people excoriate Hustler for-- 
> commodification of women's bodies, objectification of women,  
> reinforcement of the view that women should act and dress to  
> sexually titillate men--can be found in a fashion mag.  I mean,  
> c'mon, take away the crop top and the lowcut jeans, and the models  
> in many of the fashion ads could be posing for Hustler!
>
> So, to reiterate Gar's question: what is so bloody bad about  
> Hustler, compared to other mass media, if our paramount concern is  
> gender equality?
>
> Miles

There are a lot of things that are wrong about women's fashion  
(fashion design is also a very male-dominated profession) and women's  
fashion magazines (see, for instance, Liza Featherstone, "Faking It:  
Sex, Lies, and Women's Magazines," <http://www.alternet.org/story/ 
12543/>), but one thing that women's fashion magazines do and that  
Hustler and much of other straight porn magazines don't is to address  
women squarely as readers.  Moreover, there are a lot of men's  
fashion magazines -- GQ, Details, Men's Flair, etc. -- that address  
men as readers (Men's Vogue will be launched in April 2006).  Also,  
"lads' magazines" like FHM and Maxim tend to pay as much attention to  
men's fashion and gadgets as to images of women, being "lifestyle"  
magazines (like Cosmo) that sell everything.  The fashion magazine  
market in terms of production and consumption seems to be far closer  
to gender equality than the straight porn market, which  
overwhelmingly caters to men and neglects to address most women as  
consumers.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>