Pornographic Material in Newsagents
Recently I have been campaigning about newsagents and pornography. I surprised myself by taking up this issue because I consider myself a libertarian and a freedom lover. I was prodded into this campaign by the redoubtable Stoke Newington newsagent Mr Hamdy who has been pursuing a running battle with wholesale newspaper and magazine distributor WH Smiths because he refuses to stock pornography. They are monopoly suppliers and they tried to insist that he took the porn mags. At first I was attracted to Mr Hamdy’s cause because it was the little man against the corporate giant. But you cannot live in the inner city without noticing that, whilst it can be hard on some streets to buy fresh fruit or a book, there is always an abundance of off licenses and seedy newsagents selling cigarettes, lottery cards and pornography. What sort of freedom and “choice” is that for the people that live there?
And I share a general unease that we have gone, in one generation, from fighting for the right to read about sex in D. H. Laurence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” to a popular culture saturated with sex. And children learn that the way to fame and fortune for a girl is to pump your breasts up to the size of small puppies. Black parents are particularly exercised by these issues. Pity the poor black mother trying to preach the virtues of hard work and education when night and day your child is glued to TV channels like MTV Base. They put out non stop images of black male rappers (usually fat) glorifying pimping; and of black girls (usually impossibly beautiful with long false hair) saying nothing at all just thrusting their (barely covered) vagina at the camera lens.
The first salvo in my campaign was to put down a motion in Parliament calling for WH Smith to recognise certain tabloid titles as pornography and for legislation to ensure that offensive material is kept out of the reach and sight of children. (It is illegal to sell children cigarettes, alcohol and even glue but perfectly legal to sell them hard-core pornography) Nearly a hundred MPs of all parties signed my motion. There has already been some success with the National Federation of Retail Newsagents putting out a new code of conduct which banishes lads’ magazines and the Sport to the top shelf. Grateful mothers are now sending me letters and emails. Women are fed up with taking their children to the corner shop for a packet of sweets only to find Nuts, Zoo, the Daily Sport and the rest at child’s eye level and having to explain away (for instance) naked women apparently simulating lesbian sex.
I still believe in liberty and freedom. But there should also be freedom to speak out about: degrading images of women; who really profits from it (lads’ magazines are £100 million pound business) and the effect of all this on our children.
back ⇢