Lads' mags, sexual violence and the need for feminist intervention

Mainstream men’s magazine Zoo has generated outrage in recent weeks. It’s been accused of 'promoting rape culture' by, among other grubby things, educating young men on how to coerce drunk women into sex. While extreme sexism is nothing new in men’s magazines, the problem, according to activists such as Laura Pintur of Collective Shout, is that these new style lads’ magazines are on sale and open display in 'family' supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths. The question remains: how can consent be determined within a wider culture of inequality? The challenge remains, how to carve a culture of respect out of a culture that reads dehumanisation as ironic humour. We need not position girls or women as helpless victims, or puppets of patriarchal society, but we do need to take account of the shifting socio-cultural conditions in which their choices are made. Now more than ever, mediated sex and sexualisation must be linked to power relations