It's the way in which pop and rap music embrace the porn and sex industries, elevate the pimp and sexualise male violence that makes it pornographic says Rachel Bell. And it’s not girls we need to be worried about, it’s boys.
Tag: sexual violence
Danny Dyer helps us join the dots between porn culture and male sexual violence
With the furore over Danny Dyer and Zoo, Rachel Bell reminds us how lad mags feed gender violence and pulls apart the usual lad mag defenses
The ‘slag’ double standard
Passed this lovely sign outside a restuarant in Old Street: El Paso – the slag of Shoreditch!!! A bit rough, but you still would… come inside! Oh the wit. Is a hilarious young man from Nuts magazine working behind the bar in El Paso? We all know girls and women are called slags all the … Continue reading The ‘slag’ double standard
That joke isn’t funny anymore
Sexual bullying in schools is so rife it is hardly noticed. Why, asks Rachel Bell, is it not taken seriously?
I was seen as an object, not a person
Human rights group, Object, are among those calling for a review of the 2003 Licensing Act, which has allowed strip and lapdancing clubs to be licensed in the same way as a pub or café. Rachel Bell talks to a former lap-dancer about her experience, and why she supports a change in the law.
‘I’m no sad victim, I’ve seen and survived the darkest side of life’
A groundbreaking new scheme is helping women who’ve experienced sexual violence by pairing them up with a volunteer with similar experiences. Rachel Bell finds out how the Amina scheme isn’t just giving women a chance to get their power back, it’s turning their perceived ‘victim’ status on its head.
What models never talk about
While the media focuses on the size zero debate, Rachel Bell talks to a former model and finds that rape and sexual harassment are as real a threat to models as death by eating disorder
Sexualisation damages boys as well as girls
It's official: sexualisation harms girls. Of course it does. It harms all of us. It doesn't just make girls ill, it harms boys too, teaching them to be sexually violent.
Objecting to lads’ mags
The so-called lads' mags that have sprung up over the past few years aren't only sexually explicit, they are contemptuous of women and therefore harmful argues Rachel Bell. But reactions to MP Claire Curtis Thomas' bill to have them classed as pornography and put on the top shelf have been frustratingly predicatable. She calls for more understanding of the movement and women's voices behind the MP.
Caution: Men at work
Women shouldn't put up with porn at work, says Rachel Bell, after watching C4's Dispatches.
Betty Bandit 