Ive seen it blogged about before, but following an article in the guardian a few days ago I realized that I had found my new ranting topic.

WHsmith have a wonderful deal selling playboy stationary to kids!  Little bunny logo on sparkly pink pencil cases, pens whatever.  Most of us men have spotted pretty ladies wearing the clothing – the girls feel good for the sexual confidence it promotes and projects.  But I’ve also started to notice the girls wearing it getting younger.  Its an incredibly popular brand as it relates to sex.  The stationary sits alongside Bratz, hello kitty and Winnie the Pooh for fucks sake.

Fine, yes, empowerment blah blah blah, if you are aiming to be in playboy then good for you (and your eventual need for false breasts), but this is selling to kids as something cool to aspire to - being wanked over by solitary teenagers and unsatisfied husbands.  This is systematically undermining progress for equal rights on both sides.  Its associating girls as not having a problem being objects – and in some respects is making women believe they can just use their ‘empowerment’ to get men to do what they want with the false hope of sex that drives most of us.  Is that the kind of power aimed at by the feminist movement? No.  No, I think they might want women to recieve forms of ‘respect’ beyond an erection and nearby Kleenex.

WHsmith are bastards for doing it, but clever ones at that. Its popular so they’ll bring out the ‘its just a bunny’ quotes and disassociate any relation to the pornography the image symbolises and promotes, and sell by the bucketload.  

‘Playboy is probably one of the most popular ranges weve ever sold.  It outsells all other brands of stationary, like Withit by a staggering amount.  That should give you an idea of how popular the brand is.  We're not here to act as a moral censor’

 So says the WHSmith head of media relations. Shes right. But she is supposed to act with corporate responsibility.  But then that simply wouldn’t be retail now would it?

News coverage to the negative will only help matters: Kids don’t want to be good, they want to be bad, yer mum fuk yoo im gonna b a playboy grl an shw wot a rebl I am by getting preggerz at 15 thatll teech yoo to nick my vodka an weed!

Okay so the teen pregnancy thing bears no relation to what im talking about but I just thought id sling that in due to the ‘sex object’ factor.

But, well, its only stationary.

Many will say that its harmless, but then let me say it again, the brand represents pornography.  It is for adults, if it really is silly to have a problem with it, then Im sure these swastika pencil cases will go down just fine. No? but it'd only be stationary.  If that’s what the kids want then who are we to get all mary whitehouse?

Im getting all mary whitehouse? Yes. Yes i am.  But im right. If it were only the far end of schoolkids with this kind of stuff, fair enough - but kids that aren’t even old enough to become a stereotypical teen mother having this stuff? That’s not very good is it now?

But then, I get pissed off at mind numbing slagmags like Zoo!

Rant over... for now.

‘the prostitution of dignity for a sense of humour?

The smallest blows against ignorance seen as too much?

Im amazed, and you’re afraid.

Youre cowering

Behind

a bravado built on pornography for cowards’

Million Dead – Pornography for Cowards