You’ve probably already heard about 10-year-old French model Thylane Loubry Blondeau and the controversy over the way she is being posed and styled in adult-like ways. I’d written about Vogue’s treatment of Thylane and other young models in an earlier piece titled ‘Vogue’s tarted up photo shoot of little girls is no parody.’

Interest in Thylane has reached hyper drive. I was asked to comment on Channel 7’s Morning Show.

People look at one image and say “I don’t see it. She doesn’t look sexy to me.” This is not about one image or one issue- it’s a collective picture that’s created when we use young girls to sell adult products by putting them in adult make up and adult styling and adult positions. (and we call it fashion and that’s supposed to make it all ok)…

See also:

‘Fashion industry salivates over creepy photos of 10-year-old French girl’

Updating...

Last month Channel 7’s Morning Show asked me to comment on the Tool Shop’s Queensland billboard depicting three women with tools and the wording ‘Imagine All 3 at once? We can…’.  The billboard was clearly intended to treat the women in a sexual way by encouraging fantasies about group sex with them. It also contributed to objectifying women who work in these trades. Here’s what I said:

We win: ASB upholds complaints

The Advertising Standards Bureau has upheld a series of complaints made against an outdoor campaign that it depicts women as sex objects.
The campaign, for The Tool Shop, shows three women tradies next the line ‘Imagine all 3 at once? We can…’
The advertiser objected to the ruling, stating:”The women are in no way dressed “provocatively” nor is the tag line referring to anything sexual. We also struggle to comprehend how this billboard in any way, shape or form could ‘suggest that women are sexual objects’.”
The ASB considered that the text was more likely to be read as a reference to having sex with all three women at once, rather than being able to purchase all three tools in one place.
Overall, the ad clearly presented the women as sexual objects to be purchased or used and did so in a manner that was demeaning to women, the ASB ruled.

Thanks to all who submitted complaints!

Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry

Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray (eds)

Forthcoming Release—September 2011

… our primary concern with pornography is not that it is offensive (although it often is), but that it is subordination and degradation—mostly of women. It is a human rights issue.

The unprecedented mainstreaming of the global pornography industry is transforming the sexual politics of intimate and public life, popularising new forms of hardcore misogyny, and strongly contributing to the sexualisation of children. Yet challenges to the pornography industry continue to be dismissed as uncool, anti-sex and moral panics.

Unmasking the lies behind the selling of porn as ‘just a bit of fun’ Big Porn Inc reveals the shocking truths of an industry that trades in violence, crime and degradation. This fearless book will change the way you think about pornography.

Contributors: (Australia) Maggie Hamilton, Nina Funnell, Christopher Kendall, Stella, Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys, Caroline Taylor, Meagan Tyler, Robi Sonderegger, Caroline Norma, Renate Klein, Helen Pringle, Betty McLellan, Melinda Tankard Reist, Abigail Bray, Melinda Liszewski. (International) Gail Dines, Catharine A MacKinnon, Melissa Farley, Diana Russell, Robert Jensen, Jeffrey Masson, Chyng Sun, Julia Long, Diane L Rosenfeld, Linda Thompson, Hiroshi Nakasatomi, Anne Mayne, Ruchira Gupta, Asja Armanda, Caroline, Natalie Nenadic, Anna van Heeswijk, Matt McCormack Evans.

This powerful and humane book is a breakthrough. Like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring which began the environmental movement, Big Porn Inc shows us we are poisoning our own spirits, and that an ugly misuse of thousands of women, including very young children, is the dark and criminal underside of the insatiable need for more.

—Steve Biddulph, author of The New Manhood and The Secret of Happy Children.

Big Porn Inc is a must read for anyone interested in the human rights of women and children. The book is cogent and alarming, yet hopeful that together we can create a world where women and children are not hurt and degraded. Big Porn Inc is a much needed blueprint for ending the global porn industry.—Christine Stark, author of Nickel

[Big Porn Inc] unleashes a cascade of emotions—shock, disgust, guilt, rage, and heart-felt admiration for the victims of the porn industry … A landmark publication sure to help open the eyes of the public to the modern scourge of porn and amplify the call for greater decency and respect. – Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University

Melinda Tankard Reist is a writer, speaker, blogger, media commentator and activist against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls, and violence against women. Her third book Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls (2009) is in its fourth printing.

Dr Abigail Bray is a research fellow at the Social Justice Research Centre at Edith Cowan University. She has published widely in leading international academic journals on anorexia, child sexual abuse, moral panics, and child pornography. She is the author of Hélène Cixous: Writing and Sexual Difference (2004) and Body Talk: A Power Guide for Girls (2005) with Elizabeth Reid Boyd .

Release Date: 6 September

2011 RRP: $36.95 Special pre-release price of $30 – order here.

Review, extract or interview: publicity@spinifexpress.com.au / 03 9329 6088

*The MTR blog will be a bit quiet between now and August 10 as I’m taking a break before the new book is launched. Look forward to being back in touch with you all on my return.

THE ACTIVIST MELINDA TANKARD REIST

When Lady Gaga toured here last year with Monster Ball, young girls were treated to a video clip of the star being vomited on and greedily eating something akin to a human heart. Her face and body were covered in blood.

The same girls saw highly sexualised and porn-themed dance routines.

Gaga’s young audience picked up all the information they needed about tour dates and tickets from articles such as ”Lady Gaga: Ooh la la! Cool concerts” in Girlpower magazine – aimed at girls aged between seven and 13. Moshi Monsters, lip gloss, toys, puzzles – and Lady Gaga – all in the one issue.

The Lady Gaga juggernaut was again marketed to young girls this visit, with competitions to be in Wednesday night’s ”Monster Hall” audience and her “Little Monsters”, as she called them, dressed in Gaga garb and performed Gaga dance routines for the cameras in Sydney streets during the day.

Viewing her music video clips, girls are exposed to sadomasochistic sexual fantasies, simulated sex acts and more phallic symbols than can be counted. In Telephone, they see Gaga stripped and thrown naked against prison bars, girl-on-girl violence as a fellow inmate is kicked in the head with stiletto heels, and Gaga and Beyonce drive off in their “Pussy Wagon”.

Lady Gaga contributes to a broader cultural story being read by young people every day. They observe a script loaded with eroticised violence, themes inspired by the sex industry, lyrics celebrating the debasement and degradation of women.

Girls are taught their value lies in baring their flesh: that attention and social cachet are achieved through exhibitionism. Liberation is about taking a ride on a disco stick, sucking on anything resembling the male organ and offering yourself as a sexual service station for boys and men.

While Lady Gaga is described as avant-garde and counter-cultural, really she is none of these things. She is further entrenching stereotypes about women and sexuality.

Dyed hair, crazy costumes, pornographic accoutrements, pelvic thrusting and grinding do not a revolution make. Little girls need a lot more than a musical porn peep show to understand this.

Read more

See also: Going Gaga over raunch dressed up as liberation, Melinda Tankard Reist

Sexualisation, violence, commercialisation, commodification: Right to Childhood conference hears evidence of harm to children

The Right to Childhood conference last Friday at Sydney’s Wesley Centre was a wake-up call to a society hell bent on forcing children to be exposed to imagery and messages which wreak havoc on their physical and mental health. Initiated by Dr Ramesh Manocha of HealthEd and co-sponsored by Collective Shout, close to 400 people heard expert evidence on just how bad things are for children and young people: and how all the indicators on health and wellbeing are set to worsen if not addressed as a matter of urgency.

Here’s a sample of some of the media coverage, and some related media treatment this week of issues impacting children.

Channel 10 News Segment: Right 2 Childhood Seminar

Advertisers blamed for increasing sexualisation: The World Today

Advertisers using ‘same tricks as sexual predators’

…Ms Hamilton says her research indicates modern advertising is becoming increasingly exploitative, especially towards children…

“I have done a paper recently which looks at how the corporations do market products, whether it is clothing or cosmetics or whatever – toys – to kids, and interestingly they use exactly the same tools as sexual predators do to groom children,” she said…

Another speaker at the conference, writer and social researcher Melinda Tankard Reist, says she is sickened by deliberate marketing – often with sexual undertones – to children as young as six months.

“They are very callous. I mean this is one of the reasons we use the term corporate paedophilia, because corporations are in a sense abusing children,” she said.

“They are driving childhood out of children and we see this as a systemic assault on childhood…” Read full story here

Advertisers should own up to harmful images says Australian Childhood Foundation

ADVERTISERS would have to publish “impact statements” detailing how their ads could harm youngsters, under a plan being pushed by a children’s lobby group.

Australian Childhood Foundation chief Joe Tucci said children as young as six were showing inappropriate sexual behaviour, which he blamed on saturation levels of violent and sexually explicit images in advertising, music videos, and computer games…

His call for companies using sexual or violent images to produce the impact statements comes amid growing concerns over the sexualisation of children.

Dr Tucci told a Sydney conference yesterday that 200 children showing inappropriate sexual behaviour were referred to his group a year, compared with 10 children a year a decade ago.

“There are children displaying aberrant sexual behaviour who can’t even tie their shoelaces yet,” he said.

“We ask children in counselling where they get these kind of ideas,” he said. “They pick out magazines, they pick out pictures and videos…” Read full story here 

 Advertising Standards Bureau chief executive Fiona Jolly “denied there needed to be tougher restrictions on advertisers”.

We disagree and believe the industry has had its way too long. See Collective Shout’s submissions here and here  which argue that self-regulation has failed.

Kids too afraid to eat

CHILDREN as young as four are being hospitalised for eating disorders after refusing to eat and going on dangerous diets in their quest to be thin.

The largest eating disorders clinic in NSW, based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, has reported a 270 per cent spike in the number of children being admitted to hospital over the past decade.

Even more alarming is the rise in the number of children being treated as outpatients at the hospital – it has increased more than 10-fold, up from 298 in 2003 to 3157 in 2009.

Clinic co-director Dr Michael Kohn said patients are getting younger.

“The average age for presentation is decreasing and the reason is the stress on young people has increased, so that those people vulnerable to develop eating disorders are doing so at a younger age,” Dr Kohn said.

On Thursday alone, Dr Kohn saw 12 new patients including a five-year-old. Read full story here

Princesses of the pageant prepare for protests

…Melinda Tankard Reist, of lobby group Collective Shout, which is organising the petition to ban child beauty pageants, said presenting children in such a way was tantamount to child abuse. ”I think any Australian who cares about the welfare of little girls doesn’t want to see them dressing up like Tammy Faye Bakker or Joan Collins,” she said.

Collective Shout’s petition, which has more than 1200 signatures, will be sent to federal Minister for Early Childhood Peter Garrett and Victorian Minister for Children Wendy Lovell…Read full story here. And great to see 95% of voters in an SMH poll are also opposed to child beauty pageants in Australia.

See also:

Child Beauty Pageants: the misconceptions

“Being a little Barbie doll says your body has to be a certain way and your hair has to be a certain way. In girls particularly, this can unleash a whole complex of destructive self-experiences that can lead to eating disorders and all kinds of body distortions in terms of body image.” Read full blog article by Collett Smart here.

 Say no to child sexualisation pageants

Add your name! Stop child beauty pageants in Australia

Sign up to Australian’s against child beauty pageants

 Support anti pageant protests

Woman shares impact of McFadden ‘Can’t wait to do some damage’ song

*Trigger warning for survivors of sexual assault

Yesterday ABC The Drum Unleashed published my piece ‘New song by Delta’s man promotes rape myth’ about Brian McFadden’s new single, released Monday, titled ‘Just as you are (Drunk at the Bar)’ which contains the lines:

I like you just the way you are, drunk as shit dancing at the bar, I can’t wait to take you home so I can do some damage

I like you just the way you are, drunk as shit dancing at the bar, I can’t wait to take you home so I can take advantage

Collective Shout ran a blog post on the same issue, titled ‘Don’t be that guy Brian McFadden’. Feministing picked it up too, in a piece titled ‘Pop star Brian McFadden pens new ode to date rape’  describing the song as ”a gift for the committee in charge of picking a new national anthem for the Republic of Daterapia.”

An anonymous woman bravely posted the comment below on Collective Shout’s site . If anything should shame Brian McFadden – and all involved in the song’s production and distribution, including Universal Music – for creating a single making light of sexual exploitation – it is what she has written. Brian McFadden says his song is ‘tongue-in-cheek’. Tell that to women like this and all those other women and girls preyed upon and sexually violated.

This song leaves a particularly bad taste in my mouth as I was actually done some damage to after being taking advantage of. A drunken night which saw me going home to a “friends” house to hang out, and then being dropped off in the morning by one of his friends. Well, let’s just say I have a huge gap in my memory, and a huge hole in my heart after the incident. This hole only formed though, when I heard from a friend that the “friends” friend had sex with me that night. Charming. It’s taken me a few years to come to terms with what happened and the resulting anxiety and shameful feelings have been horrible. I haven’t told anyone about the fact that I don’t remember anything and I WOULD NEVER have consented to having sexual intercourse with the person if I was coherent enough to say no. I can’t speak up about it though because I doubt anyone will believe me, and as everyone will think, I brought it on myself, getting that drunk.

You did not give consent. You are not to blame

I asked Nina Funnell, anti sexual violence campaigner and herself a survivor of sexual assault, how she would respond. This is her answer – to Anon and to all women like her.

Dear Anon

I would like to start by commending you on your bravery in being able to articulate your experience of sexual abuse so openly and eloquently. I am saddened however, to say that while your experience is yours and yours alone-and no one has the right to claim they know how you feel- many other women will find echoes of their own experiences in your words.

Your response to what has happened to you is very normal. It often takes victims years to come to terms with what they have experienced. Some never do. The resulting shame and anxiety you feel is also completely normal for someone who has experienced what you have, however I must stress that while feelings of shame and self blame are very typical following an assault (as they are a function of PTSD) you are in no way to blame and the shame rests with him and him alone: getting drunk is not a crime. Sexually assaulting a drunk person is not only criminal, it is a low, vile, predatory act that has to do with a power, dominance and a desire to exert control over another person.

So often we hear the myths that “drunk girls are asking for trouble” and that “men can’t control their lust”. Firstly, no person has ever “asked” to be sexually assaulted. This is a myth which is used to excuse the actions of perpetrators by shifting the blame onto victims.

Secondly, sexual assault is not a function of uncontrollable lust. This myth is not only inaccurate but it is also insulting to men as it casts them as slaves to base, animal emotions. If I were a man I would be eager to knock this myth on its head. If it were true that sexual assault is a result of sexual lust then men would be raping attractive women in the cereal aisle at Coles. We’d also have to ban men from the beach during summer.

The truth is that research shows that men who sexually assault women do so in a calculated fashion based on three primary factors.

1) Access to the victims: perpetrators select or groom potential victims whom they have direct access to. It is a deliberate and thought through process.

2) Perceptions of the victim’s vulnerability: perpetrators choose victims they perceive as being more vulnerable than others. But it is important to note that vulnerability can take many forms. Women who are unconscious or heavily intoxicated may be more vulnerable than other women. Perpetrators must always be held 100% accountable for their actions and it is nonsense to suggest that the more drunk a woman is, the less responsibility a man has to take for his own behaviour. Disturbingly, perpetrators also identify and prey on other types of vulnerabilities. For example, blind, deaf, physically and intellectually disabled women are sexually assaulted at a much higher rate than the rest of the population. This is because they are perceived by some as being more vulnerable and less likely to report to police- particularly if they have trouble with communication skills or if they are dependent on their abuser (such as if their abuser is a carer). Perpetrators also target other populations which are perceived as being more vulnerable either physically (such as children or incapacitated women), socially (such as individuals who have no strong friendship or social networks who might encourage them to report), women who are dependent on the abuser in some way (such as in cases where the abuser is in a position of power such as an adult relative or boss) or perpetrators who know that their victims are unlikely to be able to access support and judicial services for a range of other reasons (such as sex workers who are often not believed, victims in same-sex relationships or victims who have previously had consensual sex with the abuser- such as wives and girlfriends). 

3) The likelihood of them being caught and reported on: Perpetrators also weigh up the likelihood of being interrupted by a witness or witnesses and they make a series of calculated decisions based on location and risk. In particular perpetrators often manipulate victims into a location where they have more control over the situation. This is all done to avoid detection and to maintain power over the situation and the victim.

The point of this is to stress that rape doesn’t happen by accident. Research shows that perpetrators know what they are doing and they make a series of detailed decisions around their behaviour. So it is ludicrous to suggest that men can’t help it. The overwhelming majority of men never rape. Those who do, do so deliberately and must be held to full account.

The next thing to say is that silence is not consent. “I’m not sure” is not consent. “Maybe later” is not consent. “Yes” tonight is not “yes” tomorrow night. Consent must be active and given freely and without any force, pressure or coercion by someone who has the capacity to consent each and every time. You clearly did not give consent. You are not to blame AT ALL and full responsibility lies with him and him ALONE.

I also note that you feel concerned that you would be either blamed or not believed if you spoke out. I wish I could tell you, “no! you are wrong!” but your concern is not irrational or unjustified. Unfortunately we still live in a society where victim blaming mentalities exist. Approximately 85% of victims will never report to police because they do not trust the justice system. And with the odd exception, this is justified. Less than 1% of sexual assault cases in NSW are successfully prosecuted.

Victims do often disclose to a family member or trusted friend. But unfortunately even those who love us are often schooled in the same victim-blaming mentalities as the rest of society and they usually blame the victim, interrogate them as though they don’t believe them, or minimize the experience by saying things like “maybe you are exaggerating” or “maybe you just misinterpreted things”. BUT THERE IS HOPE!

So we are clear about this, a person’s capacity to recover (and recovery is possible!) is directly dependent on a number of factors (including the relationship they hold with the abuser, the length of time between the assault or assaults and the decision to speak out, the nature of counselling (if any) they receive on disclosure, prior mental illness or drug and alcohol dependence …. Etc etc). But without question, the number one thing that determines a person’s ability to recover is the types of attitudes they encounter on disclosure. Victims who are believed, supported, not judged, and treated with the dignity, compassion and respect they deserve are far more likely to recover than those who are blamed, humiliated or not believed.

As a community it is vital that we support survivors and their supporters. There are three things I always tell survivors who disclose to me.

1) I am sorry this has happened to you (translation: “I believe you”).

2) What has happened to you is a crime (translation: “you are not to blame”)

3) I will do whatever I can to help (translation: “you are not alone”).

These were things I wished someone had said to me when I was sexually assaulted almost four years ago. While we cannot all be counsellors it is my hope that we can better educate the public so that those of us who fall into the role of an accidental counsellor (this is someone who is not a trained counsellor but who finds themselves- unexpectedly- on the end of a disclosure) can better respond to survivors with empathy, compassion and a desire to protect their best interest.

I also want to stress that while it is wise and prudent to think through who you can disclose to (as some people just don’t get it), there are expert counselling services out there (which are also free!) for individuals who have experienced sexual assault and for those who support them. I can firmly recommend the following.

NSW Rape Crisis Centre offers a 24/7 hotline run by trained experts for survivors and anyone supporting a survivor. Their number is 1800 424 017. They also have a live 24/7 real time internet counsellor, because sometimes it’s often less confronting to type rather than to have to speak out loud. The link to that service can be found on their website here.

A nationwide service can also be reached on 1800 RESPECT. This line is run by trained experts for victims of sexual assault or domestic violence- as well as their supporters.

Most of all I wish for you to know that you are not alone and that there is a community of us out there who really do care about you and who are appalled by what you have experienced. Please, PLEASE know that what you have experienced is not just an abuse. It is a HUMAN RIGHTS abuse and that there are many- like me- who care. Reading your words moved me to write this post. I hope it has some impact- no matter how small.

A case study in sexist advertising

So you thought slap and tickle carry-on flicks were a thing of the past?

Think again.

 A Gold Coast property dealer has breathed new life into old-fashioned sexism with this one and a half minute clip flogging a property on the Gold Coast. The clip has already gone viral so I’m posting it as a case study in sexist advertising in the year 2011.

The video is full of nudge nudge wink wink innuendos and double entendres such as “Property isn’t the only thing going off!!” and “No ifs or buts!! (butts, get it?). A model is shown in various states of undress while agents Ian Adams and Adrian Jenkins (that’s them,  left) talk about the property listed by NEO. This sterile, soulless strip pad is pitched as a family home.

Adams said it was “unashamedly sexy and fun” and all done “tongue-in-cheek.” . They wanted to cut through the competition and “get noticed” by “going that extra mile”.

What better way to do that than have a woman take off her clothes? Adams seems to think he’s some kind of out-there genius. Since when was this approach clever and innovative?

“My kids can get up and watch far worse on Video Hits every weekend. This is about selling a product,” says Adams.  Oh, well that makes it alright then. You can objectify women as long as it’s for a worthy cause – like making people like him rich.

Tell Adrian Jenkins what you think he should do with his property. Ph: 0412080290.

Two young women dead thanks to the fetishisation of female body parts 

British woman Claudia Aderotimi was only 20 when she died last week after travelling to the US for a procedure to give her a bigger ‘booty’. She paid more than £1000 ($1600 AUD) for silicone injections to give her the look she thought would help score a part in music video clips. She’d auditioned before, and failed.

The practitioner used industrial silicone. Think sealant designed for plumbing kitchens and bathrooms. This noxious substance was injected into a vein, in error.

Claudia Aderotimi flew to Philadelphia for a cut-rate bottom enhancement in a hotel near the airport in an effort to conform to pornified ideals of women’s backsides, increasingly featured in music video clips.

The silicone injection was apparently a ‘top-up’ to a procedure carried out last November. It was arranged online and performed by a practitioner believe to be lacking qualifications.

Last Monday she developed chest pains and was taken to hospital where she died 24 hours later from a suspected a blood clot in the lung believe to be caused by the silicone entering her bloodstream.

It’s not the first time women have been harmed from the use of cheap industrial silicone. Here’s a report about how other women were made gravely ill as a result.

Susannah Frankel observes that we fetishise the female form and then condemn the wish to improve it. She writes:

Of course, anyone with more than a passing interest in body image will know that the roundness of rump that Aderotimi aspired to is no more easily achievable than the ideal of extreme slenderness that is still more widely upheld by the media – unless, of course, one is born in possession of either. Times may be changing – it is reported that buttock implants are almost as much in demand as breast augmentation – but the emotional impulse that lies beneath the desire to change one’s body in any shape or form remains the same. And so, after years of women the world over wondering “does my bum look big in this?”, will they now be asking: “Does it look big enough?” And if anyone were ever likely to miss the cruel irony that lies at the heart of this, then Aderotimi’s story has driven it home.

But some women shouldn’t have bums at all

But of course it has to be the right kind of ‘big’ – not the ‘wrong’ kind used by the weight-loss industry to shame women into buying its products. Have a look at this add (left) seen in a Melbourne shopping mall last week (thank to Catherine Manning for forwarding).

“No hips or butts”

Apparently OptiSlim’s meal replacements will magically transform the woman on the left into the woman on the right and give her that nice, tight, pert, rounded backside so necessary to be an acceptable woman and to complete and utter happiness in life.

While OptiSlim doesn’t involve knives or needles,  the female body is still broken down into problematic parts (hips, butts) which need to be transformed.

Carolin dead after sixth breast enlargement: male fans pay tribute – to her breasts.

Claudia’s death came after another woman of similar age also had her life cut short while trying to super-size her breasts. German porn actress Carolin Berger, better known as ‘Sexy Cora’, dead at 23.

Carolin Berger, who weighed a mere 46 kilos,  wanted to fill a size 34G cup. During the operation by two US surgeons (do these people ever say no?) she suffered a brain hemorrhage and was put into an induced coma where she lay for nine days before dying. Sky News reported:

She went under the knife for the last time at the Alster Clinic and was having 800g (28oz) of silicon injected into each breast. But her heart stopped beating during the operation. She suffered brain damage and was put into an induced coma. Cora’s husband Tim Wosnitza remarked, “The doctors told me that she wouldn’t make it. The brain damage was too big.”

The writer at this site described the dead woman as greedy.

The stand-out feature of her death was not the actions of the doctors whose negligence during the attempt to turn her into a human freak show allegedly killed her. It was the emphasis on her breasts.

Here’s how our own News.com reported it

“Busty Big Brother porn star dies after breast op: A BUSTY Big Brother star who got viewers in a lather when she soaped up other housemates’ boobs has died after a breast enlargement op went wrong.”

The author of a piece titled ‘No Immunity in Death for sexual objectification’  on the blog ‘Against all Evidence’, writes powerfully about media and porn consumers representations of Carolin.

Basically every mainstream headline about her death involves the words ‘porn star’ or ‘sexy’, and few use her non-porn-industry name. A couple examples: “‘Sexy Cora’ Dead: Porn Star Dies After Sixth Breast Operation” . . . “Porn Star Dead After Breast Surgery”

She cites a post on a forum eulogising ‘Sexy Cora’ for dying in the line of duty:

She’s a hero. She died doing something awesome to an extent that most people wouldn’t dream of. She’s like a cop that died saving a bus full of babies and puppies by pushing it through the wall of a burning building.

 Her death is a tragedy because it lessens the pool of new pornographic images of women with grotesque silicone mounds where there natural breasts once were, for men like him to enjoy.

Jill, writing here, extrapolates:

 Porn stars are not human beings, they are a brand of consumer sex receptacle. Thus are the dimensions of Berger’s breasts, both pre- and post-op, more germane to the announcement of her death than, apparently, the detail… that her surgeon-butchers are now up on negligent homicide charges. To find out about that, you have to go to CBS News’ lurid true crime website, where Berger’s humanity is of little importance compared to her value as a sensationalized dead TV slut. If you doubt this, you have only to observe the 38-page wealth of “Sexy Cora” images available in a CBS online photo gallery, and compare it to the amount of CBS discourse relating to Berger as a human person (barely any), or to the instances of broader CBS discussion of the murderous effects of institutionalized misogyny on the quest for human enlightenment (zilch-o).

She says Carolin died because of “rigorous adherence to deeply internalized pornographic beauty standards.”

Claudia and Carolin were real women whose lives were needlessly sacrificied in pursuit of a goal inspired by pornographic fantasises about what constitues a sexy woman. But all women and girls are harmed by the message that they are in need of repair, a message becoming so loud that in the end they think of their whole bodies as deformed and in need to correction.

 See also: When the price of cosmetic surgery is death, MTR blog.

                 97 percent of women will be cruel to their bodies today, Glamour.com.

Who is really benefitting from this show?

I’ve watched a couple of episodes of The Biggest Loser Families and find myself cringing at the extent of degradation and shaming. To see Sarah-Jayne begging through tears not to have to stand on the scales the first time, was harrowing. It was as though she was being led to a torture rack. To hear each contestant declare their name and weight – “Hi, I’m Meg, and I weigh *** kilos” –  was like watching a forced confession. Each individual was reduced to the sum of their weight.

This description of last night’s episode, from The Australian’s TV section:

“The trainers aren’t happy with their weight gain after a week of unhealthy food, but they still get the last laugh with an early morning training session and a bio-age test for all the contestants.”

 The last laugh? Revenge on the fatties? Trainers hurling abuse and insults? Being punished for a life history of poverty, poor nutrition, unemployment and lack of opportunity? Is this how we encourage public health in this country? 

Sarah McMahon, my Collective Shout colleague and co-founder with Lydia Turner of BodyMatters Australasia,  who has contributed thoughtful pieces on the MTR blog a number of times now, had this much-needed critique of The Biggest Loser published on ABC The Drum Unleashed yesterday.

Episode 1 of The Biggest Loser Australia 2011 debuted on Sunday night. The new series, targeting four family units, pitches being overweight as a problem experienced by individuals – indeed whole families – who are lazy, greedy, and slothful: in short, morally weak. They “do it to themselves”.

Trainers were given a week to “live in the shoes” of contestants. They are presented as barely surviving the experience of being drowned in gluttony and laziness.

OMG- and you have this every day?!?!… I can’t even look!!… I don’t know how you do it, I don’t know how you can physically eat this much food!! – Tiffiny, Trainer.

All that food… I was a little frightened; taken back… how many carbs can you have on one table? – Commando, Trainer.

Contestants were shown continually eating fatty and highly-processed foods. As this atypical eating behaviour was played up for the camera, the trainers (and probably viewers) reeled in disgust. Despite the participants revealing the hardships they believed contributed to their weight gain – such as childhood poverty, bullying and compromised family backgrounds. The take-home message is that, really, they have wreaked disaster upon themselves. Read more>>

See also: Diets and Our Demons by Judith Matz 

and:  ‘On being round’ from This Woman’s Work blog

Why won’t Kanye West repond to outrage against Monster video?

Mass desensitisation to abuse and exploitation

I’m not interested at all in going after Kanye West for the sake of it. That would be very boring. It specifically relates to the carnival of carnage he has created, the ‘rape scenario set to a soundtrack’,  the idea that torture porn is sexy. We are targeting what he has created and the message it sends and the harm this causes – MTR

Sarah Parker at Change.org has blogged again with an update on our petition against Kanye West’s Monster video. She asks why Kanye West or his management have not responded given the level of concern globally.

Care2  and Change.org are both hosting our petitions which have so far secured a combined signature count of more than 8000. We’ve passed our original goal of 5000 so have now revised the target to 10,000.

Sarah writes:

When did promoting violence against women become an acceptable form of art? Hundreds of years ago, actually. But the question is, does that make it okay today? Over 7,000 activists all over the world say “no” and have put their collective foot down over Kanye West’s music video, “Monster.”

I recently reported on a petition started by Melinda Tankard Reist and Sharon Haywood that asks Universal Music Group, distributor of the video, to stop it’s official release, MTV to declare it will not promote the video, and Kanye to officially apologize for eroticizing violence against women. If you haven’t seen the leaked clips, the video contains beautiful, lingerie-clad women, possibly zombies or vampires, now dead. Kanye, Jay Z, and Rick Ross kill them and enjoy the spoils of victory – kissing the dead bodies, hanging practically naked bodies from the neck by chains, and eating a plate of raw meat between the legs of another scantily clad dead girl, to name a few. Nikki Minaj gets in on the act as a fanged dominatrix “interrogating” her pink-haired alter-ego, also played by Minaj.  Read more>>

Kan-ye be a fan of dead women?

Great wordplay by Gender Agenda on the twitter campaign against Kanye West’s Monster. Great to have Gender Agenda’s support for our campaign. 

Have you heard the latest word played on the street?

It’s been making gradual pace but looks set to make haste.

A kind of twitter revolution has been building its momentum.

Kan-ye be a fan of dead women?

It appears Kanye West can.

Kanye West, seems to have Swift-ly moved on from the Taylor-saga to the next level of drama in his new ‘Monster’ Vid. Facebook status updates have begun to take up the cause. As a social networker, have you voiced your objection in between your updates of being hung over and sleeping outdoors?

There’s a vulture in our popular culture that feeds on the ritual humiliation and exploitation of the female population. ‘Freedom of expression’ is the cry of opposition that would seek to hypocritically enforce oppression in the name of libertion.

But Kanye’s new video steps over the vultures line by perpetrating the lyrical crime of ‘rape and pillage a village’ in graphic detail on the unresponsive females in his pimp-flick

So let’s talk about the ideologies we spin to the masses through the music franchises. Rape and exploitation is a sexist expression of the mass oppression that flows from TV screens to our streets, from police stations to limited-rape-justice for the female nation. Only a monster would find arousal from sights of women being incapacitated to their eyeballs. Monsters should never become mainstream.

Will you make a contribution to the Twitter revolution? First things first, join the word on the street and sign the petition that denounces ‘Kan-ye for being a fan of raping dead women’. Spread the word, so that your message is heard loud and clear by Universal Music Group and MTV before they release ‘the Monster.’