Dolly Doctor and Oral Sex: is advice to girls clear? Dolly Doctor this issue deals with oral sex. Parents with younger Dolly readers in the family may want to be aware of that and be prepared to talk about it with them (Dolly has featured’ Readers of the month’ who are 11). Also, although the […]
Over exposure is making teens pawns to porn A 15-year-old boy confided in me after I addressed his class at a Sydney school last year. He cried as he told me he had been using porn since the age of nine. He didn’t have a social life, had few friends, had never had a girlfriend. […]
Readers wanting something of substance from Dolly’s June issue would do best to skip the first half and go straight to the second. Articles on self-harm, hate pages and unhealthy attitudes toward food redeem the insubstantial nature of the pages that go before. ‘Would you “like” a hate page?’ explores the phenomenon of online hate […]
My last two reviews (‘Excellent advice on helping a friend with an eating disorder and dealing with stalking’, ‘Pressures to sext and give oral sex’) have been almost entirely positive. That’s pretty unusual. The May issue makes this a trifecta. Whenever I pick up the latest issue of teen girl mags, I hope to find […]
Drumroll: An Academic Journal For Porn Fans If there were ever a human phenomenon in need of serious objective investigation, Internet porn use is surely it. Never has the youthful human brain been battered with so much erotic novelty during such a critical window of sexual development, and cracks are definitely appearing. However, judging from […]
Feminist Conversations is a regular feature here at Feminists for Choice. Today we are talking to Melinda Tankard Reist, co-editor of Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry. Melinda is also the co-founder of Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation. How did you become interested in researching pornography? There […]
Does teen ‘erotic fiction’ help develop respect-based relationships? This morning I appeared on Channel 7’s Morning Show with Dr Nikki Goldstein to discuss the rise in ‘erotic fiction’ for young people. Here’s the segment. See also: ‘Shades of Grey: What now that BDSM has gone mainstream?’, Spinifex Press blog, December 5, 2012 ‘Sadistic Romance,’ Gail […]
For women my generation who see a massive magazine heading “The Big O” and think it’s about Roy Orbison, you probably won’t want to read further. The “Big O” in this case refers to orgasm – in fact “your giggle-free guide to orgasms.” Although if your daughter is a 13-year-old reader of Girlfriend (GF has […]
How convenient to caricature someone whose work you oppose by reducing them to a cartoon parody. Like I haven’t had enough Helen Lovejoy clichés to last a lifetime? Oh, and look, another media studies academic watching The Simpsons. Are we impressed yet? Where Stephen Harrington sees “a graphic critique of post-feminist female sexuality”, I see […]
Girls’ Mag Watch: More Stereotyped and Limiting Messages for Girls This is the second installment of my review of magazines for girls and young women, published by Generation Next. For many girls, the magazines they read are their lifestyle bibles. How should they look, dress, act and relate? What’s important in life? Who should they look up […]
De-Sexing Sexpo Here’s a piece I wrote about Sexpo, published on ABC Unleashed today. I’ve included some of the pics me and my mate took on the day. I hesitiated to do this. But they illustrate the ugliness I have described. (I have not included more pornographic visuals). — Billed as the world’s biggest health, sexuality and lifestyle […]
Girls’ mag wrap September-October issues For many girls, the magazines they read are their lifestyle bibles. How should they look, dress, act and relate? What’s important in life? Who should they look up to? My analysis of the September and October issues of Girlfriend, Dolly, Girlpower, Totalgirl, Disney Girl and Little Angel shows that girls […]
