NUS attacks lads mags.

However, at my university, the football team is now being sponsored by a lap dancing club. One step forward and all...
In regards to the lap dancing issue- my opposition to this sponsorship is based on two arguments:
1)As a union I think this goes completely against what unionism is about-university societies should be financed by the university and private partnerships shouldn't really come into it. Having local businesses (however ethically contentious) sponsor suppossed public bodies just doesn't seem to fit with what unions are about
2) football + lap dancing= where are the women? Is the football team neccessarily male? Are all these men heterosexual? Do they all support sex work? Again, it's the old masculine mores that are defining and trapping many many men and exploiting and exluding many more women. Union societies are suppossed to fulfill the Equal Opportunities Act- ie no women only societies- but apparently the exploitation of women is ok within this charter.

I'm totally in favour of lads mags on the top shelf and whilst the Leicester University Editor says

Having to buy them from behind the counter is a bit dirty old man-ish."

I say-good!! We need to have a full debate about the influence of these pornofied mags and the pro-anorexia celeb rags and not turn it into a debate about freedom and choice. Yes, it may be your choice to read Nuts (where real women are ignored but fantasy women are stripped and contorted) but it is not mine, nor many others. And yes, I can turn away or go to a different shop but I cannot un-porn culture. I cannot stop having conversations about g-strings, bikini waxes, plastic surgery, pole dancing for children, strip bars sponsoring football clubs, hearing that women can't be involved in football and most importantly, hearing that if I got raped in a skirt and with a drink it would be my fault anyway.
The NUS, I salute you!