I've been reading some more on this topic. What mayhem is proposing isn't new - people have been trying to get age certification on magazines for years now. For example, in 2004 there was a similar furore surrounding the over-sexualisation of magazines aimed at young girls, which promoted promiscutiy and normalised the idea of sex among teenagers. Teachers in the UK called for a legal certification for magazines (as opposed to the self-regulation we have today). In response, the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA - a name that comes up a lot) said a certification system would be both "impractical and unworkable"
While children wouldn't be able to buy certain magazines, they would be able to buy any tabloid newspaper and book, look at all kinds of material over the internet and watch programmes before the watershed which deal with issues like teenage rape and pregnancy.
We feel these ideas are very misinformed. This area of the magazine industry is already very tightly controlled.
Then again, in 2006, responding to calls to certify "lads magazines", such as Nuts and Zoo
Magazine publishers and retailers believe the resultant Code is strengthened, and its voluntary nature is far more effective and flexible than any statutory regulation, given that standards of taste and decency are constantly changing. Ultimately it is the retailers' responsibility to sell products, and to use their discretion and judgment as they see fit to display and sell those products, including magazines.
Their letter to MPs who supported such a scheme contained a line:
It has been acknowledged that ‘lad’s mags’ do not contain pornographic material, and are not adult materials in the sense that they do not contain such material.
This is interesting to me because no-one could possibly argue that even the worst advertisments in games magazines could possibly come close to the content of these "lads magazines"
A similar call for certification in 2008 was dismissed by editors of magazines. The editorial director of Maxim said this:
I don’t think it’s going to affect people in bikinis [or underwear] because [the MP who suggested the certification] will be moving a lot of women’s magazines onto the top shelf as well. If it’s a catch all women in bikinis you’d be looking at underwear catalogues etc… It’s just a storm in a teacup that doesn’t concern us.
And from the PPA
We work closely with retailers to advise them how best to display magazines, but ultimately we leave it to retailers to use their discretion to rack titles as they feel appropriate to their customers and business.
Again, I'm not really disagreeing with mayhem - like I said in my original post, I wrote to Paragon publishing in 2005 over a similar issue. I'm, again, just pointing out the difficulty in creating a formula by which there could be a consistent certification across all content. On top of this, I personally don't think that it's up to a government, publisher or retailer to decide what is or isn't appropriate for children - that is the parent's job. I remember hearing about Dan Savage, a sex advice columnist, who thought that the Disney TV show "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" was corrupting his child. Even an age rating on this show wouldn't have helped him decide if this show was inappropriate - he had to find out for himself.
One other thing I would just like to point out is that although there's been a big point about video game magazines having these ads but photography and sci-fi magazines do not - most UK film magazines (well, Empire and Total Film, which are the only two I've checked) both run these ads across at least four pages at the back of their magazines.
Phew.
(I'm too new, so I can't post URLs, but google the quotes and you'll find the stories they're taken from)
