Related: Netflix’s Alex Strangelove Is An Edgy, Touching Dramedy About Finding Yourself 8. Alex Strangelove (2018)Īll at once joyous, raunchy and disarmingly poignant, this Netflix original movie stars Daniel Doheny as Alex Truelove, a deeply closeted high school senior who loves his girlfriend Claire ( Madeline Weinstein), but is overwhelmed with confusion when he falls for a handsome, comfortably out boy named Elliot ( Antonio Marziale). Why should we put up with being objectified every single day? The fight against internet porn is part of that struggle but it shouldn't be treated in isolation, as though it has nothing to do with a wider tolerance of sexism and abuse.Madeline Weinstein, Daniel Doheny and Antonio Marziale star in ALEX STRANGELOVE (Netflix) 7. My sense is that the tide is finally turning against the routine sexualisation of women and girls. When a new regulator is set up, it's vital that it should be able to consider third-party complaints from women's groups, not just about sexist images in the popular press but the reporting of rape trials. Lord Justice Leveson seemed to agree, observing in his report that The Sun and the Daily Star have a tendency to "sexualise and demean" women and describing the Daily Sport as "hardly distinguishable" from the softer end of top-shelf porn. Feminist organisations made this point in their evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, arguing that the daily sexualisation of women in the media legitimises attitudes associated with discrimination and violence. What we really need is a cultural shift against the idea that it's OK to exploit women in this way in newspapers, magazines and online. I'm glad that Daubney argues for better sex and relationships education, but I'm uncomfortable with the notion that porn is suddenly a bad thing because it damages boys. In much the same way, talking about boys who have been "sexually traumatised" by watching porn diverts attention from girls who are having to deal with demeaning and dangerous sexual demands from young men. I worry that the notion of porn being addictive lets men off the hook. It's an interesting piece of research although the neuroscientist who carried it out thinks more work needs to be done to establish what's going on. The former display twice as much activity in response to pornographic images and the section of their brains that lights up is the same, apparently, as in people who have problems with drugs and alcohol. But it does show scans comparing the brains of men aged 19 to 34 who consider their lives "controlled by porn" (sigh) with those of "ordinary people". The film is a mess, mixing laddish discussions of "wanking" with forays into neuroscience.
Daubney meets a 19-year-old man who accesses porn more than a dozen times a day in a startling sequence, the young man suddenly pulls his car into a pub car park so he can nip into the men's toilets and masturbate. It also worries me that the film, called Porn on the Brain, is so focused on the damage it does to men rather than girls and women.
I couldn't help cringing when I discovered the reason for his conversion he has a four-year-old son and he's anxious about the effect porn might have on him as he gets older. He's even made a film about it, which will be shown on Channel 4 tomorrow evening at 10pm. I'm pretty sure that the former editor of Loaded, Martin Daubney, wouldn't agree with me about that, but he's undergone a change of heart about porn. Nor do I think women should have to work in supermarkets where they have no choice but to see women's naked bodies on the covers of lads' mags I love the fact that the feminist organisation Object has pointed out that this practice may be open to legal action under equality legislation.
I don't think half the population should be crudely displayed for the edification of the other half – and to sell newspapers. Publishing pictures of women's breasts in newspapers encourages the idea that we're just a collection of body parts, which is why I support the campaign to get rid of. I am sick of this, and so are a lot of other people.