Everything from Sunday newspaper supplements to mail order catalogues was examined with the diligence of a librarian collating an index. A feature on stockings - interesting. An advert for a bra - bingo! And on more bountiful days, perhaps in the dentist's waiting room, the perfumed pages of fashion magazines might reveal an admirable artistic contempt for such dreary conventions as clothing. You'd take a filling or two for such small triumphs. In these restrained conditions, any sign, or even suggestion, of female flesh would be duly noted and stored in the memory bank for later reference.
At home, popular novels, like The Godfather, were speed-scanned for promising words - 'skirt', 'underwear', 'unbuttoned' - that might lead to action passages. In a demonstration of the kind of solidarity for which teenage boys are seldom credited
Still, porn in the Seventies in Britain was almost entirely centred on magazines. They ranged from well-known titles like Playboy and Penthouse at the softer end of the market, glossy forests of pubes which were available in newsagents, to the gynaecological hardcore whose provenance was less obvious
Nowadays porn is everywhere. Young men look at it without apology or shame. Sometimes young women too. Society has become radically more sexualised, and sex, which has always sold, has been transformed into a much more explicit commodity. What seems particularly notable is that women have become more active and willing participants in the pornification of female sexuality. Everywhere from the growth in breast implants and cosmetic surgery to the proliferation of bikini wax salons to the trendiness of Agent Provocateur to the transformation of glamour models into role models - a porn aesthetic has taken root in everyday life.
the influence of feminism gave rise to the New Man, the male who was in favour of sexual equality, sympathetic to female-only solutions
preserve of the misogynist, the sexist pig
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