Dear Macmillan

I would like to complain about this ad:

1. It trivialises, condones and encourages young men to see women as objects not fellow human beings. We know that these are ‘wank mags’. Objectification helps creates a climate where women are demeaned and seen as passive recipients of male sexuality, their job being to facilitate the male orgasm even, via their pictures, when they are physically not there.

2. Accepting objectification and exploitation of women for male sexual satisfaction is part of the culture which accepts sexual violence and rape. We have high figures for sexual violence statistics, domestic violence statistics and rape, with few convictions. Women are unsafe.

3. Women’s organisations campaigned hard to get the content of ‘Lads Mags’ accepted as harmful – some have closed down, the rest are shrink-wrapped on the top  shelves as ‘adults only’. Your ad ignores this advance in social standards.

4. By placing the ad on a litter bin in Wood Green Shopping City (and elsewhere) you are exposing children of under school age in their buggies to a sexualised image of women. I have reported your ad to the local Licensing Officer.

5. You may not know about the horrendous gang rape just yards from that bin in Wood Green Shopping City Car Park about 8 years ago. I think the young woman died and a group of young men went to prison. Do you really want to be part of that culture?

6. You may think Lads Mags are harmless, but please check out the small ads hidden away in them. They usually include ads for phone sex which includes women pretending to be little girls to satisfy paedophiles, ads for older women implying that they will take anyone they can get, and pictures of young women dressed as schoolgirls, again catering to paedophiles. Not so innocent as you might think.

7. Survivors of prostitution tell us that porn is used to groom under-age girls to participate in sex acts for money. You are advertising grooming materials for abusers and pimps.

I have lost family members to cancer myself and would like to support Macmillan but it is not right to encourage young men in this attitude to women. Young women have told me  that young men who use porn are so preoccupied with their own sexual satisfaction that a relationship with them is far from satisfying for the woman.

8. It is great to encourage people to offer support to those who have cancer, but not if others are harmed by it.