Totties, Time Warps and Traitors to the Sisterhood: The Tabloids and Sex

Abstract

The tabloids’ treatment of sex and gender is considered in this chapter. The first part focuses on the language used to refer to sex acts and genitalia, and the fact that in their determination to avoid the most vulgar expressions they often employ terms that are rarely if ever used in everyday English. The reference to ‘time warps’ in the title relates to ways in which certain tabloids appear to be stuck in the 1970s in their attitudes towards gender roles, photographs of nude women and, most of all, homosexuality. Both the Sun and the Daily Star have had female editors, neither of whom did anything to counter the sexist nature of their respective papers’ content and language, and the chapter concludes with a look at articles written by female columnists in the Daily Mail that seem calculated to provoke feminists.