Motifs on T Shirts,

[Lonnie]

Is there a law governing what people can have on their T shirts?.

Some of the Motifs I see positively astound me, but the two that stick out, are,

Seen on a young girl approx ten years old, 'Apprentice Prostitute', and she was with her parents, but the one I saw today, on a young man in his twenties was, 'Women who are dead can't say no',

That one I thought was disgusting, had a word with him, but he just walked away.

[allotment10]

the worst one i saw was a young lad about 13 with JESUS IS A C*** printed on his t-shirt, back & front!
couldn't believe it, i had to look twice,
surely they must print them on themselves, i was disgusted.

[athenae]

... and think waht would have happened if this had been a certain prophet!

[andy-hughes]

allotment 10 - the tee-shirt you saw was a slogan tee-shirt merchandised by extreme metal band Cradle Of Filth. It does actually contravene the Obscene Publications Act, and wearing one in public is an arrestable offence.

dilf - there is no need to be offesnsive - especially to someone new to the AB - athenae was simply expressing an opinion, which is really a large part of what the AB is about, so be nice, or be quiet.

As for your name / motif, it must be an acronym, but since I don't understand it, I guess I wouldn't take offence - care to enlighten me - politely if you can?

[jake-the-peg]

I'm sure they'd be very pleased that they offended you - that is after all the whole idea of T-shirts like that to offend people who hold traditional values.

Offensive T-shirts have an interesting history.

Possibly the most famous was Vivienne Westwood's "cowboys" t-shirt showing 2 semi-naked Cowboys standing face to face. Alan Jones was arrested for wearing it in the street and charged with pornography.

I won't post a link here but if you want to image google vivienne westwood cowboys I won't stop you.

That was 30 years ago now and if you can find an original example of that shirt it would cost you a lot of money!

[dilf]

read what i wrote andy , you,ll see its innaccurate tongue in cheek and poking fun at those who do it.

and the wife isnt MILF she's mrs dilf

athenae - you can see through my earlier post cant you

[noxlumos]

I have some fairly offensive T shirts I have to be honest, but nothing that imho isn't funny as well, which neither of the ones mentioned so far were. Being offensive isn't clever in itself, but being slightly ofensive and hilariously funny is another matter.The problem with the law is that it's reasonably subjective what someone might find offensive, so with any religious or political ones you're on a loser straight away because someone, somewhere will.
Sites like T shirt hell etc sell some really awful ones that I'd not be seen dead in. I'm largely against enforced censorship, but I did pan a bloke once who was wearing a Manchester Football top with "Huntley" round the top where the players name should have been and the names of the little girls he killed underneath.Nothing funny about that at all, just sick.

[saxy_jag]

I think offence, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder - some people are just so much more sensitive about things, that's all. I've seen a few T-shirts that I really don't like but quite honestly, I'm not the one who has to wear them and I'm not such a prude that I become outraged at them. If that's what people want to wear, who am I to stop them?

My husband has a brilliant one, courtesy of Oysterband, that says, "GOD PROTECT US ... from your followers". He likes to wear it when so-called christian groups run events at his workplace.

[Octavius]

The Cradle of Filth t-shirt mentioned above showed a picture of a nun in a pornographic pose with the comment about Jesus on the back. A 19 year old man was convicted in October 2005 under the then new anti-hate laws which ban people from displaying religiously insulting signs.

In February of 2005 another man was arrested by two police officers wearing the same t-shirt as he walked to a newsagent on Halloween 2004. He pleaded guilty to �religiously aggravated offensive conduct�. He was eventually discharged and told to �grow up�. He paid �150 costs, and the judge ordered that the T-shirt be destroyed.

In 1997, a London man wearing the same t-shirt was found guilty of committing the offence of �Profane Representation under the 1839 Act� by Bow Street Magistrates Court. He was fined �150.

I quite like some of the ironic t-shirts but there should be boundaries of decency. Personally, regardless of the anti-religious content of the t-shirt I find the C word offensive in any context. The parents of that child in the Q leave a lot to be desired.

But it is the question of harm which is the very crux of the debate over pornography and censorship - does it cause harm, either directly to the individuals exposed to it or indirectly, through their actions, to other individuals? Is page 3 simply 'harmless fun'? What if a man is showing (intentionally or otherwise) page 3 to a young child?

[jake-the-peg]

Problem is we all tend to have different ideas of what is decent don't we?

is this decent?
http://raresteak.wordpress.com/files/2006/07/w e-are-all-prostitutes.JPG

What about this?

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/ thumb/f/fc/250px-TrangBang.jpg

Then there's the issue of context - that first link might not be seen as a problem in a nightclub but I dare say in other contexts it'd be seen as behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace.

And after all isn't that the point? We should not try to define what is and what is not acceptable to wear but what is acceptable or provocative behaviour.

We already have laws governing unacceptably provocative behaviour - going down the route of having someone lay down rules what you can or can't is too proscriptive and narrow

[allotment10]

carby - how do you know ? do you have any logical explanations for your reply to me?

[Lonnie]

Thanks for all the answers, the different views on this is most illuminating, it could go on for ever, unfortunatelt I don;t have the time, but thanks again.

[barneysdad]

Get over it you are all lucky to be alive there are bigger nastier things in this world than offensive T shirts, the fact that it is even an issue astounds me.

[Lonnie]

barneysdad, Sure there are bigger, nastier issues, but i'm sorry, it offends my sensibilities when I see a male proclaiming 'Women who are dead, can't say no', I don't like it, its also an insult to women in general.

To take up with the other motif that I posted, would you let your ten year old daughter walk around with a T Shirt that said 'Apprentice Prostitute'?, I certainl wouldn't.