I could not disagree more with you.

I'll hasten to agree that some men (and women) do form their ideas about other people based on media images. But, frankly speaking, do you think a man (or woman) would need to masturbate regularly to huge breasts in magazines in order to hold a future partner in contempt because she fails to conform to some ideal? There are lots of other sources for this kind of (bad) behavior towards one's partner, from movie actresses to history characters. A man could "hold his partner in contept" because her face is not as pretty as what he dreamed of, or her legs not as long, or whatever else he for some reason got fixated on. And so could a woman.

In my experience, the men (and women) who are likely to be so critical of others started out like this already. Their tastes for specific media images simply feed a need that already existed prior to that.

I tend to agree with idl1975. Gove's arguments are not anti-sexist, they may actually be themselves rather sexist. Considering him an ally wouldn't go as far as, but it would be surprisingly reminiscent of, the alliance between some radical feminists and the religious right in the war against porn.

...if you think that this has nothing to do with the quality of your encounters with men.

A man who is accustomed to getting off on imagining himself having sex with the most unrealistic, surgically and technically altered images of female bodies around, WILL NOT respect, let alone love a woman with a normal, flawed and aging body like yours. Throughout your relationship, he will hold you in contempt because he will feel that having sex with someone as imperfect as you really is beneath him. If he even feels like having sex with real women at all. Don't kid yourself.

And above all, don't ridicule the few allies that women could have in this...

Is he throwing Cosmopolitan under the train as well?

I'd add a link, but the network filter considers their website obscene.

...at least not deliberately.

He was criticizing the abysmal "lads'" magazines specifically for promoting the idea of women as sexually available. Note that this was not, however, criticism of the objectification of the female body - if it had been, why target this particular corner of the media gutter? The criticism was specifically that their treatment of sex (from the perspective of a heterosexual male target audience) encourages hedonistic behaviour.

So Gove's criticism contains within it a number of implicit assumptions that the average non-Tory definitely wouldn't consider feminist, including (i) females are demeaned by the suggestion that some or all of them enjoy sex; (ii) females are demeaned by acknowledging that most men and some women find the female body arousing; and (iii) female sexuality and female identity are a product of the male will and do not exist independently of them.

(In case it needs stating, (iii) from the fact that Gove believes that a magazine for heteosexual men picturing scantily clad women promotes "hedonism". In other words, by encouraging lusty thoughts in _men_, this peculiarly content-free part of the media promotes lustful behaviour in men _and_ women.)

The "Lad Mags" in the USA are just an evolution of sexual equality: they are vacuos advertising vehicles filled with glossy images, fashion and things to buy.

Don't confuse UK conservatives with their US counterparts. Back in the eighties, a Conservative government worried about AIDS made teaching about condoms compulsory and tacitly encouraged schools to encourage oral sex instead.

Current Tory policy does bang on about 'respect' and place a value on monogamy, but ... well, let's see even a 'liberal' US politician say something like this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sex-education-classes-should-teach-pupils-about-consent-says-cameron-399979.html

For some guys who've grown up with the internet, it's easier to deal with porn than another human being, such as a woman, and especially an assertive woman. They can get it in magazines, online, emailed to their cell phone. At one time I worked with a guy (he was 24-25) who never socialized with the rest of us-- he was very open about the fact that he'd prefer to be at home, playing video games and watching porn. He would view porn on his cellphone while he was on the clock. We were all in the same age group, and we really tried to include him. It was disturbing to think that he would pass up actual relationships with friendly humans in order to be alone and avoid reality.

Michael Gove is a self-confessed British neo-conservative (pro-Iraq war, pro-Israel, anti-Muslim, ani-State etc) and is part of a long tradition of right-wing Tory MPs who don't understand the way most of us live our lives but are quite prepared to lecture us on how we should.

So please don't take him seriously - it'll only encourage him.