Page three

It's not an either/or situation

So which would you prefer? A prudish society with a lot of crime? Or an open society with low crime?

So as long as women aren't actually being raped or hit they have nothing to complain about?

Child porn is illegal in Japan if it involves real people, not cartoons or anime.

Oh that's all right then

Like I said, I don't think I'd like us to emulate Japanese society.

Child porn is illegal in Japan if it involves real people, not cartoons or anime.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography_laws_in_Japan

And you're right they do produce a lot of extreme porn, so why isn't their rape and domestic violence statistics through the roof?

If they are producing such porn but have low crime in general why is it a "problem"?

"Japan has lower levels of violence against women, then surely we need to examine how they got there? And if porn isn't a problem for them, why isn't it? "
Japan has a massive problem with filmed child rape and abuse ( I hate the term "child porn" ) it is not illegal in Japan , there are billboards featuring "anime" child rape in the tech district of Tokyo.
Japan is one of the most prolific producers of extreme porn and they have totally fucked up attitudes to women and sex.

Naked breasts don't belong in a newspaper. And as for this which I saw earlier:

The response from my female Tory MP when asked she would sign it: "it can do you and your daughter no harm if you don't buy the paper..."

I am aghast.

I'm happy to see the above statement hasn't only peed me off. Sounds so bloody patronising. Next we'll be told to keep our clothes on, stop get men excited, or god forbid coming to climax, save outside of a loving, mutally fulfilling relationship.

Do what you like - I'm not telling you to do anything and nobody on this thread is talking about banning page 3. If we can't discuss the wider context and implications of the choices we make then there's a whole raft of topics that we can't talk about at all because some woman somewhere will have 'chosen' to do it.

I make all sorts of choices which I consider to be 'unfeminist' - I'm sure most of us do - because we're all just muddling through in a system that was not set up with our best interests at heart. I'm interested in the politics around those choices - to what extent they are truly 'free', why we make the choices we do, what the impact of those choices is for us, for other women, for the whole of society.

The following is part of a post I wrote on another thread about the feminist theory section. I think it's relevant here:

While I would have preferred it if FWR had been left as it was, my reasoning for suggesting the theory section was that we could have a space to discuss issues from a feminist perspective without people taking things so personally - e.g. we could discuss the politics of hair removal without the inevitable derail to deal with all the - 'I shave and I'm a woman and it's my choice so how dare you criticise' - type posts (when in fact, probably quite a few of us both shave and want to examine the politics of doing so).

The specific problem I have with p3 is to do with public space. We can't all just do whatever we want in public space because we all have to share it and so our actions affect other people, yet somehow it's acceptable to have sexualised pictures of bare breasted women in a daily paper that is read on public transport, in pubs, cafes and workplaces, even though it makes a lot of women feel uncomfortable and intimidated. To say that only p3 models should get any say in the matter is ridiculous.

It's The Sun. They don't consider women as anything but objects

The Sun doesn't show erect penises because that would be classed as hardcore porn, but it doesn't show women's vaginas either so what's the problem?

But tbh I would like to see more black or Asian page 3 models, they seem to be dominantly white pale-skinned British women. Doesn't British society consider non-white women as model material?

I'd like to see some page 3 pics with inverted nipples. Or even flat nipples. Not ones that have had ice cubes applied to them to simulate sexual arousal for the ladz.

I don't class page 3 as porn, despite hating it with a vengeance

it is objectifying shit that belongs back in the 1970's (along with Jimmy fucking Savile) but porn, to me, is moving images

So erect nipples, the sign of arousal in women are OK and not pornography but erect penises are pornography? So why are aroused women not porngraphy but aroused men are? Bit of a double standard going on there I think.

rosabud erect penises are per definitionem pornography, and therefore not page 3 material. P You won't spot a labia on page 3 either.

rosebud yes it would be nice to see some sexy men naked in the paper, why not

Yes, indeed, why not? Except I'm still looking.....and not seeing any of those erect penises?? I'm seeing The Sun taking nearly every opportunity to get as much bare female flesh or lingerie-clad female flesh as possible on to each page yet.....how odd.......no male nakedness, no erect penises at all!!

Why is that I wonder? Oh, could it possibly be that it's actually nothing to do with "harmless fun" and everything to do with keeping men happy and women in thier place (which is, as everyone knows, to keep men happy)?

And, when discussing page three, the "we must be liberal and not ban porn" argument is irrelevant because it is in a DAILY NEWSPAPER which is on our newstands and read next to us on the bus and left lying around for children to look at whereas porn is for private consumption.

WW I definitely don't buy that kind of stuff!! The only man I find attractive is my husband and the only one I have eyes for (sorry to be soppy!!!). That s interesting to know - I thought maybe that men weren't as tempted to go into nude modelling because they had more options open to them in society, but it is interesting that they still choose to do this.

Porn seems to be fairly widely frowned upon within certain feminist strands.

That seems to be the case (with the exception of those who call themselves "sex positive feminists").

But remember there are a lot of people both genders who aren't feminist.

samuraicindy - there's plenty of publications offline and online which regularly feature blokes in their nudey-pants. Cosmo has a centrefold section, you can buy calendars, etc etc. If you're not aware of it because you don't buy that kind of stuff is fair enough, but doesn't mean that it doesn't exist

IMO banning something isn't a magic solution to reducing crime. And sometimes it won't solve anything at all.

Frans, I don't think that many people on here will agree with you. Porn seems to be fairly widely frowned upon within certain feminist strands.

In any walk of life, for any problem, I always assume that someone else has tried/found a solution. Surely if we look at societies and cultures with lower instances of anything - violence, crime, littering - we can examine how they arrived at their solution, what they do and what they don't do. If - and I don't know if it's true - Japan has lower levels of violence against women, then surely we need to examine how they got there? And if porn isn't a problem for them, why isn't it?

A slightly different topic but over 10 years ago Portugal legalized all drugs. For over 10 years Portugal hasn't sent a single person to prison for drug use. Now drug use and crime has plummeted in Portugal. Makes you think doesn't it?

(plenty sources for this with a quick Google search).

Compare to Colombia which has extremely strick anti-drug laws and even brought in the military to enforce them. As a result thousands of people have been killed and the underground drug industry is still booming. It seems the harder they try to stop people taking drugs the more violent things become.

So are you saying that open pornography does not necessarily lead to violence against women? That if we want to eradicate violence against women - or at least reduce it greatly - it is more complex than simply banning porn?

IMO banning something isn't a magic solution to reducing crime. And sometimes it won't solve anything at all.

samurai Sex sells - but usually it's only the female body. Why is it women make the choice - is it because there's more opportunities? Would men do it - I don't think there is a large market for the male body.

I think if there was a bigger market for the men then some men would be happy to do it.

The sex industry isn't as one sided as most people think anyway. eg most people think most sex workers are female but a quick search on Adultwork's escort directory shows there are 10,000 male escorts and 19,000 female escorts in the UK. That means about 1 in 3 escorts are male (although most men do charge lower prices).

HappyHalloween it is naff....that is exactly the word!

There definitely isn't. I remember when Playgirl came out in the UK (was that it's name??) and a girl in my college dorm got a copy. It provoked screeches of laughter but then we just all found it a bit sad. I remember thinking how sad the men were to degrade themselves like that and why couldn't they have some dignity and do what other men do and get a 'proper' job. But when women pose nude or topless it just seems to be something some women do as if they aren't better than that and no one seems to wonder why don't they get a 'proper' job. Like being ogled by men is all some women are good for.

I am rambling a bit I think.

Page 3 ? It's just so naff isn't it ? it's really quite embarassing what a role it still has in our society, and people still so determined to keep it as a "British Institution".

Move on dinosaurs ! I never imagined a link with Nick Clegg and Jim Davidson, but there you go..