Dad ogling pg 3 girls in playground

[anotherglass]

Strolled into school this morning with DS1 (6) to find a dad "reading" pg 3 of the Sun ( norks were in full view of the Year 2 line up ).

I thought this a tad inappropriate and asked him to turn the page, but he was really put out and huffed and puffed at me.

Tell me I was not being unreasonable.

Page 3 is not sexy - just tits - when i was 12 or 13 at school (goin back to 1985 ish) there were always magazines doing the rounds like men only and mayfair with their tits and cunts on show so page 3 is not exactly porn

I feel uncomfortable if I am sitting next to someone reading page three for example and I agree, I do think its inappropriate for a school playground. Not every parent has or wants the sun newspaper hanging about their home so no not every child has seen stuff like that and rightly so. Breastfeeding and a woman with her knockers out to please the eye is totally different.

Perhaps I should have worded my post more clearly ChippingIn - 'graphic photos' was picking up on your analogy about newspapers featuring war or domestic violence - I meant that if I were to be looking at photos of anything inappropriate for the children in the playground other parents would have a right to object. Sorry this was ambiguous.

The OP said he was staring at the page for a long time. The most likely explanation is ogling. In any case (eg maybe he was just not a very good reader and was taking a long time to figure out the quotes about what the girl thought about Cardinal Newman or whatever) the fact that it was open at that page meant that was the visible page. That's what takes it from 'I have the right to read what I want' territory to 'Inappropriate material should not be visible to children in a playground' territory.

The fact that it is available in petrol stations does not magically stop a sexualised image of a woman in skimpy clothing being soft porn. The fact that there is much harder stuff available doesn't magically de-sexualise the page 3 images.

sethstarkadder, well done for keeping on arguing the case of why this is wrong.

I am literally shaking my head in disbelief at the posters who do not see pg3 as being sexualised/soft porn.

I think that in itself is very telling of just how acceptable the sexualisation of women has become.

I just can't believe that society has become so pornified that while in the 70s and 80s feminists were campaigning to ban page 3, these days there are women are arguing not only that men have the right to look at page 3 (fair enough, freedom of speech and all) they are arguing that men have the right to look at it absolutely anywhere and whenever they want

I don't see why a man's right to look at a photo of a pretty girl with her tits out has to trump the rights of children to go to school in a non-sexualised environment.

You would not allow these things to be stuck up in the staff room, so why can a parent not just wait a few minutes and read a different page until he's off the school premises? is his free speech really going to be compromised by this? is it really so hard?!

Not sure women understand what men find sexy or think is porn. If he was looking at a porno mag with a finger stuck in some woman's cunt then that is porn. Page 3 is boring and unsexy.

If we agree that the point of porn, soft or hard, is to titillate, greatly or a little, then page 3 is porn. If not, what is the point of a large picture of a young woman's breasts?

great - then no-one will mind being asked to wait a few minutes before looking at it.

it's interesting that we are having this discussion at the same time as the Hooters one.

For me it just underlines the point as to why it's a bad thing for soft porn style things to be mainstreamed: a lot of people on this thread have argued that it's just a newspaper therefore it is ok, as if by definition everything in a newspaper is suitable for children.

If page 3 didn't exist and they were thinking of introducing it now, you can bet your bottom dollar that many of its supporters would be responding to the argument 'But in newspapers children might see it!' by saying 'people aren't stupid, we are perfectly capable of keeping an image away from our children, just because it's in a newspaper doesn't mean have to let our children see it.'

Similarly if Hooters gets established people will be saying 'It must be ok because it's on the High Street.'

What is at issue is the balance between freedom of expression and the rights of children to be free from sexualised behaviour and images and those which also place unrealistic pressures on them during their early years. For example, young girls deserve to be able to grow up without excessive pressure about their weight, body image or using make up.

Page 3 is not merely a picture of a naked woman. They are often in sexually provocative poses, often with implants, and usually heavily made up. Little children deserve to be free of those images. A playground is not the place to read page 3. The OP was not U to act in the interests of the children and ask the dad to turn the page.

I am staggered by the number of posters who thought it repressive of me to ask a man to refrain from viewing titillating - albeit legally purchased - material in the playground.

There are rights and then there are responsibilities.

As sethstarkaddersmum said:

I don't see why a man's right to look at a photo of a pretty girl with her tits out has to trump the rights of children to go to school in a non-sexualised environment.

How is looking at pictures of tits in a playground about either freedom of speech or freedom of expression ?

It's nothing of the sort IMO.

Freedom to express what precisely?

It is another part of the "tits out for the lads" culture that objectifies women and gives girls the impression that the best thing to aspire to is to have big tits and show them off to men who have a right to look at them.

There is also another thread running about men shouting abuse at women in the street, this is another form of it, but more subtle. And apparently, if I object, I have no sense of humour and I'm over reacting.

If a black man objected to being called "boy" or having "pick some cotton" shouted at him he would be supported, yet I am supposedly supposed to like being called a "bird" or other derogatory terms and also to put up with "get your tits out". why is it ok to demean women and treat them like toys and less than human?

YANBU, it is clearly inappropriate and you did the right thing. All this rubbish soft porn in newspapers, on the sides of buses, etc. has become accepted because no one seems willing or capable of saying - no it's really not ok.

The OP said he was staring at the page for a long time. The most likely explanation is ogling.

The most likely explanation is he was reading somethng on the same page.

I have not seen the Hooters thread, must take a look

Just to reitterate, I don't think porn or page 3 are legitimate and I think the newspapers should be banned from publishing them. So, please understand, in this, I am in total agreement with most of you and the OP.

Plus, until the press can publish a picture of an erect penis, they have no business publishing a naked woman. The parameteres are simply unequal.
I don't wish to see these photos anyway, but am pointing out how maddeningly uneven the whole porn thing is.

What I think most objectors feel is, whilst they don't want school children seeing porn at school, they find it rude and unneccesary for a fellow parent to try to dictate what they are reading.

In my son's playground, none of the children sit down waiting on the bell. They run around, and then stand in line. The chances of many children even glimpsing the photos are therefor slim.

I would still maintain the issue is with the press, not the individual. Do I think school kids should see porn in the playground? Of course I don't. Do I think these children were being shown porn? No.
Should the op have asked the man to turn the page? Quite simply, no.

She is perfectly at liberty to do so, and he is at liberty to refuse. It's just that a few of us disagree with her doing it, not that we have a right to tell her not to.

Personally, I think the school playground is a really bizarre/inappropriate place to be staring at Page 3. In my experience, there isn't actually much in the way of an "article" to be engrossed in. It's normally something like "sharon, 19, is from Wolverhampton and likes having a laugh". If he's staring at it for a while, he obviously reads very slowly or, more likely explanation, is actually ogling. At the end of the day, it's soft porn, regardless of how widely available it is. And it's not to be read in a school playground - I can't believe some parents think that's appropriate.

Anyways, there's also the issue that someone's reading such shite. If it was me, I would have grabbed the sun from his hands and made him read the Economist instead.

I strongly dislike p. 3 and would like to see it gone, for all the reasons stated above.

Otoh I wonder how many children would actually be exposed to the stuff just because a parent is reading it in the playground. He wasn't actually showing it to them, was he? Would they be reading over his shoulder? My experiences of school playgrounds is that the children are totally oblivious to any reading material brought into them.

Also, would it matter to the children if the man was having lewd thoughts whilst standing in the playground unless he was actually showing them in some obvious and inappropriate way (fiddling with his bits or exposing himself).

Would we complain of casual racism if the man had been reading a racist publication in the playground?

I give up. Amazed at some people's willful refusal to hear other's points.

Of course YANBU, what sort of dick reads that sort of paper and that page in a playground?

Nobody has answered my questions about reading BNP publications in the playground.

Why not?

Page three is more sinister that soft porn as it, like Hooters, likes the 'wholesome girl next door' girl who casually shows her breast whilst commenting on news(I use that term loosely). We don't have tabloids in this house.

OP, YANBU, well done for challenging him

it is soft porn

it has no place at a school (or anywhere else imho)