....to want to ban page 3???

[DianaVreeland]

I remember seeing a page 3 girl for the first time when I was about 6 as my neighbour bought the Sun. I cringed inwardly, and haven't stopped feeling the same since. I have 5 nieces 3 nephews and my own 2 sons.....I hope they could grow up without seeing images of women objectified like this. Clearly I am not showing this to them but at some point I know they will. Does anyone else feel the same?

Bbc news round is very good.

Sorry but if the difference between porn and not porn is a teeny tiny bikini then I really think people haven't used the internet enough. Not to mention, how many women are porn stars when they go off on their holidays to Spain.

Boobs don't offend me. I don't get why under certain circumstances they are wildly offensive and under others they aren't. They are just boobs.

There are so many representations of women in the media in skimpy clothes which are every bit as 'bad' as page three, but 3 inches of material apparently make them ok.

If you want to tackle issues over body image then banning page three isn't going to change very much at all tbh. The damaging stuff comes more from the likes of the Daily Mail who see fit to pass comment over every single female body - too fat, too thin, cellulite, baby weight, boob job, you name it - in a negative way.

Whilst it conforms to stereotype and ideals, for all its flaws, at least page three is positive and a celebration of the female body, rather than criticising every inch of it.

Of the two I know which offends me far more, and which annoys me most because women join in and actively fed the monster of belittling other women.

I'll give you a clue - its not page 3.

You're not really on the same page as me ES. I'm not saying that Tom Hardy doesn't have the choice to stick his thumbs down his pants. I'm saying that that never happens. Why not? Because it looks fucking stupid when a man does it. And essentially, it looks fucking stupid when a woman does it too, but that's ok, because when women do stupid looking shit, we accept it as a society because it's "sexy".

Except that it's a very one dimensional view of sexy and it's the only one that women seem to be able to be part of.

Since you're asking, I personally couldn't give a shit. My factory consists of all men with several pictures of naked (not just boobs) women taped onto their machines they are working on. Puts the Sun to shame.
Do I care? Not a jot.
Do the guys treat me any differently? Of course not!!!
Women are sexy - they look nice - I don't have any desire to stand and stare at the pictures, but I certainly don't object to them, and I don't feel 'degraded' by them.
I would not ask them to remove them, however, in the school holidays when my 3DS may visit I do request that the particularly graphic ones 'disappear' for a few weeks!!
My DH has no desire to look at anything like that and actually finds it ever so slightly offensive... which I find kind of cute . It's what is 'normal' to you I s'pose.

I'm not saying children shouldn't read newspapers. The fact remains to gain anything educational or insightful, you don't read tabloids. Broad sheets are difficult to read. Like I said Bbc news round is good. I wouldn't let my son read any tabloid until he was old enough to distinguish between news and "entertainment"

"If you ban p3 where do we end up?"

Exactly.. we have a choice which newspapers we want to buy, and if some people choose to buy the sun purely to look at page 3, which I very very much doubt, then that is part of the freedom that we enjoy in this country.

"women are sexy - they look nice" - aren't men sexy? Don't men look nice?

Ok, when i say let, I mean encourage. Independent or guardian etc fine. Sun, mirror, DM... I might as well make him watch Jeremy Kyle.

don't like page three, and not because the girls are prettier than me.

used to take daughter to school on the bus when she was four. we sat on the higher seats at the back. every day we'd see a middle aged man get on the bus with his cheap paper with semi naked women in it. he'd sit there looking at the picture then slyly look around at the young teenage girls on the bus. it was obvious what was on his mind. day after day.

i'd ban page three.

btw ... what self respecting parent gives their kids the Sun to read anyway?!!!!!
If you are worried about content - buy a subscription for First News.

You know what I think is worse than page 3, much worse? Headlines like this, on the frontpage of a popular women's mag on a table in the hairdressers: 'DON'T RAPE ME, RAPE MY TWIN INSTEAD'

That's sickening.

Agree with hmm. Also many men do stupid poses in women's mags...

Eclectic, there are so few pictures of naked men compared to naked women. Are you honestly disputing that?

I'm not saying there's not the odd stupid naked male pose, but there is nowhere near the volume.

ghostship, I completely agree, and that is a point I have made on a previous thread too, after hearing young kids who can read, asking their mums what that is all about when they see these magazines which are often at the tills or within childrens eye level on the shelves..

The covers of those are far more questionable than the front pages of Lads Mags, and certainly the daily newspapers (possibly with the exception of the Sport)

Magazine x is worse than magazine y is not a reason to not complain about magazine y.

Yellow, maybe we are looking at different media.

Yellow I accept that as a point, but as many people on this topic have objected to it being easily accessible to kids, why aren't they up in arms about this too?

Because many of them probably buy and read this tosh.

Exactly, ghostship, or MY DAD RAPED BECAUSE HE LOVES ME. There's some vile headlines on women's mags and my mum buys them. They sit on her coffe table and tbh I am more concerned about ds reading them than seeing someone reading or looking at p3.

Because, GhostShip, you can be up in arms about one thing and not another.

It is pointless to say "many of them read this tosh" as you have no idea who buys what on this thread.

Eclectic, are you seriously trying to suggest that there are equal numbers of nude photos of men and women?

I'm saying women objectify men as much as men objectify women. It depends on where you look.

I disagree YRC

Too often we focus on the wrong thing.
An image of a naked woman isn't in itself bad. Women are beautiful. Why try and hide the female form away? Why do we have to cover up? Because it makes us less slutty or inviting to men...

All that does is says to me, that women must behaviour in a certain way and they must cover up to be respectable.

Porn is more than a naked lady to me. Much more. I think we are too hung up on the idea that naked = bad / available. It doesn't. Thats the message that needs challenging.

Its these messages that are the real problem. As are the poison of the rest of the press.

P3 rarely 'says' very much. Its just an image and about 3 lines of text. And its a woman stood there. Naked. Not doing much.

I don't find it offensive. In fact its actually quite dull and boring, and its only titillating, precisely because we have this attitude that naked = rude / bad.

Hmm. In the mainstream, women are FAR more objectified. Since the mainstream is what 90-whatever % of people consume, I'm more interested in that to be honest.

EclecticShock I'm saying women objectify men as much as men objectify women. It depends on where you look.

Quite possibly, but you don't need to look in a daily newspaper that's sold as a 'family friendly' paper. Woman magazines etc aren't sold for a family audience. In the same way lads mags like Zoo aren't sold for the whole family. Newspapers that call themselves 'family friendly' are. That's what's wrong with it. Same photo in Zoo wouldn't bother me.

HmmThinkingAboutIt. The lines of text are clearly designed to be funny, because they are always written from a very intellectual point of view and the naked woman is perceived to be thick. I find that really depressing. They have that text for men to laugh at.

I certainly don't think naked = bad. Not even close. I do think that the way women are presented is depressing.

Why is objectification the issue here with regard to looking? I objectify men in pictures... I don't do it in real life. Fantasy is an important part of human nature.