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AIBU?

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Original poster

To have covered up page 3?

36 replies

MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:09

Was in the local Chinese tonight. a bit of treat for ds and me. And also a bit of a treat to read the Sun and another tabloid.

Ie, I don't buy them, but its fun to read every now and then.

Now I consider myself a hardened feminist. Ie, I am no longer moved by obvious examples of sexism.

But tonight I found my self covering over the naked girls on page 3, I felt assaulted by the images, and horrified for the girls.

I am surprised at this reaction. Maybe its to do with having a 13 year old ds. Wondering what it would be like to have a 16 year old dd doing this, just disgusted so violently and viscerally in a way I haven't in years.

I felt by looking at those images I was collluding in an appalling piece of abuse. It shocked me to the core.

WIBU?

OP posts:
Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:12

Just to say, I am really really not trying to be disingenous here, I was repelled in a way I had never felt before. despite decades of being exposed to it.

OP posts:
JockTamsonsBairns · 17/10/2013 00:15

Totally with you on this. For me it's almost worse than porn, the fact that it's served up as harmless and jolly fun for people to enjoy over their tea and toast in the morning.

BlingBang · 17/10/2013 00:15

Still can't understand why these images are still there in a newspaper. Do other people not feel that it's just downright weird and that's before you get to it being offensive etc?

Wonder what people (especially those who buy and read it) think about it. What their reaction is to it?

BlingBang · 17/10/2013 00:16

On what planet can it be deemed normal and acceptable - truly bogles me.

Caitlin17 · 17/10/2013 00:27

If I'm in any newsagent which stocks The Daily Star (and not all do) I put the Guardian or the Indie or the FT on top of it. Their covers are worse than page 3.

Wouldn't it be great if page 3 went the way of things like the black and white minstrel show and smoking in restaurant as in what the hell were we thinking?

Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:29

I know. And it shocked me two ways, one, that I had thought I had become innured to those images over the years, and two, that actually the pornography and abuse inherent in it came back to shock me.

I feel a bit weird about it. Can't understand how I was so oblivious to it, although I guess never buying or seeing those papers had made me forget they were actually there...also my awakening 30 or so years ago this was just the tip of the iceberg (as it were) so it was subsumed in my anger as all of a piece...

But to have such a feeling or horror and disgust...a new one for me. Maybe we have all moved on such much we don't realise it...

OP posts:
Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:32

You see, I still get cross and revolted by say the Daily Sport, with its tits etc on the cover, I have challenged newsagents on it, they have explained that the distributor provides the stands and they have to arrange the papers according to the distributors desires, ie, daily sport tits and fanny shots just in sight of toddlers...

So shame on the distributors (WH Smith, anyone)

But page 3. I suddenly felt like a mum to those girls and wanted to drape a dressing gown around them and scratch my nails down the faces of the photographers and agents and newspapers who would use them like that.

hm.

OP posts:
NoComet · 17/10/2013 00:37

They are boobs

Your DS has surely seen yours, he's probably fed from them.

If he's 13 he's probably googled hundreds of them on his phone and shoes them his mates.

Given the invention of Lycra there is bugger all difference in Many women wearing a high necked jumper or standing there stark naked

Truly I just don't care.

NoComet · 17/10/2013 00:39

I'd be quite happy to be paid for showing my boobs in public. Given DD happily BF in public until she was nearly two, I've done it often enough for free.

Caitlin17 · 17/10/2013 00:39

I think it might be The Sport rather than The Star I cover up.

Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:41

Right, well thanks star for that input.

OP posts:
Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:45

BTW way ds does not have a phone, I have restrictions on the internet which is he only allowed on if I am around and can see what he is doing.

I'm not being overbearing. I am being a parent who has decided that pictures and vids of women being abused sexually is not part of his future until he is emotionally ready to deal with it.

breastfeeding him as a small baby and child does not equate to him regarding breasts as purely food sources. He is a human being. He will respond to breasts sexually now. No need for him to see them as objects divorced from their owners.

OP posts:
Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:45

call me old fashioned. we have talked about it.

OP posts:
Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 00:49

And I think you misunderstand the difference between a grown woman breast feeding in public and a teenager being paid to thrust her naked tits out as titillation for the masses. generally men.

OP posts:
Caitlin17 · 17/10/2013 00:56

The whoosh of a missed point. Star, it's not about whether boys see naked breasts. It's the context ; seeing breastfeeding or topless women on the beach doesn't remotely equate.

In fact in the world of these rags they are probably against these (breast feeding,yuk, saggy old tits ,yuk)

Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 01:04

Indeed Caitlin.

OP posts:
NoComet · 17/10/2013 01:14

I know all the feminist arguments, but of 3 doesn't bother me at all and and lads mags not either.

Men enjoy looking at naked women, I enjoy looking at Rafa Nadal without his shirt on.

I worry far far far far more about the endless column inches given over to female celebs weight and taking the piss out of their fashion sense, those articles are incredibly insidious and damaging to girls self esteem.

Original poster
MadameDefarge · 17/10/2013 01:25

do you not get the relationship between naked young girls being offered up for titillation and an reduction in their self esteem?

OP posts:
Vivacia · 17/10/2013 05:47

I really like the idea of hiding the Sport by moving another paper in front. A small act I f protest which is legal but effective.

BlingBang · 17/10/2013 08:14

Lads mags, I expect that. It's the fact they call themselves a newspaper and prints this stuff. It's just bizarre. I went into our little local shop and on eye level for kids was one with a huge close up shot of a girls arse, bent over with a tiny string on. It was pornographic and on the front page with the newspspers. I mean really WTF? It really knocked be back and made me angry.

ImABadGirl · 17/10/2013 12:10

they are lumps of fat with nipples on the end, big whoop...you know the boobs are in there so why is it a little treat to read this paper?

I'm not at all bothered by page 3, it doesn't register on my give-a-fuck ometer!

NoComet · 17/10/2013 12:21

"do you not get the relationship between naked young girls being offered up for titillation and an reduction in their self esteem?"

Err, no. I think both my DDs have enough self esteem for that not to register on their radar at all.

Caitlin17 · 17/10/2013 12:27

BlingBlang and MadamDefarge, The Co-Op have stopped stocking lads mags. My local Scotmid doesn't stock the Sport, not sure if it has the Sun.

Feminine · 17/10/2013 12:28

I don't mind it either.

Mind you, I only come across that page once in a blue moon.

A good thing is that the girls are normally very healthy looking-sparkly eyes and a good weight.

For me, (unlike some publications/media) it looks quite a happy set up.

Daft as that might be?

CloverkissSparklecheeks · 17/10/2013 12:47

I have done topless modelling and it has never affected my self esteem. I have a professional job now but was something I was happy doing at one point. All very nice and above board in spite of what most of MN would like to believe!

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