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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To ask how I can explain to DH why page 3 was wrong?

465 replies

Ifyourawizardwhydouwearglasses · 20/01/2015 23:03

He just thinks it was harmless. 'If you don't like it, don't look.' I'd like to educate him but I can't seem to find the words.

He's intelligent but can't seem to get this one.

OP posts:
Willferrellisactuallykindahot · 24/01/2015 15:49

BruceTwee my username has already been disused ^at length on this thread Smile

Willferrellisactuallykindahot · 24/01/2015 15:55

But just in the interests of equality, I'm posting a picture of a male victim of sexual objectification.

Do we think he's got what it takes to make it onto Page 3?

BruceTwee · 24/01/2015 16:13

Well I can see why you like him Grin

Too much body hair for me though. I'd wax if I were that hairy!

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 16:48

I don't know exactly what point I was making except women read, buy or work for newspapers but don't necessarily subscribe to the whole thing. In fact, it's naive and patronising to think they would.

I also find it insulting to think they should do so and then to use that argument to dismiss their concerns about a particular feature or pretend they don't exist.

Jane Moore was forging a TV career at the time and swooped on the issue of the moment which was body image in women's magazines. Fair enough. I thought she'd be up for debate or at least have a sense of irony or humour. How wrong I was Wink I still got paid, which is an important thing in this house.

I have a copy of the Daily Mail today because I like the TV guide. I don't like their politics or entire world view.

But I don't like The Sun's politics either but I used to read it for Ally Ross's sublime TV column because I like telly and he made me laugh.

I'd also read it on Saturdays for their White Van Man feature in which they'd question the drivers of white vans on the issues of the week. If you've never read it, it was wonderfully subversive, and the views expressed were not what you might imagine from the title of the feature. I don't know how it got in there but thankfully it's been stamped out Wink

Their entertainment listings are good, as are their health features, but I'm not that fussed. I'm not here to defend The Sun. I just dislike the idea that The Sun is a comic or not a newspaper. It has news and you don't have to like the whole thing to acknowledge that.

I know people who read the Mail's sports section, and also those in the Telegraph and Times, but throw away the rest.

No one expects them to sign up to those papers' entire editorial position or defend individual features because they like one section. But perhaps that's because they are men.

And, yes, I do know women like sport too. I sometimes read the sports features myself. And not just for the hunky bods.

YonicScrewdriver · 24/01/2015 17:02

Daemon, what if p3 featured topless black people of both sexes, alternately, but never featured white people, with the same scripted comments on the news.

Would there be more or less backlash, do you think?

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 24/01/2015 17:05

Has there ever been a black page 3 girl?

AnyFucker · 24/01/2015 17:12

I love that link, Sabrina

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 17:16

This is possibly a complete diversion Yonic but I read a Tony Parsons's piece describing Myleene Klass, who's mixed Asian(Filipina)/European as exotic.

I think he meant it as a compliment Confused. I believe his wife is Asian - Japanese - and he was probably taking a swipe at his former wife Julie Burchill, who is large and white.

Klass reacted angrily. She said that though everyone is entitled to their likes, she was a person and didn't appreciate being described as a thing.

It wasn't as ballistic as I thought she felt, but she was trying to build a career and he's an important media figure, so I thought it was brave of her to say anything at all.

Again, I'm not sure what my point is, except that 'exotic' can be the acceptable face of 'hot tiny sex babe who cooks all day and fucks all night and never tells me to pick up my socks.'

YonicScrewdriver · 24/01/2015 17:23

Crikey! Good point myleene.

I can't see TP describing, I dunno, Mike Tyson or linford Christie as exotic, somehow...

Did you read his book about a white man marrying an Asian woman? I resolved never to read another of his after that...

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 17:31

Has there ever been a black page 3 girl?

As a matter of fact there was SabrinaMulhollandJones.

She's called Gillian De Terville possibly NSFW.

I think it catered for those with 'exotic' tastes that I mentioned about Myleene Klass.

Equal opportunities and all that.

Not too many of them though.

MyFriendlyDaemon · 24/01/2015 17:35

And god forbid any man feels patronised

Actually Amanda I was referring to women who don't have an issue with Page 3 being talked down to by those who know better.

MyFriendlyDaemon · 24/01/2015 17:41

Oh and as for Tony Parsons.

It's difficult to know which one to take less seriously , him or his annoying ex-wife.

To be fair to Julie she does occasionally come up with things I find myself nodding in agreement with. For example why on earth did John Peel come to epitomise all that is cool and why his unsavoury past is overlooked?

TheRealAmandaClarke · 24/01/2015 17:51

Ok fair enough.

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 17:52

I was referring to women who don't have an issue with Page 3 being talked down to by those who know better.

MyFriendlyDaemon I'm not wishing to argue with you but I do have an issue with Page 3 but not necessarily with other features in The Sun.

I don't think that amounts to me talking down to other readers.

As I explained, I greatly enjoy some aspects of The Sun, and appreciate some others while not being that fussed about them.

That doesn't mean to say I endorse Page 3.

It should be got rid of because it's crappy and outdated.

But my fundamental objection was that sticking this image in a national newspaper is just fucking sick.

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 17:54

I think we'll have to agree to disagree MyFriendlyDaemon

Dinner is calling, the house is a mess and my husband will be home soon.

YonicScrewdriver · 24/01/2015 17:55

Daemon, I rather suspect Peel just died at the right time as far as lasting reputation is concerned.

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 17:58

I don't know what happened with that link.

It seems like a rare moment of internet prudery. Or it might be behind the News International firewall.

Anyway it was a pic of a mid-teen Sam Fox in school uniform unbuttoned to the waist brandishing a ruler and blowing a bubblegum.

I'm sure you get the picture.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 24/01/2015 18:03

Thanks Limited - I was genuinely interested. (My internet blocked that link though!)

I share your (and Mylene's) feelings on use of the term "exotic" for women - it's a terrible objectifying (and possibly racist) thing to do to women - categorising them according to their looks.

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 18:26

SabrinaMulhollandJjones not surprised.

The Sun pictures of Gillian are as cheesecaky as you'd imagine. If you can imagine a cheesecake with cherries on top. Or in her case and skin colour, ripe and bursting sultanas, as I imagine they might say.

The reason I remembered her was that she had a distinctive surname and I met a man with the same name who turned out to be her uncle.

He was non-committal about her career arc. As it should be. It wasn't his business to tell his niece what to do.

I don't have a problem with women posing semi naked or naked for money or for nothing either.

I do have a problem with people telling me I shouldn't care about it or should be defending their human rights beyond employment law Shock

limitedperiodonly · 24/01/2015 18:50

The first site I found when searching for Gillian is very unpleasant.

But that kind of makes my point.

Search for page 3 pix of smiling teenagers with their tits out and get video of women being fucked up the arse and being cummed on their faces and loving it on the side bar.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 24/01/2015 19:04

I don't have a problem with nudity per se - and I'm no prude, as I said on wither this thread or the other, feminists fought the sexual revolution, for sexual equality (and the fight goes on!) but overtly sexualised images of topless women in the newspaper? No - boobs are not news.

I know from reading up on this that I'm not the only mother that has had to answer the question from her child "mummy, why has that lady got a bare chest?"

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 24/01/2015 19:05

fought for the sexual revolution!

BriarRainbowshimmer · 24/01/2015 19:15

Does anyone really believe that this is about women being prudes.
I think they just say it rile us up.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 24/01/2015 19:22

I agree briar
Its just easy to say that and shuts people up.
"Jealous" "prudish"
Just attempts to invalidate your comments on the issue.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 24/01/2015 19:33

It always fascinates me in a way when feminists are called prudes. Because if you study the history/literature of feminism back in the day of the suffragists, they were frequently called 'whores' and the like, for wanting women to be free from sexual repression.

Feminism definitely does not equal sexual repression.