Why can't we just ban page three?

[Dragontamer]

Brilliant points raised by Clare Short in The Independent. To summarise:
You would think that the relentless sexism in the media would come up against 'media ethics'. However, Lord Leveson says that this topic goes beyond his remit. It is not ok to have lewd pictures of women on the office wall or before the watershed, why then are these images allowed in a widely circulated, national newspaper?

Having just had a daughter, I am anxious about what messages she will receive from this type of constant negative bombardment about women's bodies.

When Short has attempted to challenge this she has been bombarded by the snide remarks about her own body and criticised as being 'jealous'.

So, could this be a new campaign for mumsnet? Let me know your thoughts...

Breasts don't have to be sexual. Page 3 is all about sexualising breasts. Breasts are fab. Page 3 is porn.

There are some very, very convoluted defenses of page 3 in this thread.

Is wearing low cut tops sexualising breasts?

Breasts don't have to be sexual but they can be and there's nothing wrong with that. Why is sexualisation deemed to be a bad thing? Amongst consenting adults, it's quite typical.

Stimulating sexual desire is not a bad thing, IMO, please tell me why it is?

So with page 3, ban it and in a few years, public opinion will have caught up. Sounds good to me.

It's nothing like trying to ban cannabis. Page 3 is not controlled by some vast amorphous and ever changing international network of anonymous criminals. The Sun is a 'newspaper' with an owner and staff and it has a strong interest in obeying the law. It would be easy to ban page 3 and as someone very early in the thread pointed out, The Sun may even be grateful to be able to get rid of an embarrassing anachronism while blaming somebody else for depriving men of their breakfast wank-fodder.

The general public are not consenting adults in this situation. They haven't agreed to watching men consume porn and become aroused.

Should be banned asap along with strip clubs.

You don't have to watch, they may not be getting aroused and people get aroused by all sorts of things every day... Are you going to ban women bending over in short skirts or people with sexy eyes. I think you are missing the point that getting aroused is subjective.

Do men get aroused looking at Page 3?

I must admit in my unenlightened youth I used to buy The Sun, I can't imagine many men getting aroused by it.

I can only imagine that there are some people on this thread who have never been schoolgirls having their bodies ogled on public transport by some bloke who is enjoying page 3 at the same time.

The way some on this thread talk, you'd imagine that a woman going around the underground offering male passengers the chance to look at her tits would be no problem.

I genuinely don't understand the way some people think of this. The talk about consenting adults, so what etc. Sex and porn are usually kept for consenting adults in private. Page 3 is soft porn for selfish adults in public, and they don't care about the fact they are inflicting it on others.

And of course sometimes are keen to enjoy page 3 in direct and obvious relation to the actual real girls and women around him.

It's shit.

Women bend over to pick things up. People with 'sexy' eyes use them for seeing things with. What other function does page 3 serve except a sexual one?

Also, women bending over and people with eyes are people, whereas page 3 is a cultural product.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/17586

I really hope there are better arguments put forward to ban it, otherwise, there's not a hope in hell. It's not just bout the petition, you actually need a coherent argument about why it negatively impacts society. I haven't heard any yet.

Yes. I'm not sure p3 has quite the sexual impact being portrayed on this thread.

Ban p3... Women won't be any better off. Men will still find something to get arouse by in public while sitting next to your daughters, some of them will still ogle yoou daughters. Completely the wrong approach IMO.

You understand that it is illegal to show "harder" images in papers, which is why they don't?

If you are for freedom of the press and imagination and whotnot do you want those bans lifted?

Or is it that you personally have no problem with the line between what is OK and what is legally obscene is in the right place for you, and so you couldn't give a monkeys if (lots and lots) of other people want it moved.

If anything some men will say, don't wear certain clothes if you don want to be looked at... They banned p3 didn't they?.... It's so wrong to ask women to change their behaviour in this way when your issue lies with society as a whole.

SQ which is precisely why CONSENSUS is so important here. Rather than having a ban IMPOSED. Which is why I favour other methods to bring about the end of P3.

eclectic if a man looks at you, he looks at you. Sometimes he might stare a bit. You can guess at what he's thinking, but still.

if a man is sitting looking at page 3, then staring at your tits, then at page 3, then at your tits, it is kind of obvious, and many pubescent girls find it embarassing and upsetting when it happens.

I am genuinely surprised that there are girls who didn't feel embarrassed about seeing men looking at page 3 - when they were 10 or 11 - and didn't feel embarrassed and upset/angry at being ogled in that way when they were a little older. It's not on and it happens all the time.

Get rid of page 3 and the problem is gone. The men will still look, but maybe less as they won't have that prompt, and the girls are less likely to get upset as they haven't got a big signpost pointing out how they are being objectified.

eclectic men will look no matter what you wear.

Often school uniform.
I find your comment strange.
Do you think men only look at women and girls who are dressed in a certain way? How naive and distanced from reality.

Lots of other people, I.e the majority of the population don't feel the need to ban it. All my questions are being ignored. You can't ban something because "some" people don't agree with it. No one has responded to the pouts about where it stops. If you've been personally badly affected by p3, I'm very sorry. I've been personally badly affected by alcoholism but I don't argue to ban alcohol, I argue for people to be educated as to the dangers of alcohol.

Can you not see that?

Sq, I don't get your post about school uniform, was it directed at me?