Why ban page 3?

[jackburton]

Hi, this is my first post, please be gentle :) . I'm looking for some thoughtful discussion on page 3 and the objectification of women, my wife suggested posting here. Any recommendations for good articles or feedback would be great.

My main issue with a lot of the traditional discussion on this issue is that there seems to be an implicit assumption of passivity and conformity in women that I can't really relate to as a man (or feel is present in many of the women in my life). I don't particularly worry about my son seeing body building or gay lifestyle magazines or other fetishised representations of men because I see them as part of a range of different types of lifestyle that he could adopt. I would think it quite alien that the occasional image of men in this way would significantly affect me (or him). In contrast, advertising and lifestyle magazines aimed at women seem to impose a very disturbing level of conformity and one that I feel would not be acceptable to most men. Frankly a lot of female targeted products seem to objectify (in the sense of judging purely by appearance) and be misogynist (in the sense of appearing to gain pleasure from and dwelling on the humiliation of women, particularly if their superficial appearance is non-conformist). In contrast most pornographic products aimed at men include a great diversity of female personality types, some are passive but many are not, Jordan being a classic example. They aren't treated as objects in the sense that their desire is critical to their appeal, sex dolls are relatively undesirable. While there is certainly some pornography and lifestyle discussions that appear to encourage pleasure in the suffering of women I feel this is in the minority with most magazines presenting their female models as stars who are the centre of attention and whose happiness and desire is an important part of their appeal.

My initial feelings about the campaign against page 3 is that these images are being judged assuming they were present in the kind of magazine targeted at women i.e. they are a conforming image and that they would lead to humiliation of those that didn't conform. I think the majority of male culture is not oppressive in that way. Personally I find mainstream female culture to be much more of a problem for women's liberation than these products. What am I missing?

I personally don't like page 3 but that's not about the nudity, I think the way it's set up is just sort of crap. I don't know, it isn't really a huge issue to me. I think that energy could be better spent somewhere else.

How is it demonising men to say that men who behave inappropriately are not always "old" or "creepy"?

The idea that you can "spot" sexual predators is a rape myth. Men who behave badly, from the minor things to the major things, are all shapes and sizes, ages, professions, levels of wealth etc.

You are basically saying that if women have had bad stuff done to them by men who are not "old" and "creepy" they are, what, lying? I don't understand your attitude. Young, normal looking men are perfectly capable of behaving badly towards women, from the nasty but not illegal end of the scale through to the worst crimes imaginable.

Your attitude that you can "spot" sex offenders is what caused all that trouble for that poor landlord in that murder case, who got strung up by the tabloids basically because he had bad hair. Pathetic.

Do you know, there's no point is there.

If you have never been a 12/14/16/18 year old girl then you aren't going to get it, unless you try. And neither of you are going to try. So there's really very little point.

Telling women who are trying to explain, based on their life experiences and the experiences of people they know, that they are over-reacting, and dismissing anything they say without even considering it, is just not humane behaviour. But then I guess that men who are red hot keen on page 3 aren't going to be interested in being humane towards females, that's kind of the whole point.

I have seen many men ogle page 3 in public and various workplaces. I have seen men sit in malls on benches opposite La Senza and stare at the mannequins / posters. Some men may furtively consume women's bodies for their sexual arousal in public, others are less furtive. All of it is unacceptable.

Libertarian, should anything be allowed to be shown on p3? Anything that is sexually stimulating to someone?

I did ask you this before - but you failed to answer and just called me an authoritarian. You keep going on about the nanny state. But I would like you to answer this very simple question - does a 'libertarian' believe that a newspaper should be free to put anything it wants on pg3? (or any page for that matter).

I think it would be interesting to have a man in a sexy pose who is visibly aroused through his pants.

I think that is the nearest to page 3 you are going to get, given that there is no direct equivalent in society.

Lib does not seem keen on that idea, for some reason. Although he happily asserts that if that was randomly published one week, the vast majority of the UK would be absolutely OK with it.

All these arguments about the objectifying of women are very interesting and valid, but wrt Page 3, I simply don't understand how a man can still think it acceptable to sit there in public, potentially next to a child or woman, while arousing himself by looking at a picture of a naked model. Quite apart from any feminist arguments, it is simply grossly inappropriate, which is why such pictures have no place in a newspaper.

Objectification theory is a nonsense theory engineered by radical feminists to try and make natural human physical attraction into something sinister and wrong.

You are making too many assumptions there, you can't assume what people think or react when they see a topless image and what do you mean by 'arousing himself'? (sounds like you are getting a bit carried away there)

It also sounds as if you are trying to demonize men too, and are more or less saying men can't be trusted with such imagery. Also are you going to ban women from wearing short skirts, as under your logic they could cause men to experience that horrible arousal thing Physical attraction. Where are a you going to draw the line? ban low cut tops? skin tight jeans, leggings......There's plenty of countries that do impose such restrictions but they certainly don't provide shinning examples of equality and human rights.

I'd rather that when females (including schoolgirls) wear short skirts, men didn't leer openly at them, yes.

Plenty of people have a keen eye for attractive others, and manage to appreciate them without the other person realising or making them feel uncomfortable. Many people can even do a spot of minor flirting without creeping the fuck out of the other, or staring.

Looking really isn't a problem, open obvious appraisal & leering are.

Maybe you don't understand the difference.

Do at least try and compare like with like.

It might just help your thought processes.

I wonder how the libertarians would feel about the following items of free speech on page 3 of a newspaper:

• paid for endorsements of products not identified as advertising
• advertising claims that cannot be backed up with evidence
• advertising falsely suggesting endorsement by a public figure
• messages paid by political parties which is not identified as such
• untrue facts about a person that are likely to diminish their reputation
• true facts about people that relate to their private lives
• images depicting graphic violence
• images depicting child pornography
• images depicting explicit sex acts
• images depicting an erect penis
• statements encouraging hatred or violence towards members of an ethnic or religious group

All of these things are restricted or banned in the UK. If you agree with any of these restrictions, you cannot use libertarianism as your argument for continuing with Page 3.

That's a straw man, lib. Nobody's talking about banning short skirts - we're asking for a re-thinking of the dinosaur that is page 3. Nobody's trying to ban sex, or arousal, or pretty girls - it's quite simple - we believe that there is no place for soft porn in daily newspapers.

Libertarian, should anything be allowed to be shown on p3? Anything that is sexually stimulating to someone?

yes as long as it's consenting adults and legal. Then it's down to the free market to decide if it's a viable product. In the case of the sun with it's topless page 3 models it is certainly a viable product as it's still the country best selling paper. Also remember 45% of the Suns 7 million readership are women, so if they were really that upset about it then why buy it? There's plenty of alternatives out there.

As long as it's legal? Not much of a libertarian then.

Consenting adults and legal? So erect penises would be ok? People having sex?

What about every item that's on Flora's list - are libertarians ok with all of those?

Interesting what you say about market forces - I wonder just how much the female readership would drop if they stopped page 3? Or indeed the male readership come to that. The 'keep pg3' petition has only a paltry 3000 odd signatures...strangely lacking in support.

Didn't they stop page 3 during the Olympics?

And lib, you're sure, absolutely sure (and have proof) that the reason the Sun is the best selling newspaper is because it has young girls' posing topless in it? Not because it's cheap and the sport section is informative? Could it also be that people buy it in spite of page 3? I have no proof either way, and I'm willing to bet you don't either. Therefore 'The Sun is the biggest selling newspaper, ergo everyone wants to looks at pg3' argument is a load of shoemakers. How many of the 7 million readers do so online? Is pg3 in the online version in the same format?

Again.

Please try and compare like with like. It might make your so far flimsy points have more substance.

Plenty of people have a keen eye for attractive others, and manage to appreciate them without the other person realising or making them feel uncomfortable. Many people can even do a spot of minor flirting without creeping the fuck out of the other, or staring.

and plenty of people read the sun without making anyone feel uncomfortable. It wasn't a strawman it was demonstrating double standards at play.

Objectification isn't a radical feminist theory and it isn't nonsense. It isn't about men's 'arousal', it is about how women are viewed - as the sex class. This can range from the narrowed down view of 'attractive' women Page 3 has to offer or the continual stream of passing comments about how a woman looks instead of what she does all the way up to sexual assaults and rape.

But this is falling on deaf ears. Libertarianj doesn't even think society and the norms therein play a part in how anyone's psyche is formed. We all live in vacuums and evolve our behaviour arbitrarily

I think if we scratch the surface, libertarianj isn't as 'libertarian' as he'd like to think.

Flora a libertarian is not an anarchist as i think you are trying to imply. It a is a person who believes in minimal government intervention and maximum civil liberties.

" Libertarianj doesn't even think society and the norms therein play a part in how anyone's psyche is formed. We all live in vacuums and evolve our behaviour arbitrarily"

Really?

Wow. So we have an extremist posting here.

libertarianfail can you define "libertarian" without recourse to Wikipedia?

libfail cross-post. Define minimal.

It was the daily newspaper in our house, I grew up with it. I never liked the tits page, it made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't know why. I couldn't fathom why it was the newspaper of choice for my parents. It made me look at my parents in a different light.

Mum said she liked the crossword puzzle.

When I was older I argued about them reading it, I tried to persuade them to choose a different paper - didn't work. I also tried to persuade them to vote for the Labour Party - that didn't work either lol.

They read the Daily Mail now....

Maximum civil liberties to ogle women's tits in a daily newspaper?

Right. On you go now.

Again I am failing to see how asking The Sun to remove Page 3 because it is irrelevant and damaging (whether you believe it is or not), is affecting anyone's civil liberties?