I support Page 3, who's with me?

[Beth9009]

This might not go down well, but I cannot accept the campaign to ban Page 3. Here's why:

There is nothing wrong with the naked female body. A woman posing with her breasts on show is not lewd nor is it harmful to children.

Hypocrisy - Page 3 is no different to male models posing shirtless in women's magazines.

Prudishness - People who claim that newspapers should be banned from showing topless women are no different to the Victorians or to people in conservative parts of the world who don't allow women to show bare legs. It's the same principle.

Market mechanisms - if there is a demand for something and a consenting adult willing to supply it, then who is the government to get in the way?

Freedom of choice - if you don't like it, don't buy the Sun!

I think you are totally missing the point. Page 3 is an incredibly sexist concept where photos of women are printed solely for men to leer at. Not progressive at all.

I am sure other people will be able to make far more eloquent observations than I...

Lottieandmia

I don't agree that it is sexist any more than my calender of shirtless Royal Marine hunks (lol) is sexist. Would you want that banned to?

And just because something is not fit in with your idea of what is progressive, it doesn't mean you should ban it.

too*

I love the market mechanisms one - would be interested to hear how far you take the demand/consent to supply logic

like renting the uterus of a woman in poverty to incubate a child for richer women?

living kidney/other organ donations from the developing world to the likes of us?

(am not a fan of page 3 or of banning it)

We already live in a world where the odds are stacked against women in terms of equality and reinforcing the idea that they are primarily fuck toys doesn't help IMO. It's entirely different. As I said, not progressive.

I misread this as 'I support Page 3, what's wrong with me?!' which would be an entirely different discussion!

But lottieandmia, I don't understand how P3 does reinforce that idea. It's just a bit of fun and nobody takes it seriously.

Sorry OP but you're missing the point about why many of us would like Page 3 to go.

The Sun is a newspaper, not a magazine aimed openly at one sex or a calendar.

The images we are objecting to are not simply images of half naked women, they are sexualised images of half naked women; they objectify women. Therein lies the problem. If you genuinely can't see the difference it would take more time than I have got to explain it to you.

Freedom of choice - if no-one ever read The Sun in public there would be less of an issue, but because it is a newspaper, and it is normal for newspapers to be read in cafes, public transport, etc, my freedom of choice to not have these images visible around me is removed.

surely most women would agree that being a sexual subject is much more fun than being an object though

Tunip, of course it's objectifying women. That's the point. It's a visual image. I refer you to my example of my Royal Marines calender, does this not objectify men? What's the difference? Why can't I objectify the male body from time to time?

The sun is a newspaper.

Boobs are not news.

Meglet -

So you'd ban crosswords and other stuff from tabloid papers?

Of course you wouldn't. Some of the arguments against P3 are really poor. So it's a bit cheap and tacky and not news, but it's absurd to give his as a reason to ban it.

OP, in case you missed my earlier question:

I love the market mechanisms one - would be interested to hear how far you take the demand/consent to supply logic

like renting the uterus of a woman in poverty to incubate a child for richer women?

living kidney/other organ donations from the developing world to the likes of us?

IMO, if you oppose Page 3 because it objectifies women, then you must also oppose any photos in magazines that depict shirtless men in a way that objectifies them. Or the use of hot shirtless men in films or in advert.

Otherwise you are a hypocrite.

Oh dear OP you're really not getting it.
A calendar is not a newspaper. A calendar of that type displayed in a public place would be problematic. (Used to be normal in all sorts of male-dominated workplaces, less so now. Would also be unacceptable for a bunch of women in a woman-dominated workplace to make male visitors or colleagues have to put up with a Royal Marines calendar. If you want to have one in your bedroom that's fine by me.)

Famines doesn't need you OP

'IMO, if you oppose Page 3 because it objectifies women, then you must also oppose any photos in magazines that depict shirtless men in a way that objectifies them. Or the use of hot shirtless men in films or in advert.
Otherwise you are a hypocrite.'

No, because meaning is determined by context and context includes such things as frequency of like images.

I personally am not keen on hot shirtless men images in adverts, but I'd rather put my time and effort into opposing those of women because they're a far, far bigger problem. Men's bodies aren't used to sell stuff anything like as much as women's are.

Buffy, your point about the difference between how women are posed in Page 3 and how men are posed in women's magazines is simply down to a a matter of taste. We like men to be dominant and strong, whereas men are attracted to the innocent look. And couldn't you say that we put pressure on men to be strong and masculine when they might not all want to be? So should be ban our depictions of shirtless men on these grounds?

Fair point Mitchy on calling me out on market mechanisms.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but I disagree.

A woman's bare breasts are not the same as a man's bare chest - that's why swimsuits are designed the way they are, and why it is okay for a man to wander around town in just shorts and flipflops on a hot day.

Bare legs are different from a woman's bare breasts. Again, the social acceptability of walking around in shorts or a short skirt will make this pretty obvious.

The fact that someone is prepared to do something for money doesn't mean we should not try to protect them from it, or from deciding it is socially unacceptable. That's why we have laws.

Page 3 is harmful because it reinforces the idea that women's purpose in life is to be attractive and sexually available. I don't like living in a society where that is considered an ok message to give our sons and daughters.

'the innocent look'?
I think there's rather more to it than that.

Damn, were those of us who don't like page 3 supposed to be disliking women's bodies, finding them lewd and harmful to children, promoting the objectification of men and feeling driven, lemming-like, to buy the paper all the same?

I must've been doing it wrong. Still, makes a change from being woman-loving man-hating lesbians, I suppose.

Sorry OP, it's just ... unless you've been living under a rock you must know people don't actually hold those views you're claiming to attack, so isn't this just a straw man argument?

TunipTheUnconquerable Fri 17-Jan-14 12:44:52
'the innocent look'?
I think there's rather more to it than that.

Could you expand please?

AMuminScotland
_

I passionately disagree with you that a woman's bare chest is different to a man's. The only reason men can walk around bare chested and a woman can't is because of a conservative, anti-woman oppression. In the Victorian period, men could have bare legs but women couldn't. It's the same principle.

IMO women should be able to walk around on a hot day with no top on, just as men can. That to me is feminism.