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!

MumInScotland Good post.

I have never seen images of men that are as objectifying as those of women that are everywhere - where you just see parts of their bodies without faces, or are somehow propped up or displayed in a way that makes them look as their primary function is female sexual pleasure

they are probably out there but not in anything like the volume of images of female sexual objectification

If men and women were equal in every way in the world, if there were not a worryingly large number of men who think that objectifying women is fine, that women are all 'asking for it' when they wear short skirts and 'man-haters' when they don't, then you might have a valid point, and we could all publish half-naked pictures without it feeding into a negative attitude towards women.

When that day comes, I will celebrate.

It hasn't happened yet, and is a long way off.

Women are objectified, day in and day out. And it is not 'a bit of fun'

I would guess that the marines who posed for your calendar thought it was a 'bit of fun', because they are part of the gender who are far less likely to be on the receiving end of objectification. For them, it can be a joke. For women, it shouldn't be. That trivialises it.

You have got to see it in a wider context though. Women are seen increasingly seen as sex objects in a culture that is becoming more pornified.

Ironically for a lot of girls the number of role models for girls is actually shrinking.

Not me.

You are missing the point completely OP :(

I don't think I can put it better than Buffy did. If it's still not clear why I think 'innocent' is an inadequate summary of the difference, please read her link.

Breasts are sexual organs - ie they are a functional part of your reproductive system. That makes them fundamentally different from legs, or from men's chests.

'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.'

Well, we're not going to get there through printing sexualised images of women's breasts in newspapers.

Bloody hell Buffy, that American Apparel thing is enough to make me never want anything to do with them ever again, and to hide them from my 11 y o dd.

OP: I doubt v. much that anyone will say anything to convince you that boobs aren't news, or that pornography isn't okay in a 'newspaper' that lies around in cafes and hairdressers' and all sorts of public places. I won't ever buy The Sun, and have got behind the No More p3 campaign.

AMumInScotland Fri 17-Jan-14 12:56:05
Breasts are sexual organs - ie they are a functional part of your reproductive system. That makes them fundamentally different from legs, or from men's chests.
_-

In what way are breasts functional sexual organs?

I am sensing a touch of faux-naivety here.

Buffy - yes, it is a matter of taste and taste is largely determined by biology.

Of course sexual imagery aimed at men is going to depict innocent looking women in suggestive poses. Men are hardly going to be attracted to images of an angry looking woman with her shoulders hunches over, are they?

Likewise, I am not going to buy a calender if it's full of weak looking men looking wide eyed and submissive. There are biological reasons for this.

On the issue of the female bare chest vs the male bare chest...

They can both be sexual, equally so. When Daniel Craig is featured shirtless in a magazine, is his muscular chest just incidental? Or does it feature because women find it sexually attractive?

There is no difference and women should not be made to feel like they have to hide their breasts! If a man can walk around shirtless, I should be able to as well!

Imagine a group of men getting together to start a campaign to stop magazines from publishing pictures of chiseled shirtless men because it is making them feel insecure. That's what it's like, and it's quite absurd, really.

If a man wants to see a naked woman's picture, then he can feel free to go and buy an adult's magazine and read it in the privacy of his home. If a woman respects herself so little to sell her body in this way then it's her problem.

I am trying to shield my small son from this sort of thing, and it doesn't help when we go to have his haircut or go about our day and a man sitting with a "newspaper" opened on page 3 and a woman's boobs out on display. Newspapers should not have this type of picture on them.

well what's stopping you?

I don't think shirtless men are or should be any more acceptable in restaurants or the workplace or whatever than similarly exposed women - but on the beach, why not? I don't bother to cover up on a (european) beach as a rule

But beth, we can't help being insecure.

We're weak, feeble women and our precious sense of feminine security has been irrevocably undermined by the evils of feminism.

We really deserve your pity, not your anger.

Buffy, OMFG at the American Apparel ads.

I hope you have looked at that link OP.

In what way are breasts functional sexual organs?

Are you serious? I'm beginning to have some significant doubts.

Breasts allow you to breast-feed a baby. They are therefore connected with sex - you know, that thing which evolution came along with to let us reproduce with others?

Timetoask.

I don't think you need to shield your son from Page 3. My step son (who is teenager) buys these car magazines that feature topless women and it's just a normal part of growing up. It's no different to Cosmo which I used to buy as a teenager.

As a society we seem to be going backwards! We should stop being so afraid of the human body and human sexuality.