Should Page 3 discontinue?

Angeles

In general, I think the only problem here is people's perception of breasts.
Some believe they are the equivalent to a man showing his cock, others believe they are displays of soft porn..
All manipulated by media and women for hundreds of years to make men believe they are something a lot more then tools to feed a child.
Page 3 is nothing more then the display of a beautiful woman, something that can be appreciated as such. Unfortunately its the only good thing about the news paper so shutting that section down will likely kill the news paper. Which btw is really the only valid reason to do it, rather than omg tits.

Nothing wrong with looking at (.)(.) first thing in the morning.

But only if she allows it, tbh

pickarooney

Millicent wrote: »

What's the name of that girl, the Irish one, who got 600 points in the Leaving? The girls aren't necessarily stupid, it's that they aren't always the girls who see any future for themselves. It's not too long ago that Katie Price was loved in this country and the UK and held up as some icon for women.

Katie Price, multimillionaire businesswoman and bestselling author? As opposed to Katie Price, supermarket checkout girl which would probably have been the extent of her career progress if she hadn't gone into glamour modelling.

Washington Irving

Tabloids should discontinue

mike65

"Should Page 3 end?" would have been shorter (than Sam Fox). Why can't people write simple sentences any more?

mike65

Optimalprimerib wrote: »

In today's climate with everything freely available on the Internet, page 3 as a little redundant, but this hullabaloo is all over one of the so called elite getting photographed topless. The world has moved on my friends.

Even in the celebrity world, that no longer is a big deal. Even secret sex tapes are now run of the mill.

I see the focus on the page 3 modelling as severe opportunism by militant feminists, in which I find more offensive than a pretty young ones ample assets, so I voted kelp em in

I'd be more worried about other anti freedom militants these days I have to say. Yesterday a bunch of nutters gathered outside the US Embassy in London to have a "rabble rabble" about a film they think the US Government should have stopped, some bloke accused even the government of making it.

The assembled throng was from some organisation that wants a Sharia Law state in the UK. That's the threat now.

Guy:Incognito

Millicent wrote: »

That's a crap argument, tbh (on the side of the hypothetical editor). Why bother having press standards at all if we're going to debase young ones in a newspaper for some cheap and pointless titillation?.

There are standards and page 3 fits inside them. You effectively want to sensor it out?What else would you like to stop them putting in their paper?
Shoul dwe stop people putting boobs on the internet too? Stop them being allowed to go topless on beaches (but only women, men are fine to go topless anywhere, even really , realy fat men)

At the end of the day we're not even talkign about tits. Were talking about nipples. Theres any amount of women in bras or bikini tops in all the newspapers. Even broadsheets. But as soon as a nipple is uncovered, oooo nooo. Again though, mens nipples seem fine.

Millicent wrote: »

No, I'd rather they see more options for themselves and focus on a career with longevity that doesn't depend on something as fleeting as their looks.

The other options are still there. Page 3 isnt blocking anyone from doing anything, it's adding an extra option.



None of that gets away from the fact that its their paper to do as they please with. Just like Heff has Playboy and puts full frontal shots of women in it.

say_who_now?

mike65 wrote: »

"Should Page 3 end?" would have been shorter (than Sam Fox). Why can't people write simple sentences any more?

Because then Mike they wouldn't appear half as intellectual as they think they are!

Guy:Incognito

Millicent wrote: »

I'm not comfortable with the slippery slope argument on this one. Films, books etc. need to be protected against puritanical censorship in the name of art and self expression; splashing a pair of 18-year-old boobs in what's supposed to be a newspaper doesn't need to be. .

So 50 shades of grey = artistic merit because it only describes sexual depravation in words so should be left untampered and the authors rights protected , but woman with her top off in the paper = completely wrong and should be censored?

BunShopVoyeur

If the feminists are pushing for this then I want 50 shades of Grey and the David Beckham underwear ads pulled from circulation.

Ridiculous carry on as usual.

Duggy747

Doesn't bother me what they do with it, it's a rag anyways.

I do be more offended by the horrible tabloid journalism in it and obsession with celebrity culture than I do a pair of tits.

Mr Benevolent

More feminists wanting porn banned eh?

SellingJuan

What is this ****e, why change it. I mean seriously next your gonna try and censor the interweb...... Move back to your communist state if you agree with this nonsense

Millicent

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

If the feminists are pushing for this then I want 50 shades of Grey and the David Beckham underwear ads pulled from circulation.

Ridiculous carry on as usual.

Yep, those things are exactly the same. There's no distinction between naked breasts and erotic fiction and advertising at all...

Guy:Incognito

Millicent wrote: »

Yep, those things are exactly the same. There's no distinction between naked breasts and erotic fiction and advertising at all...

Beckham is often topless in them. If he was fat and had man boobs would it be banned? Maybe just allow flat chested women on page 3 ?

Millicent

pickarooney wrote: »

Katie Price, multimillionaire businesswoman and bestselling author? As opposed to Katie Price, supermarket checkout girl which would probably have been the extent of her career progress if she hadn't gone into glamour modelling.

Or Katie Price the show-jumping champion? Sorry, but I don't think little girls should be aspiring to getting famous on the back of getting their very fake boobs out and then churning out some ghost-written books and cheap perfumes. Money isn't always a very effective measure of success.

Millicent

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Beckham is often topless in them. If he was fat and had man boobs would it be banned? Maybe just allow flat chested women on page 3 ?

Are you really going to argue that there is no cultural, contextual or social difference between breasts and a man's chest?

BunShopVoyeur

Millicent wrote:

Yep, those things are exactly the same. There's no distinction between naked breasts and erotic fiction and advertising at all...

Why is a topless man less offensive?


Oh, that's right; it's only offensive to the people who are prudish or insecure about their bodies.

super_furry

Confab wrote: »

More feminists wanting porn banned eh?

There's quiet a difference between wanting porn banned and calmly asking for something so outdated, sexist and unneccesary removed from what is sadly one of the biggest selling tabloid newspapers in circulation. Porn wouldn't be left around on a table within reach of four and five year olds, but the Sun would.

Millicent

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

Why is a topless man less offensive?

Are you asking a serious question now or are you actually trying to say that both aren't perceived in different ways?

super_furry

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

Why is a topless man less offensive?

It's not offensive but there's a much larger sexual conotation and overtones surrounding a topless woman than a topless man because in our society female breasts are heavily sexualised.

BunShopVoyeur

Millicent wrote:

Are you asking a serious question now or are you actually trying to say that both aren't perceived in different ways?

They are perceived how you choose to perceive them. Not every nation has a culture of being terrified of the human body.

mackg

Millicent wrote: »

I've actually no problem with women going topless on a beach. There's a different context and motivation there; it's not purely for the titillation of socially incapable old pervs to salivate over. The guys I described in the workplace canteen earlier were exactly the same ones who would casually sexually harass the young ones in work and think nothing of it. That's not too long ago either.

You complained when someone derided all glamour models as being stupid a couple of pages back so maybe you might refrain from doing the same thing yourself? I have friends who read the Sun who don't fall into that bracket.

Lets take it that page 3 is used to sell newspapers without looking at whatever social ramifications it supposedly has for a moment. In modern society sex is used to sell practically everything. It's used to sell us beer, food, soft drinks, clothes, magazines, sports and music. So why not newspapers? Why single out page 3? You asked what reason does page 3 have to continue, well from what I can see it fits perfectly into the "sex sells" landscape we have now. It may be a little more bawdy and obvious but no different in its purpose. So instead of asking why should page 3 continue, maybe ask why should page 3 stop while everything else marches on?

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Ok. We ban page 3 then

....

- Censor all sexual content from newspapers. (1950s Ireland is calling)

This slippery slope business doesn't hold any water.

Surely Page 3 caters only for men who don't have relaxed, healthy, mature relationships with women. I don't mean just sexual relationships, though that is a given. Can men who need a fix of tit each day really have healthy relationships with their mothers, sisters, daughters, let alone female colleagues or any possible female friends? Page 3 tells these men, very clearly, that their misogyny is OK, something they don't have to question or change in themselves, just part of being a man.


Page 3 tells them that staring at knockers is not wrong, or inappropriate, or dysfunctional. It tells them it is a bit of fun, perfectly suitable for a family newspaper, nothing to be ashamed of. It also, no doubt, tells a good proportion of them that it is the women in the real world, who won't show them their baps, who are the withholding, ****ed-up bitches.

I know men who are perfectly functioning brothers/fathers/sons/husbands/boyfriends and friends to women who enjoy a gawk at page 3 and in no way think or behave as this downright offensive passage claims. The rest of the article is ok but this crap is not. I can't really speak about myself because I have made a point of not reading the Sun for a good number of years now.

Millicent

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

They are perceived how you choose to perceive them. Not every nation has a culture of being terrified of the human body.

So, by implication there, anyone who has an issue with Page 3 is terrified of the human body? Guess what? I have tits. They don't terrify me. Doesn't me I can't question an anachronistic and tacky practice today.

mackg wrote: »

You complained when someone derided all glamour models as being stupid a couple of pages back so maybe you might refrain from doing the same thing yourself? I have friends who read the Sun who don't fall into that bracket.

That quote related to the guys in my workplace canteen that I referred to earlier. I wasn't taking about your friends.

HeyThereDeliah

super_furry wrote: »

It's not offensive but there's a much larger sexual conotation and overtones surrounding a topless woman than a topless man because in our society female breasts are heavily sexualised.

Our society do you mean Ireland ?

mackg

Millicent wrote: »

So, by implication there, anyone who has an issue with Page 3 is terrified of the human body? Guess what? I have tits. They don't terrify me. Doesn't me I can't question an anachronistic and tacky practice today.



That quote related to the guys in my workplace canteen that I referred to earlier. I wasn't taking about your friends.

Fair enough, the point still stands about what whoever wrote the article said. She spoke in general terms.

GavRedKing

Wouldnt wipe my arse with The S*n.

BunShopVoyeur

Millicent wrote:

So, by implication there, anyone who has an issue with Page 3 is terrified of the human body? Guess what? I have tits. They don't terrify me. Doesn't me I can't question an anachronistic and tacky practice today.

Anyone that has such an obvious compulsion to have the practice banned or stopped either has issues with the human body, is insecure about their own or is simply being a stereotypical feminist and demanding ridiculous changes to the world around them in order to suit themselves.

If men started demanding for all sexualized images of men be torn from walls and banished from tv and internet we'd be deservedly laughed at.

It doesn't affect you, the girls are not exploited and there are obviously men around who enjoy the pictures.

pickarooney

Millicent wrote: »

Or Katie Price the show-jumping champion? Sorry, but I don't think little girls should be aspiring to getting famous on the back of getting their very fake boobs out and then churning out some ghost-written books and cheap perfumes. Money isn't always a very effective measure of success.

It's fine that you believe that and it's fine that someone else will prefer her to make money off her own back than that of an abused animal.

(I don't particularly care about show jumping horses either way, but I don't think anyone's own personal preferences for how they'd like others to earn a crust should be used to imping on those others' rights to do so.)

HeyThereDeliah

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

It doesn't affect you, the girls are not exploited and there are obviously men around who enjoy the pictures.

I would look at page 3 but have no desire to play with boobies but I would still look. It's harmless tbh and people who are complaining about it are trying to stay in the dark ages where nudity is concerned.

Micky Dolenz

Who cares. As long as they don't ban those educational video's on the internet, then it's all good.

HeyThereDeliah

HeyThereDeliah wrote: »

I would look at page 3 but have no desire to play with boobies but I would still look. It's harmless tbh and people who are complaining about it are trying to stay in the dark ages where nudity is concerned.

I've no problem with nudity at all. If page 3 girls were fully clothed I'd still have a problem with it.

HeyThereDeliah

true-or-false wrote: »

I've no problem with nudity at all. If page 3 girls were fully clothed I'd still have a problem with it.

You would have a problem with a picture of a fully clothed woman in a newspaper why?

Penn

HeyThereDeliah wrote: »

You would have a problem with a picture of a fully clothed woman in a newspaper why?

It's not news.

I oppose Page 3 as well. It's just the lowest of the low tabloid nonsense. In a newspaper, I expect news, even from rags like the Sun or Daily Star. Topless models, who pose specifically for a newspaper are in no way, shape or form a news item.

Maybe if it was put later in the paper, between the sport and crossword/horoscopes where all the phone chat ads are, maybe there wouldn't be as big an issue about it. But on the third page? Why? It is nothing to do with anything.

Scanlas The 2nd

I really don't see why it is sad to enjoy looking at an attractive pair of breast. As I've already said studies have shown it has a soothing destressing effect on men. How is it sad to enjoy feeling good. Marinate a woman's brain in testosterone and she'll enjoy seeing attractive breasts as much as men.

jaja321

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

I really don't see why it is sad to enjoy looking at an attractive pair of breast. As I've already said studies have shown it has a soothing destressing effect on men. How is it sad to enjoy feeling good. Marinate a woman's brain in testosterone and she'll enjoy seeing attractive breasts as much as men.

Nothing wrong with it, just don't see why it has to be in a 'newspaper'. It's not news.

fundlebundle

The exploits of the latest 'celeb' on page 2 of the herald is not news either but I choose not to read it, im not against anyone else reading it though. Why should my opinion hamper others enjoyment?

Scanlas The 2nd

jaja321 wrote: »

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

I really don't see why it is sad to enjoy looking at an attractive pair of breast. As I've already said studies have shown it has a soothing destressing effect on men. How is it sad to enjoy feeling good. Marinate a woman's brain in testosterone and she'll enjoy seeing attractive breasts as much as men.

Nothing wrong with it, just don't see why it has to be in a 'newspaper'. It's not news.

Same reason as crosswords, it sells.

Grayson

Penn wrote: »

It's not news.

I oppose Page 3 as well. It's just the lowest of the low tabloid nonsense. In a newspaper, I expect news, even from rags like the Sun or Daily Star. Topless models, who pose specifically for a newspaper are in no way, shape or form a news item.

Maybe if it was put later in the paper, between the sport and crossword/horoscopes where all the phone chat ads are, maybe there wouldn't be as big an issue about it. But on the third page? Why? It is nothing to do with anything.

Pretty much nothing in those papers counts as news. I haven't read it in years, but I'm pretty certain that if you got rid of page 3, it'd be filled with celebrity gossip. Just like pages 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11....etc.

Objecting to Page 3 on the grounds that it isn't news, really isn't an argument when you look at the contents of most redtop "Newspapers"

jaja321

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Same reason as crosswords, it sells.

I know, I just think its silly!

tan11ie

Sure you mays well get something for your money :cool:

kingtiger

rednik wrote: »

Bring back the Daily Sport, every page was a page 3. Now that really was a rag.

yes it also had a nipple count on the first page :cool:

Angeles

HeyThereDeliah wrote: »

You would have a problem with a picture of a fully clothed woman in a newspaper why?

Penn wrote: »

It's not news.

In a shocking discovery earlier this afternoon, a fully clothed woman broke the world record by jumping 12 feet in the air. During this magnificent leap she managed to tear her favorite blouse mid way exposing her breasts! Luckily our camera man on the scene to share this amazing image with you in todays news paper......

perspective my friend....

cowzerp

Anyone who buys the sun then complains about low moral standards is a complete moron.

jill_valentine

I've already said I don't have any beef with nudity or porn, as a whole. There should be more of it, and more conversation about it. But Page 3 is a whole different animal. I wouldn't call for it banned, but by jaysus I'd love to see it end. The fact that posters here are trying to draw an comparison between this and Take a Break(!) says to me that they take the problem Page 3 represents for granted to such a degree that they're blind to it. No, there is no nudity of any kind in those sort of housewives magazines, and it's weird that you just assumed they do have some.

Simply put, no, there is no equivalent on the other side of the fence. And I hate to break this to you, but the Beckham ad campaign was pretty certainly aimed at gay men. It's not the breasts themselves I have a problem with - hooray for breasts - but with the particularly grubby context they're presented in. Glamour modelling has an undeniable role in conditioning young British girls to see their own bodies as fast food commodities. Teenage kids should not be aspiring to have surgery so they can fit the horrible pigeonhole The Sun likes to keep women in.

Eve_Dublin

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Yes, the world is being deprived or all these great doctors and top level researchers. We'd have no cancer or aids if these girls stayed on to further education.

I don't have a problem with the topless photos in The Sun as such because it is a fooking rag of "newspaper" but it's the comments beside the models and what they imply (that the woman is brain dead and can't possibly form an intelligent opinion on her own) that bug me somewhat. The comment from Guy:Incognito above highlights what many readers must feel when they look at those photos and I feel it's horribly unfair and exploitive.


It's all very well to say the women are free to do as they please and it's sexually liberating and it's "just a bit of fun" and it's a free country but when the paper purposely makes them out to be morons, then I have a problem.

Scanlas The 2nd

jill_valentine wrote: »

I've already said I don't have any beef with nudity or porn, as a whole. There should be more of it, and more conversation about it. But Page 3 is a whole different animal. I wouldn't call for it banned, but by jaysus I'd love to see it end. The fact that posters here are trying to draw an comparison between this and Take a Break(!) says to me that they take the problem Page 3 represents for granted to such a degree that they're blind to it. No, there is no nudity of any kind in those sort of housewives magazines, and it's weird that you just assumed they do have some.

Simply put, no, there is no equivalent on the other side of the fence. And I hate to break this to you, but the Beckham ad campaign was pretty certainly aimed at gay men. It's not the breasts themselves I have a problem with - hooray for breasts - but with the particularly grubby context they're presented in. Glamour modelling has an undeniable role in conditioning young British girls to see their own bodies as fast food commodities. Teenage kids should not be aspiring to have surgery so they can fit the horrible pigeonhole The Sun likes to keep women in.

I doubt very much the Beckham ad was aimed at gay men. The assumption seems to be women don't enjoy looking at attractive male bodies.

Eve_Dublin

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

I doubt very much the Beckham ad was aimed at gay men. The assumption seems to be women don't enjoy looking at attractive male bodies.

I'd say they make up a massive part of his target market. How come most of the products he advertises are for men?

hatrickpatrick

Millicent wrote: »

Yep, those things are exactly the same. There's no distinction between naked breasts and erotic fiction and advertising at all...

Why should there be? Why should sexuality be something which is hidden under the carpet? No other species has these bizarre hangups about it. What's wrong with naked breasts? Why should they be censored in any way?

hatrickpatrick

jaja321 wrote: »

Nothing wrong with it, just don't see why it has to be in a 'newspaper'. It's not news.

So what? Do you want to regulate what can or cannot appear in pint in certain publications? If nobody's rights are being violated against their will, there's nothing wrong with it and there are no legitimate grounds for regulation, IMO.

The law exists to protect our rights, not to enforce some imaginary morality which is an entirely subjective concept.