Page 3 Stunners : Right or Wrong

[Buelligan]

I think they should bring back the old minstrel shows, not the blackface ones, the original ones, what's the harm? 

Many people loved working in them and were paid better than in their previous employment as slaves.  And the punters loved it.

I always say, if you don't like it, don't buy a ticket.  Because they operate in a little hermetically-sealed bubble, you know.  Have no effect whatsoever on the wider world or people not involved or interested who're just trying to get along. 

Bring them back, what's the harm?

[touchingcloth]

Weird timing on this thread. I hadn't thought about page 3 for ages until yesterday, when

I've just been to a pub quiz hosted by a local Brit.

There were two questions about Only Fools and Horses, one about Porridge, another about Kavanagh QC. One answer was Jordan, another was Sam Fox ("if anyone has her phone number, it's ten extra points"), and one question asked who in 2012 said that middle class white men are discriminated against on telly.

I forget what the question about Sam Fox was but I think "page 3" was part of the wording, and the Jordan one was "who ran for parliament in 2002 on a platform of free plastic surgery and topless beaches". I didn't remember the story from the time, but given the year there and the previous question about Fox there weren't many names to guess from.

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This all takes me back to the CaB of about ten years ago when every discussion of anything gender / feminism related would devolve into, at worst, men indignant at the idea of having to reconsider their position of anything at all combined with barely-even-ironic misogyny, and at best, the same two or three jokes over and over again. I was of course far too woke and reconstructed to have a part in any of that at all and don't you dare go back through my posting history to try and prove me wrong

You're misremembering. The most recent debate about the wanking thread was last year or the year before.

[badaids]

They need to being back the page 7 fella.

[Shaxberd]

Putting on my serious hat, I felt it sent out a weird message that "this newspaper is for straight blokes only", or at least that they were the most important bit of the audience.

In isolation a picture of a topless woman is pretty harmless as long as she's ok with you seeing it, but it was part of a culture of pervasive leering - pinups in the workplace and dolly birds on TV, sexual harassment as 'just a bit of fun', and so on. Fun for those who are into it and intimidating for those who aren't. In the end I think it died out because that culture did (or at least got sidelined), rather than because of any specific campaigns.



If any paper brought it back I demand equal opportunities all-genders, all-sexualities nudity. Or at least feature some trans lasses and see commenters spinning in circles figuring out if it's woke or not.

[Buelligan]

I'm thinking of opening a traditional English doll-themed pub.

[Ambient Sheep]

I always though it was wierd. Don't get me wrong, I like ladies breasts, but to dedicate a whole page of a national newspaer to them every day, just odd.

That was always my feeling about it.  If you want to look at porn, go buy porn, if you must, but just sticking a pic like that in the biggest-selling daily paper every day just seemed demeaning, wrong and damaging.

I don't know whether it makes it better or worse that most of the pics seemed so plastic and sexless.  Better, I suppose.  But still wrong.

Wasn't a whole page, there was some news items on that page also.

That was my other gripe with it.  On the rare occasion I'd pick up a copy (often literally, left behind on a train) - this would be pre-Hillsborough, natch - they'd often put a genuinely interesting story (sometimes the continuation of the front page one), right down the side of the page 3 pic.

Was really awkward trying to read it without people thinking I was just staring at the tits... sometimes I'd resort to bizarre paper-folding antics to hide them, which probably just made some people think I was some kind of weird stuck-up prude!

iirc sam fox was 15 or 16.

Wouldn't have been 15.  16 was always the legal limit, until Blunkett raised it.

Indeed, there was that notorious instance of a paper doing a countdown to a model's 16th birthday to go topless; as Ian Hislop asked the editor on HIGNFY, either they were taken when she was 15, or they were lying about her birthday, which was it?  He just grinned and didn't reply.

[Underturd]

Putting on my serious hat, I felt it sent out a weird message that "this newspaper is for straight blokes only", or at least that they were the most important bit of the audience.

In isolation a picture of a topless woman is pretty harmless as long as she's ok with you seeing it, but it was part of a culture of pervasive leering - pinups in the workplace and dolly birds on TV, sexual harassment as 'just a bit of fun', and so on. Fun for those who are into it and intimidating for those who aren't. In the end I think it died out because that culture did (or at least got sidelined), rather than because of any specific campaigns.



If any paper brought it back I demand equal opportunities all-genders, all-sexualities nudity. Or at least feature some trans lasses and see commenters spinning in circles figuring out if it's woke or not.

I reckon you're right about the lot of what you wrote here.

[touchingcloth]

I get that the thread title is probably a bit tongue in cheek, but would it work without the "stunners" bit being in there? To borrow the minstrel show example, it's a bit like waiting for ten years after the last show was voluntarily cancelled by the promoters, and then asking "minstrel show <pick your once acceptable chummy epithet of choice>ers: right or wrong?" when "minstrel shows: right or wrong" would do the same without being a question that nods towards one of its own answers.

[Buelligan]

What do we think about Celebrity Anus display?  Just chucking around a marketing idea for pork scratchings in pubs, little packs hanging on a slowly revealed close-up of a famous arsehole (fully splayed).  I think there could well be an appetite for that.

Natural healthy fun - what it's all about.

[Oosp]

Punch up, you lot! (Through the image of the exploited teenager and into the grotty teeth of the nonce holding the paper)

[touchingcloth]

Putting on my serious hat, I felt it sent out a weird message that "this newspaper is for straight blokes only", or at least that they were the most important bit of the audience.

In isolation a picture of a topless woman is pretty harmless as long as she's ok with you seeing it, but it was part of a culture of pervasive leering - pinups in the workplace and dolly birds on TV, sexual harassment as 'just a bit of fun', and so on. Fun for those who are into it and intimidating for those who aren't. In the end I think it died out because that culture did (or at least got sidelined), rather than because of any specific campaigns.

If any paper brought it back I demand equal opportunities all-genders, all-sexualities nudity. Or at least feature some trans lasses and see commenters spinning in circles figuring out if it's woke or not.

I reckon you're right about the lot of what you wrote here.

I can't work out what "in isolation" means in that context - a woman privately sending a single picture to someone? - but I suspect that most people who appeared on page 3 were "OK with people seeing it" and still don't think it was pretty harmless. Even Murdoch got argued around to that point of view without an act of parliament being needed to persuade him.

"In isolation, a racist jam label is pretty harmless" is a sentence not many people would say.

[Buelligan]

I think we need another choice on the poll too.  Something something don't hate women but when I think of Diane Abbot I want to shoot them all something.  It seems appropriate.

[Psybro]

I was against it until they closed all the mines, and then I thought, you've got to let the poor sods have something.

[wrec]

In isolation a picture of a topless woman is pretty harmless as long as she's ok with you seeing it, but it was part of a culture of pervasive leering - pinups in the workplace and dolly birds on TV, sexual harassment as 'just a bit of fun', and so on. Fun for those who are into it and intimidating for those who aren't.

During college I had a summer job in a psychiatric hospital with a now-successful journalist who was then doing stints on UK local papers. In the break room he'd whip out The Sun, display page 3 and go "Phwoar. Eh? Eh? Phwoar!" to the awkward silence of a mixed gender audience of bookish nerds and occupational therapy patients.

[superthunderstingcar]

[bgmnts]

If you want to see tits, go to an art gallery or museum.

That's middle class tits that is. Acceptable tits.

[Buelligan]

During college I had a summer job in a psychiatric hospital with a now-successful journalist who was then doing stints on UK local papers. In the break room he'd whip out The Sun, display page 3 and go "Phwoar. Eh? Eh? Phwoar!" to the awkward silence of a mixed gender audience of bookish nerds and occupational therapy patients.

After my friends were murdered, very violently, I was interviewed by the police.  The officer interviewing me had a page 3 or similar picture on the wall behind him.  Really made me feel safe.

[TheAssassin]

A few of them were under 18, weren't they? Old copies would be illegal material now.

They were 16/17, Samantha Fox 16, Debee Ashby 16, Suzanne Mizzi 17, Linsey Dawn MacKenzie 16.

[shoulders]

If any paper brought it back I demand equal opportunities all-genders, all-sexualities nudity. Or at least feature some trans lasses and see commenters spinning in circles figuring out if it's woke or not.

Agreed. I'm not a fan of this censorious stuff and supposed liberals doing it makes me especially uneasy.

The problem with addressing specifically Page 3 is it was such a weird thing for a national newspaper to do in the first place and aimed at such a specific section of its audience that tackling it split society very sharply along certain lines and it became a rallying point.

A lot of issues surrounding body image relate to shame and repression. That can be gradually unpackaged if the right culture develops about respecting and understanding our own bodies as well as others. There should really be far more exposure of human bodies in our culture. Unfortunately the very people who lived through sexual liberation have decided that can't happen for us.

But it is the right thing to do.

To be braver, I'd argue it is even the right thing in certain contexts (ie. Not using bodies to sell stuff) to continue presenting sexualised adult bodies, because doing so is pointing at the one essential primal truth of our existences and because sex is considered a recreational activity in our private lives. Pushing it sex into public glare makes certain people uncomfortable but the knock-on effect of continuing to push it into the recesses is it cripples people's self-image, confidence, knowledge and prospects of leading a fulfilling sex life.

The level of deep discomfort topics like sex and non sexual pastimes involving our bodies like naturism and body art seems to produce in British people is enough to make you weep.

This isn't showing off about oh how liberated I am, btw, I recognise the instincts in myself but identify those as being faults and glitches which I would be better off not possessing.

[TheAssassin]

They need to being back the page 7 fella.

Let's make everyone happy and just have post/pre-op transgenders.

[TheAssassin]

I'm thinking of opening a traditional English doll-themed pub.

easier opening an English pipe shop in France.

[Jockice]

I knew a cat who was on page three of The Sun once.  This is true.

[Underturd]

the minstrel show example

That's a false equivalency, crappy blaxploitation films would be a better one.

[imitationleather]

That was always my feeling about it.  If you want to look at porn, go buy porn, if you must

In an ideal world. But it was always going to be a lot easier to convince my Nan to buy The Sun rather than hardcore porn, though.

[Kankurette]

I hated it and I'm sure this makes me a prude or classist, but I don't care. Porn is freely available if you want to bang one out over a topless woman.

Kier Starmer announces "Bring Back Lads Mags" campaign for election, but now instead of birds and what whisky will impress your mates its all going to be about explaining what consent and respect are why they're cool and radical

first issue comes with free rap CD performed by the most famous goalkeepers the 90s premier league has to offer covering such themes as prostate health awareness and energy drink addiction. to promote this we're going to put the slogans "let people enjoy things" and "don't yuck someone else's yum" on the shirts of all UK athletes in the olympics.

'Kevin, I fucked your bitch, you fat motherfucker' - Chris Woods

[bgmnts]

Honestly call me a prude as well.

Not because I am, it just gratifies me sexually.




But yeah I don't think there's anything wrong with not being okay with titillating nudity or sexualised images around children in public spaces. And if it makes you prudish, gives a fuck - degenerates are lame and boring.

[FeederFan500]

I guess the argument for campaigning against page 3 would be something like: big systemwide change is hard to do and judge, this was a specific goal that was fairly symbolic but still achievable. And by being mass media it still had an impact on a fairly big readership.

The Metro was at least slyer by illustrating a stories about M&S's financial performance with a woman in lingerie, on the basis the company was "well known for its underwear lines".


I remember being unpleasantly surprised at the barbers when their side room with the till was wallpapered with naked women, and my barber then being unpleasantly surprised when I got the wrong idea about why I'd been given a tissue after my haircut. Respect to the barber who took over and having removed the posters once sincerely told all the lads waiting (erm, me not included of course) not to gawp at the woman walking past the shopfront in a flattering dress one day.

I think the point to this anecdote is that page 3 normalises the posters to an extent, which isn't great.

[Shaxberd]

I can't work out what "in isolation" means in that context - a woman privately sending a single picture to someone? - but I suspect that most people who appeared on page 3 were "OK with people seeing it" and still don't think it was pretty harmless.

Poor wording choice on my part maybe. What I was trying to convey is that I don't think it's immoral for people to make money by posing for naked pictures.

Some of the anti page 3 campaigning came from a stance of being against all sex work and pornography, but I feel like there's a difference between, say, OnlyFans and a national newspaper.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

its when you see some big bazongas in the newspaper and the soundtrack plays the riff from Isolation by Joy Division to signal to the audience that youve got a stiffy

[Underturd]

Some therapy would be good then.