Page 3, For those of you who think don't buy it if you don't like it.

I have read about men and women persuading their wives and daughters to do it. They bask in the reflected glory. I have a photo of myself on a carnival float as Miss *. I was bullied into it, literally. You never saw a grumpier carnival queen in your life. But my boss made me do it and my then husband was delighted. He loved it if other men were jealous of him. I eventually realised it was a very 'pride in ownership' thing, like having a nice car. I wish I had known more/enough about human nature when I was younger. I was stupid enough to believe that I was likeable for my personality and intelligence. Of course looks are what make the initial attraction, but he was no beauty and I liked him being intelligent. Sadly he was also very shallow.

I wonder how those men would have behaved if it had been their wife or daughter in those situations?

I had that experience too, Iam64. I was an assistant accountant in my early 20s for a large car manufacturer. I was in charge of salaries, payroll and pensions and it was my very unenviable task to take the paypackets around on a Friday to the weekly paid men, all 2 or 300 of them. It was a horrific experience. At first I tried to laugh it all off, but many of the men had a look and tone that was not merely friendly. As for what they had pinned up on the walls of the various workshops... I read an article not long after I left, about a matron who had been fired for continuing to put some kind of libido-killer in the tea of the young males in her care at a local Borstal. All my sympathies were with her.

Thanks to janerowena, night owl and all the other contributors who point to the reasons why Page 3 is part of the objectification of girls and women. Merelli's post about Page 3 and cigarette burns on the girl in the photo reminds me of what it was like being one of the "office girls" in an engineering factory during the same period. Walking through the factory was an ordeal we endured several times a day. For anyone who sees the humiliation and sexual bullying of young women by a large group of men as 'banter' - that isn't what it feels like.
It's all about humiliating women and girls

Totally agree Nightowl, and porn in any form is nauseating to me and utterly degrades women. Pity the males who feel they need it in their lives.
I'm not a prude and don't find appropriate nudity a problem but 'selling ' female bodies for titivation is utterly disgusting.
I feel sorry for young girls of today being made to feel that this is what men expect them to look like.

How awful Marelli I sometimes (often?) think that (some?) men have a fundamental hatred for women

nightowl, I agree with your post. One thing that sticks in my mind from the early 70's, was when I had a wee job as a 'tea-lady' and used to nip along to the local joiners' firm to make the tea for them in the afternoons. Laid out on the table was a copy of Page 3 with cigarette burns on the nipples of the girl in the photo.
I think the magazine with the naked men in was perhaps 'Women' (not Woman!)?

But those are "special interest" magazines - not daily newspapers.

We'll said nightowl. We also have a generation of girls barely out of childhood who think the norm is to allow their boyfriends to treat them as porn stars. Page 3 might not affect some people but I believe it's done damage. Really what sort of society thinks showing half naked women every day for thirty years in the daily newspaper finds this is okay?

Didn't Playboy do a magazine for women called Playgirl which was full of naked men? I seem to remember this was in the seventies because we had a French student staying with us who bought a copy and left it on the coffee table. Visiting MIL nearly had a heart attack!!

Perhaps it wasn't Cosmo then - but it was about 25 years ago and the men were definitely naked (no strategically-placed towels).

I think, in all seriousness, that it's high time that newspapers stopped featuring topless photos of women.In fact, they should have never started. It hasn't been a problem for me personally [ only average size boobs] but the whole thing is demeaning to women, and should only be in the mags on the top shelf, not in the daily papers.

I searched this. Unless the photos on the Cosmopolitan website have been "doctored" just for the internet, rugby balls, towels, etc., are strategically placed.

I think nightowl is right. There is nothing wrong with the human body and nudist beaches don't bother me. What I do find sleazy is the commodification of women's bodies in order to sell stuff.
What a terrible message to send out to girls (and boys).

Yes, some are horrifying Ana!

I'm not sure that's true, Soutra! The general shape may be the same, but there are certainly variations in dimensions.

Well, let's face it, when you've seen one, you've seen them all [yawn emoticon.]

Didn't one women's magazine (could have been Cosmopolitan) have a naked male centrefold at one time? I think they eventually stopped doing it due to lack of interest.

D'you know what? I actually think I am a prude, in fact I think I'm turning into Mary Whitehouse and I make no apologies for it. I hate the Sun anyway, partly because of their behaviour over Hillsborough, but I really do find page 3 disgusting for all the reasons given in the open letter and described so eloquently by others on here. In fact I hate this 'anything goes' society where female bodies are still used to sell things and as easy titillation for men, films have to have graphic sex scenes that make me squirm and wonder how the hell actors can do that on demand and see it as just a job (where is their dignity?) and porn is all around us and available at the click of a mouse. I find it all quite disturbing, not at all attractive, and scary in its influence over the young. We now have a generation of girls scarcely out of childhood who think to become a celebrity is a valid ambition, that a woman is only acceptable if she removes every strand of hair from her body, that cosmetic surgery is something you have done in your lunch break. The Sun may be seen as a harmless bit of fun that only uses girls who have chosen that 'career path' but the truth is that it is the acceptable face of sexism and misogyny and is insidious in its casual promotion of women as only being useful if they can provide pleasure for men. So it follows that any woman who speaks out against it only does so because she is ugly/ jealous/ old/ a lesbian/ a dried up old bag.

Rant over.

I don't believe I am a prude either but have to admit the first time I went to the UK I was shocked to realise there was such a thing as Page 3 and bare breasted women shown in a daily newspaper. Having someone ogle a woman's bare breasts in front of me was not something I had experienced before.

Why on earth would men be bothered. May think the guy had done a lot of work to get toned up, maybe.

I agree with you both. I too wonder how men would react if every day Page 3 was devoted to full frontal images of naked, very physically attractive and well endowed young men.

Your experiences pretty much echo mine Janerowena, sadly.
Being endowed with big boobs was the most awful experience when I was young, nothing I could do disguised the fact and I hated their existence with a vengeance. School uniform followed by nursing uniform exacerbated my feelings- the uniform almost seemed to make things worse.
Thank heavens page 3 seems to have gone, those 'models' don't know what misery they caused IMO.
Thankfully boobs seem to have shrunk slightly as I grow older!