My big Page 3 boob: I thought it was all just harmless fun
How can baggy shorts look so great?
CONFESSION. Until last week’s Storm in a D-Cup – no other time-honoured Fleet Street cliche will do – I didn’t have violent opinions about bare breasts on Page 3. Shoot me now, but I sometimes enjoyed looking at ‘the girls’, a daily staple feminist academic Germaine Greer called ‘innocent and old-fashioned’.
I can’t claim that a large, lovely-jubbly pic of Debbie, 23, from Pinner made my day, but it certainly didn’t ruin it either.
Boobs in the Bun have been around almost as long as I have, and as far as I was concerned if glamour models wanted to take their tops off for money – and newspapers wanted to run the pictures and readers wanted to see them, and would buy papers to that end – well, we still have freedom of the press in this country. For millions of readers for almost half a century, the page had added to the gaiety of the nation.
Then, ten days ago, The Times reported with authority that henceforth The Sun was to ‘keep its top on’. This wasn’t so surprising: the proprietor of both papers, Rupert Murdoch, himself had mused out loud whether the feature was long past its sell-by.
Anyway, after this, the world took it that Lissy, 21, from Manchester, was to be the last Page 3 stunna. Quite a development after the paper had delivered busty totty with fully organic jugs and a comehither smile for 44 years with our morning milk.
AFTER the Times story, which The Sun didn’t confirm or deny, there was a crowing victory parade of those who had long condemned the pictures as sexist, anachronistic and demeaning to women, that conga-ed from radio studio to telly sofa by way of Twitter. The parade included Harriet Harman, Nick Clegg, anti-Page 3 campaigners, and Government politicians.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: ‘This is a long overdue decision and marks a small but significant step towards i mproving media portrayal of women and girls. I very much hope it remains permanent.’
But then it turned out it wasn’t. The unruly Sun pranked us. After only five days of not running a topless lovely, it unveiled beaming blonde Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth, pleading a ‘mammary lapse’.
It’s Oscar season and I found Wild (the movie in the niche genre of women-who-trek) a bit wet. the film – about Cheryl strayed, who goes off the rails, but finds herself by walking the 1,100mile Pacific Crest trail – didn’t hold my attention anyway. so, as there was no plot, I spent the time idly marvelling at how Reese Witherspoon, pictured left in the movie, could look so good in baggy shorts, dirty t-shirt and hiking boots – the least foxy combo known to man. she’s been nominated for Best Actress, but for pulling off this wardrobe feat alone she deserves some sort of award, I feel.
The head of PR at The Sun actually went to the lengths of gleefully tweeting the half-naked image to critics such as Sky’s Kay Burley, to Harriet Harman, and to journalists at the BBC and The Guardian, like a bully playing knock down ginger. At this point I began to change my mind about the ‘institution’ of Page 3. I found I agreed with Stella Creasy MP. ‘So Sun going back to doing #page3? bit like drunken letchy uncle at a wedding who doesn’t get the message. Makes everyone uncomfortable.’
But still, I rushed out to buy the paper, which the local newsagent told me had been doing ‘very well’ that day.
In the interests of research, so you don’t have to, etc, I glanced up at the titles on the top shelf, mounting a stepladder to examine them closely. And what I found shocked me… in its comparative modesty.
ON THE Playboy cover, the model has her arm over her breasts, the one on Penthouse has a strategically placed black tie, Club’s lovely is clad in a basque, Mayfair’s is in stocking, bra and suspenders. On Extreme Razzle, nipples were concealed, the woman on Knave was in a bra, and harder-core porn mags Extreme Readers’ Wives, Escort and Bumper Babes were shrouded in plastic wrappers blaring ‘2 filthy mags for £5.49!!!’ or ‘3 dirty mags for £6.99!’
Obviously there is all manner of smut inside, but retailers impose rules that dictate that not even skin mags can show nipples these days, not on covers, and this gave me real pause.
If pushed into an opinion on this topic that has dominated the airwaves for days, I would say this: the continuing presence of bare breasts in a masscirculation tabloid paper, seen by children and at schools is – like The Sun’s ‘reverse ferret’ stunt last week – a joke, and not a very funny one.
Page 3 embodies an affront not just to women, for all the reasons we know in our hearts, but to men, too, as if they can’t absorb information on the page without being in a state of semiarousal at the sight of naked, female flesh.
As I said at the top, I’m all for tits. Just not in our biggest daily national newspaper. I note that on the day after Nicole from Bournemouth’s outing, the paper ran with a saucy spread of model Miranda Kerr – but in bra and pants. Let’s hope The Sun does keep its top on from now on.