Lighthouse

Apparently not. I was under the impression that women developed eating disorders based on peer pressure to conform to media images of what is deemed attractive. Apparently this is incorrect, so I apologise.

I'm clutching at straws by saying pictures of attractive topless women in a newspaper have similarities to pictures of attractive women in lingerie in a magazine? Eating disorders aren't caused by looking at pictures, it's peer pressure. Women are pretty much exposed to the same stuff. They all see the same newspapers, adverts, magazines, TV etc. and yet some are anorexic, some are morbidly obese and many are perfectly healthy and attractive. If we did away with page 3 and replaced it with pictures of overweight women wearing 80s style shell suits, do you think women would suddenly all become overweight and start wearing shell suits? No, of course not because their friends aren't telling them that's what they should look like. I'm not drumming the 'their is worse stuff' argument. I am drumming the 'it literally wont make any difference if we get rid of page 3' argument. It's a drop in the Ocean. It would be like having 100 venomous snakes in your house, killing a woodlouse and saying, "now we have less of a pest problem." There are near infinite pictures of naked and near naked women out there. What is infinity minus one? SOG, without knowing your family it sounds to me like your daughter just fell in with the wrong crowd at school. If her friends are all skinny and telling her how great she looks when she is dangerously underweight, that is the problem not some pictures in a newspaper.

Doesn't matter what it's for. You don't get fat monsters modelling lingerie and young women will generally compare themselves to any media image which they are told represents beauty. If you are going to say young women shouldn't compare themselves to lingerie models because the purpose is to look at the lingerie then you could say the same about page 3. They shouldn't be looking at page 3 at all because it is marketed towards men.

No, you are right. Sky Sports news does seem to pick female presenters of particular aesthetic quality. However that is one isolated case of discrimination and even they hired one female presenter some might consider less attractive.

You know what I meant. There are many things much worse than page 3 out there and getting rid of page 3 wont help at all. It's a drop in the ocean of female self image. How would this work in your opinion? Suppose we got rid of page three, then what? Young women say to themselves, "Well there is still an endless media bombardment of 6ft 4 stick insect women being branded as the latest in style and fashion but at least there isn't a picture of some boobs in a news papers." How is page three any different to any other picture of a woman in a bikini or lingerie catalogue? Why would seeing exposed nipples make you insecure about your weight? How is it any worse than a M&S summer catalogue?

My point is that getting rid of relatively normal looking girls on page 3 isn't going to help with female self image issues whilst there are much worse issues out there. The female fashion industry is dominated by women who are unrealistically tall, unrealistically thin AND they have been photoshopped to be even more unrealistic AND they are published in magazines specifically marketed at women. It's not that there are worse things, I am saying getting rid of page 3 wont help at all.

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They are.

You keep referring to a 'family newspaper' and men getting their todgers out. Todgers aren't breasts. Breasts are just large glands behind the nipples and there is no need for them to cause offence. Displaying sexual organs would be seen as harassment and obscene by most people. Please stop comparing the two, there is nobody out there asking for naked Vaginas on page 3. I don't know by what criteria the Sun describes itself as a 'family newspaper' but it is not a Disney musical. You know there are topless girls on page 3, Dear Deidre and adverts for phone sex with grandma at the back. So why would you give it to a child to read? The Sun also features good old fashioned family fun like this on a regular basis. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6251460/2000-die-in-suspected-new-Boko-Haram-terror-massacre-including-women-and-kids.html

If you are going to blame page 3 for anorexia, there are hundreds of other images you also have to get rid of first. If you want to get rid of page 3 for this reason you also have to get rid of the entire fashion industry, all cat walks, magazines, poster, catalogues, heck even the mannequins they have in shops are an unreal standard of female body shape. Then you would have to get rid of all the thin and attractive women in the public domain. Not just Posh Spice and Cheryl f**king Tweedy/Cole/Fernandes/Tsunami/Toaster... whatever she calls herself this week. Sports stars like Sharapova and Ennis have bodies which are unrealistic to the average woman on the street so they should be banned. Basically anyone attractive in the media should be banned as they would make less attractive women insecure.

Imagine being a Mexican paedo. "She told me she was 12!"

They probably haven't shown their full hand but that's definitely a new nose to the one they had last season. Their 2014 car had one of the ugliest dildo noses on the grid.

Surely it's Kangwa who shot himself, or have I read that tweet wrong?

I had an old Ford Sierra which used to do that when I started it. He should check his oil filter.

It's on every other page of the Sun TBH. Exactly. This is Posh Spice from Heat magazine This is Page 3 queen Lucy Pinder If your daughters have size issues from women in the media, they aren't getting it from page 3.

But women who choose to read the Sun do so knowing full well there are topless women in it. That's the key issue for me, it is a completely free choice whether or not to see page 3. Clearly the women who do buy the Sun have decided the Sun (boobs 'n' all) is better than the Mirror, Times, Telegraph or any other media publication available. It would be like me buying a copy of Heat magazine and then writing to the editor saying there is no need for gossip on celebrity love lives, please remove it. I don't want to read gossip so, I don't buy it. Clearly some people do like reading gossip and it's not my place to tell them they shouldn't. It's the same with page 3. If I was a Sun reader, I would be completely nonplussed by topless buff men on page 5. As I said before, read a lads magazine and there are almost as many topless men in there as women when you take into account the adverts for razors, aftershave, CK boxers and various other items of menswear. A bloke getting his knob out is crossing the line as that to most people can be seem as sexual harassment. I'm not discriminating here, I wouldn't want to see some woman's vag hanging out in a paper either.

Clearly there are enough teenage boys and white van men with an interest in page 3. We should keep it because of freedom of speech. It's their news paper and it's her body. If she wants to whip 'em out for some easy money then that's her choice. It may not be a great reason for page 3 but it is legitimate, whereas there is no legit reason to ban it IMO. If you ban page 3 there is infinite porn and nudity on the internet. If we ban all of that then we end up like Saudi Arabia. That well known tolerant and enlightened country where women are well educated and treated as equals.

The point you are making to me is that a lack of exposure to women actually makes things worse. I can only speak for myself but if I walked down a beach and saw a topless woman I probably wouldn't think too much of it. That's largely down to stuff like Nuts magazine and page 3 which has largely taken the excitement and novelty of just seeing boobs. If I'd only ever seen them when attempting sex, I would probably inclined towards objectifying that woman through association.

My point is that Page 3 is heavily criticised for sending out the wrong message to young girls about how to look and behave. There are many other examples which are far worse and, unlike page 3, are actively marketed at young women. Miley was heavily criticised but I haven't seen any particular clamour for her to be banned from performing. I agree, it was dreadful and it's not an isolated case. Katie Perry, Nikki Minaj, Britney, Christina Aguelerlelelriea and many others have all donned skimpy outfits and been branded, 'you should look like this' to teenage girls. To me that is the key difference. They are being sold as role models in the media to young women, whereas page three isn't. That's just pictures of boobs for white van men, nothing more nothing less. Just because people see it, they don't automatically feel the need to imitate it. I watch porn but I've never felt the need to go round to my next door neighbour and fix her boiler.

A minutes silence at Swansea's next game? Someone had to say it.

Another dreadful role model which is actively marketed at impressionable teenage girls

Were they all avid Sun readers? I don't want sound insensitive as it sounds like you've been to Hell and back with this but as far as I'm concerned magazines like Heat and indeed the entire fashion industry have much more to answer for. Without wanting to sounds creepy, I'd be quite happy if my daughter looked like a page 3 girl. Most of them tend to be more busty, curvy and generally look much healthier than anything you will ever see on a cat walk. After all, that is what men actually fancy, I have no interest in girls with the body of a 15 year old boy.

Well, whatever word you choose for a person you feel a sexual, physical attraction towards.

I wont deny it happens here but it is nothing to do with porn. I know a lot of people who work in Dubai, supposedly one of the more Westernised and civilised countries in the Arab world but it has some very dark secrets. Basically slaves labour is brought in from places like India, Thailand and the Philippines. The rich Emiratis who own them basically rape them at will, knowing there is nothing the girls can do and the Police will just ignore them. They don't have Page 3, porn is illegal and yet the actual number of rapes per capita is far, far in excess of the UK.

Indeed Jeff ... and nothing to do with page 3. TBH I don't think Nicole from Bompey looks that bad, if 'bad' is the right word. There has obviously been a bit of photo shopping but most women would have a fairly similar body shape just through sensible diet and exercise. I have seen much worse pictures of women in celebrity magazines with ribs showing and the 'thigh gap' which seems to be the latest craze. If I had a teenage daughter and had to chose between her looking at page 3 and this copy of Heat magazine, I know what I'd chose.