Oh, Tits!

In a plot twist we never saw coming, today boobs actually are news. After a short holiday, Page 3 has retuned to it's usual spot on erm, Page 3 and tits for breakfast are back on the menu.

Up and down the country people celebrate the fact that The Sun has taken this galiant and defiant step to defend a great British institution (I've honestly never understood that, tea and crumpets are a British insitution, soft porn in a family newspaper? Far less so). I can practically hear them dancing around jabbing their pins into voodoo dolls in No More Page 3 t-shirts. This is, surely, a victory against the jealous prudes who were offended by boobs and wanted to banish all glamour models... Right? 

I mean, yes. The Sun has got what in wanted. Print journalism is dying, so if you'd had everybody talking about you for days you'd cash in on it too. The Sun have never exactly gone about making their money through good, well balanced journalism so we can't expect them to start now. Old habits do die hard, after all.

It's just that, this doesn't feel like a loss. It feels like a speed bump. For the first time in a long, long time people were focused on how women are presented in the media. Whilst some debated whether Page 3 was the place to start, one thing that did become clear was that people were uncomfortable with the way things are right now. Magazines like Heat & Now make their money from body-shaming, magazines like Vogue make their money by filling their pages with models who's weights are achievable. Victoria's Secret make their money by flaunting the exclusive beauty and bodies of their models and The Sun makes it's money by sexualising women. In the meantime, the male body only appears to be flaunted whenever David Beckham strips into his H&M undies or David Gandy has dipped into the blue Sicilian waters for his latest campaign. The male body is flaunted no where near as often as the female body - it's just normal for a woman to have all these different publications tell her how she should look and what her worth is.

It's funny, I'm writing this whilst on my lunch break at work, where I have spent the morning combing through our twitter feed (I'm social media intern, not a mega skiver). Last night the Department of Health announced that it would take Standardised Cigarette Packaging (where all cigarette packs would have the same colours and font, in a way to remove attractive packaging the way they have in Australia) to a vote before the next general election. Some people are NOT happy that health freaks are our to ruin free speech...

I'm starting to think there's no pleasing some people. If we're going to argue over how powerful cigarette branding is, then we're OBVIOUSLY going to argue over whether or not Page 3 is a bad thing.

The Sun had the opportunity to be seen as progressive for the first time in it's circulation. Whether they'd been planning to bring the page to an end or not, they could have never printed tits again and people would have been none the wiser about if it was their plan. Instead it is still acting like a small boy on the playground playing a game of 'show me yours and I'll show you mine' because 'We had a mammary lapse' - really?!?

I've seen more wit come out of a three year old. 

So, I was wrong. We did not win the battle and that's ok...

Winning the war has always been more satisfying anyway.

-xo