For whom are women's bodies?

Awkward title, and yes it did start out as "Who are women's bodies for?" but I couldn't bear to look at it.

This has been bothering me since The Sun's massive and "hilarious" page 3 joke.  They really got us there didn't they?  It was a boob-rilliant joke.  I laughed my tits off.

I have tried to justify and understand the whole page 3 thing but I really struggle to see it from any kind of feminist perspective.  You can see boobs whenever you want, if you want.  You can google them (lol).  There is real porn for free on the internet.  And there are boobs of all shapes and sizes pretty much all over the internet.  The type you might want to see if you want a cheap thrill, famous boobs, photoshopped boobs, the kind to put you off plastic surgery, the kind to reassure you and young girls that you are perfectly normal and to be honest there are plenty of men ready to tell you that all boobs are good boobs.  That is choice.  Treating women's bodies as part of the news, something any of us have a right to see at any time of day is a bit, well, weird.

I can recall earlier in my own life and in my earlier teaching career asking students to bring in newspapers - when it was still a strong possibility that they would have them at home, to analyse how the news was reported.  I used to deliberately ask students to bring in only the front page to avoid the sniggers and inappropriate comments around page 3.  I remember the cubs looking through the newspapers that used to be stored in the scout hut for recycling, searching for the page 3s.  Why should teenage girls (and younger) be made to feel so uncomfortable about their bodies, at a time when they are already self conscious?  I remember those desperate attempts to cover up as everyone else became aware that some of the girls in the class were developing more quickly than others.  I remember boys running their fingers down your spine to feel if you were wearing a bra yet.

That is not a message that we should be giving to young children.  Girls' bodies are not for display, they are only just learning to look at themselves in a new light, why should they feel like they have to show them to everyone else?  It would be impossible for boys not to see other people in that light.  We have the right to look at these boobs and we didn't even ask to, why shouldn't we look at yours?  Why won't you show me?  I remember the sixth form boy, early in my career, asking if I would wear that particular blouse out of school, without the other top underneath.

This was brought back to mind today with the news that Barrister David Osborne has blogged that it is not always rape if a woman is drunk.  I tried to google the original blog, as I don't really like judging based on only The Daily Mail's view but I was on the third page of search results and was still finding the outrage of The Telegraph, Huffington Post et al without finding it.

The fact that in this day and age, he feels he can blog this already suggests a certain disengagement from modern life but it does link to the same idea as women as product, as consumable.  They put themselves on display, what was I supposed to do y'honour?

It is as disrespectful to men as it it is to women.  I don't hear men claiming that they had to joy ride the shiny Bentley / BMW/ Nissan they passed in town, yes it was locked, but they just left it there; parked; yes I had to smash the window and the alarm went off but the car just sat there and let me sit in the driving seat.  It didn't even break my fingers when I touched its steering wheel and slid it into gear.  Eugh. Sorry.

I don't mean to get away from the point or conflate two complicated issues, I am just supporting the idea that we are w-a-y past the presentation of women as passive objects that are there to be stared at in a very everyday sense.

I can look at boobs whenever I want, I have never bought The Sun; I have choice and still haven't always managed to avoid them, so any step taken to avoid the irrelevant placing of boobs is welcome.  Breastfeeding is not an irrelevant placing of boobs btw.  But that would get me started on Farage and that's for another blog.