Page 3: The Naked Truth Review
I find it absolutely shocking that no matter what happened in the situation it was always the women that would come up short.
Page 3: The Naked Truth looks at the infamous page 3 of red top newspapers that showed scantily clad women mainly with their breasts out on, unsurprisingly, page 3.
Page 3 started in the 60s showing women with lingerie on or bikinis, they weren’t fully naked or had any private areas on show yet, however that came in the 70s when women started posing more in the nude. One thing to note about the early days of page 3 is a lot of these women didn’t realise they would be put onto page 3 until it happened. They would go to these modelling shoots where the photographer would ask them to show a bit more skin and then the photographer would sell the photos to the newspapers and then the women would find out later and suddenly their modelling career would usually boom.
I think the shocking thing about page 3 to start with was the fact that back in the early days the age of showing nudity was actually 16 instead of 18. Now that may only seem like two years but imagine seeing a schoolgirl naked, that’s just wrong and disgusting, and so I found it quite shocking that they would do that and they also did ‘counting down to birthday features’ for girls who were particularly popular. They would find a girl who was 15 and for the week before her birthday they would show modelling pictures of her wearing clothes and then on her 16th birthday the image of her with her breasts out would be published as a big happy birthday to her. Now if that doesn’t scream child exploitation I don’t know what does.
And you have to think it’s more the fact that a lot of these girls were still in school, they were still school age, and they got bullied and teased for these images. One girl spoke about how she got excluded because of it and while it’s great for their modelling career it’s not great for their self-esteem and self worth around their peers, because they are going to berate them for it because they’re teenagers and it’s what they do, it’s horrific but it’s true.
Of course over time laws changed and soon you had to be 18 to be able to pose nude for photographers but that didn’t stop the girls being young and wanting to get into modelling early. There was also a really interesting debate about natural versus silicone, this was mainly around Jordan a.k.a. Katie Price, who was told to get silicone implants because she needed bigger breasts and then suddenly she was axed from the newspaper for having silicone implants. It was a complete double standard.
And we think about ending page 3 being quite a modern phenomena but actually it began back when the paper was still very new. An MP campaigned to have page 3 stopped because it was exploitation of women and yet it continued up until 2015, decades after it first began, and even that was met with uproar.
My personal opinion on page 3 is the same with pit girls and ring girls and stuff like that, if the woman is happy doing it then what’s the problem? It’s up to her and it’s her body and her rules, my issue stems from the fact that it made men quite callous with how they saw women. It made women seem like a lesser person to the men, they were sex objects, they weren’t real humans and especially when you’re a 16-year-old girl being looked at like that by men twice or three times your age it’s quite disgusting. Plus the fact that a lot of these women were thrust into page 3 by photographers rather than someone doing it because they wanted to, that I don’t agree with, but if a woman is happy with what she’s doing then what’s the issue?
I think it’s the same for things nowadays with websites and apps like Only Fans, but now women have a lot more power and control on it themselves, which I see as nothing but admirable. Back in the days of dirty magazines and page 3 and VHS tapes a lot of these women were being used by an industry but now these women have taken back the power in the industry and are making money for themselves that is going to no one else but a small percentage to the platform. I think that’s fabulous and I’m so glad that women are able to do what they want to do, and while society’s views might still be a bit old with how they view women who do that, I think it’s a step in the right direction with giving the power to the women and letting them do what they want.
I never saw page 3 as an issue. If women wanted to do that then so be it, it’s their body and they’re allowed to do what they want with it, and I think it’s a shame that a lot of these women lost jobs because of page 3 shutting down. I do think it’s a much bigger social issue though with how people perceive women in these sorts of jobs and how demeaning it can be. Women should feel empowered, if they have a beautiful body they should show it off if they so wish. They shouldn’t be told to hide away because it’s such an old view of women and I think until society changes and allows people to be who they want to be and be proud of who they are we are still going to be stuck in the same mindset. The thought of ‘these women can’t have wanted to do it because why would any woman degrade herself like that?’ is so old. When in fact having the bravery and confidence and power to go naked in front of a nation should be something applauded and not seen as something dirty.
What did you think of page 3? Do you think it should’ve been shut down?
Until next time.
Moving Picture Review 