By Flora Cramp
Oh David Dinsmore, the most misunderstood man in Britain. Wimmin, we’ve had him all wrong. I know, I know, when he took over as Editor of The Sun last year, we all thought ‘here’s a pervy bloke in a slightly shiny suit, who likes to publish pictures of teenagers’ tits for money.’ But no! We were wrong! All along, he’s had our best interests at heart and, thanks to The Sun’s collaboration with breast cancer charity Coppafeel, Page Three can now actually save our lives!
Foolishly, I’d always thought that Page Three existed to give lonely Sun readers a diverting lob-on during those otherwise ‘trying’ journeys on the X78 to Doncaster, but not any more. Or at least, not on ‘Check ‘em Tuesdays,’ when the topless models appear alongside a helpful blurb, reminding women to check their breasts for cancer symptoms. Additionally, the models have the names of ‘family friendly’ male entertainment stars scribbled on their tits: last week Lacey Banghard appeared with ‘Ant’ and ‘Dec’ scrawled on her breasts and, on Tuesday, Lucy Collett had ‘Bill’ and ‘Ted’ inked on hers. Now, at first glance, this ‘tit scribbling’ appears to be the sort of thing that might occur during a Blue Nun fuelled hen night in Rhyl, and seems to have nob all to do with preventing cancer. Not so! It’s The Sun’s ‘fun’ way of encouraging women to get to know their bodies! But, aside from the fact that naming breasts after male TV personalities infers a creepy male ownership of women’s bodies, it’s just plain weird. Who in Britain (aside from my mum’s friend Crossword Kath), loves Ant and Dec enough to name their tits after them? And Bill and Ted? ‘Bill’ hasn’t even been on telly for twenty years, is that really the best they can do? We can only look forward to the next few weeks, when Dinsmore and his pals run out of suitable male TV duos, and Page Three models turn up to work with ‘Ted Rogers’ and ‘Dusty Bin’ written on their tits.
But there’s more! The Sun doesn’t merely advise you to name your mammaries; you are also encouraged to tweet pictures of yourself checking your breasts. Jejune prude that I am, I always thought that checking your body for cancer symptoms was best done in private whilst listening to repeats of Gardener’s Question Time but, apparently, the best way to do it is in front of hundreds of thousands of complete strangers on the internet. A number of women duly shared images of themselves ‘checking’ their breasts and countless followers posted supportive comments, offering their assistance in the procedure. Model Jess Davies ‘copped a feel’ whilst sporting a tiny Chihuahua-sized T shirt pulled up above her breasts. ‘Want a hand?’ asked a helpful chap; ‘I’ll check the other one’ chirped in another cancer-battling gent. Jodie Marsh, referencing the enduring link between breast cancer and fetid, undead predators, tweeted a photograph of herself in a revealing vampire costume in honour of ‘Check ‘em Tuesday.’ A number of ‘fans’ then made heart-warming references to sexual assault, with one man stating ‘I’ll check yours Jode # cracking set.’
A bevy of glittering celebrities have also jumped on board, including former member of boy band A1, Mark Read, who did his bit for cancer by posting a picture of himself groping a cardboard cut-out of Mariah Carey, whilst pulling a Frankie Howerd ‘oooh missus’ face. Trilby sporting ‘geezer’ Olly Murs followed suit, posting a photo of himself squeezing a pair of imaginary tits, accompanied by the tweet ‘HEY lads join me in supporting @TheSunNewspaper breast cancer campaign. We can help the ladies out too #checkemtuesday.’ How nice that that such busy blokes can find time to challenge cancer by sharing thinly veiled suggestions of sexual assault via Twitter! Even more encouragingly, Page Three ‘fans’ have been annotating Check ‘em Tuesday photos to show their support for the cause. Model Lucy Collett helpfully shared one such image via her Instagram account, along with the words ‘best Page Three drawing today!’ The resulting image shows her official Coppafeel photoshoot, annotated to include two giant penises spurting semen all over her face. How confusing that The Sun insists Page Three is an innocuous, non-sexualised celebration of youth and freshness, when the models themselves are convinced it’s wank material. And what better way to support and respect women who are living with cancer than with an illustration of a facial cum shot? Perhaps next time Coppafeel will collaborate with Viz.
In the meantime, I’ll ward off cancer by dressing as a sexy witch with ‘Bernie Winters’ and ‘Schnorbitz’ written on my tits in Tippex. If only Marie Curie had known that’s all it takes.
To sign the No More Page 3 petition click here!
NEWS ‘FLASHING’ Update 22nd April 2014
The Sun Run Out of Tit Names
Further to the ‘Coppafeel’ Page 3 campaign’s epic fail on the ‘being for women’ front, whilst being a runaway success on the ‘being for dudes who like spunking over pictures’ front, it seems, as predicted, conjuring ‘double-act tit names’ became a headache for Dinsmore at breakfast meetings.
The Sun has now dropped the pretence of ‘encouraging women to get to know their bodies’ and Page 3 has reverted to full-on, Tippex-free tit pics. Today’s Check ‘em Tuesday image shows a laughing Rosie Jones checking her breasts for cancer in a new magical way, which involves pushing your breasts together with your elbows, whilst stroking your neck with one hand and holding a see-through bra seductively with the other. As usual, the supportive weekly tweets are rolling in! The first one I saw today, in response to Check ‘em Tuesday’s Page 3, read:
@TheSunNewspaper @rosieofthejones @CoppaFeelPeople nicest pair on the internet.
Lovely!
Coppafeel Respond to the ‘Jizzgate’ Drawing
After Page 3 model Lucy Collett enthusiastically posted an annotated Page 3 image to her Instagram account (the delightful one featuring giant penises ejaculating all over her face, see above), we know that Coppafeel felt it slightly outside their understanding of ‘breast awareness’. Possibly because the ejaculate was scribbled onto her face and not her breasts, or maybe because on a Tuesday these images are about Cancer and not masturbation or… we can only really speculate, but we do know, from a contact we met in an underground car park, that they sent their concerns to Coppafeel and Lucy will no longer feature on Check ‘Em Tuesdays. Presumably this works for everyone unless David Dinsmore decides that spaff-inspired Page 3 artwork is inappropriate Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays too. Again we can only speculate wildly about what next course of action Mr Dinsmore will take to to keep publishing young women’s breasts for profit, has he run out of barrel to scrape or has he something else up his slightly shiny sleeve? Answers on a ‘harmlessly cheeky’ postcard.
Nice one who ever you are x
Is there anywhere I can get updates when you post? (twitter, facebook etc) you’re my absolute fave
We’re just setting up twitter (but we might be a bit rubbish at it!) And thank you!! Flora + Iris x
Hi Freya we’ll be here on twitter @bloodytights
so on point
Excellent post. More reasons to avoid reading the Sun. Not that I do anyway – actually not quite true, I occasionally see it in the Indian restaurant where I buy take-aways. It’s always a bit awkward flicking past page 3 when other people are there so that a) no one thinks you’re ogling the girls’ breasts and b) no one thinks that you have a problem with female bodies. Why any man wants to keep this creepy tradition going is beyond me. And women that want to keep it ? Are they serious ?
Great post. Not a lot I can add but tasteless and disturbing to see the comments from men and male celebrities on The Sun’s “campaign”. Hinting at sexual assault by offering to “help”? I’m sure that kind of comment won’t surprise The Sun, though – they knew what they were doing by tenuously linking Page 3 to breast cancer awareness. It’s the kind of culture P3 is helps perpetuate after all.
Immensely funny and on-point blog. More of the same if poss? 😉
This is great, and totally spot on. That picture of Oly Murs makes me want to be violent.
Try putting up a photo of a poor woman who has just found a lump, or just heard it’s a positive cancer result? Not so entertaining then, is it!!!!! It seems that men forget what this is all about….?
How about a post-op pic of someone who’s had a mastectomy ??
I, of course, speak as the husband of someone who has. And continues to find her incredibly attractive.
If that ever appears on TitsPage3, we’ll know The Sun is serious. I’m not holding my breath.
Didn’t the current Sun editor say there were raunchier images in the British Museum? I’m guessing these paintings have also had cum spurting cocks grafitti’d on to them as well.
The really sad thing is the page 3 model thinks it appropriate to spread this image of her on the internet.
Totally in agreement, but please don’t lump Viz in with those wankers! Viz is genius, The Sun is for men too embarrassed to buy actual porn x
Agreed emilyiii; most of my inspiration in life comes from the Viz letters page. And Top Tips.
Bloody LOVE top Tips!!
An intelligent, articulately written piece with a nice touch of humour.You are a lady who has something to say, I look forward to future blogs 🙂
Didn’t the current Sun editor say there were raunchier images in the British Museum? I’m guessing these paintings also have cum spurting cocks grafitti’d on to them as well.
The really sad thing is the page 3 model thinks it appropriate to spread this image of her on the internet. The page 3 brand slowly dies.
Hmm went to the British museum a couple of weeks ago. The naked male statues on the floor devoted to stuff we’d nicked from Greece seemed to outnumber the females considerably. Not noticed any men on page three.
Of the the female images, they ranged from large, round, probably pregnant early images of women – of the sort you’d never see on page three, stick thin males and females, vicious goddesses with swords alongside swooning maidens. What I didn’t see was wall upon wall of I identically shaped females between 18 and 24. Strangely enough the British museum has been similar to other museums and art galleries in that respect.
Does anyone else think that perhaps Dinsmore has never been in a museum or art gallery? Or that he’s lying?
Brilliant!!
Excellent piece. Of course, the Sun could still confound us by running a similar series on prostate cancer, complete with pictures of male celebrities waving their tackle around while page three models – or, better still, the preening footballers that adorn half of its other pages – don the rubber glove and do the check.
Does Coppafeel have any idea what they have got themselves into here? A page 3 glam model posting pics of her face being splashed with semen is completely the right way to target women and breast care prevention. The Sun and breast awareness, OMG.
The snobbery in this article is pretty vile:
“trying’ journeys on the X78 to Doncaster”
“a Blue Nun fuelled hen night in Rhyl”
Can’t you make your point without this sneering at people?
Hi Victoire! I’ve spent approximately 17% of my adult life on the X78 to Doncaster (this should have been 15%, but there are constant roadworks around Conisborough, which lengthens the journey time considerably). On board the X78, I have seen people having sex, men masturbating, a woman vomit on another woman and a man attempt to sell a dog. Helpfully, the heating is always on full, the windows are jammed shut, there is standing room only and, at any given point, at least seven people are playing ‘experimental’ music out loud on their phones. When I described this journey as ‘trying,’ I was being coy; it’s an epic fucking nightmare packed with extended scenes of extreme peril .Also, I’ve been on a Blue Nun fuelled hen night in Rhyl with my friend Circus Kath, whom I saw shit in a bin.
Love, Flora x
My God I think I love you. If the comments about the bus and hen parties are all that commenter picked up I think they rather missed the point entirely. Excellent piece, well written tongue in cheek fun that actually makes a bloody good point.
Brilliant post. And on a more serious note my fifteen year daughter got her introduction to check em Tuesdays this week when some helpfu older men showed her page three as she walked past and asked would she like some help checking em.
Well of course the silly girl didn’t realise that Dinsmore and the men had her essential breast care at heart and were only being helpful. Instead she was a little bit traumatised. Our fault of course, bringing her up to have aspirations beyond being a ‘fresh, young’ perv cheerer upper.
Coppafeel | My Tights Won’t Stay Up