1. History
    Beginnings and early years  After the mid-1990s 

2. Controversies and campaigns

3. End of the feature

4. Page 3 models

5. Other newspapers

6. See also

7. References

8. Bibliography

9. External links

Page 3 was a feature in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun for over 44 years, from November 1970 until January 2015. It consisted of a large photograph of a topless female glamour model, often known as a "Page 3 girl," usually published on the third page of the print edition.

When The Sun became a tabloid on 17 November 1969, it began intermittently publishing images of clothed glamour models on its third page. The editors introduced nudity on 17 November 1970 when they printed an image of 22-year-old model Stephanie Khan in her "birthday suit" to celebrate the newspaper's first anniversary as a tabloid. Topless Page 3 girls soon became a regular feature in The Sun and are credited with helping to boost the newspaper's circulation significantly in the 1970s and 1980s. Some Page 3 girls became household names. Samantha Fox, who appeared on Page 3 from 1983 to 1986, became one of the most photographed British women of the 1980s,^[1] and famously earned more than then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher while still in her teens.^[2] Britain's other "red top" tabloids introduced competing features under different names. The Daily Star called its topless models "Starbirds." The Daily Mirror also experimented with topless models, although it scrapped the feature in the 1980s.

Page 3 generated considerable controversy throughout its run. Critics often argued that Page 3 objectified and demeaned women. Others believed that images of topless glamour models were inappropriate for a generally circulated national newspaper. Campaigners regularly advocated for legislation to ban Page 3 or tried to convince newspaper owners and editors to voluntarily eliminate the feature or modify it so that models no longer appeared topless. Campaigns against Page 3 proved fruitless for many years, with The Sun often branding opponents of the feature, such as Labour MP Clare Short, as killjoys. However, pressure increasingly mounted on the publication to end the feature after activists launched a No More Page 3 campaign in 2012.

The Irish edition of The Sun ceased publishing topless Page 3 models in August 2013, citing cultural differences between Ireland and the UK. The decision was subsequently taken to drop Page 3 from the UK edition as well. On 19 January 2015, another News UK title, The Times, reported that it "understands that Friday's edition of [The Sun] was the last that will carry an image of a glamour model with bare breasts on that page."^[3][4] However, after several days of publishing images of clothed glamour models, The Sun on 22 January 2015 stated on its front page that "We've had a mammary lapse" and featured a topless photograph of 22-year-old Nicole Neal on Page 3. This seeming intent to restore topless models caused a media and social media backlash, after which no further Page 3 images appeared in the print edition.^[5][6] The Sun continued the feature online via its Page3.com website until March 2017, at which point it ceased to update the website with new content. As of September 2018, the Page3.com website has been removed. The Daily Star has continued to print topless models on Page 3.

History

Beginnings and early years

When Rupert Murdoch relaunched the flagging Sun newspaper in tabloid format on 17 November 1969, he began publishing photographs of clothed glamour models on its third page in a move intended to help the paper compete with its principal rival, the Daily Mirror, which was printing photos of women in lingerie or bikinis.^[7] The first edition featured that month's Penthouse Pet, Ulla Lindstrom, wearing a suggestively unbuttoned shirt. Page 3 photographs over the following year were often provocative, but did not feature nudity.

Whether it was editor Larry Lamb or Murdoch who decided to introduce the Page 3 feature is disputed, but on 17 November 1970, the tabloid celebrated its first anniversary by publishing a photograph of 22-year-old Singapore born model Stephanie Khan in her "birthday suit" (i.e., in the nude).^[8] A sub-editor misread her name as Stephanie Rahn, a German surname. Sitting in a field, backlit by the sun, with one of her breasts visible from the side, Khan was photographed by Beverley Goodway, who became The Sun{{'}}s principal Page 3 photographer until he retired in 2003.^[9][10] Lamb thought the models featured should be "nice girls"; he believed that "big-breasted girls look like tarts".^[11] Page 3 was intended to be "breezy, not sleazy"; Chris Horrie wrote in 1995 that it was intended as comparable to the naturism of Health and Efficiency magazine rather than top-shelf pornography titles.^[12]

Page 3 was not a strictly daily feature at the beginning of the 1970s.^[13] The Sun only gradually began to feature Page 3 models in more overtly topless poses, with their nipples clearly visible. The feature, and the paper's other sexual content, quickly led to The Sun being banned from some public libraries. The first such decision was taken by a Conservative council in Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire, although it was reversed after a series of local stunts organised by the newspaper and a change in the council's political orientation in 1971.^[14][15]

The feature is partly credited with the increased circulation that established The Sun as one of the most popular newspapers in the United Kingdom by the mid-1970s.^[16] In an effort to compete with The Sun, the Daily Mirror and Daily Star tabloids also began publishing images of topless women, although the Daily Mirror stopped featuring topless models in the 1980s, deeming the photographs demeaning to women.

After the mid-1990s

In June 1999, The Sun launched its official Page 3 website, Page3.com, which featured the tabloid's daily Page 3 girl in three different poses, including the photograph published in the printed edition. On 1 August 2013, coinciding with the launch of the subscription-based website Sun+, the official Page 3 website became accessible only to Sun+ subscribers.

Before 2003, British tabloids sometimes featured 16- and 17-year-old girls as topless models. Samantha Fox, Maria Whittaker, Debee Ashby, and others began their topless modelling careers in The Sun when they were 16. The Daily Sport was even known to count down the days until it would feature a girl topless on her 16th birthday, as it did with Linsey Dawn McKenzie in 1994. After 2003, the legal age for topless modelling was raised to 18.

During her tenure as deputy editor of The Sun, Rebekah Brooks argued that Page 3 lowered the newspaper's circulation because women readers found the feature offensive. When she became the tabloid's first female editor in January 2003, she was widely expected either to terminate the feature or to modify it so that models no longer exposed their breasts. However, Brooks changed her position and became a staunch advocate of the feature.^[10][18] She later wrote an editorial defending Page 3 from its critics, calling its models "intelligent, vibrant young women who appear in The Sun out of choice and because they enjoy the job."^[20] Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman in 2005 accused Brooks of having "played up" Page 3 by introducing the "News in Briefs" caption (a paragraph attributing the newspaper's editorial views to the Page 3 model).^[19][20] The caption was removed in June 2013 when David Dinsmore took over as editor.^[21]

Controversies and campaigns

Critics usually considered Page 3 to be demeaning and objectifying to women, a form of softcore pornography^[22] that was inappropriate for publication in a national newspaper readily available to children. Some campaigners sought legislation to have Page 3 banned. Others, wary of calling for government censorship of the press, sought to convince newspaper editors and owners to voluntarily remove the feature or modify it so that it no longer featured a topless female model.

A YouGov survey carried out in October 2012 found marked differences in attitude toward Page 3 among readers of different newspapers. 61% of Sun readers wished to retain the feature, while 24% said that the newspaper should stop showing Page 3 women. However, only 4% of Guardian readers said The Sun should keep Page 3, while 86% said it should be abolished. The poll also found notable differences by gender, with 48% of men overall saying that Page 3 should be retained, but just 17% of women taking that position.^[23]

Political campaigners for legislative action against Page 3 included Labour Party MPs Clare Short and Harriet Harman, Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone, and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. The Sun has responded to such campaigns with mockery. When Short tried in 1986 to introduce a House of Commons bill banning topless models from British newspapers, The Sun branded her "killjoy Clare".^[24] When Short renewed her campaign against Page 3 in 2004, The Sun superimposed her face on a Page 3 model's body and accused her of being "fat and jealous".^[25] The Sun also branded Harman a "feminist fanatic" and Featherstone a "battleaxe" because of their stances against Page 3.^[26]

In August 2012, Lucy-Anne Holmes, a writer and actress from Brighton, began a grassroots social media campaign called No More Page 3 with the goal of convincing The Sun{{'s}} editors to voluntarily remove Page 3 from the newspaper. Holmes stated that she began the campaign after noticing that despite the achievements of Britain's women athletes in the 2012 Summer Olympics, the largest photograph of a woman in the nation's biggest-selling newspaper was "a massive image of a beautiful young woman in her knickers".^[27] Holmes further argued that Page 3 perpetuated the outdated sexist norms of the 1970s, portrayed women as sex objects, negatively affected girls' and women's body image, and contributed to a culture of sexual violence against women and girls.^[28] Some commentators, such as Kira Cochrane in The Guardian, were supportive of Holmes' goals^[29] although commentators in publications such as the Telegraph and New Statesman criticised the campaign, calling it "censorious" and "sinister".^[30][31]

At the Liberal Democrats party conference in September 2012, former MP Evan Harris with the support of others, lent support to Holmes' campaign by proposing a party motion to "[tackle] the projection of women as sex objects to children and adolescents by restricting sexualised images in newspapers and general circulation magazines to the same rules that apply to pre-watershed broadcast media".^[32] However, party leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg distanced himself from the motion. In an October 2012 radio interview, Clegg said he did not support a legislative ban on Page 3, believing that government in a liberal society should not dictate the content of newspapers. "If you don't like it, don't buy it ... you don't want to have a moral policeman or woman in Whitehall telling people what they can and cannot see," Clegg stated.^[33]

The Leveson Inquiry heard arguments for and against Page 3. Representatives of women's groups (including Object and the End Violence Against Women Coalition) argued that Page 3 was part of an endemic culture of tabloid sexism that routinely objectified and sexualised women. The inquiry also heard testimony from Sun editor Dominic Mohan, who argued that Page 3 was an "innocuous British institution" that had become a "part of British society".^[34] The Leveson report concluded that arguments over Page 3, and the representation of women in the tabloid press more generally, raised "important and sensitive issues which merit further consideration by any new regulator".^[35]

In February 2013, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News International, parent group of the Sun, stated on social networking site Twitter that he was considering replacing Page 3 with a "halfway house", whereby Page 3 would feature clothed glamour photographs, but not bare breasts.^[36]

In June 2013, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas defied parliamentary dress code to wear a T-shirt bearing the slogan "No More Page Three" during a House of Commons debate on media sexism. Arguing that The Sun newspaper should be removed from sale in Parliament until it dropped the feature, she said that "if Page Three still hasn't been removed from The Sun by the end of this year, I think we should be asking the government to step in and legislate". Culture minister Ed Vaizey responded by stating that the government did not plan to regulate the content of the press.^[37] Later that month, newly appointed Sun editor David Dinsmore confirmed that he would continue printing photographs of topless women on Page 3, calling it "a good way of selling newspapers".^[38]

In August 2013, citing "cultural differences" between the UK and Ireland, Paul Clarkson, editor of The Sun{{'}}s Irish Republic edition, announced that he would no longer print images of topless models on Page 3. The Irish Sun now features images of glamour models with their breasts covered.^[39][40] The No More Page 3 campaign called the decision "a huge step in the right direction", and thanked Clarkson "for taking the lead in the dismantling of a sexist institution", and called on Dinsmore to follow suit with the newspaper's UK edition.^[41]

The hopes of campaigners were further raised when Rupert Murdoch, in his Twitter feed in September 2014 suggested the Page 3 feature was "old fashioned". Eighteen months earlier on Twitter Murdoch had suggested that it might be better to show "glamorous fashionistas" (i.e., clothed models).^[42] Murdoch affirmed that the feature would eventually end in an interview for India Today magazine in 1994. While defending it from criticism, he said: "But show it to me in any other newspaper I own. Never in America, never in Australia. Never. Never. Never. It just would not be accepted."^[17][22]

End of the feature

The feature in the British newspaper was reported as having been scrapped in 2015 with the edition of 16 January supposedly the last to carry the feature, after a 20 January article in The Times, another Murdoch paper, said that a decision had been made to end Page 3 in the present incarnation.^[17][3][43]

On 22 January 2015, after an absence of six days, The Sun returned to publishing shots of topless female models. A notice appeared in the issue: "Further to recent reports in all other media outlets, we would like to clarify that this is Page 3 and this is a picture of Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth. We would like to apologise on behalf of the print and broadcast journalists who have spent the last two days talking and writing about us."^[5] In the evening of 21 January, Dylan Sharpe, the head of public relations at The Sun wrote on social media: "I said that it was speculation and not to trust reports by people unconnected to the Sun. A lot of people are about to look very silly".^[44]

The apparent ending of the feature gained much attention in the British press. Clare Short thought that the dropping of topless photographs on Page 3 of The Sun "is an important public victory for dignity."^[45] As Caroline Lucas explained in an article for The Independent: "So long as The Sun reserves its right to print the odd topless shot, and reserve its infamous page for girls clad in bikinis, the conversation isn't over."^[46] The business minister Jo Swinson criticised the newspaper, saying that the decision to replace topless models with women in bikinis did not go far enough.^[47] After the re-appearance of a topless Page 3 model after nearly a week's absence, Lucy-Anne Holmes wrote on social media: "So it seems the fight might be back on."^[44]

The edition of 22 January saw the return of a topless Page 3 model, but this revival has turned out to be a one-off.^[6] The Sun continued to run the Page 3 website, featuring multiple topless shots of a different model on a daily basis until 29 March 2017.^[48] Circa September 2018, the Page 3 website was taken down and the website's URL made to redirect to The Sun website.^[49]

Page 3 models

• Nicole Neal
• Lacey Banghard
• Danielle Sharp

• Sylvia Barrie
• Louise Cliffe
• Lucy Collett
• Cherry Dee
• Amy Diamond
• Helen Flanagan
• Katie Green
• Keeley Hazell
• Katia Ivanova
• Rosie Jones
• Holly Peers
• India Reynolds
• Peta Todd
• Madison Welch
• Chelsea White
• Iga Wyrwal

• Carla Brown
• Sam Cooke
• Natalie Denning
• Katie Downes
• Amii Grove
• Sophie Howard
• Michelle Marsh
• Nicola McLean
• Natasha Mealey
• Lucy Pinder
• Lauren Pope
• Katie Richmond
• Nicola Tappenden

• Jakki Degg
• Leilani Dowding
• Joanne Guest
• Geri Halliwell
• Ruth Higham
• Jordan
• Jodie Marsh
• Nell McAndrew
• Linsey Dawn McKenzie
• Melinda Messenger
• Jayne Middlemiss
• Charmaine Sinclair
• Rachel Ter Horst

• Melanie Appleby
• Debee Ashby
• Marina Baker
• Deborah Corrigan
• Donna Ewin
• Samantha Fox
• Kirsten Imrie
• Kathy Lloyd
• Gail McKenna
• Suzanne Mizzi
• Corinne Russell
• Gail Thackray
• Maria Whittaker

• Sian Adey-Jones
• Nina Carter
• Cherri Gilham
• Penny Irving
• Jilly Johnson
• Joanne Latham
• Linda Lusardi
• Carol Needham
• Tula

• Flanagan
• Vicki Hodge
• Stephanie Marrian

Other newspapers

• In January 2015 the Daily Star announced its intention to continue its Page 3 feature.^[50] By the time of the newspaper's 40th anniversary in 2018 it was still publishing a photograph of a topless model on Page 3 every day.^[51]
• On 24 January 2015 the Daily Mirror responded to the publicity surrounding The Sun by publishing a montage of blue tits, great tits and coal tits on its Page 3.^[52]
• The Sydney Sun tabloid published a weather girl on page three, always in a swimsuit and generally a bikini (summer or winter).{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

See also

• The Sun newspaper
• Hot Shots Calendar
• Lad culture
• Lad mags

References

Bibliography

• {{cite book|title=Page 3 – The Complete History Laid Bare|last=Perry|first=John|date=2005|publisher=News International Newspapers The Sun|isbn=9781845792299}}

External links

• Page3.com official Page 3 website
• Page Three girls – the naked truth from the BBC website

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