As you’ve probably noticed, there’s been renewed hoo-ha recently about the presence of tits on page three.

Some people are campaigning against it, and I can see why. It’s a bloody odd thing for a newspaper to print, it makes the assumption that there are vast armies of men who won’t buy newspapers unless there’s something in there to give them an erection, and it perpetrates the myth that women are sexual only in so much as they have lovely tits to look at.

On the other hand some people I greatly respect and admire have denounced the campaign, saying that – among other things – there are worrying tendencies to slut shame the young women who pose topless, and what the fuck is wrong with naked bodies anyway?

All good points – there’s clearly a problem in here somewhere. I’m going to say at this point that I personally hate bans. While it’s clearly necessary to outlaw certain things, banning can occasionally prove to be the last resort of the unimaginative arsehole. There are often better solutions that don’t involve curtailing people’s behaviour.

So I’m not going to suggest that we ban the tits. I’m going to suggest that we add to them, by including dicks on page three as well.

The page three problem

The main problem with page three, and the reason that people want to ban it, is that it encourages us to view women as sexual objects. On the other hand, as Hayley Stevens argues, perhaps this argument itself is perpetrating negative attitudes – that you’re useless to society if you take your clothes off, that you being naked betrays other women, etc.

Both of these issues are focused on women. Let’s be clear – no one I’ve read has suggested that seeing a naked man will send all women into a misandric, frothing, abusive frenzy. Or that men being photographed taking their clothes off might be betraying the brotherhood.

So why is it specifically naked women that are the problem? It surely can’t be that, as well as having tits, women also have magical and hidden society-altering powers that are involuntarily activated as soon as they take their tops off. No – it’s not that women are somehow different, it’s that they’re the only bloody ones we see naked.

A parade of naked men

I’m not saying that we never see naked men. You only need to look at covers of things such as Attitude to get a really good see of a naked man. Occasionally I’ll spend upwards of two minutes in WH Smith seeing the naked men, with a thin string of drool running down my chin.

But the reason I’ll dwell on these pictures is because they’re a special treat.

Naked men are not a part of our culture in the same way that naked women are. Their dicks don’t come out on saucy postcards, they are less frequently employed as strippers, in films their good bits are usually hidden from the camera, and in posters and advertisements their cocks are usually well and truly covered. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the famous David Beckham package, which caused an appropriately well-endowed storm at the time, but it’s exceptional because it’s rare. As one who looks out for it on an almost constant basis, I can assure you that male nudity is disproportionately scarce. Most importantly, it’s completely absent from page three.

Solution: put dicks on page three

So, here’s my proposal, and it’s a disappointingly simple one, motivated in equal parts by my insatiable horniness and my sense of fair play: put cocks on page three. In fact not just the cocks – the whole body. Stick naked men on page three too.

I’m unlikely to open The Sun, but if I did I’d like to see Tony, 23, from Bradford telling me that although GDP has dropped by 0.5% he feels reassured that the Treasury has a plan for recovery. And more importantly, I could look at his dick. A nice, long, thick, photogenic dick. Not erect, of course, it’s a family paper.

You could alternate the days, with a man one day and a woman the next or even – just to blow everyone’s minds – put male and female models next to each other in the same picture. It would at least give the whole charade some semblance of realism. After all, men and women are often naked together, but it’s bloody unusual for a lone girl to spontaneously get her baps out while standing awkwardly next to a rose bush.

Should we ban tits on page three?

Look, I know it sounds facetious, and I realise that I’m a horrible coward for ducking controversy and not putting a tick in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ box, but I’m not entirely sure I understand the question yet.

Do I object to newspapers publishing naked people? Not if they’re sold responsibly. Do I object to tits in papers? Maybe – but not because I object to tits, I object to inequality.

Right now I think it’s great that we’re having this discussion, and it’s important that people are aware of why this is causing such a stink. Whether you think it’s OK or not, I hope you’d agree that we should definitely be talking about it. Because when national newspapers dedicate an entire page just to a pert-breasted Tanya, 19, from Birmingham, not even mentioning it would be fucking odd indeed.

We need to think about this. We need to think about why we might object to nakedness in papers, and what we think about women, and whether we’d be having this discussion at all if the sexes were reversed. Why when it comes to sexual content women are rarely seen as the consumers instead of the consumed. Whether printing tits actually does anything to increase newspaper sales. Whether as a nation we’re demeaned, repressed, over-sexualised, or all of the above.

It’s a thorny issue indeed. Girlonthenet, 28, from London, says: “I don’t know much about the objectification of women, but how about you print some lovely dicks for me to look at while I mull it over?”

If you would like to join my campaign, please express your vigorous support in the comments below, or tweet/facebook this blog to make it clear to your friends just how much you like equality and/or cock.

A lot of shit is spoken about strip clubs. Wherever someone gets their kit off for money you can guarantee that loudmouthed cunts like me will be ready to chip in with an ill-thought-out opinion or jerk a knee or two. Strip clubs are either Good Things or Bad Things, and there seems to be little room for fence-sitting or nuance or grey areas.

As such it is ripe and fertile ground for journalists and anonymous John Does who want to knock out quick opinion-type pieces on ‘My Real Life Strip Club Experience.’

In the New Statesman today an anonymous John Doe explains why he used to go to strip clubs and what he thinks about them. The problem I have with this article is that although it’s quite an interesting piece if seen as an opinion among many (essentially what it is), as a definitive guide to all things stripping (what it pretends to be) it’s a massive pile of wank.

I am by no means a strip club expert, but neither is John Doe. He’s just a man who happens to have been to strip clubs on a number of occasions. As a girl who has been to strip clubs on a number of occasions, I feel compelled to point out that his experiences are not definitive.

Strip clubs aren’t all expensive

Our John Doe sets out just how much strip clubs cost.

“You pay an entry fee of £20. Then you’re shown to a table and you order drinks, which cost at least £5 each. You might not have even seen a nipple, and already you’re £25 down.”

This is probably true of the strip club that he used to frequent. It is not, however, true of all clubs in which women remove their tops.

My favourite club, run by the grumpiest and yet most generous landlord in the whole of East London, charges £3 entry. You walk in, go up to the bar, and buy a pint for about £4. To those in the North who might already be reeling in horror I can assure you that, in London, that’s a reasonably priced pint.

If it’s nipples you’re after, all you need do is wait for the girls to walk around holding out pint glasses full of coinage. You put a pound in the pint glass, then when they have collected a pound from everyone, they get up on stage and whip off their bra. Also, usually (and this came as a surprise to me the first time I went) their pants. By my reckoning that’s £8 for two nipples and a cunt.

Strippers don’t all either love it or hate it

Doe tries to tell us that, far from hating their jobs, strippers (and again, he at no point asserts that he is only talking about the very few that he happens to have seen):

“clearly enjoy the process of performance, grinning at the punters and showing off all sorts of gyratory tricks. “

Do they ‘clearly’ enjoy it? Really? To be honest I’m not sure I’m in a position to judge. I wouldn’t go there if I thought any of them were being forced to do it against their will, but I’m not convinced that every single stripper ‘actively enjoys it.’ After all, if I have to chair a meeting at work I will often grin at the attendees and show off all of my managerial tricks, but that doesn’t mean that on the inside I’m not wishing I was at home eating cheese sandwiches and watching the iPlayer.

Clearly some strippers do enjoy it. Some don’t. Some are having an off-day. Some are thinking about whether they can knock off a bit early because they’ve recorded a really good programme and want to watch it before they go to bed. Grinning at you shouldn’t be seen as definitive evidence of their enjoyment any more than my saying ‘pleased to meet you’ is definitive evidence that I am actually pleased to meet you.

The girls aren’t all on drinks commission

“After a while, you’ll be approached by a girl. She’ll ask how you’re getting on, and pull up a seat alongside you.  Then you talk. She might ask you to buy her a drink (champagne: she’ll get commission on this). Eventually she’ll ask you if you want a lapdance – either where you are, for £20, or behind a curtain, for £40. “

Again, this depends on the club. In my experience girls rarely approach me (as a fellow girl, I suspect they think that I have my own tits to look at so probably wouldn’t pay a premium to look at theirs) but even when they do approach, or speak to the guys I’m with, they don’t pressure you to buy drinks. They’re not always on commission – most places I’ve been to are arranged so that the girls get the money for their dances and the bar keeps the bar profits and entry fee. And, for the record, a dance in this particular establishment is a tenner. A tenner. For £40 I’d expect the Royal National Ballet.

Strip clubs are erotic, but not for everyone

The next part is my favourite, so please read/listen closely. Doe explains how, despite having semi-naked or completely naked women gyrating in one’s face, it is not, in fact, an erotic experience:

“It’s not unpleasant, not at all – but we know it only gives the impression of eroticism – how erotic, really, can a human being waving her genitals in your face be?”

The answer, in case it wasn’t sledgehammer obvious, is that it can be incredibly erotic. Cards on the table: the reason I go to strip clubs is because the men in them seem to be having a good time. Lovely though tits are, I’m not actually paying the entry fee just to stare at them. I’m paying the entry fee because there’s something deeply sexy about watching men get aroused – watching men try to drink a pint and chat with their mates whilst sneaking glimpses of the tits jiggling no more than six feet away from their face. Sure, sometimes the clubs ooze skeeze or awkwardness, but there will also be a hell of a lot of sexual tension – at least a few guys trying to sit in a way that doesn’t show their semi through their jeans.

However, rather obviously, that’s not to say that everyone finds it arousing. I know men who are deeply uncomfortable about the whole idea and wouldn’t walk into a strip club even if you promised there was a free buffet inside. I know men who are aroused by the idea but in practice are terrified. I once bought a lapdance for a friend of mine, thinking it’d be a nice gesture. He left the back room after a minute, and emerged white-faced as if instead of shaking her ass at him, the stripper had smashed his kneecaps then handed him a credit card bill.

So, I agree that it’s not everyone’s idea of an erotic night out, but surely we can all agree that it is erotic for some people, yeah?

Not all feminists hate stripping

The final howler, of course, is the one that’s much trickier to deal with:

“Feminists say we should ban the clubs.”

Do they? What, all of them? Because as far as I’m aware there’s actually quite a lively debate on this issue amongst feminists. There are very good arguments for and against, and I don’t think it’s a topic that has yet been settled.

Reasons for banning: they’re exploitative, they can suck in vulnerable women, they perpetrate the view that women want money and men want to see tits, etc. Reasons against banning: because who the hell are we to tell women whether they’re allowed to earn a few quid by getting their tits out, and banning things should generally be a very well justified last resort.

So there you go – muddy waters, which you’re not going to un-muddy just by writing an article about your own strip club experiences in which you imply that everything you say is the definitive truth and everyone else is disgustingly and embarrassingly wrong. The only thing you’re going to do is add another anecdote to demonstrate just how muddy those waters are.

 

Somewhere in the world there exists a blurry night-shot video of me sucking a guy’s dick. Don’t hit google, you’ll never find it. The guy who filmed it, whose dick starred in it, is not an arsehole. I’ve had odd moments of panic when I wonder if his computer ever got stolen, or if the tape from the camera was mislaid and picked up later by a curious friend, but I know with utter conviction that he’d never have deliberately shown it to anyone without my consent.

Kate Middleton’s tits

This week some tawdry celeb mags have published pictures of Kate Middleton sunbathing topless.

The pictures (for I have seen them – they are on the internet) are nothing special. They are exactly what you’d expect them to be. They are not newsworthy, or shocking – they’re unnecessary, and the taking of them was hurtful and intrusive and offensive. The buying of them equally so.

And yet I looked. I looked because I was curious. Everyone’s talking about these pictures. I wanted to confirm my suspicions that the fuss was about nothing, and that publishing them was something I could easily condemn.

“Oh, how awful. They invaded this poor woman’s privacy for nothing. How disgusting they are. I’m so horrified I’ll shut this web page in a minute.”

I fucking disgust myself.

Because so rarely in life do I do things that I think are genuinely wrong. I’m happy batting away the judgment of other people when they call me a pervert or a slut, because I have the moral high ground. I usually have enough ethical awareness to avoid doing the things that – although tempting – are actually morally wrong.

And yet I looked at Kate Middleton’s tits.

Prince Harry’s bollocks

A similar dilemma arose during the recent ‘Prince Harry gets naked in Vegas’ shock. It turns out that a young, attractive man got naked in his hotel room with some people.

The resulting storm that brewed was both disgusting and weird. While Clarence House played whack-a-mole with the images that had popped up online, individuals were loudly asserting their right to see the pictures. “It’s a public interest issue,” they said “We pay for him,” they continued. And then, flailing vaguely around the issue of just why, exactly, someone they pay for should be compelled to let you see his bollocks they added “it’s a security issue.”

Well, no. It’s not, is it? Perhaps there are security issues associated with what happened, but the pictures themselves are not a security issue. No one is more or less likely to assassinate Harry on the basis that there is photographic evidence that he has testicles. The fact that the pictures were taken might form the basis of a story about security surrounding the prince, but the actual pictures themselves add nothing to that debate.

Nevertheless, a debate was had. Justifications were made, counterarguments swept under the table, and the prince’s own assertion that – you know – he’d rather we didn’t all cop a look at him in the nude went unheeded. The Sun knocked the whole thing out of the park with a grand announcement that it would publish the pictures because it was the ‘right thing’ to do.

Hooray for press freedom! Hooray for the Sun! Hooray for them posting naked pictures of someone without his consent! What larks, eh? Who wouldn’t shell out 20-odd pence to have a quick glimpse of the prince’s privates?

Well, I guess nice people. People nicer than me.

I’m going to put aside the spurious debate about press freedom for a moment and talk about ethics. Because hey – I’m not a fan of banning people from doing things if at all possible. If I were ruler of the world, I wouldn’t want to have to issue a diktat saying ‘newspapers cannot print pictures of members of the Royal Family in the nude.’

So let’s instead talk in more general terms: is there ever a compelling reason for a national newspaper to publish naked pictures or videos of someone without their consent?

I don’t think there is. Moreover, I don’t think there’s an honest justification for anyone to publish naked pictures of someone without their consent.

Tulisa’s blow job

A few months ago a video was released of FHM’s sexiest woman – Tulisa – giving an ex-boyfriend a blow job. Blogs were ringing with the sound of gleeful dudes rubbing one out, frowning moralists calling Tulisa ‘loose’, and bitchy women criticising her blow-job technique. Someone suggested to me that I jump on the bandwagon, grab myself some cheap SEO traffic, and review the video.

As you can probably tell, I didn’t. The idea of pointing and laughing at someone doing something that they clearly believed was private gives me the shivers. With the certainty that comes from knowing I never want my blurry night-shot blow job video to go online, I know that posting sexual pictures of someone without their consent is unethical and wrong.

Whatever you think of some of the more controversial things I’ve written, I have very strong views on consent, and ultimately I don’t want to be part of anything that tramples all over it. So even if you’re saying that Tulisa’s sexy, Kate’s an English Rose, even if you’re saluting Prince Harry and calling him a ‘top lad’ for playing naked games in his hotel room, the fact remains that he’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t want those pictures published. So we shouldn’t publish them.

But I looked

Here’s the tricky part. How do we ethically justify the fact that, although we’re disgusted by the idea of releasing hot blow job videos, or tit shots, or blurry mobile-phone snaps of a prince frolicking in a hotel room, some of us are happy to watch those things when they appear? The answer is we don’t – we can’t. There’s no need for me ever to see this stuff – it will add nothing of value to my life.

The people who publish this shit are hideous. The people who either take photos without consent or release photos without consent are doubly hideous. But if we’re completely honest with ourselves we’re not much better.

No matter what our reasons for looking, we are still disgusting. What makes me angry is that not only do these situations demonstrate how pathetic I am as an individual, but how pathetic we are as a species. We cannot bear to admit that we googled the pictures out of cheap curiosity or lust. Instead we cite press freedom, security concerns, or the hazards of celebrity.

But the very fact that we want an excuse shows we know deep down that seeking out these pictures might not be our most glorious moment – that we’re crossing a moral line. So let’s drop the excuses altogether, shall we? We can admit that we want to look whilst trying to avoid looking, and while this internal battle rages we can stop lying to ourselves and everyone else.

Let’s not invent bullshit excuses to try and wriggle out of guilt. Accept the guilt. You’re not looking at Prince Harry’s bollocks because you’re a freedom fighter. You’re looking because you’re disgusting. We’re disgusting.

I am disgusting.

There’s a rather excellent exchange in Queer as Folk that goes something like this:

Alexander: “When you have a wank, do you think about him?”
Vince: “What sort of question’s that?”
Alexander: “Do you think about him?”
Vince: “No.”
Alexander: “Congratulations, he’s your boyfriend.”

By this definition, this boy is definitely not my boyfriend. I’m a bit more than in love with him – I am obsessed by him in a way that cannot be healthy. He takes my waking thoughts and as much of my spare time as I can find between work and writing and drinking and sleep. What’s worse – he takes up the fantasies that were previously reserved for the faceless strangers who’d play out scenes of angry fucking behind my closed eyelids.

In short: when I have a wank, I think about him.

I think about him bracing himself, restraining me, fucking me in the ass. I think about his whispered words and his hard kisses and the far-too-infrequent slaps he sometimes gives me. I think about the quick, sharp, angry strokes with which he fucks me.

Get out of my head

This boy commands my attention in a way that others don’t. I joke with him that it’s because of his dick. His dick which is wonderful, thick, almost permanently solid – straining at his jeans as he grips my arse, or slips an idle hand down my top. And I joke about it because the truth is worse – it’s not just his dick: it’s him.

He’s warm, he’s kind, he’s funny. He’s beautiful. He has big arms and hands that envelop me like I’m tiny. He says utterly ridiculous things in an accent that makes me drool. He wraps me in big sweaters and brings me coffee, like this kind of calm happiness is the most normal thing in the world. He swings quickly from gentle to passionate, and every time he does it takes me by lustful surprise. And when I get angry or unreasonable he nods, and listens, and tells me I’m not mad, then holds my big, mad head in his gentle hands and makes me feel like a normal person again.

It’s a trap

Rather ridiculously, I am more terrified of writing this than I am any of the other stuff. I can talk to you about group-gropes in a sex cinema, my excessive love of spunk, or the fun I’ve had with piss-play. But telling you that despite my lust for any guy with a nerdy charm and a solid dick, right now I’m just not in the mood for group sex and spanking circles, is pretty fucking tricky indeed.

The fact that writing this entry is a bit like pulling teeth lays bare all of my own prejudices about love. That love is a pathetic shadow of the independent lust on which most of my recent relationships have been based. I feel like, having mastered the art of being happy on my own, and withdrawing from boys who have too much emotional control over me, I’ve failed if I ever think too much of them. I’ve failed if I love them, or miss them. Above all, I’ve failed if I can’t put them out of my mind for long enough to have a wank about someone else.

I’m just going to smash everything

It’s not that I haven’t been in love before – I have. But I’ve never loved healthily – I don’t know how to be in love casually. I want to be able to do this to just the right degree.

On a night out drinking there’s that brilliant moment when I’m merrily drunk, having fun dancing and flirting and chatting and smoking endless cigarettes, and I think the night’s perfect. Then one more drink and I’m grumpy and spinning and weak and desperate to go home to bed. Love is the same.

I can like guys, I can lust guys, I can fuck them with a desperate, panting enthusiasm yet still remain healthy and in control. But then just a bit more – a few more nights spent sleeping beside them, a few more hugs that don’t end in a fuck, a few more secrets exposed and intimate discussions and suddenly it’s all too much. I can’t sleep, I can’t think, and worst of all I can’t come without thinking about him fucking me into submission. And I can’t be in love this hard without overdoing it.

So I fuck men and I play with men and I flirt with men and I follow them from pub to bed to pub to strip club to pub to bed and back again. And I hope that they’re just friends, and I tell them that they’re just friends, and I break up with them when they’re more than friends, because I don’t ever want them to become precious.

If I can’t fuck or wank without thinking of a specific someone, then that someone has become precious to me. He’s special enough that most of the time I don’t want to fuck anyone else – I barely even think about anyone else when I’m lying horny on the sofa thinking about what I might wank to. I know what I’m going to wank to – the same fucking guy who’s in my head even after he’s left my bedroom.

I’ve accidentally become monogamous. And worse, I’ve accidentally created a relationship so precious that I’m in danger of smashing it. I’m at the merry stage of drunk and reaching for another pint and smiling because the night can only get better and I’m so happy and I’m dancing and I’m horny and I want more oh please let me have more and just another pint and another dance and I just want to stay here a bit longer and I’m definitely not going to be sick. I promise.