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 quick question: just how hard can tweets such as the following fuck off out of my Twitter timeline for good?

“There are far scarier things on the loose in Essex than the escaped lion. We ran in terror from these beasts last night http://t.co/A86Tz3Hw“

The answer, I hope, is ‘very fucking hard indeed.’

There is (or, more realistically, there probably isn’t) a lion on the loose in Essex right now. The police are on the hunt and Twitter’s crawling with jokes about lions. I can cope with wardrobes and circuses and puns about ‘lion around’, but what I’m not particularly pleased with are the numerous jokes about how all Essex women are fake, ugly, desperate slags.

Haterz gotta hate

I know there are some shockingly awful people on the internet – one of the fantastic things about certain parts of it (Twitter for instance) is that you can pick and choose whether to follow them. I choose not to – I try and select people who are liberal, interesting and funny. In short: I follow people who aren’t cunts.

But unfortunately these people who aren’t cunts have massively let me down. In the last 24 hours or so I’ve seen numerous retweets of jokes like the one above. Hilarious descriptions of ‘beasts’ wandering nightclubs sprayed orange or side-splitting gags telling the police not to ‘vajazzle the pussy.’

These have been tweeted and retweeted by people I like. People who think they’re liberal. People who think they’re unjudgmental. People who sip lattes and worry about human rights and wonder what kind of political activism will have the biggest impact. Most pertinently, they’ve been retweeted by the sort of people who respect a woman’s right to bodily autonomy – to wear dungarees and a cardigan covered in soup stains if she feels like it, her right to not shave her armpits or have plastic surgery.

My problem is not with the jokes themselves – they’re annoying and cunty, sure. I’m the sort of girl who’ll twitch if people in pubs make reference to ‘2am slags’ or ‘the hot girl’s fat mate’, but I realise there’s not much point in tackling the arseholes who believe they’re mining a rich seam of comedy gold. My worry is that these jokes aren’t being made by arseholes I’m overhearing in a Wetherspoons, they’re being made by people I admire. People I usually think are funny. People who would previously have retweeted blogs I’ve written about self-confidence and body image.

Seriously, liberal people – feminists FFS – how fucking dare you do this now?

Vajazzle the fuck out of your cunt

I don’t want a vajazzle. I don’t want a spray tan. I don’t want extensions. I expect – because I am not a fucking idiot – that not all the women in Essex want these things either. But some of them do. And you don’t have to be from Essex either – quite a few women want to strut the streets wearing skimpy clothes and fake tan and padded bras and false eyelashes and a fuck of a lot of other stuff that liberal hipsters like me wouldn’t be seen dead in. And good on them.

If you want to agree with me that a woman has every right to not shave her fucking armpits, then you need to be consistent. You can’t support a woman’s right to physical autonomy if you subsequently mock and spit upon those who pick a look that you find unarousing or gross.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about ‘Snog, Marry, Avoid’, and why it was such a hateful programme. She pointed out that although they occasionally let goths and punk girls off the hook (because, apparently, they have a ‘unique style’) fortunately they do sort out the women who ‘just look like an awful mess.’ Because black lipstick and ripped fishnets is a ‘style’ but fake tan and hair extensions is ‘a mess.’

Sorry, but you don’t get to do that. You just don’t. If you’re going to champion women’s right to pick a ‘style’ and select clothes that they feel comfortable in – clothes that make them feel good and that they enjoy wearing – you can’t subsequently declare certain styles to be out of bounds.

Pick your sides, people. 

I’m standing here in my scruffy jeans, with legs I haven’t shaved for a week and piercings you wouldn’t wear to a job interview, next to hot muscular girls in dungarees and boxer shorts, and all the other types of women there are. Some are wearing floral summer dresses and subtle, how-does-she-achieve-that-look makeup. There are punks and goths and hipsters and – yes – there are scantily-clad bleach-blonde women dolled up to go to a nightclub. I don’t care who you fancy, or who you identify with, because it’s not about that. It’s about having respect for people’s choices, even when those choices don’t fit your personal worldview.

You’re either with us or against us, but you can’t just be with some of us.

Update: The police have now called off the search for the lion. World reacts with a total lack of surprise.

There are few things that make me want to rub one out more than a seriously lovely pair of tits. Firm, perky tits trapped in something really tight – a corset, a low-cut t-shirt, or occasionally just squished together with a belt or a length of rope.

I was casually perusing the internet recently when I came across a fantastic example of this – a woman with beautiful, hard tits wearing a top stretched tightly over them, with a hand-sized peephole in the middle displaying cleavage, and a rise in the top beneath so you could see the curve of the underside of them. Stunning.

Naturally, I immediately pulled down my jeans and rubbed quick one out – imagining a guy pushing the end of his dick against her chest and wanking until he spurted thick spunk through the hole in her top.

Hypocrisy and self-disgust

Immediately afterwards I felt pathetic and amoral. Not for wanking – if I felt bad for wanking I’d have lost the will to live before I hit my fourteenth birthday. No, I felt pathetic because the picture was:

a) not of a real woman, but of a video game character
b) being used to illustrate an article about the objectification of women in video games.

Not only did I crack one off to an article that explicitly frowned upon crack-offable video game characters, but I subsequently read the article and agreed with it.

Some video game design is shockingly objectifying, and borderline offensive. The women are usually inhumanly pert-breasted, unnaturally slim waisted and wearing clothes that are deeply impractical for fighting. Even the moves seem designed to draw attention to whichever feminine features are expected to most excite teenaged boys. Those who learn the right Dead or Alive moves will be rewarded with a flash of Kasumi’s panties, or a hypersexual throw in which she leaps, cunt-first, at her opponent’s face, squeezing her muscular thighs around their cheeks before hurling them to the ground.

On an intellectual level it disgusts me. But on the very basic, primal level at which I operate when I’m at home in my knickers, it makes me wet. Playing video games against women with massive, hard, well-framed tits leaves me panting and desperate to be touched. I see Ayane’s tits jiggling and I want boys to touch mine. I see her being hurled to the ground and I want to be hurled to the ground. I imagine that after a fight her opponent takes her into the woods, and she stares in awe at him with her impossibly-wide manga eyes as he triumphantly seals his victory by fucking her in the mouth.

Just show me your tits

It works no matter which role I’m in. Whether I’m playing as a male character or a female one. Playing Xbox with a boy today, in between bouts of screaming “die, DIE, eat my fucking AXE, you cuntbag” I was imagining my male character pinning his girl to the floor, and taking her with quick, rough, angry thrusts. Ripping her clinging top from her jiggling tits and spraying jizz all over them.

But although I’ll revel in it at the time – trash talk my opponent and encourage him to join me in my questionable perving (“Look, kiddo – I can see your fucking panties. When I’ve beaten you we’ll watch the replay together so you can imagine me tearing your top open“) – I know it’s wrong. It’s not bad to look at tits, but it is bad to appreciate these particular tits, which have been put there by designers with teenaged boys and quick sales in mind. The game’s been drawn so that – in between beating monsters and stabbing slick-haired sword-wielding princes – players will be imagining the characters fucking.

I don’t know what my conclusion is here – I want there to be something that will square the circle, and explain away my vague sense of self-disgust. I want an excuse for wanking to material that morally I should condemn.

But I’ve got nothing. So I suppose this is a bit of a plea – tell me what the answer is. I figured if anyone would know about masturbating to pixellated images of tits it’d be the friendly hordes of the internet.

So, people – is this OK, or is it reprehensible for a feminist? Should I carry on, safe in the knowledge that no kittens will die in the making of my tragic wanks? Or should I pull up my knickers and grow the fuck up? If you can think of a way I can fight to end female objectification while simultaneously pressing buttons to make tits jiggle, I’d be ever so grateful. I don’t have a penny for your thoughts, but I can start by offering you this picture.

That ‘you’, in the title? It refers to everyone, including women.

This week a minor row kicked off between DickGraceless and Katy_Red – two people who write a funny and occasionally offensive blog over at Honey and Cream. The row began when Dick said women who insist that men pay for dates are prostitutes. Anger occurred, responses happened, and Katy_Red then outlined why she thought that – on a straight date – the man should pay, at least on first dates, special occasions, and if he’s asked the girl out.

I don’t intend this to be a personal attack on Katy_Red – she writes funny blogs and seems nice, and no one ever deserves the full brunt of my rage. But there are a number of women (and men) who believe that men should pay for dates – an idea which I find horribly offensive. So take cover, because this one might be a little bit angry.

What women want

Are you on this date because you fancy this person? Because you think you’ll have a nice time? Then cough up – pay half of the bill. Get your fucking round in. Because otherwise you’re perpetuating the ridiculous idea that men have money and women don’t. That men want women and women want free stuff.

You’re on the date – you wanted to be there, you attended because you thought you’d have a good time. So chip the fuck in.

Katy_Red says that she doesn’t find the idea of splitting the bill all that sexy. It’s not supposed to be sexy. That bit is not the key element of the date. The sexy elements come elsewhere – long sultry glances across dinner, talking about the filthy things you want to do, squeezing his dick under the table. In fact, the sexiest thing about a date is knowing that the other person really wants to be there – that of all the things they could have done tonight they chose to spend it in your company. So congratulations – by insisting that your date buys dinner in exchange for your time you have just killed the sexiest fucking bit of the evening.

What exactly do you want out of this date? Do you want to have a relationship, or sex with this person, or do you just want free stuff?

Everyone has different needs and desires, but I’ll tell you what I want – I want to find men I like and then fuck them. I want to go out with interesting, funny, nerdy guys who’ll share a pint with me, take the piss out of my stupid bits and compliment my good bits, and I want them to take me home at the end of the evening and present me with a nice, hard dick. If you fancy me and I fancy you then what I want from you is sex – not dinner. If you gave me the choice between an expensive meal out and a hand job I’d be cancelling reservations and pulling my knickers down quicker than you can say ‘manual relief, please.’

Are these women prostitutes?

No. Absolutely and conclusively not. When you fuck a prostitute it’s pretty straightforward – you agree a price for certain services, he or she performs those services, and you hand over your cash. A professional, honest transaction.

Insisting that someone buy you dinner on the potential promise that at some point you might have sex with them is not a straightforward and honest transaction, so it doesn’t make you a prostitute. It makes you an arsehole.

In her blog on the topic Katy_Red asserts that men are more likely to get a snog, or a blow-job if they’ve ‘flashed the brass a bit.’ Apparently men are just sexier if they’ve poured expensive wine into your face.

Forgive me if my opinions on this fall beyond the line of acceptability, but I don’t find men more attractive if they have money. Money is, in fact, something that any man could potentially acquire – it doesn’t turn them all into Colin fucking Firth. A rich Joe Bloggs is the same as a poor Joe Bloggs, just with more accessories. Money does not maketh the man – being funny, hot, and willing to fuck me till I cry maketh the man. No matter how much cash you’ve got you can still be unshaggable or unattractive in other ways – I mean, Christian Grey had a private helicopter and he was still a gigantic bellend.

Exceptions to the rule

As with all good rules there are exceptions. I’ll pay for the whole meal if, say, it’s someone’s birthday or if they’re broke. I’ll let them pay if they’re taking me somewhere really posh that I’ve told them I can’t afford, or if they just feel like treating me. But these are the exceptions, and that’s as it should be. Buying dinner should be a nice thing that you do for someone, not an expectation based on weird ideas we have about which gender should be the ‘giver’ and which the ‘receiver.’

Men – stop fucking doing it

I’ve been on dates before where men have not just offered to pay, but insisted on paying. Taken the bill, refused to show it to me, even handed my credit card back when I’ve placed it down on the saucer with the mints. People wonder why I’m offended, and I’m even more offended that the answer isn’t fucking obvious – is there any better way to belittle me? To show me that you’re the powerful one?

Gentlemen – in hiding the bill for me you’re forcing yourself into the role of my provider. And, in a situation where I offer to pay and you refuse to let me, I don’t hear ‘I’m great boyfriend material because I am generous and have loads of money’ I hear ‘there there, sweetheart – don’t trouble your pretty little head about cash – I have plenty for both of us.’ Well bully for you, but fuck off.

I trouble my pretty little head about cash every day – when I pay my mortgage, when I pay my bills, when I buy my food, when I splurge ridiculous sums of money on nights out that end in miserable hangovers and – listen carefully – when I decide whether I can afford to go out on a date.

You’re not my provider – I am. The only thing I want in exchange for my company is good company in return, and someone who respects the fact that I am an autonomous individual capable of making my own decisions. If you insist on paying even after I’ve vehemently protested, you’re not being generous, you’re being controlling. You’ve stripped me of the responsibility I have over the money that I work fucking hard to earn.

Sex in exchange for dinner

The absolute bottom line, of course, is that dates and relationships are never transactions. A girl doesn’t ‘have’ to fuck you because you’ve taken her somewhere with a Michelin star. Nor do you ‘have’ to buy her presents because she gives you head. No matter how much you spend on a date, a girl is never compelled to fuck you – it’s her decision. So why are we still pretending that you have to open your wallet before she’ll open her legs?

I want to live in a world where I fuck people because I want to, not just because they’ve bought me presents or dinner. So – men, women, everybody – please stop perpetuating the idea that the relationships we have with each other are some sort of weird exchange of unequal commodities. I’ll give you sex in exchange for sex. I’ll get my round in if you do. And if I want fucking dinner I can buy it myself.

Note this post was written in 2012 so it’s very cisnormative, I wouldn’t write it the same way today if I had another crack. 

Heartbreaking though it is, I don’t have a penis. I’d love one, because there are so many things I’d like to be able to do with it: find out what wanking’s like for boys, spurt jizz out of it into someone’s mouth, and – of course – piss in great powerful jets while I’m standing up.

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