18.11.07

Keeping abreast of the news

Image courtesy of Aftenposten.no. By ALASTAIR GRANT
According to Aftenposten, Page 3 girls are coming to Norway. Yehay! Unfortunately for those who are into that sort of thing - men I guess – the busty ladies will not be bearing their nipples (and goose pimples) in the flesh. No, Rupert Murdoch has made a deal with Norske Skog, a very large paper-making company which has experienced quite a lot of financial trouble lately, to produce paper for his British newspapers, including The Sun, at their plant in Skogn i Nord-Trøndelag. All is not lost for those interested in seeing a bit of boob in the flesh however.
A college friend of mine sent me this link to a story in a Swedish English-language newspaper called
The Local. Essentially, it tells how women in Uppsala are fighting for the right to go topless in the local swimming pool in the name of… equality. "We want our breasts to be as 'normal' and desexualized as men's, so that we too can pull off our shirts at football matches," spokeswomen told a magazine published by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education. Well whatever you’re into I guess.
Personally, I like my breasts to be seen as sexy. After three babies, I’m almost grateful if they are. But frankly that’s beside the point. Surely, the idea of going to the swimming pool is to swim, not let it all hang out? I didn’t need to spend four years doing an engineering degree to figure out that keeping the boobies strapped in is a far more efficient means of gliding through the water than letting them hand about unharnessed. I suppose it’s very unPC to criticize anyone fighting for gender equality or against perceived sexism even if I personally think it’s absurd. Ah well, who wants to be PC?
But seriously - why not spend the time and energy fighting for equal rights in the kitchen, the office, the playing field even? Or what about Page 3? When was the last time you saw a surgically-enhanced man, waxed to within an inch of his life, wearing nothing but a length of dental floss between his buttocks, giving you the ‘come hither’ look from Page 3? Now why hasn’t anybody being staging sit-ins (or swim-ins) over that?!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good point. So ... Page 3 ... in Aftenposten?!?

Unknown said...

The Aftenposten headline was across two pages so that on the first page it ran 'Side 3-piker kommer på norsk' with the word 'papir' trailing behind on the next page. Without the word papir it means 'Page 3 girls coming in Norwegian' but with papir it means 'Page 3 girls coming on Norwegian paper'. Not quite the same :-)

beaverboosh said...

Could not agree more!
There are many good grounds for women to fight for equality, unfortunatley this is not one of them.
Most men would be happy to see women walking around exposing their breasts and would wonder why they stopped there. How this supports a case for equality is at best spurious.
Maybe when the girls find their floaters are constraining them to the back stroke, there might be a change of heart at the pool!
Beaverboosh

The housewife said...

I laughed so much I almost wet my trousers, thank you for a brilliant laugh! Having three kids myself - I'm also quite happy for my breasts to be covered at the local swimming pool!