Ed Miliband On Page 3 and Topless Women

Ed Miliband  - The Huffington Post

Things are a changing, world.

The No More Page 3 Campaign in England is really showing how to create change. 

Start the conversation and it will spread.

There is no place in the modern world for pictures of topless women in newspapers like The Sun, Ed Miliband sensationally said today. 

But the Labour leader said he will not ban Page 3 pin-ups if he becomes prime minister after the 2015 general election.

This article on the Huffington Post UK uses a quote by me...

Blogging exclusively for The Huffington Post UK, a former topless model also advocated highlighting women's talents and abilities in the Sun, rather than just their flesh. 

"When I was 18, I used nude modeling as a way to earn money to support my acting career," wrote author and mum of three Sheila Hageman. 

"Was I thrilled and empowered by my job? Some days and jobs, yes, but the majority of my time was spent consumed by inner conflict about my choice. 

"Just because an attractive woman decides to pose topless does not mean she's happy about it," she wrote.

I've been rethinking my past a lot lately. I am trying to come to new acceptance for myself and looking for ways to embrace my sexuality, which I feel sometimes I cut off when I left the adult entertainment business.

There is most definitely a place for sexy, but it is not in a daily newspaper.

The Sun's Page 3 Topless Women Issue

Can you imagine the outrage if an American daily newspaper decided to start publishing photos of topless women inside their pages?

The UK's Sun has something called Page 3 Women, which is just that. Every day. Every page 3. A topless woman.

It seems like such a sad representation of our society that in this day and age topless women would adorn a news daily.

And I'm not a man-hater or anti-topless women. I think the nude body is a beautiful thing.

But I think there's a place for everything. And a daily newspaper that little girls might pick up and glance at is not the place for representing women as simply objects.

Check out my blog for the UK's Huffington Post on this issue: Former Topless Model Advocates Highlighting Women's Talents and Abilities in the Sun.

Dance Moms' Burlesque Fan Dance...Fail!

So there’s this show called Dance Moms on Lifetime, which Gawker points out is the TV network that "celebrates, entertains, and supports women.”

Well, they just had their “Topless Showgirls” episode taken off the air.

Yup, for a dance routine, these 8- to 13-year-old girls pretended to be topless and do a burlesque performance.

Can anybody say ewww?

The show has already aired once, but after a less-than-stellar response, Lifetime has decided to make this episode unavailable—although you can see a clip at Gawker.

In "Topless Showgirls," Pittsburgh dance instructor Abby Lee Miller teaches her students a "classic" burlesque fan dance, which they are to perform in flesh-toned bras to create the "illusion of nudity." The dance must convey that the children are "hot," "mean," and that men "can't afford" them.

Though the girls wince at the prospect of appearing naked onstage and their mothers cringe at the skimpy costumes, the show goes on, and the girls perform at a children's dance competition. "I like to push the envelope," Miller says. "And this is taking it right to the limit."

I guess the idea of sexualizing little girls and the harm it can cause has not crossed the radar of these mothers or producers.

The worst part that can be seen in even this small video clip is that the girls themselves seem very uncomfortable with the whole idea. And even though their own mothers are cringing the whole time, they still send their daughters out on the stage.

At what price do we dress up our little girls and make them enter a grown-up world before they even have a need to wear a bra?