Obviously, I was not attracted by the Daily Mirror headline: “Melanie Sykes poses NAKED for scorching shoot as 45th birthday celebrations continue”. Well, I was, sort of, although I have only the vaguest idea of who she is. The article helpfully explained that Ms Sykes is a “presenter” and competed in the last series of “I’m a Celebrity”, which more than explains why I am unfamiliar with her work.
The story, if you can call it a story, is about the fact that Ms Sykes looks half her age – 45, we are informed – and she has an “incredible figure”. Not just that but she has “stripped naked for a sizzling pool shoot. Most women would die to look this good at her age.” They would die? That’s a hefty price for looking “this good”.
Our heroine didn’t merely pose starkers though. Oh no. ” She posed seductively in the turquoise water while leaning on the side of the pool and resting her head on her arms”.
But the best news was still to come: “You can see a flash of the presenter’s bum and boobs amid the ripples, as well as her tan lines, and it could be one of her hottest shoots to date”.
Mel, the paper reminds us, is in Spain for her birthday, “where she has not shied away from baring her incredible figure. The sexy mum-of-two can also be seen reclining on a sun lounger by the pool with her toned torso and trim legs on full display”.
By now, I am becoming highly concerned about the reporter’s blood pressure. It appears he’s about to burst out all over, in more ways than one. Frothing at the mouth, he gushes: “Her frilly bikini perfectly flaunts her enviable body and she stretches one lean leg out to rest it on a table. The brunette beauty, who competed in the last series of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here, also shared with fans a glimpse of how she keeps in such good shape.”
And with tissues at the ready, he concludes: “Mel proudly posted pictures of her working out on the beach and throwing some ballet poses”, once again reminding us that she has just turned 45 and has been joined on her “exotic trip” by several other people I have never heard of.
Now to my uneducated eye, much of this stuff reads like a ramblings of an over-excited peeping tom, with binoculars in one hand and – well, you can guess the rest – in the other and maybe it is, but the article goes out under the byline Charlotte Wareing. All that sexist, sexual rubbish was written by a woman. As I said, I have very little idea of who Sykes is, but surely she deserves better than this?
It could have come from a lurid, top shelf magazine (obviously I have never seen one: I’m just guessing), but no. It’s in the pages of one of the supposedly more serious tabloids.
You would never read this sort of story about a man. Can you imagine something like this?
“Phillip Schofield poses NAKED for scorching shoot as 45th birthday celebrations continue. The popular breakfast TV presenter has an incredible figure and he has stripped naked for a sizzling pool shoot. You can see a flash of the presenter’s cock and bum amid the ripples. His speedos flaunt his enviable lunchbox as he stretches one lean leg out to rest it on a table.” And so on.
Is this really how far we have come with equality? I have no real objection to looking out Ms Sykes’ body parts, especially since she displayed them willingly, rather than through the long lens of a paparazzi photographer, but it’s the lazy “all women should look like this, never growing old and never putting on a pound in weight” garbage that annoys me. What the hell gives the reporter the right to assert that “most women would die to look this good at her age”, with the clear insinuation that if a woman doesn’t look like her, there’s something wrong with her? I’m sorry, Daily Mirror, but that’s just tosh. And it’s lazy, sexist tosh and most of all it’s piss poor journalism.
