Yeah! KATIE!

fantastic last line of this article

Interesting that you entirely fail to mention the first photoshoot with Becky Allen, the situation in which it was made, the fact that it was taken down and references to it removed, the lack of any ‘feminist’, or other, points it made, and the fact that the model found it ‘highly embarrasing’ and did it ‘as favour to a friend’, rather than any reason of comment.

Almost all of Rowenna Davis’ article is based on this event and these points, and at the very least you could do would be not to ignore this 80% of the article, while complaining that she is ignoring yours.

From seeing the photos of Becky, its quite clear that she wasn’t highly embarrassed at all – seems like she was having a bit of a laugh! What about the possibility that the model was fine about the whole situation until Rowenna Davis chose to nationalise her photos and make an example of her? A bit of fun at university gets turned into a ’serious’ piece on a national newspaper website, over which the model has no control – no wonder she’s embarrassed!

And to suggest she only did it as a ‘favour for a friend’ – what point does that get across?! I can’t really imagine the Tab Editors calling in this favour like a scary bunch of mafia men wielding the parts of a dead horse. That little quotette only sounds like the model trying to shift blame – no-one had a gun to her head. She could of said no a long time before she donned those plastic heels.

As to why the photos were removed – perhaps the model became embarrassed by being shoved unwillingly into the national lime-light and requested they’d be taken down. Clearly, keeping the photos up would get hundreds more people looking at the site. I guess the Editors were just considering Becky’s rights, as a woman.

She was clearly fine with these photos being seen on the net by us students, just not by the whole country.

That would make sense if the pictures were taken down after Rowenna Davis published her first article; however, the article was published on the 25th, after the quotes I mentioned had been collected, but before the pictures were taken down.

Try again?

Wowzer!

Luke,

The photos of Becky were taken down after Rowenna had spoken to Becky. Probably worth baring in mind that we did speak to Rowenna back and forth before her article went up.

Try again?

Yes Luke, I have a revolutionary explanation as to why the pics came down before the article went up.

Davis phoned Becky in the course of writing her article, and I assume that Davis let Becky know that there was a Comment Is Free article in the making on the subject. At that point, Becky can either request the pics be taken down before a wider discussion on them starts, or leave them up until the brown stuff hits the spinning thing.

But correct me if I'm wrong.

Er, sorry, I mean "after the quotes had been collected and the pictures taken down"

Hi Katy. As she says, Katy was the photographer for both the first photo-shoot with Becky, the pink-bikinied model and with Heidi, the kickboxing smasher of sexism.

Having had a quick read around the Tab website, a few things become apparent. The Tab website is largely a tongue-in-cheek, populist vehicle for starting wider debates on various subjects within the university itself. Context is everything.

It also shares a thread of thinking amongst its contributors – male and female – that women should be in charge of their own sexual representation. In essence, if a woman wants to appear sexy, or as a sexual being, she has that freedom of expression. This is obviously not going down too well with the Cambridge Student Union.

So now we get into the pissy little student union politics. The Cambridge Student Union obviously see The Tab as a blight on the student landscape. So allow me an alternative interpretation of how events unfolded.

Either Rowenna gets a call from the CSU or she's browsing Oxford & Cambridge student websites (which would be too sad for words). The Tab Totty thing is now on the radar.

Rowenna puts a call into Becky, asking her what she's playing it. Becky's heart sinks. She's done a photo-shoot for shits 'n' giggles and with an expected readership of a few hundred Cambridge bods. Now she's told that there's a CiF article in the offing and would she care to comment. Becky knows that the context will be completely lost to a wider audience and far from not echoing outside the Cambridge cloisters, it could be potentially read (and the pics seen) by her parents and almost certainly would be seen some of her parent's acquaintances.

Becky is screwed (metaphorically). She quickly disowns the pics – although the pic that remains up suggests that she was happy to join in with what amounts to a student parody of Page 3 – and gets off the phone to tell the Tab chaps and chappettes to quickly take the pics down.

Rowenna meanwhile has heard what she wanted to hear – coercion. Was Becky actually coerced, or did Becky tell Rowenna what she thought Rowenna wanted to hear, in order to get rid of her: 'Not my idea, didn't really want to do it, frightful stuff'?

There is the merest germ of an interesting story here, but it's not the one Rowenna tells. It's about bullying. It's about using the offices of the CSU and the media weight of the Guardian online to bitchslap a bunch of students with a sense of humour and too much time on their hands.

I'd be interested in hearing more from Katy, the Tab contributors and the Cambridge students themselves (because we know damn well you're reading this). Or are Cambridge students – the future leaders of the known universe – too comfortable in the Cambridge echo chamber to have their assumptions challenged outside of it? If that's the case, no wonder New Labour's turned out as it has.

Dear oh dear. Clutching at straws much Luke? As soon as Becky requests photos to be removed, Tab removes photos. She obviously knows what is coming (national coverage) after Davis rings her and decides she doesn't want thousands of guardian readers staring at her.

What is it you are trying to saying happened?

Ok, fair enough. You know what happened, I don't; I'm sorry for insinuating otherwise.

Given that Rowenna is virtually exclusively talking about that photoshoot and the situation surrounding it being taken down, and what replaced it, it would have been good if Katy had addressed those issues. Without it, it the article feel evasive, like Katy doesn't want to talk about what Rowenna wants to talk about.

Incidentally, you may want to know that all the pictures from the removed photoshoot are still on visible on your server, and can be viewed along with the original page on the Google cache.

I know women aren't stupid when they get their kit off, I know they make an informed choice.

Why do they choose to pose nearly nude? I know they don't do it purely to please men, but surely it is quite a big factor when choosing to do it?

"She could of said no"
could of??
And you're at Cambridge.
Fuck me

I am so disappointed to see "could of" instead of "could have" in one of the responses to this article.

Incidentally, there’s an interesting follow-on story from this, should the Tab news bloodhounds choose to follow the trail. How did Davis become aware of the story? If she was contacted from someone within Cambridge, did initial contact, for example, come from the offices of the CUSU?

I’d love to hear Becky’s take on her reaction to Davis – and how Davis conducted herself – but I’d understand it if she kept well clear. But there’s definitely an examination of the politics of the situation that bears telling.

Because apparently it's a bit of a laugh. Seriously, people should know better by now. Once you put things on the Internet, they are there forever. Even if you take stuff down, it remains archived and easily accessible if you know how – somebody here mentioned Google cache. National coverage or not, you should be prepared for the worst if you agree to pose semi-nude for an ONLINE publication.

Cambridge student, "future leader of the known universe" here: I think you're attributing slight more Dr Evil tendencies to Rowenna Davis than she perhaps deserves. You're creating a conspiracy theory involving the student union in cahoots with the Guardian. Why would the student union even want to draw publicity to something they want to disown? They have to deal with enough negative publicity about Cambridge as it is. Have you even read the statement, or are you just going on Chinese whispers? The statement by the Women's Officer fully supports the right of women to express themselves sexually, whether in a Page 3 editorial or not. There is nothing advocating shutting the Tab down, nor has there actually been any action taken by the students union to actually do this.

As far as I can tell, the Guardian never set out to bitchslap a bunch of students. They first covered the Tab in a "it's a slow news day for media, let's take a look at what the unis have been up to" way, and vaguely disparaged it. Then the photos were taken down and all this fuss was created, and the Guardian suddenly realised there was a story, sat up and posted the CiF blog. You make it sound like they had a concerted agenda all along to bully a bunch of innocent babies.

"She's done a photo-shoot for shits 'n' giggles and with an expected readership of a few hundred Cambridge bods"

Publishing semi-nude pictures of yourself online, whether tongue-in-cheek or not, is a recipe for disaster. Nothing posted on the Internet ever disappears – even if it was only meant to circulate among a relatively small group of people. If you wanted to do a shits 'n' giggles Page 3 shoot, just post the photos on Facebook and tighten the privacy settings. Don't put it on a website that anybody can access. The Internet is for keeps. More people need to remember that. And seriously, don't whine about how "it's only for jokes, lol" – you're a university student. You're at Cambridge. Use your brain.

"Or are Cambridge students – the future leaders of the known universe – too comfortable in the Cambridge echo chamber to have their assumptions challenged outside of it? If that's the case, no wonder New Labour's turned out as it has."

What is that last comment even meant to mean? Cheap shot.

Katy:

"They chose to do the shoots, and knew that if they wanted the images to be removed at any time they could be."

Like Luke said, those photos are still easily accessible to anybody with a minimal bit of Internet know-how. If you told those girls that those images could be taken off and wiped off the face of the Internet, then I hope you were genuinely misinformed and not lying to them. The girls obviously didn't literally have a gun put to their heads and told they'd have to take their clothes off or not – nobody (I hope) actually has a problem with women choosing to express their sexuality in whatever way they want. What's problematic is the entire idea of a Page 3 shoot itself – it plays into the entire idea of women as sexual objects that we can look at and judge accordingly. I know you have Heidi now, going on about her triple first – but honestly, how many people will read the commentary when there are images of a girl in a sports bra?

This is my basic problem with the entire Totty thing: why so unimaginative? I know the Tab is meant to be a parody of a tabloid, but I personally didn't see anything satirical in those photos: all I saw was a girl posing in perspex stripper shoes in a punt. It didn't lampoon Page 3 shoots; it recreated them and relocated them in a Cambridge context. There's nothing edgy about it. There is nothing intrinsically satirical about that. It's not even that funny. Unless you were just going through the motions of copying a tabloid – but you seem to be comfortable breaking away from that model with more thoughtful pieces like this – so in that case, why even bother?

Also – I would be very surprised if any of the girls you feature later on will be black, Asian or have a body anything other than the standard Page 3 model of "big tits, flat stomach, long hair". I would be very surprised if you even featured a boy. Maybe that would be more challenging, and I would love to see that.

Also: "It is a shame that girls have to get their kit off to generate feminist debate. As Heidi argued in her comment piece, there are much more pressing issues that need to be addressed"

Like I said in Kate's piece, there isn't any reason we can't talk about the possible sexist implications of both the Tab totty photos and inequal pay for women – the former isn't a 'distraction' from the real issues, it's part of the wider debate over sexism in the University. Who are you to judge what is or isn't a 'legitimate' women's issue? When a woman can pose nude without all the comments and all the people rushing up to condemn or defend her, then that's a sign that it's not a real issue. But obviously, we're not in that position.

Good one Mate I'm for Australia and I'm thoroughly sick of bloody Yanks trying to ram political correctness down my throat they can shove it up their tight ****.They expect us to laugh at their stupid shows like 'Beavis&Butthead" "Southpark" &"Family Guy" which are mostly politically incorrect anyway,Give me Benny Hill or Frankie Howard any day Bless your day Mate.

Come on Katie lets see you in a teeny weeny polkadot bikini

All University students are thick, full stop

Rowenna Davis is rather yummy – I would. That's all I'm saying.

Clearly she isn't getting enough, if she spends her time writing articles about stuff like this.

that is one the most inaccurate sweeping generalizations i think I've ever seen.

[...] here: Totty Photographer Speaks Out | THE TAB – http://www.cambridgetab.co.uk … By admin | category: big tits | tags: because-someone, big tits, both-teams, flat-stomach, [...]

Katy,

'I know for a fact this article will get fewer hits because there are no tits on show, but that is just the reality of the society we live in.'

Catchy line, but I think this is a complacent attitude. Sorry to use an unimaginative example but this 'argument' runs along the same lines as the suggestion that there is nothing we can do about rape conviction rates because of the 'reality of the society we live in'.

To 'Agreement' (?):
You seem to have overlooked the fact that The Tab, being a website, can be accessed not only by Cambridge students, but by the wider internet community – any of its content. i.e. Becky was never just happy with the students seeing her as many non-students have been viewing her pictures from the start, they were simply publicized by featuring in a national newspaper.

'girls have to get their kit off to generate feminist debate'. fail. 2/5.

Rowenna Davis is hot.

yeap, more on the site

I'm yet to understand how any woman who calls herself a feminist can not only be in favour of but actually produce photo shoots displaying semi-naked women in provocative poses. If these photos weren't taken to please men or anyone else who gets "stimulated" by looking at such images, what purpose do they serve?

Lizzy, simple question. How did the Cambridge Tab photo-shoot first come to Rowenna Davis's attention?

Better still, let the Tab newshounds sniff out the answer. Some proper tabloid investigative journalism for them to be getting on with. If the CUSU – or any of their officers – were not involved, I'm sure they will declared blameless.

Doug,

Tab photo-shoot came to her attention when oxford's Cherwell ran a piece on us and she read it.

She contacted us and we were more than happy to let her give us a platform that led to a huge surge in hits.

No one at The Tab has anything against Natalie Szarek's involvement in the article and we know that CUSU were not involved.

Lizzie, the reason so unimaginative is the publicity it has generated.

I doubt anyone at the tab cares much about tab totty, and i doubt it's going to last very long.

If you read some of the interviews with people from the tab, they have admitted it's tounge-in-cheek and said that the only elements of a tabloid they really want to keep are the sensationalism and the format. So i doubt we're going to see much more of this.

Certainly it is unimaginative, but look at the response it got. I actually think it says more about how dull national newspapers are that they have created a story out of photos of a woman wearing more clothes than she would on the beach.

It seems like there's a lot more to this website than the tits, and hopefully they'll carry on doing those things well: the things that actually matter to cambridge students

All this crap over a few glamour shots you people live in your ivory towers. I am mindful of David icke when he said "Thank god I never went to university".
Get a grip for gawd sakes your mommies and daddies are trying to kill us all off.

They are doing no harm..

where are pictures of tits?

??