Balenciaga apologises for bondage bear advert involving child

That picture of the teddy with "People tore into Balenciaga over its latest campaign" on the BBC website gives the impression Balenciaga are the victims. A deliberate move on the BBC's part.

Who wrote the article because it feels very young and infantile. "It made the people angry". FFS.

And then Washington Post gives a glowing review of a play about paedophiles

www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/11/23/downstate-bruce-norris-pedophiles/

"Downstate,” directed with exceptional astuteness by Pam MacKinnon, seizes on our reflexive response to these crimes and shifts our emotional focus to the perpetrators... He’s loaded the dice to some degree in “Downstate,” as the predators who’ve completed their prison terms are depicted not as monsters but rather as complicated, troubled souls... Hopper’s Andy (a past victim) arrives at the home with his misguidedly encouraging wife Em (Sally Murphy) to confront Fred. The playwright cannot hide his scorn for Andy, who has made a successful life for himself as a Chicago finance guy and now seems intent on some kind of purging reunion with the man who molested him as a child on a piano bench. The meeting seems to be part of Andy’s therapy, which “Downstate” implies may be advisable but at this point also suggests that it is an indulgent marinating in self-pity."

It's that push to normalise paedophiles again. That we should feel sorry for them and just because the survivor is successful then they should have moved on from the trauma. It's clear from the way the characters are portrayed (as relayed by WP reviewer) that the playwright has a very clear agenda.

So WP ignore Balenciaga and promote paedophiles instead.

The BBC didn‘t even notice Savile, so what do you expect?

The BBC finally noticed, but only because a celeb said something: www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-63779620

Hm. Yes. I believe that. Like I believe the SNP care about women.

Absolutely not a carefully planned negative PR campaign.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-63779620

'Kim Kardashian 'shaken' by fashion house shoot ... Commending the brand for removing the campaigns and apologising, she said she was "re-evaluating" her relationship with the company.

But she told followers she believed the brand understood the seriousness of the issue and it would take steps to make sure it would "never happen again"'

🙄

On a related sexual theme (if not straying too far from the topic of this thread) I listened to a podcast recently with Brendan O'Neill interviewing Genevieve Gluck, co-founder of Reduxx, on how trans activism objectifies women. www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/23/the-pornographic-roots-of-gender-ideology/

It's her opinion only of course on the question we often ask ourselves: How did we get here?

Here's a taster:

"Brendan O’Neill: What role do you think pornography has played in the transformation of womanhood into something anyone can identify into?
Genevieve Gluck: A lot of it starts with the sexualisation of surgery, which really got going through the pornography industry with things like breast implants. Within those procedures in pornography, we see the heightening and objectification of certain aspects of the body, and the sexualisation of body modification itself. Whether it is the breasts, the buttocks, the lips or any feature that you’re trying to highlight, it all points to a fetishisation of particular body parts.

Pornography is now normalised in the private sphere. A lot of the concepts or ideas about women that you see coming from trans activists – their objectification of women, or their reduction of womanhood to having plastic surgery and hormones – have a connection to pornography. We really don’t fully appreciate the scope of the problem yet. I don’t think it’s even possible to, because we don’t see it in the public sphere. All we see are the repercussions of this porn-saturated culture."

[Extract taken from an edited transcript the interview, handy for anyone who hasn't got 55 minutes to spare]

PicturesOfDogs it is true, the protection of children is generally not prioritized in our society (nor in other societies). I sometimes wonder whether those 1% males play a role there. (Plus. obviously the ‚Canniballottas‘ of this world, however many they may be).

I understand there are too many to lock them all anyway. Unfortunate as it is. I wish we could just dump them all on an island somewhere.
Chemically castrate then? Actually castrate them?
I just think that, counter to the claim you get that being accused of being a pedo is the worst thing that could possibly happen, it actually isn’t.
There’s no fear, no repercussions, they are just let out to offend again and again and again.
While understand the pathology may or may help down the line, the most important thing is to protect children, as this is practically non existent unfortunately

The thing is, PicturesofDogs, the prevalence of paedophilia is rather high. Google just told me it is about 1% in males and it rises to 5%, if such phantasies occur not exclusively but alongside other phantasies. You can‘t lock them all away. To make things more complicated, not all of them offend and at the same time ‚only‘ 50% of child sexual abuse cases are perpetrated by paedophiles, the rest is done by people who are not paedophiles (sadists, sociopaths… for whom they are the easiest victims).

These numbers are from a paper (G. Tenenberg er.al. The neurobiology of paedophilia) that came up on top of the list on Google just now, there might be different numbers in different studies, but it roughly tracks what I read before on the topic.

1% males is a lot. Maybe in this light, making it taboo (without shaming victims) is the most efficient strategy to minimize occurrences (?).

Yes!! Thank you, @deepwatersolo ! Goya! Ffs Velasquez

This is the picture that reminded me of it. Perhaps just a coincidence that the original showed up later.

I don't know the context for the 'outfit' below, it might have nothing to do with the Goya painting. Even if it does it doesn't necessarily signify anything. Pretty yuck though.

In my personal opinion, (with absolutely no evidence to back it up I might add!) I think most pedophiles seem to have other kinds of personality disorders, and I don’t think the majority of them don’t want to offend.

I think most of them get off on the power play of it, the hiding in plain sight, the duping of the community, etc.

How do you solve it? I don’t think they can be rehabilitated, so the only way must be them not being able to come into contact with children, being held in secure units for the rest of their lives.
I truly believe that’s the only way, ‘rehabilitating’ then does not work, as shown by the repeat offences. Yet the priority always seems to be them, and giving them chance after chance, with seemingly no thought to the victims/potential victims when they’re let out on bail again and again. It’s totally fucked up

I think the painting is from Goya.

Yes, those shots were definitely from/inspired by Kubrick's film.

There was a picture of a painting, Saturn (?) eating his child, that was pretty much reproduced in a still from a shoot that I've seen upthread, perhaps one of the links. I can't remember the artist, I want to say Velazquez?

While I liked the ‚Spiked‘ article very much, I am not sure if we‘re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater regarding the ‚detabooization of paedophilia‘. Obviouly, any act involving children (and this OBVIOUSLY includes looking at pictures) must be taboo, but people not being too afraid to go to a therapist is a good thing, no?

I once saw a documentary about a man who outed himself, told his family and siblings (who have kids), went on record with his full name, unblurred. He said he did it to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t act on it, with ‚all eyes on him‘, basically.

Maybe this carries the risk of normalization, but personally I‘d rather know than not know, had I someone like that around my kid. Idk.

Oh. Kubrick‘s film was based on King‘s novel, even though he changed the story drastically. But the picture that canniballotta, as she called herself, has posted was from Kubrick‘s film. Also the referenced ‚the shining‘- themed photoshoot is based on the setting of Kubrick‘s film, with the same 70‘s style carpet and floors…

The comments about the Shining actually are a better description of the sequel Stephen King wrote (Dr Sleep?). I think it may have been made into a film or mini series recently.

I recommend the YT video: The Shining: Danny‘s ordeal and the bear costumed man - film analysis by Rob Ager.

Interesting thread. As for ‚the Shining‘, the content of that Kubrick film is not stated correctly.

There are very thorough analyses (some rather old) of the movie by people who really dissect Kubrick‘s movies.
The movie is clearly about a father sexually abusing his small son.

And the Moloch reference makes the Baal inference much more plausible.

Ooh, that thread is bad.

It's not just the sexualisation of children that has led to this "paedo-chic". It's also the adultification of children where lots of people seem to believe that children are just small adults able to make decisions. It's as if there's been an intentional forgetting of all child development knowledge.

clymeme. I came to post a link to the same thread which primarily focuses on Lotta Volkova, Balenciaga.

I second the WARNING. Some very disturbing images.

Lotto's stamp is all over the recent photo shoots.

There are some very dark people involved in high fashion - this thread is very disturbing (WARNING - graphic images): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1596812625517498368.html

Brendan O'Neill article is good