to be angry that Ann Summers has a real woman in underwear in their shop window?

[1eve]

Walking down Market Street in Manchester on Friday I saw a couple of guys taking pictures with their phones at a shop window. When I turned to see what they were photographing I found that there was a woman posing in sexy underwear in a window display. The shop was Ann Summers, although it had changed its name to ManSummers as a publicity thing to get guys to come into the shop and buy valentine gifts for their girlfriends. Now women buying vibrators and dressing up if they want is not a problem for me, although Ann Summers has always leant towards getting women to please men in my view, but sexual desire is never pc anyway so its a tricky subject. But this felt like it crossed a line.
If I'd been walking through town (it was the middle of the day) with my 2 boys, age 4 and 6, that is not what I want them to see. That a woman's role is to be placed on show like a piece of meat while men leer at her? (a group of guys were standing in front of the window laughing and staring, making comments). Is it just me or is this bloody degrading?

cross posts. thankyou Brummie and JamieLee for making me feel sane.

Your boys were not with you, so it hasn't impacted on you.

If they WERE with you, I doubt they would have noticed if you'd just carried on walking.

It's obviously a one-off thing for Valentine's Day, so next year, be on the alert.

Not sure if YABU or not, but can't understand why you are so angry about it.

OMG she was ON SALE ??

I seriously doubt that somehow

For goodness sake, she went there of her own free will and is getting paid to stand in a shop window looking good... and the problem exactly is??

She is not 'being displayed' she is displaying the underwear - there's a huge difference there. Huge.

Maybe we should go back to the olden days when a shop selling sex toys would be shrouded in black painted out windows, and only men in dirty raincoats would go in them to shuffle through the magazines...

I would rather see a woman getting paid to model in a shop window than the more common site of teenaged boys slouching down the street with their trousers almost round their knees and their off-white underwear on display...

Vallhala....

A Dolly bird??????

Thanks @claig, although it feels like my head is screwed on the wrong way sometimes

'I would rather see a woman getting paid to model in a shop window than the more common site of teenaged boys slouching down the street with their trousers almost round their knees and their off-white underwear on display...'

the trouble is, this might lead to that

And no, obviously the model is not on sale.

But I don't like the implication that there's no difference between a woman and a shop dummy.

I could probably articulate it better, but I'm knackered and am going to bed...

I don't like it at all.

Mind you I don't like page 3 either.

I probably didnt explain the connection between the woman and the mannequin very eloquently either.

What I mean is, it is a body wearing underwear, and as a gimmick, they have hired a model rather than having the dummy in the window, but the image is still the same. A female in underwear.

Now, if they had any sense, they would get a man in the window too in a nice pair of briefs...

OFGS - who said there's no difference between the two? It's two different ways to advertise a product. Clearly one is a cheaper option & gets used regularly, the other is more expensive only gets used when the cost can be justified.

I agree with OP to some extent. I have seen them do this on ANTM and I did think it was a little bit tacky. It does have a slightly unpleasant connotation, IMO. It did make me feel grateful that I had never aspired to be a model.

Wow I can't belive that as long as someone is being paid it's OK to do whatever.Think about it. Really?
Why shouldn't sex shops be a bit covered up/behind closed doors? Isn't that what makes it's sexy?
Perhaps it's just me but I like that sex can be a bit wrong. I cetainly don't want to be ahving sex fashionably or in the style of AS.

op - are you angry because a woman was wearing underwear? In Public?
Or was she posing provocatively etc?

I don't like it, I think it's tacky and cheap.

She wasnt FORCED to do it. She isnt selling her body.. she is selling the bloody clothes!!

And it has achieved its aim, because people are talking about it!

She is selling her body! She is saying her body is sexual because she is selling AS clothes...which are there to promote sex.

OP - was she posing provocatively?

Well no she wasn't FORCED to do it, in the same way that women who shave their undercarriage are not FORCED to do so by the porn industry

There is more than a little causality though

justonemorethen - I wasn't aware we were talking about whatever, I thought we were talking about this one particular thing?!

Having it behind closed doors does down a side alley not make it 'sexy' - it's a retail shop, that's all. It's not a 'sex shop'

She is selling her body! She is saying her body is sexual because she is selling AS clothes...which are there to promote sex

No, she is simply displaying the clothes to their best advantage - that's all. She is not 'selling her body'. She is using her body to present a sexy image - so what? What's wrong with having/showing a sexy body?

She is a model, they are meant to display the clothes to the best of their advantage, whatever they are wearing.

If they put a saggy boobed overweight woman with unshaved armpits in the window, it would hardly improve sales that day would it.

The saggy boobed women walking past would not think "wow.. I want to look like that"...

Ask yourself - what advantage is there to having a live woman wear this stuff rather than a dummy?

That should tell you all you need to know about the differences between them

yanbu revolting
degrading