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?

SardineQueen... Nope, I just said I don't want to see my daughter doing it.

We were talking about the model in the shop window... why would SHE be acting with fear or anger? Of course she'd be carrying on smiling, she's a professional and being paid to stand there... the idiotic pinheads are in the minority and standing out in the cold.

In a bus queue or anywhere else... when did 'giving the finger' ever help? Walking away, ignoring, going into nearest shop for help, yes. In that scenario I would expect a woman to be concerned enough to remove herself from the situation if possible, not inflame it.

Covers of lads mags... yes, sure they are designed to appeal to men to generate sales.... as is the model in the shop window.

Exactly, SQ, and the fact that (M)ann Summers is paying someone to provoke that kind of attention (ok, and therefore generate sales), will give licence to the idiots that Lying is describing to take it as some kind of norm.

BrummieSeagull... They are idiots, no argument about it. Parents of boys also need to educate them on how to treat girls and women, as much as girls need to be educated on how to treat boys and men.

Too late for the pinheads, perhaps, but there is the recourse to the law. I'd never advocate a woman trying to take on a group of men, personal safety is more important.

I do agree with you though about it being taken as a kind of societal 'norm'. It sadly is. Going back ten or twenty years, men would probably have had a quick gawp and then moved along... none of this taking photos and shouting abuse as there wouldn't have been a group there to 'give them strength in numbers'.

I blame mobile phones... sigh

"Appeal to men" is a euhpamism for sexually arouse men, I guess.

Do you think that it is OK to pay a woman to stand in a shop window and repress her automatic responses to a gang of baying men? It may be that she is a total exhibitionist who thrives on any type of attention. It may be that she simply needs the money. But because she has agreed to do it that's OK? Plus she agreed to model underwear, in her contract it presumably didn't mention that she would be subject to abuse while doing it.

I am also interested that you say that women should never react with anger when they are abused by men. Anger is a perfectly normal human response, just not a very feminine one. A lot of people don't like to see women get angry, they are terribly threatened by it. Why don't you think women and girls should react with anger when they are abused by men? If a bloke shouts something at me from a car, it makes me angry. What on earth is wrong with that

YANBU. It's not just about underwear, it's about adult sexuality. There's a 9pm watershed on TV for a reason and I don't think this should be on display in the high street.

No surprise it's only a woman in the window too (reminds me of the red light district of Amsterdam I'm afraid). Why no male model too? Either have both or neither (but I prefer neither). If they want "live models" why not just have them so they can only be seen by people who have chosen to go into the shop?

"I don't think this should be on display in the high street"

... not because I'm a prude but because it's an over-18s shop and not for children to see IMO.

lying you keep saying "pinheads" as if there is a small minority of aberrant men doing this. The fact is that perfectly normal groups of young men will carry on like this. Why? Because society doesn't tell them not to, in fact they are encouraged by things like high street stores putting attractive scantily clad women in the window for them to ogle. What are they expected to think?

Where is there any evidence that these men were abusing the model?

THe op says there were a group of men laughing, staring and making comments. It does not say they were hurling abuse at her.

You blame mobile phones?

Rather than the hyper-sexualised presentation of the female form that is everywhere (even the high street), the proliferation of hardcore porn, the inability of the media, society or the police to recognise any of this as a problem?

it's an over-18s shop and not for children to see IMO

children are not allowed in the shop, and the only thing on display in the window would be clothing.. and certainly none of the more risque stuff...

no different to la senza or any other lingerie shop window..

A group of men laughing, staring, making comments (I wonder if they could possibly have been obscene? I wonder...) and taking photographs.

If you would not be intimidated to be surrounded by men doing that then you are a very different person to me.

Sardine Queen, does it not occur to you that some women actually enjoy getting attention from men, purposely dress sexily because they want to, and are very happy with their own confidence.

The vast majority of people buy clothes with the foremost thought being "I will look good in that". Not necessarily "I will look sexy in that", but very few people buy something to wear thinking "that will de-sexualise me"...

FGS, how many satellite channels, newspapers, magazines, etc. do that very thing? Is this window display just more 'in your face' somehow?

Exactly Lying.

"no different to la senza or any other lingerie shop window"

There's a difference between a plastic model with an expressionless face/body with underwear on, and a human being posing suggestively.

Yes, as I mentioned this model may be an exhibitionist and enjoy any kind of attention. She may be doing it for the money and not particularly enjoy being leered at by groups of men. We don't know, do we.

Do you honestly not see a difference between a woman out and about in a nice dress getting some appreciative glances and smiles, and a woman standing in a high street store front in her pants with groups of men taking photographs?

A group of men laughing, staring, making comments (I wonder if they could possibly have been obscene? I wonder...) and taking photographs

She is a model for gods sakes... her job depends on people looking at her, judging her by her appearance, and being commented on. She chose to do this.

If people were walking past taking no notice of her, then she would be mightily pissed off... she is there to be seen!!

Of course she would know that it would attract the attention of young blokes who would take photos of her. She is modelling in a lingerie shop window, she would be fully aware that is the reaction she is going to get, and she is happy to do that job.

Exactly... 'generate sales'. It is a marketing gimmick.

And she is that gimmick.

I still stand by my comment that a lot of women in bikini's on the beach wear them because they know how they look in them.
Maybe not anyone on MN, but that doesn't mean other women aren't doing it.
You just have to go out on a Saturday night to any town to see how women and young girls are sexualising themselves through what they're wearing to appeal to men.

Not saying it's right or whatever, but it's silly to say that it doesn't exist anywhere else except on front covers of lad's mags or Ann Summers shop windows.

And the message that all of this sends to our children and young people - the sight of a woman in a shop window in her underwear with groups of men gathered around leering and taking snaps?

What message do you think that gives them? A wholly positive one?

For Christ's sake, I utterly despair of women who think this is all a-ok, simply because the model took the job of her own volition, and is being paid.

It's all part of a terrifying bigger picture where society (men and women) are becoming increasingly accepting of the viewing of women as sexual objects, and rated on their sexual desirability (or lack of).

This affects all women at every level, in every walk of life, and has nack all to do with whether this particular model is fine with doing it.

VSM usually women and girls dress to attract particular men. They want to attract men that they fancy. A teenaged girl in a miniskirt is not going to be impressed when ogled by an old geezer (generally speaking).

In situations where women are put on display for all passing men to leer at it's a completely different dynamic. The woman's own sexual preferences are completely set to one side, all that is relevant is the sexual desires of the males. She is there for the men to leer at, whether she wants them to or not, whether she is attracted to them or not.

That is not a healthy message for our young people IMO.

Well said Harpy.

There seems to be an awful lot of militant feminism on this thread... I find it quite amusing really.