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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Shopping Kids clothes shop and the background music was a sexually explicit song. Do I write to head office.

38 replies

lolaflores · 15/09/2011 10:57

So shopping in a kids big chain store. Both for smakllies and young teens. In the background a very crude and sexually explicit song that made me so uncomfortable that I left without buying a thing even though I was there for a badly needed school coat. There were also children in the shop of various ages.

I wanted to complain to the staff but felt too self concious. Am being over sensitive. I mean the song was vile. I am not sure it would get national air play. The subject matter was sex, how much, how long and basically this fella wasn't going to stop till he had come......FFS! In a kids shop

OP posts:
StrandedBear · 15/09/2011 11:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BelleEnd · 15/09/2011 11:00

What was the song?

Original poster
lolaflores · 15/09/2011 11:07

Shop wads H&M and the song....couldn't tell you. It was a man singing. No of course the kids don't get the lyrics....I do. I don't want to hear it when buying clothes for children. Surely a time and place.

OP posts:
MumblingRagDoll · 15/09/2011 11:11

You need to be able to name the song in order to complain.....what were some lyrics?

NestaFiesta · 15/09/2011 11:11

yanbu. Its just a bit tasteless. Surely there are millions of other songs they could be playing? I would have left as well.

catchafallingstar · 15/09/2011 11:12

it sounds awful on principle...but to play devils's advocate, I wouldn't say H&M is a strictly kids shop? Their kids dept is usually on one of the three or so floors and music is played throughout the shop. Alternatively some shopping centres control music play.....

Sad as it is, i dont think you'd get anywhere if you complained....
Just continue as you did - walk out, don't shop there...

TrillianAstra · 15/09/2011 11:14

YABU because you haven't asked an "Am I Being Unreasonable?" question.

tittybangbang · 15/09/2011 11:15

What was the song?

There are many, many sexually explicit songs which get airplay on Kiss and Capital. The 'Booty down' song (which I actually REALLY like), S&M by Rihanna, 'Birthday Sex'..... I could go on.

I think you'd be wasting your time writing.

tittybangbang · 15/09/2011 11:17

Was it this?

AmazingBouncingFerret · 15/09/2011 11:17

I always remember sneaking on a Now that's what I call music type album on our CD player at work while the boss was on holiday. I had never ever sprinted as fast as I did to the player when Pussycat Dolls "Dontcha Wish your girlfriend was hot like me" came on, I practically leapfrogged over the counter. I work in Early Learning Centre. Sexually explicit lyrics are not appropriate in any shop if you ask me.

NestaFiesta · 15/09/2011 11:17

Do write OP. I always write and I usually get vouchers.Wink Also, if H and M are going to lose custom over something they can easily fix then its worth writing.

Insomnia11 · 15/09/2011 11:17

I would have said something to the shop assistants, it's probably on Now 95 or something and they didn't realise.

Original poster
lolaflores · 15/09/2011 11:32

You know what, it wasn't the kids section. It was a seperate dedicated to kids shop. Possibly was part of a compilation. Am going to ask older, hipper daughter as to its identity. And then a firm letter of complaint. tittybangbang, it wasn't that, but it wasn't far off. The singer sounded english. But, at another angle, why the hell are there are these songs that to me sound derogatory to women. also please see the thread about offensive t-shirt slogans

OP posts:
southmum · 15/09/2011 11:55

OP I have a feeling I know which song you are on about, strangely......is it a song with a bloke singing rather breathily about "if Im not beside you Im inside you" ??

I only ask as Ive been in H&M a few times with this song and have been Shock, and I aint no prude, Ive had sex with the light on and everything

Original poster
lolaflores · 15/09/2011 12:35

Obvioulsy I have had sex with the light and been SOBER! hah, hows that for a swinging lifestyle! Will update you when have orgasm..

OP posts:
fanjobanjowanjo · 15/09/2011 12:44

YABU as every song that comes out now seems to be about sex and I hate them all. All rihanna ever sings about is getting some cock the dirty caaahhh.

Complain!

Catslikehats · 15/09/2011 12:48

I was a bit Hmm yesterday when the shop assistant in mothercare was singing along to Rhianna "chains and whips excite me" Grin

TheJiminyConjecture · 15/09/2011 12:48

I had a similar dilemma a couple of weeks ago in a toy shop. They played a 'comedy' song that was about a man and his son coming home from the pit and his wife hadn't done a decent supper so he beat her Shock

I havn't been able to find it so I couldn't complain but it was basically a track with the Hovis music on and then a man talking over the track. We left.

It might be worth noting I love hip hop and all sorts of potentially offensive music (depending on who you talk to) but hearing that whilst shopping with a toddler made my stomach turn.

I wouldn't complain in your situation but I can appreciate how you felt.

Original poster
lolaflores · 15/09/2011 12:51

right, sent off a missive which should have them hopping around their cool scandinavian offices....not.
Yeah and fanjobanjowanjo, (love your name) I am heartily tired of Rihanna bellowing on in her strange voice about what she wants done to her and so on and so forth. I didn't find the photo of her bent over at carnival in Barbados as terribly nice either. I am all for sex, but feel a bit overwhelmed by it all these days. Is it cos I is getting older?

OP posts:
DoMeDon · 15/09/2011 12:53

YANBU to complain - for me it is a child protection issue. If I stood in the middle of mothercare shouting about how I liked it up the bum I'd be arrested.

Original poster
lolaflores · 15/09/2011 12:55

DoMeDon.....laughing like a drain here dear girl. that picture in my head...please make it go away.

OP posts:
NotFromConcentrate · 15/09/2011 12:59

I don't think YABU, but then I'm a complainer Grin

LDNmummy · 15/09/2011 13:09

I don't know that it would bother me so much that I would leave the shop entirely Confused

I would probably have called the manager right there and then and talked to him/ her about it without even getting a little upset. Frankly I think things like this are not that big a deal. If they had the accompanying video being played on the walls for instance and I thought it inappropriate, I would then get upset.

I just think the more you try to hide your kids form things like this, the more they will seek it out when they get the chance. I know one woman who would never let her daughters listen to songs that even hinted at sexuality when they were young, and now all they listen to is the new Rihanna album, with the more explicit songs being their favourites.

Southmum the song you are referring to is

LDNmummy · 15/09/2011 13:11

I think conjecture's story is much worse actually Shock

Original poster
lolaflores · 15/09/2011 13:37

LDMmummy, I am not a cosseting mummy. My little girl is 4. I have never hidden the realities of life from my kids. What I don't appreciate is this ongoing degredation of women that inhabit the world my girls live in. I want my girls to grow up with a healthy view of women's sexuality, their own sexuality and not some glossy sub porn that is all over the place.

This is not puritanical stance. it is feminist really. Up there with padded bras and toddler pageants and body images of women.

Yeah and i think conjectures story is fucking awful too.

OP posts: