Porn star martini Pizza Express

[Flour8977]

Why are Pizza Express advertising 'Porn Star Martinis' on every table at their restaurants? AIBU to find this disgusting for a family restaurant? I don't really wish to explain to my 6 year old what it is.

FFS. We can’t turn every public space or business into a U-certificate virtual crèche to placate or mollycoddle parents looking for a moral panic.

@Flour8977

Why are Pizza Express advertising 'Porn Star Martinis' on every table at their restaurants? AIBU to find this disgusting for a family restaurant? I don't really wish to explain to my 6 year old what it is.

It's supposed to be called a PASSION FRUIT martini in family restaurants they should know better.

"alwaysontheloo
Slow hand clap to all the cool girls who are down with normalising the fast creeping, insidious world of porn into our lives. Go you!"
I don't think pornstar martinis are fast creeping. They're 20 years old."

But they are now creeping out of adult-only establishments and into Pizza Express.

I agree it's helping to normalise and glamourise what we surely all know to be a deeply problematic 'industry'. Why was it even called a pornstar martini in the first place? Someone thought it was a cool, edgy name.

@dewl

It's most damaging to the 12/13/14+ year olds who know what porn is.

I'm gobsmacked how naive some of you lot are.
"They're just words"
WTF?

I doubt it, given the alleged age for kids watching porn is 11. Yes, that smart phone we've bought them begrudgingly is the tool for streaming unlimited free porn. I honestly can't see how damaging a cocktail name is when most of our kids have been subjected or were already watching porn by then.

I don't think people are being naive. It's not ideal but the sad reality is that it's really nothing compared to what kids already have available at their fingertips.

@Blossomtoes

Knowledge is power. If what you say about teenage girls is right *@PegasusReturns* you’re doing your daughter no favours as a parent by burying your head in the sand. It’s up to you to have those conversations with your daughter about the pervasiveness of porn and how it objectifies women. If you have a daughter who wants lip fillers and breast enlargement, a cocktail called a Porn Star is the least of your worries.

So your argument is:

• Porn is pervasive and potentially damaging to women and children.
• Therefore the best we can do is prepare our children for dealing with it.

My (and I assume OP's) argument is:

• Porn is pervasive and potentially damaging to everyone.
• Therefore we should seek to create a society in which porn is not normalised. (Whilst also having conversations with our children about the current pervasiveness of porn, and the damage it can do to the relationships and self esteem of both users and performers.)

Yes, that’s my argument @MisterMeaner. Porn is already normalised. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

For goodness sake! It’s the name of a well known cocktail. There is no need to explain the ins and outs(!)of a porn star.

A local wine bar sells “Corpse Reviver”, equally awkward one would think.

Haha it's unfortunate in a way but PSM is very often the most popular cocktail so it's not surprising they would advertise it. Could do with a new name.

I'd probably just put it in a small/hard to read font.

@Blossomtoes

Yes, that’s my argument *@MisterMeaner*. Porn is already normalised. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

So because it's normalised already it's fine? We can just "normalise" things and that makes them ok? Does that go for other things that aren't normal at the moment ?

But just wanted to chime in that I LOVED the Playboy bunny logo when I was a child blush I begged my mum for curtains, rugs, pens, lava lamp of it. I got most of it as well so she must not have had an issue with it either.

How would that have played out if you'd followed your natural childish curiosity and said "Mum, I've seen that they do Playboy magazines and videos as well" and begged her for them, assuming they were cartoons or comics or something?

How would parents who are 'cool' with this flip it on its head: if, instead of an 'adult' brand that also made everyday items to advertise and cash in on its brand, it were something like Peppa Pig, Tom Gates, Blue Peter or whatever, which made a lot of appropriate things specifically for (and targeted at) children, but also had a prominent range advertised with the exact same branding where the characters/presenters engaged in hard core porn?

Utterly baffling.

@Blossomtoes

Yes, that’s my argument *@MisterMeaner*. Porn is already normalised. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

Yeah, but you don't deliberately expose your children to porn, do you? You seek to shield them from its influence. I hope.

(Or perhaps this is what you mean by "burying your head in the sand" - in which case I expect you have centrefolds pinned up around the house and one of those Freeview adult channels continuously playing on the TV in the kids' room.)

So sad, to see this defeatist attitude. Why not work for a better society?

@NightmareSlashDelightful

FFS. We can’t turn every public space or business into a U-certificate virtual crèche to placate or mollycoddle parents looking for a moral panic.

😂😂😂 Oh the dramatics!

We're now equating the tabletop advertising of Pizza Express (alongside the annoyingly large kids' activity sheet and the tub of crayons) with 'every public space or business'.

Always good to keep a tight grip on that sense of proportion.

@Su9999 let's hope your kids don't inherit your sense of humour

So because it's normalised already it's fine? We can just "normalise" things and that makes them ok? Does that go for other things that aren't normal at the moment ?

I didn’t say it was OK, did I? I said it’s too late, it’s done and it can’t be undone. Your last sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

So because it's normalised already it's fine? We can just "normalise" things and that makes them ok? Does that go for other things that aren't normal at the moment ?

It seems to creep forward in steps, where one inappropriate thing forces its way into the mainstream and then becomes the yardstick by which everything else is measured. Then, when people object to it, they're told "Well, this is already out there, so you can't now complain about that - and it becomes a perpetual motion machine to race to the bottom.

I highly doubt that any of the top shelf magazines from the 60s depicted anything more than 'vanilla' sex (regardless of the consent/ability to consent of the 'performers'); but it's in no small part down to them that things have now 'progressed' to the point where choking and other violent/degrading/dangerous acts are seen as normal.

Give it a few more years and choking a woman whilst having rough anal sex with her will probably be widely considered tame and dull beyond belief. Where will they go then to keep things 'exciting' - actual snuff porn?

I highly doubt that any of the top shelf magazines from the 60s depicted anything more than 'vanilla' sex

They didn’t even depict that. You had to go to Soho for that. The top shelf mags were a step up from page 3 - the worst thing you saw was pubic hair. I had a friend who did a modelling session for one of them when she was a student, no coercion, she was very happy to do it, because they paid her a lot.

The blame for the normalisation of porn lies fairly and squarely with the Internet. Before that men had to go out of their way to access it so most didn’t bother.

@Blossomtoes

So because it's normalised already it's fine? We can just "normalise" things and that makes them ok? Does that go for other things that aren't normal at the moment ?

I didn’t say it was OK, did I? I said it’s too late, it’s done and it can’t be undone. Your last sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

Let me explain my last sentence. At the moment paedophilia (for example) is not generally accepted as something normal, just like porn wasn't years ago. But if we make it normal would that make it ok? Imagine this mumsnet post in 20 years : " Pizza Express are advertising a drink called the "Paedophile punch" AIBU to think it's unsuitable for a family restaurant? Replies" "it's just words", "kids watch paedophilia all the time" , "my nine year old has been watching children having sex with adults on her phone since she was a toddler I think she can make her own decisions thanks", "everyone is doing it", "my kids have been able to buy their own homes at 18 because of it, they're lucky, it's just pretend".

@Lunar27 Well yes exactly, that's my point 🤦🏽‍♀️
By having it normalised in one of the most family orientated restaurant chains, is saying it's ok to watch porn. I just do not understand how people are not getting it?? Utterly baffling. Naive and deluded.

The blame for the normalisation of porn lies fairly and squarely with the Internet. Before that men had to go out of their way to access it so most didn’t bother.

I disagree. The internet was just a more modern medium that could get it out to far more people, far more quickly, without the embarrassment of having to speak to a human to buy/view it, but the appetite and culture was already there, partly fuelled by the availability of 'soft' material at the outset, to stoke the desire.

There are a lot of things that the majority of people thankfully (currently) still see as disgusting, so although they doubtless do exist to be viewed if people of that persuasion know where to look for them, we don't have a global 'culture' where almost all teenagers regularly watch videos of people being beheaded or animals being torn apart and consider it 'meh'.

Mind, having said that, I've never had the slightest desire to watch it myself, but I believe there was a video that went viral a few years ago with actual women actually eating poo, with countless 'jokes' and references made to it - so whatever stage we're at currently, there's always somebody wanting to take that and push the boundaries further and further.

A local wine bar sells “Corpse Reviver”, equally awkward one would think.

Not even remotely.

[quote dewl]@Lunar27 Well yes exactly, that's my point 🤦🏽‍♀️
By having it normalised in one of the most family orientated restaurant chains, is saying it's ok to watch porn. I just do not understand how people are not getting it?? Utterly baffling. Naive and deluded.[/quote]
How it naive? It's just differences of opinion and it seems the poll is pretty split.

No it's not saying it's ok to watch porn. That's a huge stretch. Kids are already watching porn and they know it's not ok, hence why they're having to work around safety controls and using VPN's etc.

Personally as a parent, I'd rather it was a point of discussion and not swept under the carpet until they're 18 and can order one from every bar in the country.

I'm sure you can order one at TGI's too and that's a family restaurant too.

@Whatalovelydaffodil nobody's said, or even inferred, a single one of those things about porn

Honestly am struggling to see the issue, just explain it’s a drink. Your children will be exposed to much more problematic words/images/videos if they are on til tok, Instagram or just allowed on the internet without any safeguards as seems to be the case in Mumsnet world and there will be no one sensibly explaining away what they’ve seen.

Personally as a parent, I'd rather it was a point of discussion and not swept under the carpet until they're 18 and can order one from every bar in the country.

I'd rather not be forced into a discussion about porn when out for a nice family meal with my 12 and 14 year olds myself!

@Magicpaintbrush

Like kids haven't heard of porn or seen it on someone's big brothers phone

And??? Even if they have that's okay is it? Just because it happens doesn't mean it should.

That poster was saying that in reference to people saying to kids it's just a drink. If you bothered to quote the full post you would know that.

Instead you decided to try and make a poster look like a twat when she was showing that most kids would as more questions as they would almost certainly know the term.