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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be a bit disgusted at this?

98 replies

SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 10:59

I've now seen it a couple of times now- basically having a woman standing around in nothing more than knickers, bra and stockings in store windows. In DECEMBER. My first thought is, damn you must be cold, second is, you must have an amazing waxer, and then finally the feminist rage descended. For one poor woman, there was a bunch of gross leary men taking her photo with their phones, and also, I have NEVER seen the equivalent for men.

AIBU to think that in this day and age, we should not have women standing about like prostitutes in shop windows (when discussing with DM she said it did sound like the red light district of Amsterdam)? Or am I thinking like a 93 year old woman and should get back to my comfy slippers and radio show?

OP posts:
victoriascrumptious · 18/12/2009 11:01

Huh? Why was she standing there and in what shop?

Original poster
SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 11:02

I can't remember the others, but most recently it was in La Senza. She was standing in the window as kind of a live shop dummy.

OP posts:
Original poster
SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 11:03

and she was standing their to advertise underwear.

OP posts:
Bathsheba · 18/12/2009 11:03

An actual woman..? Not a shop display dummy...??

I've never seen this in my life - where are you and what type of shops are these...

Original poster
SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 11:03

An actual live woman. I'm in London. Seen it on Oxford Street and in the City.

OP posts:
kittywise · 18/12/2009 11:04

If she wants to stand there she can, I doubt she was forced to.

I would object on the grounds that I wouldn't want my kids to see it, male or female.

ChickensHaveNoTinsel · 18/12/2009 11:06

I don't personally like it, but I doubt that the women are being forced to do it. I would struggle to explain to my sons exactly why she was doing it, though. And I would secretly judge.

Hassled · 18/12/2009 11:07

How bizarre. And how desperate the girls must be.

MitchyInge · 18/12/2009 11:08

yabu

providing she was not vigorously masturbating or sodomising herself with a giant rubbery dildo or something

we are not victorians, a woman in pants and bra? hardly scandalous is it

PrivetDancer · 18/12/2009 11:11

I'm fairly sure they have heating in shops. YABU and a bit insulting.

They are not prostitutes, they are models advertising lingerie, which would be tricky to do fully dressed.

lucky1979 · 18/12/2009 11:12

They had lots of men wearing only their pants bouncing up and down on a trampoline on This Morning yesterday. Not a shop window but if they fancied coming to do it in my local La Senza window I'd go and have a look!

TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:12

I'd be a bit annoyed tbh, it seems like that kind of things is in our faces everywhere we go! Not setting a great example to young girls out shopping is it?

Original poster
SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 11:12

even right next to the window? It can be cold in those windows (bad memories of stocking windows during retail career).

Why is it necessary to have a live woman to sell lingerie?

OP posts:
inchhighprivateeye · 18/12/2009 11:13

I have seen this with men. Few months ago, Calvin Klein were launching some new colourful kecks, as worn by some male models in the middle of Oxford Street. As a feminist statement I leered and ogled plenty. Have never been so close up to a bunch of handsome men in their skimpies. Still haven't quite recovered.

midori1999 · 18/12/2009 11:13

MitchyInge, I agree with you entirely.

The view that the woman is 'forced' to stand there is more sexist than the fact sh eis doing it, as it implies she is not able to make her own choices. I doubt she is 'desperate' as much as I doubt she is on minumum wage...

I used to Glamour model. It was a way of earning very good money for not many hours work, which as I was a single parent at the time, meant I could give my son a good lifestyle and spend limited time away from him. THe fact I was taking my clothes off was irrelevant, plenty of people see me in a bikini on the beach for free... almost 15 years and two more children later, oh, how I wish I still had a body people would pay me to expose..... {grin}

MitchyInge · 18/12/2009 11:13

seriously, would you avoid the beach because of scantily-clad women?

Original poster
SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 11:14

I think that's what annoyed me about it - that it is so in your face. I'm fed up with this double standard that women are expected to be half naked/sexy/up for it in most media, but you don't have the same thing for men. Spend a couple of hours watching MTV. You'll see what I mean

OP posts:
Rindercella · 18/12/2009 11:14

@ Mitchy!

Original poster
SerenityNowAKABleh · 18/12/2009 11:17

But people are meant to be scantily clad on the beach. Surely people are not meant to be scantily clad mid-December on the High Street.

OP posts:
MitchyInge · 18/12/2009 11:18

ah so it is a seasonal morality?

ChickensHaveNoTinsel · 18/12/2009 11:18

I saw the bouncing blokes on 'This Morning' yesterday. It was most odd.

TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:18

I totally agree with you Serenity. That kind of thing is literally everywhere, and even more so you are basically called a Prude for feeling uncomfortable by it. I always get a bit annoyed when I'm rushing into my local shop for baby food/toilet roll etc, with no make up on and hair scraped up, and am confronted with magazine covers with half naked women on. It's everywhere, wether we want to see it or not. And the women may not be forced to stand there, but for me, it just lacks class.

TheShriekingHarpy · 18/12/2009 11:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

midori1999 · 18/12/2009 11:20

The fact is, it is clever marketing. Men walk past, see an attractive irl in lingerie, want their GF/wife whatever to look like that, so they go in andbuy the underwear.

Women see a gorgeous man in boxers in a store window and they think 'if only my husband had that body...'

OhChristmasTEEOhChristmasTEE · 18/12/2009 11:21

There was a man in my local Debenham's this past weekend wearing nothing but his boxers advertising some new Calvin Klein undies or something.

So men do it to.

Oh, and you could have your picture taken with him. Which I didn't get to do because my DH was in a hurry.