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AIBU?

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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:
TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:22

But surely that is not a positive thing? Because I can pretty much guarantee a big percentage of the women will not look the same as the model wearing the lingerie, and it's not fair to try and get men to think 'Hmm, I wish my wife looked like that!'

TheShriekingHarpy · 18/12/2009 11:23

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bibbitybobbitysantahat · 18/12/2009 11:23

Totally agree with you Serenity and I don't care who thinks I'm a prude. This desperation to sell, sell, sell at any cost makes me sick.

TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:27

I agree Bibbity, and I bet it's the last thing women christmas shopping want to see. Especially if they are flustered, windswept and generally irritable, I wouldn't want to be thinking 'Great, so on top of doing everything else I have to try and look like that as well. It makes women feel under pressure to look and act a certain way, and nobody should have to have that in their faces everyday!

MeltedTreeChocolates · 18/12/2009 11:29

I dont see it as a problem. She has chosen to stand there, the company is just trying to make a big profit, she gets to feel sexy, the men get to think 'phwoar', and the only people it really affects is the women that get the hump because most of us don't look like that.

MitchyInge · 18/12/2009 11:29

speak for yourself tootsie!

am v grateful for my insulating layer of cellulite today

midori1999 · 18/12/2009 11:29

It's a positive thing for the business selling the lingerie....

Lets face it, we've all bought stuff we've seen on models online or in catalogues and not looked the same in it when we get home.

The bottom line, is, if it offends, you, don't look and don't shop at that store. Just like if top shelf magazines, or even Nuts and FHM offend you, you don't have to buy them or look at them.

I really don't see the problem. Our bodies are nothing to be embarrassed about, and if all the 'private bits' were covered up, it's really no different to young girls going out scantilty clad.

cherryblossoms · 18/12/2009 11:30

I'm in the "it's depressing" camp.

Freedom is not the right to stand in a shop window in your undies.

Equality is not men standing around in their kecks too.

Capitalism sucks. It takes our dreams and desires, gobbles them up and then asks us to eat the vomited-up mess it's made of them.

I hate the fact it assumes we are really, really stupid.

sorry. That sounds really bitter but ... [sigh] ... La Senza is just the sort of low-rent, nylon undies purveyor pretending-to-be-a-bit-ritzy that would have to go for a banal, brain-dead ploy like this ... .

GetOrfMoiLand · 18/12/2009 11:33

I don't think it is any more disgusting than 60 foot posters of David Beckham embalzoned all over Selfridges, and hordes of women going christ look at the size of that and getting fit of the vapours.

TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:33

Exactly. Capitalism is not a positive thing, and Midori that is why I don't agree that it should be ok because it's making the company a profit! And also, MeltedTreeChocolated, I have not 'got the hump because I don't look like that'. I am perfectly happy with my figure, it's my principles that cause me to be bothered by it. I find it offensive.

TheShriekingHarpy · 18/12/2009 11:34

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ChickensHaveNoTinsel · 18/12/2009 11:36
Miggsie · 18/12/2009 11:36

My old boss used to work at Asda at a senior level.

He said the best attended meeting of the board each year was the "spring season preview" becuase they got to taste the new food AND lots of young nubile girls came in wearing the new lingerie range. They wiggled around and also showed the food, and all the men were interested in the food...not.

This pissed me off when he told me....just the whole attitude, like men have a right to ogle young girls and the rest of us women who don't like it are "wrong" and we should "just accept it".

100 years ago I would have "just had to accept" that I was not entitled to an education, or a vote and my husband could legally beat me.

plantsitter · 18/12/2009 11:39

Hear hear Cherryblossoms and OP YANBU.

It's not about the individual right of the woman to get her kit off and stand in a shop window for money. It's about the message we send (and I'm thinking specifically of my DD as I write this, actually) about what we value about people. Do we value them for their big knockers and willingness to look like they will shag you if you wanted?

You can say they get men to do it - and occasionally they do - but the vast majority of images of naked/half or provocatively dressed people are women. Because women are still used as commodities.

MeltedTreeChocolates · 18/12/2009 11:39

tootsie my comment wasn't directed at anybody. I hadn't even read your posts before I wrote it. Sorry if I offended.

Isn't La Senza aimed at younger women? I think it is good (or clever rather) marketing because a lot of people DO fall for it.

TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:39

That's true Miggsie, it is either accept it and find it 'normal', or we are being unreasonable and must have terrible self esteem issues. Whoever said we are not in the Victorian era, well that also surely means that women should just let their husbands ogle women to their hearts content because 'that's just men'. It's bloody offensive.

TheShriekingHarpy · 18/12/2009 11:41

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TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:41

Ok, MeltedTreeChocolates don't worry, it probably is a clever marketing scheme, but I find that kind of manipulation of young women unethical and worrying.

grumpypants · 18/12/2009 11:43

OP - you are right. I loathe the way our children are brought up from birth with the casual sexualisation of women in their faces all the time - page 3/ top shelf/ adverts etc. Midori - you may make an individual choice but you represent women in general by standing around with your tits out for men to w*nk over (I presume that's what you meant by glamour modelling? If not, apologies) and I don't want my gender represented in that way, thanks.

midori1999 · 18/12/2009 11:45

Because women are still used as commodities

Not because men are foolish and easily swayed and women are profiting out of that then?

Are the wmen int he Next catalogue advertising lingerie there with there 'big knockers and willingness to look like they will shag you if you wanted'? Do you think womens underwear shouldn't be advertised?

Perhaps we shouldn't have models at all, after all, far from just making the clothes look good, whilst looking stunning themselves and earning a very good living, they are all being used as commodities.

It's ajob. If a woman is the manager at a retail business, she is still being 'used' to make them money. I doubt anyone would think that was exploitation though, and I fail to see the difference.

MeltedTreeChocolates · 18/12/2009 11:45

Men do this sort of stuff too. Haven't you noticed all the men working in shops are good looking and wearing the shops clothes? It's the same. Fact is sex sells. Right now what is seen as sexy is the woman the OP described. Men have to look like the bulky, muscley men in the posters and catalouges. It's isn't all directed at women and I think it is infecting men a lot more now than it ever has before.

TootsieSmith · 18/12/2009 11:45

grumpypants You have just completely summed up what I was trying to say

grumpypants · 18/12/2009 11:46

Thank you. I have been waiting for a platform for a long time

TubbyDuffs · 18/12/2009 11:47

Can't see anything wrong with it. See link, all a bit of fun tbh.

here

Miggsie · 18/12/2009 11:47

Shreiking Harpy...I am not a hypocrite, I don't want to see half naked men around, no.

Both things are wrong, we are human beings...whole people, not a collection of gentitals with other bits attached.

I've been to night clubs where there are women dancing in cages, and where men have danced in cages, both are vile, and I left.

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