Let's talk about sex toys (well, ads for them on Mumsnet), please

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We'd like your opinions, please, on Mumsnet taking ads for stores/sites that sell sex toys.

We accepted a campaign for one site like this earlier in the week - and then removed it after receiving a fair number of complaints.

So, what we need to know now is...

Do you mind ads for stores/sites that sell sex toys - generally speaking?

Does it matter which stores/sites these are? And what kind of stuff they're selling?

And, if you wouldn't run a mile from these kinds of ads, would you be happy to see them all over Mumsnet (with the obvious exception of our more sensitive topics such as Bereavement, Special Needs, Relationships, Miscarriage etc)? Or would you prefer them only to be in Chat?

Do please post and let us know your thoughts.

Thanks MNHQ

Exactly teaspoons - the banner ads are easily clicked on by mistake.

Please no. For all the reasons Hully et al have stated. Not dared click on any of those links but feel sullied reading about some of that stuff (geddit - sullied by Hully?)

Can't fathom why MNHQ would even entertain the idea.

Thanks again, folks. We'll leave the thread up for a while longer. If we don't post over the weekend, it's because we're out partying we're mulling over your posts.

And Mr Daily Fail, when you do get to this one, be sure to spell my name right, you got it wrong last time yer bastards!

Hmm.. I don't think so, but only because I don't want ads like this popping up when I view MN at work (MNing is fine at work when it's quiet - looking at Adult sites would definitely NOT be)

Bloody hell, MNHQ. What a complete disaster. Normally I don't care wtf ads you put up. Ads for rampant rabbits and the like, not bothered really. But ads for a company that produces the kinds of demeaning crap I've seen on this thread, including stuff that makes the Let Girls Be Girls campaign look like a lie, what on earth were you thinking?

Thing is, these sites don't just sell products, do they? They also sell porn. That's "films of women being paid to undertake sexual acts with strangers that they wouldn't undertake for free".

MN at its best supports equality and fairness between men and women. I can totally see how you can have a supportive and fair relationship with your partner that also includes a whole lot of lube and a massive glow-in-the-dark dildo. If that's what you both like, then hell, you go for it. But the porn industry consistently shows a distorted, unrealistic and misogynistic view of sex, where women are dominated, humiliated, violated and objectified.

The day LoveHoney cease stocking porn which is based on the idea that we can and should be turned on by the sight of women being paid to be sexually degraded, have at it with the banner ads (although I'd want them to click to a holding page which warns us "you're about to enter the LoveHoney site, are you sure?" to avoid any nasty surprises with little ones sneaking up behind us). But somehow I doubt that day will be coming any time soon.

So until then...no. Please. No. Women suffer enough already at the hands of the porn industry. Let's not make it easier for them to carry on exploiting us.

I personally don't have a problem with this sort of advertising but it really is down to each individual person. Some people have an issue with sex for whatever reason and I don't think mumsnet is the sort if support network to place ads like that
However I do agree with the idea if a separate subject with a coded name like what someone else suggested, then advertise freely on there and the revenue could be huge

Must read entire thread before posting

Noooooo! It had to happen eventually

Snigger

Exactly Teaspoons, if it linked to porn which we 100% knew was ethically sourced and involved women (and men) who were there of their own free will and had other choices to make a living and didn't leave the industry with PTSD (as almost 70% of women in porn do) and showed sex as a participatory activity between people, not something men do (violently and with hate) to women, I wouldn't have a problem with it as long as it was in suitable sections (ie prob not right for sections where you might be inclined to click on if there were DC's around -chickenfanciers frinstance).

Otherwise, it just looks as if MNHQ supports and endorses the rampant abuse and hatred of women that is the norm in the mainstream porn industry. Why would they want to do that?

What cloudsandwind and uppity are both saying. And I speak as someone who is really non vanilla about these thngs.

What ethically it's okay to have advertising for a sex toy website but not McDonalds

at whomovedmychocolate hello Kitty vibrators WTF

is it still demeaning to women if they want to have the toys/etc used on them (or wear them or whatever) there are plenty of women on the S&M scene for example and they certainly aren't all subjugated and demeaned!

it wouldn't be POSHNET then would it pmsl

keeping it really simple:

lots of your members have already been massively offended by seeing sexshop ads on here and have expressed this.

why would you want to have sexshop ads on here if you KNOW that it will offend and/or upset a significant percentage of members?

isn't it enough to hear that many don't want it?

personally i'd rather mcD's and formula than the sex industry any day.

What Hully said.

And do you know what? I'd be so much happier if we just were honest and called them sex-aids, not toys. 'Toys' normalises it - butt-plugs, speculums and all - sex-'aids' makes it clear that only an inadequate freak would need to put a woman in a strait-jacket to get his rocks off.

So no. Thank you.

I am with Hully and BIWI et al

Nothing against sex toys as such (not clicking on any links as I am on DD's netbook) but the kind of websites that we are talking about is not the kind of thing I want to see out of the corner of my eye when chatting about recipes or discussing David Cameron's policies.

It surprises me, tbh, that MNHQ actually thought that this would be a go-er.

Did you really have to bring Shiny Dave into this thread, MmeL?

As much as I don't really like some of the stuff mentioned (speculum, ew) I think that advertising is needed by MN as it's obviously a commercial concern. With the language that's regularly used and defended on here, and the regular sex threads I think it's almost a bit rich for some posters to have an issue with sex toy ads.