This thread irks me also.
Not because I have any interest in the mask or bdsm, I'm quite the opposite.
What irks me is the assumed influence this product will have on the inferior masses to yourselves.
Although it is a media term, it can be applied to this product. It is called the hypodermic needle model.
To quote;
Effects theory was developed in the 1920′s, and looks at how media texts influence those who consume them, particularly (in recent decades) how negative messages, i.e. sexual and violent content, can affect the most vulnerable of audience groups. You will have come across the ?Hypodermic Needle? model (or ?Silver Bullet? approach), where the audience is seen as passive ? ?empty vessels? who play no role in interacting with the media texts concerned. The theory states that these texts function in a one-directional communication process.
So you see we can apply this model as it looks at negative violent and sexual content. What you are doing is assuming the hypodermic needle model is actually true.
Now let's look at some criticisms of this approach, paraphrased from theory.org
- The effects model treats children as inadequate
You are considering children not so much in terms of what they can do, as what they (apparently) cannot. Negatively defined as non-adults astrange breed whose failure to match generally middle-class adult norms must be charted and discussed.
young consumers can be seen as the inept victims of products which, whilst obviously puerile and transparent to adults, can trick children into all kinds of ill-advised behaviour.
2.The effects model assumes superiority to the masses
Surveys typically show that whilst a certain proportion of the public feel that the media (or in this case sex toys) may cause other people to engage in antisocial behaviour, almost no-one ever says that they have been affected in that way themselves. This view is taken to extremes by researchers and campaigners whose work brings them into regular contact with the supposedly corrupting material, but who are unconcerned for their own well-being as they implicitly 'know' that the effects will only be on 'other people'. Insofar as these others are defined as children or 'unstable' individuals, their approach may seem not unreasonable; it is fair enough that such questions should be explored. Nonetheless, the idea that it is unruly 'others' who will be affected - the uneducated? the working class? - remains at the heart of the effects paradigm, and is reflected in its texts (as well, presumably, as in the researchers' overenthusiastic interpretation of weak or flawed data, as discussed above).
George Gerbner and his colleagues, for example, write about 'heavy' television viewers as if this media consumption has necessarily had the opposite effect on the weightiness of their brains. Such people are assumed to have no selectivity or critical skills, and their habits are explicitly contrasted with preferred activities
This reveals the kind of elitism and snobbishness which often seems to underpin such research.The point here is not that the content of the mass media must not be criticised, but rather that the mass audience themselves are not well served by studies which are willing to treat them as potential savages or actual fools.
So while this focus on television it is still very appropriate in this scenario as the hypodermic needle model, which some of cling to, clearly has massive flaws
I will add finally that this does not include abused women who suffered threats and pressure over period of time, because that was an individual damaging you not the prescence of items in public