Balenciaga apologises for bondage bear advert involving child

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They're also taking legal action against its creator

What I want to know is who the hell signed it off and why were the parents happy to let it go ahead?

I've included the images for anyone who hasn't seen them.

I think these sort of shoots have a director, so the photographer wouldn't be able to dictate how the kids look. But yes, if. he had any decency and guts, he'd have refused to take part in it.

Did anyone spot the strategically placed magazine ?

Where is the outrage over this beyond Mumsnet? I despair.

There's pretty much nothing on MSM other than a very neutral reporting of the BDSM bear/court document. Not really any coverage of all the other weird stuff. It is being discussed a lot by alternative media like the Daily Wire and by a lot of YT commentators.

Here is the very popular, "progressive" left wing channel The Young Turks completely minimising it and finding a way to blame the right for the hoo hah.

The US has polarized now between "groomers" and the Right.

Ignoring that, these photographs are repulsive; they are predatory. They play with that power adults have over children as a means of making money.

It makes you wonder who buys their products. Luxury as moral degeneration must be quite lucrative for them to even designed these bears and considered the setting.

It's good to see this article by Brendan O'Neill in Spiked

"Balenciaga and the rise of paedo chic"
"Adults need to stop dragging kids into their sexual fantasies"
Explains what the document in the photo is about:
" ... a printout of something to do with Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition, the 2002 US Supreme Court ruling that struck down a section of the Child Pornography Prevention Act and ruled that fake child porn is protected speech. Wow.

This needs an explanation, surely? It cannot be a coincidence...
In another way, though, it makes messed-up sense that no one in this fashion chain of command stopped to wonder if this might all be a bit strange. Because the sad fact is that paedo chic is everywhere right now. In a world saturated with images of kids in adult clothing, and when children bop along to pop and rap tunes that are sexually explicit, and when it is not uncommon to see kids petting men-as-pups at Pride marches or laughing along with drag queens in skimpy outfits, why would anyone bat an eyelid at a pic of a girl on a bed with a kinky bear?

Paedo chic is one of the most worrying trends of our time. We seem to be witnessing a surge in the paedophilic sensibility. ...

We’ve seen the rise of child drag queens. ..
There seems to have been an erasure of the boundary between adults and children, meaning kids are increasingly dragged – no pun intended – into worlds that were once for grown-ups....

Further afield, on the wackier outskirts of identity politics, sympathetic talk of ‘minor-attracted persons’ is becoming more and more widespread. ...

‘Destigmatising paedophilia’ is both a horrifying idea and one that makes sense in this chaotic era of moral cowardice and non-judgementalism. ... Don’t question anyone’s gender identity, we’re instructed, even when it’s a palpably mad gender identity...
www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/27/balenciaga-and-the-rise-of-paedo-chic/

@MoirasSaggyBundles that quote "children play with child soldiers". I can't articulate clearly how much that false equivalency annoys me but it's NOT THE SAME THING.

"Paedo chic" is so descriptive of this. Back to 1970s 1980s PIE.

Thanks for the link to the Spiked article. The anger is palpable. As it should be.

It's the push to normalisation of the idea of sex with children.

Whoever from Balenciaga, and all down the line, signed off on this and the other dodgy campaigns - they either encouraged; or knew but did not argue. Or they honestly didn't see the problems with posing little girls with bondage bears.

Whichever; they are all just promoting child sex abuse. The word "paedophilia" doesn't cover it. It is child sex abuse.

Brand Ambassador Kim Kardashian has spoken. Fuck me, doesn’t the woman have enough money? Surely she can just cut them loose. What is this wishy washy crap?

twitter.com/kimkardashian/status/1597017102665142272?s=61&t=6Ll6KxJ027nwNCXVBx6x_A

Here is the very popular, "progressive" left wing channel The Young Turks completely minimising it and finding a way to blame the right for the hoo hah.

But from the other wing of the left, here's commentator/comedian Jimmy Dore, who formerly was involved with the Young Turks, struggling to find anything funny to say about it. (There's no love lost between him and them - he thinks they've abandoned any left-wing values and principles for some unaccountable reason).

Looking at the stats, TYT have more subscribers, but Dore gets more views - by a factor of two on that video. I guess TYT has been around longer, so has a pile of legacy subscribers no longer watching.

There are some very dark people involved in high fashion - this thread is very disturbing (WARNING - graphic images): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1596812625517498368.html

Brendan O'Neill article is good

clymeme. I came to post a link to the same thread which primarily focuses on Lotta Volkova, Balenciaga.

I second the WARNING. Some very disturbing images.

Lotto's stamp is all over the recent photo shoots.

It's not just the sexualisation of children that has led to this "paedo-chic". It's also the adultification of children where lots of people seem to believe that children are just small adults able to make decisions. It's as if there's been an intentional forgetting of all child development knowledge.

Ooh, that thread is bad.

And the Moloch reference makes the Baal inference much more plausible.

Interesting thread. As for ‚the Shining‘, the content of that Kubrick film is not stated correctly.

There are very thorough analyses (some rather old) of the movie by people who really dissect Kubrick‘s movies.
The movie is clearly about a father sexually abusing his small son.

I recommend the YT video: The Shining: Danny‘s ordeal and the bear costumed man - film analysis by Rob Ager.

The comments about the Shining actually are a better description of the sequel Stephen King wrote (Dr Sleep?). I think it may have been made into a film or mini series recently.

Oh. Kubrick‘s film was based on King‘s novel, even though he changed the story drastically. But the picture that canniballotta, as she called herself, has posted was from Kubrick‘s film. Also the referenced ‚the shining‘- themed photoshoot is based on the setting of Kubrick‘s film, with the same 70‘s style carpet and floors…

While I liked the ‚Spiked‘ article very much, I am not sure if we‘re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater regarding the ‚detabooization of paedophilia‘. Obviouly, any act involving children (and this OBVIOUSLY includes looking at pictures) must be taboo, but people not being too afraid to go to a therapist is a good thing, no?

I once saw a documentary about a man who outed himself, told his family and siblings (who have kids), went on record with his full name, unblurred. He said he did it to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t act on it, with ‚all eyes on him‘, basically.

Maybe this carries the risk of normalization, but personally I‘d rather know than not know, had I someone like that around my kid. Idk.

Yes, those shots were definitely from/inspired by Kubrick's film.

There was a picture of a painting, Saturn (?) eating his child, that was pretty much reproduced in a still from a shoot that I've seen upthread, perhaps one of the links. I can't remember the artist, I want to say Velazquez?

I think the painting is from Goya.

In my personal opinion, (with absolutely no evidence to back it up I might add!) I think most pedophiles seem to have other kinds of personality disorders, and I don’t think the majority of them don’t want to offend.

I think most of them get off on the power play of it, the hiding in plain sight, the duping of the community, etc.

How do you solve it? I don’t think they can be rehabilitated, so the only way must be them not being able to come into contact with children, being held in secure units for the rest of their lives.
I truly believe that’s the only way, ‘rehabilitating’ then does not work, as shown by the repeat offences. Yet the priority always seems to be them, and giving them chance after chance, with seemingly no thought to the victims/potential victims when they’re let out on bail again and again. It’s totally fucked up

Yes!! Thank you, @deepwatersolo ! Goya! Ffs Velasquez

This is the picture that reminded me of it. Perhaps just a coincidence that the original showed up later.

I don't know the context for the 'outfit' below, it might have nothing to do with the Goya painting. Even if it does it doesn't necessarily signify anything. Pretty yuck though.