Balenciaga apologises for bondage bear advert involving child

[PandorasMailbox]

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.

The thing is, PicturesofDogs, the prevalence of paedophilia is rather high. Google just told me it is about 1% in males and it rises to 5%, if such phantasies occur not exclusively but alongside other phantasies. You can‘t lock them all away. To make things more complicated, not all of them offend and at the same time ‚only‘ 50% of child sexual abuse cases are perpetrated by paedophiles, the rest is done by people who are not paedophiles (sadists, sociopaths… for whom they are the easiest victims).

These numbers are from a paper (G. Tenenberg er.al. The neurobiology of paedophilia) that came up on top of the list on Google just now, there might be different numbers in different studies, but it roughly tracks what I read before on the topic.

1% males is a lot. Maybe in this light, making it taboo (without shaming victims) is the most efficient strategy to minimize occurrences (?).

I understand there are too many to lock them all anyway. Unfortunate as it is. I wish we could just dump them all on an island somewhere.
Chemically castrate then? Actually castrate them?
I just think that, counter to the claim you get that being accused of being a pedo is the worst thing that could possibly happen, it actually isn’t.
There’s no fear, no repercussions, they are just let out to offend again and again and again.
While understand the pathology may or may help down the line, the most important thing is to protect children, as this is practically non existent unfortunately

PicturesOfDogs it is true, the protection of children is generally not prioritized in our society (nor in other societies). I sometimes wonder whether those 1% males play a role there. (Plus. obviously the ‚Canniballottas‘ of this world, however many they may be).

On a related sexual theme (if not straying too far from the topic of this thread) I listened to a podcast recently with Brendan O'Neill interviewing Genevieve Gluck, co-founder of Reduxx, on how trans activism objectifies women. www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/23/the-pornographic-roots-of-gender-ideology/

It's her opinion only of course on the question we often ask ourselves: How did we get here?

Here's a taster:

"Brendan O’Neill: What role do you think pornography has played in the transformation of womanhood into something anyone can identify into?
Genevieve Gluck: A lot of it starts with the sexualisation of surgery, which really got going through the pornography industry with things like breast implants. Within those procedures in pornography, we see the heightening and objectification of certain aspects of the body, and the sexualisation of body modification itself. Whether it is the breasts, the buttocks, the lips or any feature that you’re trying to highlight, it all points to a fetishisation of particular body parts.

Pornography is now normalised in the private sphere. A lot of the concepts or ideas about women that you see coming from trans activists – their objectification of women, or their reduction of womanhood to having plastic surgery and hormones – have a connection to pornography. We really don’t fully appreciate the scope of the problem yet. I don’t think it’s even possible to, because we don’t see it in the public sphere. All we see are the repercussions of this porn-saturated culture."

[Extract taken from an edited transcript the interview, handy for anyone who hasn't got 55 minutes to spare]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-63779620

'Kim Kardashian 'shaken' by fashion house shoot ... Commending the brand for removing the campaigns and apologising, she said she was "re-evaluating" her relationship with the company.

But she told followers she believed the brand understood the seriousness of the issue and it would take steps to make sure it would "never happen again"'

🙄

Hm. Yes. I believe that. Like I believe the SNP care about women.

Absolutely not a carefully planned negative PR campaign.

The BBC finally noticed, but only because a celeb said something: www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-63779620

The BBC didn‘t even notice Savile, so what do you expect?

And then Washington Post gives a glowing review of a play about paedophiles

www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/11/23/downstate-bruce-norris-pedophiles/

"Downstate,” directed with exceptional astuteness by Pam MacKinnon, seizes on our reflexive response to these crimes and shifts our emotional focus to the perpetrators... He’s loaded the dice to some degree in “Downstate,” as the predators who’ve completed their prison terms are depicted not as monsters but rather as complicated, troubled souls... Hopper’s Andy (a past victim) arrives at the home with his misguidedly encouraging wife Em (Sally Murphy) to confront Fred. The playwright cannot hide his scorn for Andy, who has made a successful life for himself as a Chicago finance guy and now seems intent on some kind of purging reunion with the man who molested him as a child on a piano bench. The meeting seems to be part of Andy’s therapy, which “Downstate” implies may be advisable but at this point also suggests that it is an indulgent marinating in self-pity."

It's that push to normalise paedophiles again. That we should feel sorry for them and just because the survivor is successful then they should have moved on from the trauma. It's clear from the way the characters are portrayed (as relayed by WP reviewer) that the playwright has a very clear agenda.

So WP ignore Balenciaga and promote paedophiles instead.

That picture of the teddy with "People tore into Balenciaga over its latest campaign" on the BBC website gives the impression Balenciaga are the victims. A deliberate move on the BBC's part.

Who wrote the article because it feels very young and infantile. "It made the people angry". FFS.

It’s Newsbeat, it’s only a step up from Newsround when it comes to BBC “news”.

@OmiOmy - it is intended for Newsbeat, a children's news show. That would account for the slightly simplistic style, but I'm not sure it's a story that should be on Newsbeat!

Ah, got it. But the audience is 16-29 year olds apparently. Obviously, teens & twenty somethings can only cope with simple sentence structures.

Thanks Lex but I stand by my earlier post re: teddy bear image.

Obviously, too frivolous a story for the grown ups.

I wouldn't say that. Some people at the BBC have said he was known about. Also of course there have been several others at the BBC,who have done similar over long periods, some of them only quite recently found out and /or convicted.

Ok, let me correct it:

The BBC didn’t even ‚‘notice‘ Savile.

Yes. I've had to stop listening to the vast majority of the US left leaning podcast that I've been enjoying for years.

Lots of hand wringing and sighing over people objecting to Drag Queen story time and transwomen in female sports on one this week. There isn't one that hasn't been captured by trans ideology. (Apologies for mentioning the trans debate but it is THE subject everywhere at the moment and I think it runs alongside the normalising of children in sexualised situations.)

Oops, forgot what forum I was on and that mentioning trans issues was unlikely to get me at the bottom of a pile on.

This is a great response by Misan Harriman - apologies if already posted

vm.tiktok.com/ZMFQqe8W3/

Kim K is basically dressing with a variety of fetish style outfits. How anyone would expect her to have an intelligent response is beyond me.

Balenciaga is very fetish style: either explicitly or not. Fashion is basically nonsense so in order to charge absurd prices they resort to extremity and shock. Otherwise it would just be worthless. It is morally disconnected - if there is impact, then fashion matters.

Of course this is bollocks. These pictures are degenerate, not edgy or interesting.

How did KK become famous again? Didn't it emerge that she willingly participated with her own mother in the taking, perusal and later distribution of her own sex tape?

I find her to not have much self-mind. She is mentally inhabited by either her mother's dominance or adulatory sycophancy which comes from being too rich or both. Asking her to have strength of mind now is ridiculous.

She represents the problem. The wider culture has lost moral cohesiveness and sense of generational asocial obligation and almosts all it's idols are famous for degeneracy.

Half the people being held up as idols are famous for literally nothing.

Yes, it is.

Unacceptable. We need to start using that word more.

Comment piece in the Guardian, with comments!

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/29/kardashian-teddy-bears-bondage-gear-balenciaga

Martina enjoyed herself there, there are some excellent lines. However as one comment says, quite rightly, Balencia will be sniggering up their sleeves as this is more publicity than they could have dreamed of.

Negative publicity works and there are no real consequences, so we'll see boundaries shoved ever further. And apparently this will involve exploitation and depravity reaching whole new depths because having any conscience, morals or basic wish to do good as opposed to sinking society into ever bleaker filth seems so very 20th century.