Victoria Secret and Rape Culture - Created by Voir on Dec 15, 2012: EdenFantasys Forum

Voir

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Apparently, it is wrong for a company to choose not to have a standing in women's movements. Apparently, PINK by Victoria Secret promotes 'rape culture'.

Am I the only one having problems with this argument?
They sell intimate wear, it is their right not to be involved in political issues. They sell intimate wear - and I don't know about you guys, but I don't walk around with my panties showing. If someone is seeing them they are more than likely someone I WANT to see them. So what they say is irrelevant to the populace at large.

This is why I don't support feminism and I am not a feminist myself. Because 95% of what I read coming from the thoughts of propagators is bullshit. Blame a company for promoting rape instead of blaming idiots with no boundaries, no morals and probably some history of sexual abuse or assault themselves. Having provocative statements on one's intimate wear does not constitute consent and attempting to warp it to be so loses major major MAJOR respect points in my book. It's like saying girls who wear short shorts and tube tops are promoting rape culture. It's stupid and bigoted.

Yes, I agree they could have more diverse bodies modeling their clothes - but they are also a business. Businesses are going to show what sells, and obviously having fit models (because I wouldn't call any of them anorexic or underweight) isn't hurting their income considering they are a multi-billion dollar company.

12/15/2012

hyacinthgirl

I'm pretty sure it's "The Big Lebowski".

And they do have a right to not be involved in political issues, and I don't consider myself particularly feminist, but rape culture is a thing. Having coy messages about consent being easily swayed, or that being sexually available is way more sexy than being selective is fairly supportive of rape culture. The "Yes No Maybe" thong is at least as offensive as those "Wong's Chinese Laundry - Two Wongs Make it White!" shirts that Abercrombie and Fitch put out a few years ago. There is no "Yes No Maybe" on access to what is in one's panties. Yes, No, or Maybe.

12/15/2012

SneakersAndPearls

I'm having a whole lot of conflicting feelings about this. On one hand, flirty underwear can be fun, and I doubt what you are wearing under your jeans will have an effect on whether or not you get raped. On the other, I hate VS and I really don't find them friendly to the majority of the female population or support healthy body image. Ever heard of what kind of diet and exercise regimens their models follow before a shoot/show? Go look it up. I don't agree with the whole "VS is contributing to rape culture" thing, but I do see how you can make that argument.

All that being said I'm left with two ideas: I don't really think VS is contributing to rape culture, except, perhaps, for the extremely impressionable, and I like the Consent faux line and think they have a great message (I'd totally buy the loving your body panty if it were real). However, I don't really think the right way to go about getting the message out was to pretend to actually be Victoria's Secret, but I think you could argue that point either way. I definitely don't think it was a good idea for VS to come down on Consent so hard, trying to shut them down and successfully bringing down Consent's site for a day, and their twitter account for the duration of VS's yearly show. Coming down that hard makes VS look anti-woman.

I don't think either side is behaving appropriately here.

12/15/2012

married with children

I am glad other people are starting to catch on to the BS they pour down your throats. VS sells underwear. Last I checked, just about everyone wore underwear. They are like any other private business. If you dont agree with what they sell or what they stand for, dont buy their products. But to blame them for the actions of a criminal is just stupid and baseless. If we are going to go down that road, we could blame the care salesmen for DUI's. Or the power saw manufacturers for lost fingers. Or fast food for fat people. You could find something to blame on any business, but that does not make it true or right.

12/15/2012

Bleu

I know a two rape victims and they weren't wearing anything considered suggestive. No short dresses, booty shorts, PJ pants with PINK written on the butt...

Nope, none of that. They were wearing jeans, a baggy sweater, and coming back from (and going to) classes on a university campus.

Who VS uses to model their clothes is up to them. I don't think getting fatter (no offense) models would be a good thing for them. There are plus sized models who model for companies who need plus size models. You know what victory secret likes to show off? Boobs. It's not always the bigger the better. Just boobs. I don't even know faces because I'm thinking of how my girls will look.

But I agree with Trysexual. Guns don't promote murder, just like sexy undies don't promote rape. Now, if you want outside in a lace thong in a sea through bra, you might have what's coming to you but girls don't just walk around in their underwear. Who cares what's written on them! A rapist doesn't follow the directions written on your clothes.

12/15/2012

hyacinthgirl

It isn't that clothes promote rape. I wasn't wearing anything remotely suggestive when I was raped. It's rape culture - the culture that normalizes women not having sexual autonomy: "no" being part of foreplay, rather than a final answer. A woman who says no doesn't want to be convinced, she already said no.

Bleu - what you said about "what's coming to you" if you walk around outside in scanty underwear is part of rape culture. If I want to walk around stark naked at high noon, no one has the right to rape me. It's not coming to me, and I'm not asking for it. I may be indecently exposing myself, but I'm not asking to be raped.

12/16/2012