Honey Birdette’s ads harmful
DO you want a box with that?
Thanks to lingerie retailer Honey Birdette, parents lining up with their kids to see Santa at my local Westfield have little choice but to stand face-toface with photos of women in skimpy lingerie barely covering their private parts.
Provocative and pornographic, the advertising images are 3m high and clearly visible from Santa’s little red hut. In fact, this weekend, I’ll bet the line of parents waiting to meet Father Christmas will snake right past the windows.
That’ll make for some pretty uncomfortable family chitchat.
The same sexy sideshow is on display at other shopping centres around the country. Some are showing posters with a close-up of a woman’s private parts barely covered by sheer underwear. The caption is: “Ask for your candy.”
Being able to judge the quality of a woman’s brazilian wax job is not something parents should be able to do while queuing up for family Christmas photos.
Last year, Honey Birdette even played up to the Santa theme with a range of images showing women in sexy lingerie on large posters with the caption: “Sorry kids, we gave Santa the night off.” In one poster, a woman in a red bodice, garter and undies is straddling Santa, who’s lying underneath her.
It’s hard to see what the Honey Birdette “pleasure parlours”, packed with raunchy lingerie, sex toys and bondage items such as whips, paddles, bridles, harnesses and “tie me pleasure tape”, are doing in the middle of mainstream shopping centres.
Honey Birdette’s ads have been the source of more than 45 complaints to Ad Standards in recent years, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference whatsoever. In fact, the company wears complaints like a badge of honour.
Twenty of them have been upheld, with the company’s approach found to be degrading to women or inappropriate in such locations. But this, too, doesn’t seem to matter. A few weeks ago, posters showed two women in revealing red lingerie in sultry poses with the caption, “Surrender to her command, Candice”, were banned.
Ad Standards upheld the complaints, concluding that Honey Birdette did not treat the issue of sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to a broad audience which would include children.
They were replaced with posters just as sleazy, further illustrating what a toothless tiger Ad Standards is.
Why should parents and their kids be subject to prominent images of women wearing bondage-style underwear, including harnesses and chokers? Captions such as “Strap in wild thing” and “Bite down and buckle up” clearly show the lewd message and intent.
Other ads have women’s nipples showing and bottoms exposed, accompanied by tag lines such as “Let the feast begin” and “The most indecent affair yet”.
While I have nothing against nice underwear — and even have a decent lingerie collection myself — it’s the tawdry, pornographic portrayal of women I object to. Not only does it upset and confuse young kids, but it sends impressionable teens the message that females are sexual objects there solely for the appreciation and consumption of men.
Teenage boys are already major consumers of pornography that regularly depicts acts of violence against women — and shows women enjoying it. These advertising images are degrading to women because they are overtly sexualised and present a very narrow, stereotyped image of beauty and desirability.
Honey Birdette managing director Eloise Monaghan calls it “playful” and insists the company is all about “empowering women and making them more comfortable with the skin they’re in”.
I also object to the way shop assistants called “Honeys” have to be “ready to take over the world one libido at a time” and must “rock a red pout and stilettos”.
Many are required to look like sex workers and “deliver the Honey Birdette experience” to customers. Workers say they are encouraged to flirt, are regularly harassed and have to make playful gestures and comments when propositioned by customers. They have to keep smiling and act as if they like it, just as women do in pornography.