Pulse not a model citizen

THE EDITOR, Sir: CLAUDIA MILLER’S Letter of the Day on Monday, September 3, 2018, regarding Pulse’s distasteful billboard at its Trafalgar Road offices prominently showcasing high-school teenage girls attired in swimsuits beat me to the punch!

I, too, am shocked into disbelief that this can be allowed to have pride of place in the capital city, and was taken aback on a recent visit into Kingston from my hometown of St Ann for a business engagement, when I initially saw the billboard and later discovered the models were only adolescents, and even worse, still enrolled in school.

I am far from prudish and appreciate that the modelling industry at the international level has a long-standing preoccupation with youthful models, but it cannot be, however, against the social background as Ms Miller so correctly pointed out “when reports of Jamaican women being subjected to sexual violence and harassment isn’t uncommon news, will common sense prevail in not having highschool girls, not quite yet women, being sexually objectified?”

As a father to three girls, all under the age of 13, it saddens me to think how careless Pulse’s promotion practice truly is. It should not now, or ever, be permissive for any secondary-school student t o be promoted barely clothed for all and sundry to see, among them classmates, peers, parents, school administrators, neighbours, and God forbid, lecherous men of ill intent.

We should not wallow in bad taste and uphold the objectionable advertising of this batch of skimpily attired teenagers Pulse has been irresponsibly promoting to motorists and pedestrians along Trafalgar Road for a school search tour.

ALFRED PRENDERGAST St Ann