Headline news: Suggestive Items at a Lingerie Store

Skimpy Underwear, Ample Commentary At Tysons Corner
Shoppers Appalled, Transfixed By Racy Store Display at Mall
From The Washington Post.

Tongues were wagging. E-mails were flying around PTA message groups and church listservs. People who heard about it came by to take a look for themselves. The issue was tiny underwear -- women's fine lingerie, to be exact-- and how it should be displayed on lifelike mannequins in the newest wing of one of America's biggest malls.

"Little Shop of Whores," huffed one woman standing outside the new Victoria's Secret in Tysons Corner Center. "Slut wear," declared the father of a teenage girl, looking at a feathery-thong-clad mannequin bent over as if she were adjusting her spike heels.

"I love it," said another woman with a bag of fresh purchases.

The store was doing a brisk business yesterday as shoppers walked by, some nearly snapping their necks as they caught a glimpse of what the mannequins were wearing and their suggestive poses.

"Well," said Steina Rubin of Bethesda, "I find it just totally disgusting." And, no, she would not be shopping there. "I'm not entering a whorehouse," she said. "I come to the mall with my daughter. It's disgusting. And I'm from Europe!" (italics from article)

I've shopped at Victoria's Secret for years, and I love it. It's a lingerie store. It sells underwear. It sells pajamas. It sells clothes you wear when you're going to get some, but people also wear the underwear when they just want to feel pretty, or sexy, or anything else.. Apparently, to some people, this is news.

spokesman for the mall management company said "many" complaints had been received. "The comments we receive from our customers are valued and appreciated," a spokesman said in a statement, adding that the mall management had shared the comments with Victoria's Secret.

Shoppers were certainly sharing their comments with one another outside the store.

"I've shopped here for 10 years, and I won't come back until they change the window," said Joe Cowden of Vienna.

"I walk the mall. I've been walking the mall for nine years," said Jana Spencer, 53, of Vienna, who said she has three grown children. "This is shocking. This is semi-pornographic. This is insulting."

Some shoppers said they have an issue not with what the store was selling but with the proximity of the displays to the mall's public areas.

I don't know how long Joe Cowden will be able to stand bikini-cuts purchased from Target, but I guess it's not so surprising that people are upset about a display that suggests sex. Of course, walking around with your kids (who obviously are all virgin births) doesn't advertise 'Hey, I had sex!' Maybe people are offended at the idea of sex as enjoyment? It's very puritan of them.

"My 13-year-old daughter is going to come here and shop for a bra?" said Mary Lynne Carraway, 40, of McLean. "Come on. I'm appalled. That's like sending her to a street with a strip joint. Is this the kind of message we want to send to our children, that this is what they should look like?"

Good idea. Protect them from Vicky's Secret, and they'll definitely be fine -- not counting those images they see in magazines, movies, television, advertisements, and (gasp!) the internet..

Is it that much easier for people to make a big stink about something like this, than to actually sit down with their kids and talk about being an adult, and the responsilities of sex?