And, KMart, if you're going to lie, at least COVER YOUR TRACKS. As of 10:38 AM EST on June 6, 2008, the description on the site still fucking says "bold abstinence screen print."

Well, by that logic, I should be able to sell clothing covered in swastikas and burning crosses and say that it's just a symbol I chose to put on my clothing. I don't intend association with any particular group!

Hahahaha.

That is all.

Apologies for being devil's advocate -- and I can't think of a greater one than K-Mart...perhaps The Wal -- but when I saw the print, my thoughts immediately turned to Radiohead's "True Love Waits," in which the verb is an active one standing on its own:

"And true love waits
In haunted attics
And true love lives
On lollipops and crisps."

Still doesn't redeem K-Mart, but it's always nice to bring Thom Yorke into the mix.

I can only imagine the spokeswoman yelling, "Who wrote that? That wasn't there the last time I looked at it!"

Well, we don't really know that they mean waiting for marriage. Maybe true love waits for something else?

True love waits for you to get your ass to the store to buy a condom?
True love waits a month for birth control pills to become effective?
True love waits for you to orgasm first?

There's really any number of possibilities.

lol incredible... how utterly stupid of them.

LMFAO holy crap! that is too funny!

maybe they're confused about what bold abstinence print means...

BUSTED! That's hilarious! Well done Jessica, what a scoop.

In defense of K-Mart, it's entirely possible that the "abstinence" print was a copy writer interpretting the print the same way Feministing readers did. If you've got someone writing copy for 1000s of seasonal products, they're probably not inspecting the verbage too closely if it's someone that's been copywriting without incident for years. . .I can't believe I just defended K-Mart.

Hey, how do we know that "abstinence print" isn't, you know...a new..kind...of...screenprinting? Yeah, I think that's probably it...It, um...abstains from...peeling off in the wash?

Yes. I think the only explanation is sentient screenprinting.

Seriously, do people think that just because Bush's administration got away with lying about reality for eight years that anyone else can do it?

I find it very interesting that the "mistake" on happened on clothing worn by young girls. Of course there was intent in their message, they are just shocked that they got caught.

Seriously, though, somebody proposed the design, and somebody approved it, and then somebody approved it to put on the shelves. You're telling me that NONE OF THOSE PEOPLE intended an abstinence message to be read as an abstinence message? Of course, given the recent trend in awful t-shirt designs, well documented on Feministing, it's probably assuming a lot to say that an actual human person actually looked at them and thought about what they said.

If it were HotTopic or somewhere, they could totally argue irony, but Kmart so does not have that kind of cred.

In defense of K-Mart, it's entirely possible that the "abstinence" print was a copy writer interpretting the print the same way Feministing readers did.

That just means that the K-Mart rep didn't bother to actually look into the matter before issuing that bogus response. If a copywriter made-up the description for the pants (which is possible), the K-Mart rep should have addressed this in the statement and had that part of the description pulled from the website. S/he didn't.

KMart is my favorite big-box retail store. I prefer it to Target or Walmart or Meijer. I would love to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it's fucking bullshit.

P.S. Sounds like that denial means it's time for a girlcott.

In defense of K-Mart, it's entirely possible that the "abstinence" print was a copy writer interpretting the print the same way Feministing readers did.

Is there some other way to interpret it? "True Love Waits" has been a slogan of the abstinence crazies for years and years, and printing it in a cutesy font and selling it to teenage and preteen girls has been SOP. Even if it weren't for the presence of the word "abstinence" and the assurance that wearing these pants will "boldly proclaim just where she stands" in the product description, it'd still be ridiculous for KMart to try to say the slogan isn't tied to any particular movement or ideology. It's like selling White Power shirts and then claiming you had no idea people would interpret "white" as referring to white people.

Although if the quality of the writing/proofreading is any indication, you're right, it's definitely not illogical to think that the language of the description was left entirely at the discretion of Yourbodyisa McPreciousflower down in copywriting. I suppose it's reassuring to know that it's still possible to make a living out of educating young girls in the fine art of slut-shaming without having to learn how to string together a complete sentence.

It probably means if you aren't truly in love it is alright to go ahead.

I'm curious about "Piper & Blue."
I'm willing to believe that the pants were designed by someone not in the US. 50/50 chance of english as a first language.

But the "bold abstinence screen print" not the intention, HILARIOUS!

What's with the chastity-shaming? Jessica, you're disappointing. You claim (when pushed) that you have nothing against people who abstain, nothing against those who think it is the best decision for them, etc. Nevertheless, you throw a fit at... the idea that people ought to be proud of abstaining?

So it's okay, in your book, if people are abstinent, so long as they are too ashamed of it to say anything. Why the sex-shaming? Pathetic.

Oenophile, I know you're being deliberately obtuse, but KMart is a major retailer peddling sexism. It is sexist because the clothing only comes in a brand that is sized, available, and marketed to "juniors," which, in apparel, means teenage girls. It's one thing for right-wing women-hating organziations to have their little rings in Lifeway Christian Bookstores. It's another to promote such a message in a company that all kinds of people shop at, or, in my case, will boycott. I'd write a letter but be less inclined to boycott if they sold such a ridiculous product in young men's sizes (which is, incidentally, what the male equivalent of "juniors" is, but don't even get me started) but since they chose to carry something with a ridiculous message SWIPED ACROSS THE ASS OF A PAIR OF PANTS...well...you do the math.

What type of statement does "KMart merch is made by children in Cambodia" make? Now that's a pair of sweatpants I would buy!

"Well, we don't really know that they mean waiting for marriage. Maybe true love waits for something else?

"True love waits for you to get your ass to the store to buy a condom?
True love waits a month for birth control pills to become effective?
True love waits for you to orgasm first?

"...There's really any number of possibilities."

Yeah, like

True loves wait for you to find a consenting partner?
Trye love waits for you two to get more privacy instead of worrying about your siblings listening in?
True love waits for marriage in Massachusetts when it's same-sex?

;)

"What type of statement does 'KMart merch is made by children in Cambodia' make? Now that's a pair of sweatpants I would buy!"

Speaking of the Cambodian garment industry, I vaguely remember reading something about how Cambodia's garment industry is going for the ethical market. Of course it's off-topic for this post but workplace conditions are relevant for feminism, and so I'll do a quick search to see if I remembred right...

in "Cambodian workers fear new labour law" by Guy De Launey, BBC News, May 30, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4561581.stm

"...Cambodia cannot compete on price against giant producers like China, but its commitment to labour standards has given its garment industry a good chance of surviving the post-quota era.

"Major clothing retailers are keen to avoid consumer boycotts, so the working conditions in Cambodian factories are a major attraction.

"But for some of the factory owners looking at dwindling order books, such policies as allowing female workers with small children to take breaks for breast-feeding have outlived their usefulness..."

but exactly 3 years later, in "China presence in Cambodia grows," by Mayarith, Radio Free Asia May 30, 2008, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JE30Cb01.html

"...Meanwhile, workers' rights are often sidestepped in Chinese-invested factories, especially in the textile industry, activists said.
'The Chinese companies, especially garment factories, today have a lot of problems with Cambodian workers,' Chan Saveth, of the rights advocacy group Adhoc, said. 'Today, we see that China dominates garment factories in Cambodia. Workers suffer a lot, and the Chinese garment factories have mostly restricted workers' freedom.'...

"...They have described an atmosphere in which they are constantly pressed into unpaid overtime, with too many financial worries and too little spare time to cause trouble for management. Unauthorized deductions from pay-packets are common, and paid sick leave is rare..."

"but since they chose to carry something with a ridiculous message SWIPED ACROSS THE ASS OF A PAIR OF PANTS...well...you do the math."

Which reminds me, how much of the pro-abstinence-only market for this product did they lose by placing the logo in a manner a whole bunch of people may find immodest...?

I'd be less likely to be angry if Target offered similar pants in the young men's department...

I think the store is completely in the wrong for lying about it- but I guess I'm just not as offended by the pants as some people. I don't see why people who believe in abstinence until marriage or whenever can't advertise their choice. While I'm extremely offended by the abstinence magazines and those things that give false information to teenagers- this doesn't rise to that level for me.

A lot of the big box stores sell t-shirts and things with sexualized messages. I feel like this is the along the same lines.

Just wanted to put my opinion out there.

Geez, you'd think "abstinence pants" would be a little more challenging: You know, a padlock that the girl has to remember the combination too, or at the very least a button fly and a few difficult-to-unzip zippers...

I don't see why people who believe in abstinence until marriage or whenever can't advertise their choice.
They can advertise their choice if they want, but they should know that they're participating in something that actively tries to control women's sexuality.
1. While teenagers of both sexes receive abstinence aducation, the emphasis is always on the girls to remain "pure." In the more extreme cases, guys are told not to have sex with women, not because they should remain "pure" but because they're defiling someone's future wife.
2. The whole idea of virginity is predicated on this completely arbitrary physical state--vaginal penetration by a penis. So I guess that gay men and women who never engage in heterosexual sex are virgins forever. The whole notion is heterosexist and based on controlling women's bodies.
Be abstinent if you want to, but denying your natural sexual urges because of stupid, outdated notions of so called purity is stupid. Be safe, be sane, make sure it's consensual, but enjoy your body before you're dead.

"I don't see why people who believe in abstinence until marriage or whenever can't advertise their choice..."

I agree.

Meanwhile, is "True Love Waits" advertising their choice or is it calling the love of other couples who aren't waiting untrue?

The thing that really kills me about how lackluster K-Mart is about their "attempts" to cover themselves is this idea that "the pants were not designed to make a statement"

Then don't write a statement ON them. Seriously. These people are not even trying. Add another co. to the list of corporations that need to BE ACCOUNTABLE for the utter SHIT they write on the products they peddle.

And fellow commenters, what's with multiple people comparing abstinence to white power today? It just strikes me as weird.

meanwhile...
Geez, you'd think "abstinence pants" would be a little more challenging: You know, a padlock that the girl has to remember the combination too, or at the very least a button fly and a few difficult-to-unzip zippers...

Halfmad WINS

Well, Moxie, when you advertise sex, or encourage sex-positive thinking, you're also submitting to a system that benefits really sick men. Funny - I was just talking to one of my friends who got dumped because she wouldn't sleep with the guy. "Sex is enjoyable and fun and healthy" is an utterly fantastic philosophy for sexually exploitive men.

So maybe y'all should tone down anything that says that women ought to enjoy sex, because some real misogynists are associated with the movement.

In the alterntive, you can cut the ad hominem attacks and understand that there is value to waiting for marriage. After all, Bible-belt Protestant women enjoy sex the most, so they must be doing something right! Look at the evidence - it would seem to indicate that if you really care about the female orgasm, you would preach abstinence up and down the street. :)

Oenophile and Lawwoman_08, I think Mina hit it on the head when she asked:

"...is "True Love Waits" advertising their choice or is it calling the love of other couples who aren't waiting untrue?"

If someone wore a T-shirt saying, "Abstinence is my own informed choice and it concerns my body, no one else's", I would applaud them.

Isn't it interesting that it's always the anti-feminists who are pointing out how much women should fear men and their big scary lust, and yet in the same breath turn around and call us man-haters?

"...Bible-belt Protestant women enjoy sex the most, so they must be doing something right!...if you really care about the female orgasm, you would preach abstinence up and down the street."

Those women are doing what they're most comfortable with. I'm cool with that. What I'm not cool with is the implication that their choices* are the best ones for all women -- I, for one, detested the idea of legally binding myself to someone I wasn't absolutely sure I was sexually compatible with.

I'm also decidedly not cool with the implication that my love isn't "true" because I didn't hold out for a ring.

*Though I strongly suspect that, like most people in the modern west, a lot of those women consummated their relationships some time before the wedding.

Oenophile, you think there aren't any "really sick men" out there who fetishize teenage Christian virgins?

You think there are men saying to themselves, "Well, I thought I was going to have a real dry spell when I moved in down the street from the high school, but now that all those feminists have got those young girls thinking about sex all the time, I guess the odds aren't looking so bad after all"?

Sexually exploitative men don't need a social philosophy. They're going to sexually exploit no matter what the society's mood is. On the other hand, teenagers who are hearing one minute that their bodies belong to their parents, their older brother, their future husband and Jesus, and the next that they're for public consumption and they need to learn exactly the right way to please every male eye that encounters them? They could probably use a little help getting used to the idea that they own their sexuality and no one else and that "true love" doesn't "wait" for everybody and that it doesn't fuck like a rabbit for everybody either and that for others it's entirely irrelevant. So your idea that we should tailor our attitude toward sex and sex ed to the preferences of perverted old men is, frankly, laughable. Perverted old men have had the floor for time immemorial. Fuck them, and fuck the idea that they make sex dark and bad and risky and scary for everyone. Sex is "enjoyable and fun and healthy" to people who are ready for it. So is abstinence to people who aren't ready -- or even interested.

This may be news to you, but the perverted old men don't even have to be part of the equation. If teenagers and young women want to choose not to have sex right now, please can it be because that's what feels right to them, and not because that's what they feel the male power structure will allow them to safely do?

Well, Moxie, when you advertise sex, or encourage sex-positive thinking, you're also submitting to a system that benefits really sick men.

Actually, sex-positive thinking benefits everyone. It's unfortunate that "everyone" include misogynistic assholes, but seeing as how our bodies are made to have sex, we're promoting a natural act. Benefiting "sick men" is an unfortunate by-product of benefiting women and the millions of un-sick men (which is most of them) that are out there.

What is your definition of "sick" anyway? Is any man who wants to have sex regardless of marital status "sick?" And what about "sick" women? Or is "sick" only for men? To me, "sick" implies rapists, pedophiles and others of that ilk who won't change their ways no matter what someone's views are on abstinence.

Funny - I was just talking to one of my friends who got dumped because she wouldn't sleep with the guy.

She has my condolences, but really, she's better off without him. Any man who doesn't respect a woman's personal, informed decisions about her own body isn't worth a single tear or a second thought.

"Sex is enjoyable and fun and healthy" is an utterly fantastic philosophy for sexually exploitive men.

Or an honest philosophy for thinking adults. We all have a sex drive, whether or not we choose to repress it.

So maybe y'all should tone down anything that says that women ought to enjoy sex, because some real misogynists are associated with the movement.

So because of a few assholes I should never, ever try and enjoy myself? No man I sleep with is a misogynist (if he were I wouldn't sleep with him!). Or are you implying that any man who wants to have sex with a woman is a misogynist?

In the alternative, you can cut the ad hominem attacks and understand that there is value to waiting for marriage.

Maybe someone could point out the "attacks." All I see is debate. But I guess to some mere contradiction is construed as an attack.

There is value for waiting if you are doing it for yourself and your own reasons. If you are only doing it because someone once told you only the "bad" girls have sex before their wedding night or you believe it will make you less "pure" then no, I don't agree that it has value. I don't believe any sexual decision that hinges on what someone else expects of you is a good one. If you want to abstain, go ahead. If you want to bang everything that looks at you twice, be my guest. But make sure you know WHY you are doing it and that it is what truly makes you happy.

After all, Bible-belt Protestant women enjoy sex the most, so they must be doing something right!

Actually, studies now show that relationships where one or both of the partners identifies as a feminist have the most satisfying sex lives.

Look at the evidence - it would seem to indicate that if you really care about the female orgasm, you would preach abstinence up and down the street.

Except I have yet to see anything in abstinence writings that even acknowledge the existence of a female orgasm. Or of a female as anything other than a commodity to be kept pure. Abstinence education doesn't promote female enjoyment of sex, it promotes women only having sex out of obligation or to make babies. It buys into a Victorian notion that women don't want to have sex and that we only do it to please the menz. If you want to promote female orgasm, I'd stick with feminism. We have Babeland, after all.

By the way, since I love facts, consistently throughout the 20th century, 90% of people have had sex before their wedding. This includes the repressive 1950s.

Like everyone else here (if you read what people are saying), I have no problem with people waiting to have sex. I don't even care if you want to slap "I'm not doinking without a ring" on a banner and carry it around. But the problem is a) that these pants are ONLY marketed to teenage girls and b) the aforementioned implication that a relationship that doesn't wait for marriage to have sex isn't "true love."

So maybe y'all should tone down anything that says that women ought to enjoy sex, because some real misogynists are associated with the movement.

Maybe so, but the misogynists aren't doing it right (because, assumedly, if they hate women then the women they're having sex with probably aren't enjoying it) so that just means we have more work to do!

I thought we were talking about teen girls' pants here - why does it keep coming back to what men want?

I think it is a real stretch to suggest that Jessica was bashing abstinence. I think that most feminists agree that abstinence is great when a woman makes a real choice to practice abstinence for herself. We bash the idea that there is only one form of true love, and that those who have sex before marriage can't have "true" love.

These sweats also clearly buy into the idea that women only have sex when they are in love. It seems to imply that women who have sex before marriage are being duped, as clearly we thought it was true love, but we were obviously mistaken.

Bleh.

Sorry for the delay, I had to work today. Everyone's said pretty much what I was thinking, but I'll address your points, oenephile.
1.Well, Moxie, when you advertise sex, or encourage sex-positive thinking, you're also submitting to a system that benefits really sick men.
What's your definition of sick men? Horny men? Gay men? Pedophiles, rapists, voyeurs? While some misogynistic men may benefit from sex-positive thinking, so do the other people participating.
And what's the oppisite of sex positive, sex negative thinking?
2. Funny - I was just talking to one of my friends who got dumped because she wouldn't sleep with the guy.
I say she's better off without that load. No one's saying have sex if you're not ready, but if you're ready for a sexual relationship, you should be able to have it without shaming.
3. "Sex is enjoyable and fun and healthy" is an utterly fantastic philosophy for sexually exploitive men.
Whoa, sexist much? So, every man is a sexual predator just waiting to exploit the next woman who shows sexual feelings? Why are conservatives so scared of everything? Your statement reduces women to victims and takes away their agency. We have a right to make our own shitty choices, just like men.
4. So maybe y'all should tone down anything that says that women ought to enjoy sex, because some real misogynists are associated with the movement.
So we shouldn't enjoy sex? Ok, next time I'll lie back and think of England. Seriously, do you even read what you write?
5. In the alterntive, you can cut the ad hominem attacks and understand that there is value to waiting for marriage.
What ad hominem attack? People are allowed to disagree with you. And what about the people who can't marry? Are gay people supposed to just never have sex?
6. After all, Bible-belt Protestant women enjoy sex the most, so they must be doing something right! Look at the evidence - it would seem to indicate that if you really care about the female orgasm, you would preach abstinence up and down the street. :)
I have never heard that statement about Protestant Bible-belt women, where did you hear it? Was it in the Watchtower or a peer-reviewed scientific journal? Is it from a study that would be praised or mocked on Pharyngula?
I think that pretty much sums everything up.

My girlfriend stocks shelves at KMart right now, and from everything she tells me, her coworkers are not particularly clever in any sense of the word. I see things don't improve at management level.