Random Ew of the Day
This makes me a wee uncomfortable.
It's a shopping bag used by the German condom company Condomi, where the handle is conveniently placed right where peeps' genitals are supposed to me. (Although the bags are of women and men.)
What do you think - offensive or just tacky erotica?
ht/ to Helen!
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If they're of both men and women, I'm voting for just tacky.
I am curious though - is this a condom store? I kind of like the idea of buying and using condoms being promoted as something fun and positive and not hush-hush.
I don't read German, but the website sells condoms, lube, and other sex toys. Judging from the pictures on it's pages, I'd say they are having fun with sexual products.
I just wonder if customers have a choice as to which bag they get or if it's random. It would be pretty interesting to see if they only had male bags one day, how many people would be uncomfortable about that. Or vice versa.
Is there a picture of the bag with the dude on it? Just curious to see what kind of underwear they have on him.
that bag is disgusting and creepy. i will only support it IF they also have a bag of a man's stuffed balls in an underwear.
Got curious, and found the male bag here:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/dm/condomi_erotic_shopping_bag
For those unwilling to click, it's just as skimpy.
perhaps not the most important thing to comment on in regards to this, but is the figure on the bag a photo of an actual woman or a maniquin? Her stick-thighs are creeping me out like whoa.
Photoshop?
maybe...still....can I get a naked girl bag with some curves please??? :-)
They are designed for men and women, additional link can be found at http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/naughty-walking-advertisement-shopping-bags.
I vote for tacky erotica for now...but I teeter towards approving. I say this because it is a condom company (condoms = always good) trying to bring sex out in the open. Now if only they had bags that depicted real people.
Tacky.
Tacky, but at least it's tacky with men too. This would NEVER happen in the United States.
Tacky, but also hilarious.
I really hate the idea that something is offensive entirely because it's sexual. This is equal-opportunity sexualization. Why is there a problem?
Well, it's sort of hard to have equal opportunity sexism because of social context. Women have to deal with people non-consensually fondling their genitals much more often than men do, and you can't really remove that fact. These bags aren't happening in a vacuum.
That said, I do tend to lean more toward "tacky erotica" then "offensive" on this issue. I think they are more dumb than sexist.
I agree that it's not in a vacuum, but I don't think that means there's any problem.
I have only two objections to the "objectification of women." The first is that, while I don't think that companies should be compelled to start using overweight or older models, they should stop with the excessive airbrushing and they should try to use more racially diverse models. The second is that it almost always only happens to women.
Equal-opportunity sexualization is the answer. When only male sexuality is acknowledged, society starts to forget that women have sex drives and assume we only have sex in exchange for fancy dinners and expensive wedding rings. Also, some people start to think that the woman being sexualized is somehow "lesser" because of it, which is ridiculous.
So I'm always really happy when I see something like this. There should be sexy bags that appeal to everyone!
It seems to me that men aren't really taught that they have the option of not consenting. The message from television and movies (american pie) is that any guy who misses a chance to "get laid" is stupid, or a 'fag'
Also, what about this says "non-consensual" to you? The people on the bags are dressed in sexy underwear. Not that sexy underwear is an invitation to non-consensual groping, but in most cases in which someone is standing around in nothing but said sexy underwear, CONSENSUAL groping seems very likely.
Assuming every sexual image is about rape unless it comes with some kind of signed consent form attached is a terrible way to look at things. It minimizes actual rape victims while playing into the fucked up idea that women don't really like sex and must always be forced into it.
I see a possible element of non-consensuality I think mainly because of the disembodiment. If the bags showed a woman or man looking happy about sexual contact, it would seem consensual to me. When I see fingers penetrating someone's genitalia, which is (probably accidentally) achieved here because your fingers go through the handle, and I can't tell what the genitalia's owner is thinking about it, it makes me a little uneasy.
And while I'm all for equal-opportunity sexualization, I'm against equal-opportunity objectification. Men don't deserve to be objectified any more than women do. These bags get dangerously close to that territory because we're seeing disembodied, fetishized sexual organs and no faces.
But again, I think this is mostly innocent bad taste rather than sexism.
They make it as clear as they possibly can that it's consensual. There's no way to work a face into the design. By your logic, you can't show a photo of people having sex if they're making ambiguous faces. And people make some weird faces when they have sex.
I've never quite agreed with the idea that showing a body without a face is somehow a terrible thing. It allows the viewer to project their own fantasy onto the body.
Rape is a terrible thing, and it shouldn't happen. But projecting rape onto every sexual image is not the answer. 99% of people who see this aren't going to think it's about rape. Even if the image was more ambiguous -- a genderless someone in jeans, for example -- people would look at it and think "Ha ha, you can't use the bag without grabbing a crotch."
If one of your friends mentions that he had sex the other night, do you sit around uncomfortable until he tells you that it was consensual and then provides you with proof of such?
I guess I'm a little confused about your comment. I haven't said anything about rape, and I've said I find these bags more tacky than sexist.
I'm not sure how your friend analogy relates. Generally I am friends with people who seem to be good people, so I would assume any friends that I have aren't rapists. The advertising industry doesn't really have a good record in terms of portraying sexuality in a non-sexist and/or healthy manner, so they wouldn't get the same benefit of the doubt as a friend would. I'm not sure anyone has ever equated the advertising industry with a friend before.
I'm not attacking you. You did say they made you uneasy because they suggested non-consensual groping and I don't think I quite get your logic there.
Non-consensual groping is definitely in the same ballpark as rape.
The ad makes it very clear that the situation is consensual. Requiring that much confirmation is unreasonable given the situation, which is the point I was making with the analogy. Does it make more sense if you overheard the conversation in a supermarket and it's someone you don't know?
Agreed. Sexual does not equal gross or offensive.
Frankly, I love this (although, yes, of course it's tacky), and I wish that companies in the US were that creative. However, if you walked down the street with one of those (at least in my town) the police would probably find a reason to arrest you.
Meh, I just think it's tacky, silly fun. they have them for both genders.
I love the title of the post, since before seeing it, my first response was an "EW!" out loud. It sort of made me cross my legs tighter too... Yow.
Count me among the "Tacky but funny" crowd, and also among those who'd like to see more openness about safer sex. I wonder if the cashier asks you whether you want a "male" or "female" bag?
It looks kind of impractical, though. The handle is so far down, it'd be awkward to carry.
I was wondering that too. Are women automatically given men and men automatically given women? Sounds a bit homophobic if that's the case....
It definitely is tacky, but it makes me uncomfortable too. Even if there is a male version as well, it still looks like objectification and seems to make light of unconsentual groping.
Just out of curiosity--why does this make you think of non-consensual groping? I mean, obviously the object itself isn't capable of consenting or not consenting, so that doesn't matter, but considering that the models obviously consented to the use of their pictures, and the pictures are of people with spread legs in provocative underwear (not exactly the situation with creepy groping such as on subways, etc.), why does this make you think of unwanted contact?
What I would like to know is who buys so many condoms that they need a bag that big to carry them in!
Pretty tacky, but kind of funny. Though, frankly, I'd feel a bit embarrassed to carry one around, male or female and I don't blush easy.
***so*** much better than the plain-brown-paper-bag thing! i personally appreciate the fact that by seeing someone carry this around, it visibly brands that person as someone who practices safe (and potentially exploratory!) sex.
It's a sales gimmick that will attract a lot of customers.
The bags are clearly intended to appeal to the shop's typical customer; younger adults, serious about their sex lives, and not offended by the sight of sexy lingerie.
Photos of people in lingerie aren't sexist or creepy.
Even if the men and women were completely nude I still wouldn't think it was creepy or sexist, and personally I wish such bags could be carried in public without it creating a public outcry.
There is nothing creepy or sexist about pictures of people's genitals.
If it was a picture of a woman getting raped, then I would think it was sexist.
Tacky?
Is tacky a problem?
I'm just idly wondering why all these sexualized images of women are always so...shiny. It grosses me out... it looks like, if I touched, her, she'd be sticky, and she would leave a residue on my hand. Major clit-shrink. Even without the slightly creepo context, that would really make me resist touching the handle of the bag.
Back on topic, I will tentatively say that the bag isn't sexist. My own visceral reaction is unpleasant because the image is so porny, which matches up with the schema of women-as-prey...wince. But since this is an erotica shop, I don't think "porny" is inappropriate, especially considering that men are equally depicted. Context is everything. I think this is actually a very concrete point for equal-opportunity objectification; that is, if objectification of both sexes occurs in the same product (/ad/whatever), then one could genuinely say it is egalitarian. Hm.
Unless I am missing something, there is only two types of bags; one with the front and back of a female model in lingerie, and the other of the front and back of a male model in lingerie (in my opinion a speedo is male lingerie).
The gimmick is that the carrier of the bags appears to be carrying the male or female model by the crotch.
Kind of reminds me of that team Obama speech writer who groped a cutout of Hilary Clinton at party were there were drinks.
Was he objectifying HRC?
Yeah, which I think was a surprise, because she hardly ever gets objectified (unlike Sarah Palin). I have been objectifying HRC for the past 16 years (especially during those years that Bill was acting a fool, despite having such a lovely wife), which brings up the questions; is objectifying someone always a bad thing, and can one objectify someone and still be respectful?
I am not going to deny the fact if I find someone attractive, and my taste are quite broad (I like older powerful women).
Few men would say that the female and male models on the Condomi bags aren't attractive, and I have a hard time imagining that the models would not want to be appreciated, or that they didn't know that their lingerie clad images would appear to be carried by the crotch by a lot of people.
Tacky and objectifying? Sure, but disrespectful? In most cases I would say no.
Also, the male and female models aren't skinny, but they are well toned, which is why they are models to begin with.