Victoria's Secret Doesn't Want To Be Associated With A Campaign About Respecting Women, Issues Takedown

from the no-respect dept

The EFF has a post up about how Victoria’s Secret sent a legal nastygram to an ISP taking down a parody campaign by an anti-rape organization, FORCE, called Pink Loves Consent. The campaign was a parody designed to raise awareness of these issues, by mocking Victoria’s Secret’s “PINK” line of clothing, that includes underwear that says things like “sure thing” and “unwrap me.” The parody campaign replaced those with things like “ask first” and “respect.” The page showed what Victoria’s Secret could have done to put forth a more positive, more respectful message… and the company’s response was to go straight to the hosting company and demand the site be taken down (which it was, though they found a new host who was willing to put it back up). Parody is a key element of free speech — and issuing a takedown over this seems like a pretty clear attempt to stifle free speech. And, really, it just makes Victoria’s Secret look really, really obnoxious. Were its lawyers really so offended by positive messages, rather than pure sexual objectification?

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Comments on “Victoria's Secret Doesn't Want To Be Associated With A Campaign About Respecting Women, Issues Takedown”

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58 Comments
Manfred Manfriend says:

Can you blame them?

Feminism is pretty toxic stuff theses days! Just look at all the women who’ve been coming out saying that they are not feminists and do not wish to be associated with feminism! When you’ve got Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, etc all disassociating themselves from such a movement it becomes the last thing you want your brand associated with…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Can you blame them?

Well, that’s proof right there that feminism is out of control … two famous type people supposedly do not want to be associated with it – according to some poster on the internet anyways. Back to the kitchen ladies .. and you had better stop yer backtalkin riight now bitch.

JEDIDIAH says:

Re: Re: Can you blame them?

So called feminists are no less interested in bossing you around. You’re just trading one master for another. Both want to control your body, restrict what you do, and control how you think.

That’s why some women with a backbone don’t like “feminism” and are quite verbal about it.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Can you blame them?

I’ve been seeing a lot of these type of straw feminists these days, who are white undergraduates in women studies, and spend too much time on tumblr ‘fighting the patriarchy’. This anti-VS campaign appears to be from just such a group, who yell RAPE, OBJECTIFYING, TRIGGER WARNING!!!! at the single thought of a man near them or of a man even existing on the same planet as them. I’m not surprised Victoria Secret is taking a stance against them.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Can you blame them?

“You’re just trading one master for another.”

I’m trading – who knew …. lol.

“Both want to control your body, restrict what you do, and control how you think.”

Now you are describing the GOP, what a bunch of nuts – right?

“That’s why some women with a backbone don’t like “feminism””

… and the rest are invertebrate degenerate slime – and they talk back n stuff, sheesh.

monkyyy says:

Re: Re: Re:

actually yes, *anything* that changes the differentiation of male and female in ways that dont reflect reality, are in fact “feminazi” or the male equivalent

note reality is seems to say one thing on this topic and one thing only, females only get to make 1 child at a time(men millions) and know for a fact whether or not its thiers; AND ALL FOLLOWING LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS FROM THIS(no matter how much the left likes to paint a marx’s like family/sex life as healthy it isnt), but nothing more

monkyyy says:

Re: Can you blame them?

we love them so much that we cant stop staring :3

anyway, insisting people to ignore what undeniably different(directly related with sex) makes ur credibly suffer on what has minor differences during pre-birth development and puberty but havnt been proven to be different at any other stage(brains, personally, math, etc.) that can be blamed on lingering cultural effects

Ninja (profile) says:

Re: Parody?

You, sir, are a moron. Even in the event they are LAWFULLY right there’s a quite clear MORAL component here. Regardless of what anybody says the good course of action would be to get in touch with the creators and form a partnership to spread the word and consequently the brand.

And yes it IS A DAMN PARODY. And it should clearly be fair use. One more reason the current copyright/trademark system is BROKEN.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Parody?

I don’t think it’s immoral to refuse dialogue with a group who just implied you promote rape by selling underwear with stuff written on it (which women voluntarily buy, I might add).

See this is exactly the problem with feminism these days: they want to control what women want and do. Thousands of women will buy these underwear and not feel objectified (or maybe they like being objectified). Either way, women who want to buy these underwear should have the choice to buy them.

But the group behind this ‘parody’ thinks they should get to make decisions for every women. They give themselves the moral right to condemn the decisions of women who buy these underwear, and they try to make production and sale of these underwear stop completely. On top of that, to do this, they’ll argue the underwear somehow promote rape.

And yet you think they have the moral high ground because VS sent lawyers at them?

Varsil (profile) says:

Well...

As others have noted, the campaign was holding out that these products were actual Victoria’s Secret products, which is indeed trademark infringement and buys them into controversy they probably don’t want. I think they’re hoping they can extricate themselves from the thing gracefully, which is likely a tactical error.

That said, I can see why they don’t carry said products. They’re in the business of sexy clothing. I can think of many, many things sexier than having a woman slowly peel off her clothing to reveal “NO MEANS NO”. At that point I think I’d say “No” and go play some video games instead.

John Fenderson (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Well...

If a woman is taking her clothes of for me, and reveals a “no means no” message on her undergarments, there is no mixed message. No still means no, and she hasn’t said “no”.

However, the contrast between the message and it being on clothing I would only see if she says “yes” is what makes it funny. And funny is sexy, too.

monkyyy says:

Re: Re: Re:

people really need to read marx, IF u read his opinion on sex the “Hey – nice rack!” would be perfectly fine for any of his followers; because quite literally he believes sex should be w/o any sort of responsibility and in super happy paradise land, single mothers would be the norm because the state would have free daycare and this would not bring over population or terrible childhoods but would somehow help the cause by getting them into state schools even sooner

Amy Krueger (profile) says:

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