By Jueseppi B.
This ad campaign by Victoria’s Secret has sparked some controversy and I was so consumed with politics & the fight to prevent Lyin UnFitt Mitt Romney from fucking America up way beyond what George Dubbya Bush accomplished during his 8 years of terror…..I almost missed this.
Check this out:
Victoria’s Secret Geisha Lingerie Sparks Controversy: How One Blogger Took on a Brand
By Piper Weiss, Shine Staff | Fashion – Tue, Sep 25, 2012
t takes hundreds of employees, thousands of hours and millions of dollars to launch a mass market lingerie line. And one blogger to take it all down.
“I never thought they would pull the Geisha outfit off the market,” Nina Jacinto tells Shine. “I imagine there were a number of factors that went into that decision.”
Two weeks ago, Jacinto, a 26-year-old Bay Area blogger and non-profit development manager, most likely became one of those factors.
It all started here. “I saw a link to [Victoria's Secret's Go East] line on the blog, Angry Asian Man,” she says.
“Hooray for exotic orientalist bull—-,” wrote the blogger who included a link to the “Asian-inspired” lingerie line’s centerpiece: “The Sexy Little Geisha,” a mesh teddy that comes with an obi belt, chopsticks and a fan.
Victoria’s Secret boosts sales in tough economy
Immediately Jacinto sat down to write an insightful post on why she found the outfit, and the line in general, offensive. ”It’s the kind of overt racism masked behind claims of inspired fashion and exploring sexual fantasy that makes my skin crawl,” she wrote in article published September 6 on the blogRacialicious, a site for commentary on the intersection of culture and race.
“There’s a long-standing trend to represent Asian women as hypersexualized objects of fantasy,” wrote Jacinto. She also took umbrage with the lingerie description as “your ticket to an exotic adventure” and the fact that none of the models for the collection were of Asian descent.
“The lack of Asian women here simply exposes the deep-rooted nature of the Orientalist narrative, one that trades real humanness for access to culture,” she wrote. “Besides, it can only feel sexy and exotic if it’s on an “American” body—without the feeling of accessing something foreign or forbidden, there can be no fantasy.”
One week after Jacinto posted her piece, the feminist website Bust picked up on the story. When the Bust reporter went to check out the teddy described in Jacinto’s story, it had disappeared from the site. According to Bust, a Victoria’s Secret rep suggested the teddy had simply “sold out.” A week after that, The Frisky’s Jessica Wakemen wrote about the offending and mysteriously missing teddy in question. “Considering the complicated history of geishas, repurposing the “look” for a major corporation to sell as role-playing lingerie seems a bit tasteless,” she wrote.
By the afternoon, major news outlets like the Huffington Post began calling blogger backlash to Victoria’s Secret a “controversy.” The Daily Mail noted that the teddy and the Go East line in its entirety had been removed from the company website and replaced with the main product page.
The company still hasn’t released a statement or confirmed its decision to remove the line, and had not returned Yahoo! Shine’s request for comment at press time.
Over on Twitter, the audience is divided on the issue of whether the geisha teddy is offensive. ”Can we please stop fetishizing Asian cultures?” asks one Twitter user. ”I’d still wear it,” adds another. On the brand’s Facebook page, a VS superfan asks when the line is coming to Australia. Don’t expect it too soon.
Companies pay attention to the blogosphere, and hard-learned lessons have taught them that they’re not immune to the power of a strong and well-crafted opinion. In June, Adidas pulled its plans to create a line of shackle sneakers when over 2,000 commenters on Facebook complained of the design’s racist overtones. And last year, American Apparel‘s plus-size modeling contest was taken to task by a contestant who taught the marketing company a thing or two about women with curves.
Shackle sneakers spark outrage
Jacinto, meanwhile, has gotten a lot of responses from commenters questioning why she cares so much about some bras and underwear. “It’s important that companies like VS know that capitalizing on a stereotype and on a culture is tasteless and offensive,” she explains. “The messaging we insert in our culture shapes people’s attitudes—so questioning clothing like this is important.”
Questioning is one thing, seeing results is another. Whether or not Victoria’s Secret confirms it, Jacinto’s impact on a massive multimillion dollar line seems obvious. But she still sees room for improvement. “Their Cherry Blossoms line [another Asian-influenced VS line mentioned in her blog] still exists and still contains language such as ‘indulge in touches of eastern delight,’ ” she says. “The clothing itself may not be as overtly distasteful as the Geisha piece, but the language makes it troublesome to me. Surely there must be another way to advertise that line that doesn’t exoticize Asian women.”
If this is not the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen, read, heard of in my 52 years of life.
This is a fucking ad campaign to get women to appeal to THEIR men/women/transgendered mates. And some blogger has “sparked” a controversy over this?
Question for all you outraged folks: How many of you own Apple products, who are so outraged over this defaming of Asian women?
How many of you who own those Apple products, are also aware of the working conditions those Apple iPads, iPhones and MAC computers were created in….working conditions that are illegal in the United States Of America? Which is why Apple, an American company, has “outsourced” millions of jobs to China over the years.
Here we have some bloggers who are pissed at the apparent sexual objectification of Asian women…BUT YOU OWN THE MOST SEXUALLY OBJECTIVE ITEMS PRODUCED BY THE MOST SEXUALLY OBJECTIVE COMPANY IN HISTORY?
Apple has factories in China that employ underage Chinese workers of ALL genders, pays them pennies an hour, makes them work 18 hour days and keeps them captive in company slums. YET you find this ad campaign for some fucking lingerie sexually objective towards Asian women?
My Lord is America stupid.
Filed under: Bad News, Business, Causes, Comedy, Dumb Shit, Education, Health, Jobs, News, Women's Causes, World News Tagged: | Ad Campaign For Geisha By Victoria's Secret, American Apparel, Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Jacinto, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Racialicious, Victoria, Victoria's Secret


















































Guess I’m stupid since I was offended as a Japanese American.
If you want to get offended, get offended about Apple using Asians as slave labor. This Victoria’s Secret shit is not harming a single Asian….Apple is killing Asians and you get offended over this? I don’t happen to be an expert on your intelligence.
I am offended by that racist outfit. I am outraged at human exploitation and abuse. Exposing veiled and overt racism and sexism and highlighting injustices of all kinds are two of the major themes in my life, writing, and actions. One usually leads to the other.
Then get offended over Apple using slave labor in China to make it’s iPhones & iPads, then selling those products to Americans here in America. That slave labor leads to sexual assault and death. Victoria’s Secret leads to what? How many have died or been raped by wearing a Victoria’s Secret outfit for a lover? As I said, this is the stupidest shit I have ever seen. Asians dying over abuse and folks are outraged over an outfit.
Of course the outfit is only a thing. Like a gun target with a hoodie, skittles and tea on it is only a thing. Offensive to some, but neither are physically hurting anyone. The ideas and attitudes behind them, though, are telling. It isn’t the object, but the theme that is offensive. Racist stereotypes have led to my being sexually harassed and threatened. Racism and stereotypes cause most of the problems in this country, from poverty to class division to prisons disproportionately full of young, black men.
I don’t own Apple products or buy things made in China if I can help it, but that won’t do much when Wal Mart and all other major retailers sell mostly stuff from China, where most of America shops (not me).
Skittles and a hoodie are not offensive to anyone, they didn’t kill Trayvon Martin, a handgun illegally in the hands of racist George Zimmerman did kill Trayvon Martin. Victoria’s Secret outfits don’t harm anyone who chooses not to wear them, nor do they harm women who choose to wear them and nothing at Victoria’s Secret causes you to be sexually harassed. You are one confused woman if you think a company such as Victoria’s Secret, by selling under garments to women who WANT to wear them, is harmful to women who don’t want to wear their products.
Get offended and outraged over the treatment of ALL Asians by Apple, in sweatshops all over the Orient.
I am finished with this conversation. It’s a waste of both of our time.
You are absolutely right, JB.
If we gonna get outraged, lets chose something to get outraged over that harms humans directly.
My thing is, aren’t all of their ads exploitation of all women? Why not be outraged about that also. I agree with you about slave labor. If we are going to complain about one, why not all?
Thats all I am saying, if one is bad (Victoria’s Secret) then the other one is horrific (Apple’s Slave Labor). Have outrage over both. Also, how many of the outraged are currently using Apple Products????