Almost a decade ago, The New American published “The Slippery Slope to Pedophilia,” an essay about how even back then, longstanding efforts to legitimize adult-child sexual relations existed. Now there’s a clear and sickening sign that we’ve moved yet further down that slope:
A high-end clothing brand, Balenciaga, had recently promoted pedophilia in advertisements, which included a visible court document about a ruling striking down a child-porn ban. The company has since apologized, nixed the advertising campaign, and claimed it’s “taking legal action against the parties responsible.” But with the message sent and the damage done, can this bell be un-rung?
The Daily Mail reported on the story Monday, prior to the campaign’s cancellation, writing:
Mothers have slammed Balenciaga for their ‘disgusting’ campaign showing children holding teddy bears dressed in bondage gear.
The Spanish fashion brand currently has two images of young children cuddling up with the plush handbags on their website.
The first photo on the online store shows a young ginger-haired child standing on a plush pink bed while holding a white teddy bag by its leather strap.
As well as having spiky leather bracelets around the bear’s arms and legs, the soft toy is dressed in a mesh crop top with a chain and padlock around its neck.
The gift shop section of the website features another image of a child standing on a sofa and holding a purple furry toy bag.
Along with a leather S&M get-up, the plush toy is also wearing what looks like a black lace thong.
In the background of the image, a blue toy bag has been placed on a side table and is wrapped in more studded leather bands [images below].
But it gets worse. Leaving no doubt about the pro-pedophilia message, another photo from the same advertising campaign included a document, relating to child pornography, tucked under a Balenciaga handbag.
“Based on the text in the zoomed-in image, social media sleuths claimed the document was from Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, a 2002 US Supreme Court case which struck down a ban on ‘virtual’ child pornography,” News.com.au informs (image below).
News.com.au also pointed out that online “shoppers were infuriated, calling the images ‘frightening’, ‘creepy’ and ‘wrong’.” A representative reaction is below.
As a consequence, Balenciaga apologized Wednesday via a statement posted to their Instagram Stories. “We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused,” the company wrote, related Cosmopolitan. “Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms.”
This doesn’t explain, however, why the designer is creating “plush bear bags” in bondage outfits to begin with. Teddy bears are, after all, closely associated with children, little girls in particular.
A couple of hours later, Balenciaga issued a second apology, relating to the court documents. “We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign,” the statement went. “We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring 23 campaign photoshoot.”
“We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form,” the apology continued. “We stand for children [sic] safety and well-being.”
“The parties responsible”? Where does the buck stop? Did Balenciaga really give some advertising agency carte blanche to create a campaign and not even review it before it ran?
In the least, the person/people responsible should be named, shamed, and fired. If a 19-year-old can be “canceled” over having used one racial epithet while trying to be cool in a seven-second video five years earlier, the adult(s) responsible for this legitimate trespass can and should be held socially accountable.
This is especially important given what the Balenciaga ads reflect. As one commenter at yahoo!life (which featured the Cosmo article) put it, “You have got to be one moronic predator to put the green light on that.”
Colloquially put, but correct. It’s much as when Kinsey Institute figure Paul Gebhard admitted, on camera, that his team used “oral and manual techniques” to measure the sexual “responses” of children. How could a person present such a thing so casually?
When someone becomes wholly inured to perversion (or any kind of evil), his judgment in that area becomes so warped that he doesn’t instinctively understand what would be outrageous to a person with normal corresponding instincts. To analogize it, it’s a bit as how an individual who doesn’t wash and is accustomed to his own body odor doesn’t realize that even 10 percent of his malodorousness would offend the average nostril.
Apparently, though, the mainstream media are fine with Balenciaga’s stench. As Tucker Carlson noted (video below), the story has been buried by the media.
But this is nothing new. As Carlson also pointed out, until Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform “allowed hashtags that explicitly linked to child pornography. Nobody said anything because crimes against children are no big deal — it’s thought crimes that are the real crimes.” And in 2013, the Los Angeles Times presented the argument used to legitimize homosexual behavior decades earlier, but with a twist. “Pedophilia once was thought to stem from psychological influences early in life,” the paper wrote. “Now, many experts view it as a deep-rooted predisposition that does not change.”
It was not reported if a double standard in child-sex-abuse coverage — e.g., the media love attacking the Catholic Church, but are silent about government-school sex abuse — is a deep-rooted predisposition, too.
