Marketing & Selling: Underwear...

This is why I would never have been good at marketing and selling anything, let alone underwear.

This is an underwear advertisement from Brazil. It has a very Christmas-y theme. Although, I do not get how a man in a pair of tight boxers / trunks about to jump out from behind a door where there is a young boy on the other side of that door sends a message to buy these boxers. Do you?

Lingerie Football...

The Lingerie Football League (LFL) must be an acquired taste. The Mayor of Oklahoma City, Mick Cornett, has decided that he is not going to allow Oklahoma City to host a franchise of the LFL.

This begs the question "is lingerie football a serious sport or just a bunch of women running around in their underwear?" With that question in mind, I set out to do some research. Luckily for me, Foxtel's sports channels carry the LFL. Thanks to Foxtel I have been able to watch a few games and get a "feel" for the game and whether it is serious sport.

I have to say, having watched a few games, these girls go at it hammer and tong. There are some really big hits. I am sure there are plenty of people who watch it just for the sex appeal. Yet, the players themselves, like Natalie Jahnke, consider it to be legitimate sport. Nevertheless, Jahnke does admit that sex sells.

Yet, whether the LFL is legitimate sport or just a little bit of voyeuristic opportunism, is irrelevant if it brings in the crowds and is profitable, isn't it?

But one has to give credit where credit is due. These young women train hard and get out there week-in and week-out during the season to play football. My guess is that the most exercise some people will get will be watching these young women run around in their panties and bras.

Now, for the pictures...

Brooklyn Law School: The Lingerie Shoot...

Brooklyn Law School rented out their library to a fashion label, Diesel, for a photo shoot. The law school was under the now quite obviously mistaken understanding that the fashion shoot that was going to take place was for Diesel Jeans. The photo shoot was for Diesel, but for their intimates collection and not their jeans line. In fact there is not a pair of jeans in sight in this shoot.

Now, it is not like the idea of sexual activity and law library tables has never been thought of in the past. But, perhaps it is the first time that Brooklyn Law School has seen some of those fantasies played out in photos. I wonder if law library usage has increased or decreased after the photo shoot?

In any event, the Dean of the Law School is making the right sounds. For example, sending around an email suggesting that he is mortified by the happenings and that the law school had been duped by the fashion label. It seems that the fashion label may have breached its agreement with the law school because the law school is adamant that it only gave its permission for the shoot if the images were going to be in good taste. According to the law school, these images are not in good taste.

I will let you be the judge of good taste on this one. It is really a case of to each their own with respect to taste. Good looking and highly intelligent people are always a turn on (so I am told). So, what better way to sell that idea than a steamy lingerie shoot in a law library. I cannot recall that there was a steamy lingerie shoot in my law library while I was at school there. Although, there was always the odd whisper of some late-night briefing sessions taking place (if you are wondering University of Western Sydney).

Yet, when one thinks about it, this is a clever shoot. Who would have thought that legal briefs would have had such a literal meaning.

I am wondering why the photos and the location have got some people so incensed? It is a lingerie shoot, there was a contract in place, and as far as I can tell, nothing was damaged in the process. I think that even Brooklyn Law School would have a hard time trying to prove that this shoot in any way damaged its reputation or status.

I wonder if the University of Indonesia or Pelita Harapan University would allow such a shoot in their law libraries? University of Indonesia might be a more likely candidate because, if I am not mistaken, a former student did end up as a playboy model for the Indonesian version of Playboy Magazine (Joanna Alexandra).

The photos...

Glee & Promoting Pedophilia...

Hmmm...

Glee is a TV show that airs on Fox in the US. It is classed as a musical comedy-drama, and it follows the trials and tribulations of high school teenagers as they wend there collective ways through some good old teenage angst issues. Interesting a lot of the cast are not teenagers at all but adult actors playing the role of teenagers. Apart from being a pretty popular TV series, Glee has come in for some closer scrutiny after a recent photo-shoot of some of the 20-something actors (Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, and Corey Monteith) from the show appeared in GQ magazine.

The controversy arose because the Parents Television Council in the US has labelled the photos as "bordering on paedophilia". This in turn raises some interesting legal issues as to how one should proceed when adult age actors who are play the roles of teenagers then pose for sexy photos. Can the sexy photo of a 20+ something actor ever be an image that promotes pedophilia. It would seem that the assumption is that because these actors play the roles of not yet of age teenagers then any image of them that sexualises them is promoting pedophilia.

The reality is that if these young people use their fame to promote themselves through sexy photo-shoots, even ones that overtly sexualise them, don't they have a right to do it? After all, the people involved are all of legal age, and by any definition of the law have a right to make the decisions that they have. The photos themselves are not pornographic and do not violate any decency standards or norms for television or for print media.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting legal issue that extends beyond this particular instance. For example, can purveyors of porn be arrested and jailed for the upload / download of images of adults wearing, or part wearing of, school uniforms? In a lot of jurisdictions the law has been amended or worded in such a way as what the image attempts to convey or the content as being the key determiner in whether an image is classified as child porn.

So, simply if the point is to provide sexual gratification through the belief that one is looking at a naked or near naked child, even where the "child" in question is in fact an adult, then a crime has been committed. At least this is how I understand the law to work (time for more research and update myself on the laws in this area).

Therefore, if that interpretation of the law is accurate, then is it possible to mount a child porn case with images like the ones in GQ? I would argue not. Any reasonable person would know that the young people depicted in these images are adults and not children.

I am not sure how these particular photos promote pedophilia. I must be missing something.

Women's Tennis -- The Tennis or The Fashion? (Part II)

It would seem that Maria Sharapova is not the only female tennis star running up against the fashion police. Venus Williams wore a revealing little yellow number in her most recent match. And, in a distinct difference to Ms. Sharapova, the dress did not affect her performance as she ran out a comfortable winner.

It appears that the [mini] dress was a little more revealing than some people had hoped for, and probably not revealing enough for others, and sparked a bit of debate as to whether she was wearing any underwear, knickers, panties, or whatever the undergarments are called in sport.

The photos do not leave much to the imagination. Venus is clearly wearing underwear. She is most definitely not going commando.

I guess if you win your matches easily then the press needs to drum up interest in other parts of the performance.

Men in Underwear

No, this is not an Indonesian version of the spoof film "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" of 1993 (bugger me, was it that long ago?) but rather a brazen early morning robbery in Tangerang (a satellite city off of Jakarta). Yes, eight fellas in nothing but their Calvin's managed to rip off a Tangerang businessmen of some 500 million Rupiah.

They tied up the maid and then ransacked the house. Photo of one of the suspects is attached above...

My questions is this: How hard would it be to see eight fellas running round in their Calvin's real early in the morning? I have seen some strange things in my adopted home but I gotta say that if I saw these fellas, I might not have thought they were robbers, but I would have noticed for sure as you might see the odd underwear clad jogger but a whole club of undies wearing joggers would be odd!

Perhaps they needed the money to buy some clothes!