It Pays: Victoria's Secret and the Normalization of Child Porn

Victoria's Secret, following Nicki Minaj, has a new motto, that has paid off: “I see some good girls, I'm a turn 'em out.” It seems the controversy surrounding Victoria's Secret's Spring Break collection has proved financially rewarding for the lingerie giant's parent company. Limited Brands, which also owns Bath & Body Works, reported a 3% rise in sales for March. It follows a fair amount of criticism after a slogan for its PINK line led many parents to believe it was targeting teenagers rather than college age students. The controversial “Bright Young Things” campaign was launched to tie in with Spring Break, however many understood it to be a brand new collection aimed at tweens and teens. Chief Financial Officer Stuart Burgdoerfer said at a conference recently: “When somebody's 15 or 16 years old, what do they want to be? They want to be older, and they want to be cool like the girl in college, and that's part of the magic of what we do at Pink.”

The imagery that is coming out of Victoria's Secret, in their none to secret or subtle attempts to reconstruct children into fully sexual beings, is one of the closest things to demonic that I have seen in the main-stream media. The fashion is a bizarre mixture of “Rainbow-Bright,” “My Little Pony,” and Fredrick's of Hollywood. The still-shots mirror the sickest forms of child pornography: girls licking lollipops, blowing kisses to the camera, and emblazing everything with cutesy heart-shapes. The fashion shows have been downright gross; including a young girl dressed in a see-through out-fit made of Tinker-toys; even recruiting adolescent star Justin Biber to help suck in the middle-schoolers. It's an unashamed and reckless grab for cash, and the grooming of future slutty adult customers. Societaly, it makes girls vulnerable: to abuse, exploitation, and self-hate. Victoria's Secret is training the future generation of porn-stars.