Women blindfolded and gagged: the latest in men’s fashion from Roger David
Posted by admin on January 26, 2010 · 6 Comments
The try-hards at Roger David are promoting two new t-shirts for the boys, featuring women who are gagged, with strips across their eyes and semi-naked, as the latest fashion statement.
The woman in the ‘Annie Hollywood’ t-shirt (produced by ‘Blood Is The New Black’) looks as though she has been roughed up. She appears disheveled and exhausted, her image reminiscent of a crime scenes photo. The other two women have a strip across their eyes, suggesting a loss of identity and dehumanisation. Their semi-naked bodies are pimped through a t-shirt.
The designs are not iconic. They’re not retro (even if adapting a Roxy Music album cover). They’re not art.
What we are seeing here is the glamourising of abuse, the suggestion of sexual aggression, a hint that women want to be treated roughly.
The abuse is glamourised not just for the perpetrator, but for the victim too. As though it’s not only hot to be the pimp, but it’s sexy to be dominated, coerced, submissive, abused – possibly even raped.
It’s as though a little bit of the pimp cool that’s pushed by Hollywood, MTV, in hip hop and rap (see earlier post ) will rub off on the wearer, just like the wearer of a global brand hopes that some of the brand’s ‘personality’ and ‘cool’ will rub off on them.
Roger David really like their domination and abuse tees. They feature as first items on their home page and on their Facebook.
But it’s not just Roger David mainstreaming contempt for women wrapped up in a tee.
A mate came across this at the Birkenhead point Authentic outlet store in Sydney the other day.
What is this? A plug for trafficking? Bring ‘em over, the more exotic and servile the better!
Then there’s others available from online stores , treating rape as a joke and portraying little girls as little sluts.
“It’s not rape if you yell Surprise!” 
- “It’s not rape it’s surprise sex”
- “Sometimes no means yes”
- “Your little princess is my little slut”
…to name but a few.
A sexual assault survivor told me that for her, the t-shirts are highly triggering of assault memories and she suspects that other survivors will find them so too. So as well as putting women and girls in physical danger, t-shirts like this serve as a form of mental torture too.
Women gagged, women who can’t see, women transported away from their homes to service men elsewhere. We have to ask why the demand for these shirts and why men’s stores are pimping these porn-industry inspired messages about what women are good for.
Let Roger David know what you think.
Love to read your blog, keep it up!
Health Assistant
I say:
NOT ACCEPTABLE Roger David and I will NOT support your store again.
It is a form of corporate sexualisation and violation of women
men who wear those T-Shirts will receive a low assessment of their ethics and credibility from me
Roger David is obviously struggling if they are reverting to law breaking gangster trends to pick up sales.
Thumbs down to Roger David. Both thumbs down to Roger David.
Even bigger thumbs down to the makers of those other TShirts that suggest that rape is funny and a game of surprise.
I am usually pretty good at ignoring advertising and consumer rubbish and not allowing it to affect me…
But this makes me want to vomit.
These t-shirts are so very wrong on so many levels – I do not even know where to begin.
I will definitely be letting Roger David know what I think.
this is not a wholesome shirts to be display on the market.
should ban this type of shirts…..
Hmmm….isn’t it amazing how what one views as humor…another views as outright abuse and demoralizing.
I wonder if we started sporting t-shirts using men as a model of pedophiles and rapists….how they would like it. Oh but we would add ‘LOL’ after each snide remark and photo so as to show that we find it humorous.
UG!!!!!!
I have always wondered when the abuse and utter demoralizing of women began….it goes back so far…it is almost impossible to really know. What is fact is that is still goes on and on everywhere whether it be third world countries or our own back yards.
There is no lack of information out there exposing how very wrong these so called marketing strategies are condoning abuse.
Abacrombie & Fitch…as very popular clothing store was challenged several years ago by the courts to remove certain derogatory t-shirt emblems from their stores….aside from that…I have rarely heard of any action being taken by the so-called court system in controlling the spread of various marketing strategies.
It is a very sad world when we know we are doing wrong but we do it anyway because it is profitable.
tell me dorothyl? do you like that suits? its kinda irritating how one way or another insulting womens right.
i dont like the shout-out in the suits, its kinda demoralizing among women.