I see this, like most bondage references in pop culture, as a deliberately narrow and skewed representation of bondage that has been carefully chosen because it only represents the elements of bondage that society finds acceptable - which is women portrayed as submissive targets of violence. If there were male mannequins tied up, that would be different, but there rarely are. This is about as authentic a representation of bondage as pornography is of sex.

I'm not sure where you're coming from on this one, KD - how is the imagery of women being subjected to bondage inauthentic? It's light bondage, probably because mannequins can really only go so far - and it's women, probably because this is a store selling women's lingerie. I feel absolutely certain that the reason S&M is *broadly* depicted as light bondage is because heavier bondage is considered a niche market, and companies try to target the largest audience possible - and according to varied and sundry sexual surveys, most couples participate in at least some light bondage. I've seen several ads, commercials and even television shows depicting men in the submissive position, and not necessarily in an "oh how embarassing for him" way - rather, they are often depicted as "I'm being tied up by a woman and this is a hot and sexy situation". I fail to see a difference between that representation and the representation of women in the exact same positions (pun sort of intended). In fact, there's a fashion company - I want to say D&G? - running a series of ads right now with what is pretty obviously meant to be homosexual male bondage involved.

As for Gwen's reaction - there's nothing wrong with being made uncomfortable by this window display - but it doesn't necessarily have to be because the display in and of itself is wrong. Heck, it could just be that seeing a public display of bondage is uncomfortable for you (you certainly wouldn't be in the minority there: that's probably the intention of the display designer. If you're made uncomfortable by something, you'll probably remember it). While mannequins can only give us so much in the way of expression and narrative, judging by the put-together and non-roughed-up appearance of the mannequin pictured, I would lean towards the idea that this is a display of consensual S&M. If the display were meant to sexualize *violence against women* (which, to me, is a very different thing than consensual bondage), I would think that the designer would at the very least have presented the mannequins as a little disheveled.

You know, I hate the "lets make excuses for this!" argument as a rule. You know what, there is text & subtext, & you shouldn't always give the benefit of the doubt when you see the glorification of objectification. EXCEPT...well, it is a sex shop. I mean, excuse me, a lingerie shop. So yeah; I think the text here is...sex. & I think the subtext is tapping into that. This is peddling fantasy, & I think it is okay. That isn't to say your reaction is WRONG or anything; it may very well be a BAD advertisement that reads "violence" instead of "sex," but I think that blurring of the line is, in this case, acceptable & not offensive.

This one doesn't bother me. It's a lacy blindfold, the mannequin's stance is open (granted, it's a mannequin, so you can't change its hands, etc., but it doesn't... look distressed in it's positioning). It looks like consensual play to me. I agree with the need, in portraying S&M, to also put women in the dominant position, and men in the submissive, but if this is a women's store, as Sarah suggested... And the fact that the display makes you uncomfortable - I can't speak for you, but I think the idea of S&M makes many people uncomfortable. I hear that especially in the lesbian community - How can I be a feminist and go along with my GF's wishes to be held down, etc.?

Kiki deMontparnasse specializes in (mostly hetero, femme-sub) bondage/fetish/fantasy lingerie and gear. In this particular circumstance, the mannequin is showing just about exactly how the merchandise would be used -- gold handcuffs included (they're for sale).

I also feel that one's reaction to this might have something to do with what kind of sex you are into. I mean, if you are into S&M, you would probably think it was hot. If you are not, then you would probably be made uncomfortable by it or think it was violent instead of sexy.

First off, I want to send you all to this really great article I read on the Frisky a little while ago about being a feminist and bedroom S&M which can be found here: http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-first-time-for-everything-spanking/

I think that sexual fantasies and preferences are totally different from the way we live our lives outside the bedroom, and as this is in a lingerie store window I see *nothing* at all wrong with it. So what, light S&M isn't your thing--I don't think that we should be critiquing others preferences (nor the store's decision to advertise to those preferences) because we want to equate it with lifestyles outside of the bedroom. If this were happening in a store that was just selling regular clothing, yeah I'd see a problem...but as this isn't the case here I think it's more close minded to critique it as something it isn't--which is condoning violence like regular entertainment.

This is the sort of joylessness that continues to stigmatise feminism. This manikin does not appear to be part of any sort of narrative- there doesn't even appear to be any sort of deliberate staging with other manikins. She is on her knees, in a handcuff that is unlocked, without any other signs of her possible "emotional" state. While you are entitled to your disruption by it, it doesn't seem to convey or condone any sort of violent message.

In general, much better to assume that things mean what they claim to mean unless/until proof otherwise is offered. While I have scarce sympathy for deMontparnasse's buyers, I hope the many passers-by are a little heartened to know that even the wealthy have sanctioned S&M. (I hope that doesn't take too much fun out of it, though.)

I have a theory! Hooray for me. Maybe part of the reason this bothered you - and me, too, and I am most definitely an enthusiastic supporter of the extracurricular activities represented - is because the expressionless face of the mannequin gives us no clue at all to her (imaginary) consent. This is exactly like the profusion of those images we've seen here that feature women in zoned-out or quasi-dead poses with blank facial expressions. Maybe it wasn't so much the mannequin display itself, but an association with the objectionable images that display women-as-mannequins. They get conflated and then real mannequins are less easy to distinguish from pictures of real women. On reflection, it's not much of a theory. Oh well!

Wouldn't have occurred to me to see it as anything other than consensual and sexy. As others have suggested, it probably depends very much on one's prior experiences and the things one personally enjoys.

Uh, you should reexamine your preconceptions if any expression of consensual roleplaying/bondage is viewed as "violence".

Along the line of the previous commentor mentioning the mannequin connection, I think people would be even more creeped out if there was a live model in the window.

Violence or S&M aside (and I'm leaning towards the creators of this display possibly not really understanding the difference, because, let's face it, even people who spend a lot of time thinking about sex in an intelligent way often are), here's another thing.

When actual people do sexual things in public, where people who didn't sign up for it, it means that the people who didn't sign up for it have been non-consensually involved in someone else's sex life. That is, in a way we often don't think about it, a form of sexual assault. Like, if you're bonking in the supermarket cause you get off on the risk of sex in public and I walk down that aisle, you've just involved my in your sex without my consent.

In what ways do overt depictions of sexual activity (as this would be if they are S&M mannequins) melt over into that? Especially as these are 3-D human, more or less life-like forms, rather than cartoon or other drawings?

"I agree with the need, in portraying S&M, to also put women in the dominant position, and men in the submissive, but if this is a women’s store, as Sarah suggested…"

Please! Finish that sentence.
So it is/i a women's store. And?
Does that obviate showing a female mannequin in a dominant position?
What, dom women don't like lingerie? Don't exist?

It's also odd to me that so many people react by wondering where the male mannequins are. The store presumably sells women's lingerie. Besides, a dom mannequin wouldn't need to have a sub partner— they didn't give the sub mannequins partners; they're left to the imagination. (And as I understand it, you don't need a sub to "be" a dom.) For the purpose of a window display, a dom mannequin could be depicted simply by giving it, I don't know, a riding crop, or handcuff keys or something.

In fact...!! Now that I think of it, if we assume that potential female customers who are into S&M (whether in fantasy or in fact) are who they were trying to reach, it would have been pretty clever to have had a belingeried female mannequin holding handcuff keys while another was wearing handcuffs. If they put them not particularly close to each other in the display, they'd be open interpretation. Straight, gay or in between; dom, sub or both, whether in fantasy or in fact; there'd be something there for those potential customers to identify with. So: confused marketing fail!

For all the people talking about wanting to see a "balance," with women in the dominant position (and men in the corresponding submissive position), there's a flaw in that, if you're arguing against the commodification of female sexuality as product.

I've been involved in the activities represented, as someone else said, for years. I started on the bottom, as it were, and, through various relationships have come to a more "central" or even vaguely upper perspective. Oh, and I'm male.

I've seen a lot of imagery within the kink community and on the mainstream fringe of it. If you look at any S&M (or BDSM) portrayal, with a male sub and female dominant, it's still very much "for guys," especially if it comes from a mainstream perspective. Actually, the stuff created "by kink, for kink" is far more balanced in its gender portrayal. But in the mainstream stuff, be it for a "pink furry handcuffs" mainstream audience, or made by a mainstream production company, uses very gender norm portrayals. Women, submissive or dominant, are always in sexual attire with high heels, cleavage and short skirts. The guy might be in something fetish, but more commonly, he's just in everyday clothing. Regardless of the power dynamic, the assumption is male consumer of female sexuality.

What I mean is, a more balanced portrayal of women as both submissives and dominants, will still be a highly sexualized portrayal of the woman as sexual commodity. It'll be woman as dominated submissive, or as perceived-male-fantasy of a dominant.

While I applaud greater acceptance of kink by the vanilla community, a balanced representation of women at the top and bottom really won't fix the "woman as sexual prop" problem.

People who are into BDSM as a 'lifestyle' do not necessarily want their culture being appropriated to sell commercial crap, either. Not OK.

Assuming that the mannequin is an unwilling participant in the handcuff scenario seems vaguely anti-feminist to me. If it was a faceless male mannequin, we would not make the same assumption. Why can't we give the imaginary female some credit? I mean, it's a store selling clothes for women to wear when they're having fun sex -- lots of people use handcuffs and blindfolds for that.

Jumping straight to an assumption that this imagery is bad (especially if there is a dom present in the window display, as another poster mentioned that there is) seems sort of like saying, "Women can't be sexual creatures; we are defined more by outside forces than by our own legitimate desires, therefore this must be about violence towards women."

how is this interpreted by young boys and girls, pre-teens and teenagers?
They are impressionable, have very active imaginations, and their attitudes are being formed.
Have any studies been done?

This is just my observation, but I don't often see men indulging in the accouterments of bondage - whether it be in a dominant or a submissive role. One may see men in roles of dominance, but very rarely wearing the 'costume' one may associate with a male dominant. This seems to me a subtle hint that the women that are dominant are merely 'dressing up' as dominant whereas (heterosexual) men can be naturally dominant in this society. I don't often see a heterosexual male in a categorically 'submissive' role (in a commercial publication or setting) as the sexual focus (not a humorous focus, and not a veiled focus on the woman). This seems to be a rather rare bird indeed.

Even without hints of bondage and/or violence I see lingerie and lingerie stores as problematic. Why does it have to be the woman (and not the man) who dresses up? It seems that society assumes that only women can look sexy and/or women are just playthings for men and don't care what men look like. It relates very much to the 'male gaze' in other media. Anywho, I'd love to buy sexy undies for my husband, but there are no special shops around for that.

My concern is that this type of imagery may be easily viewed by children simply passing by. At least on-line parents can set up parental control access to protect youngsters but on the street there is no such protection

Why is S/M (or BDSM) fine, whereas sado-masochism/bondage/discipline would NOT be fine anywhere else? Whatever happened to the personal is political?

I think the bottom line is this: what kind of world do we want to live in, what are the values we think are worth having and practicing, and are sadism/masochism/bondage/discipline among them in ANY sphere?

People often "consent" to practices that are harmful. I'm not talking about censoring anything; I'm talking about what we'd like to value in relationships and in our society as a whole. It's not surprising that we learn to eroticize sadism and masochism, but do we want to perpetuate those practices in the world? The bedroom is part of the world.

I was surprised by this largely because (as a queer, kinky femme feminist) I feel more or less "okay" with Kiki DM and really NOT okay with Victoria's Secret -- I see Kiki DM as catering a bit to my more kinky interests rather than trying to sell me some airbrushed washed-out diluted sexless impersonal version of female perfection and sexuality. I think a mannequin with some bondage gear I'm highly interested in purchasing is a lot better than Adriana Lima's tits and vapid come-hither glare lolling about on some clouds or whatever, no?

Commenters and writer of this post, have none of you read ANYTHING about kink + S&M and bondage and ANY of the eloquent, intellectual, intelligent explanataions for it and reframing of all this in a world based entirely on " enthusiastic consent?" I understand not finding it appealing, but for the love of god, must everything be dismissed as "offensive?"
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/
yes means yes -- the book and the associated blog -- would be a good start which most all of you should be able to digest pretty easily.

Is your sex free of powerplay, totally normal, kosher, feminist, open-minded, and full of equality, whatever? Why is YOUR sex "normal" and anything other than that (read: kink) "not normal?" I've found on a personal level that embracing kink + powerplay -- with a partner I trust, love, and talk openly with about all of the related issues -- as one of the healthiest and most productive ways to work through many, many of my issues surrounding gender, power, sex, intimacy, being a top vs being a bottom, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Does this mean women on their knees tied up in store windows is okay? No, and certainly many folks will get the wrong idea and not have the same "it's so empowering to be able to let go when I love/trust someone and think of sex only as a very personal thing and know that power is something we play with and trust each other with very clear respectful boudnaries" kind of ideas I do -- but considering Kiki DM in the realm of shops that's known to appearl a bit more to alternate sexualities, I find it a better representation of sexuality than airbrushed implants and frills and pouty-faces on 12 foot high billboards in every mall in middle America.

That said, Kiki DM is still pretty "mainstream" and I also agree with those here also who object to the 'mainstreamification' of BDSM visuals + culture -- this is one of the problems also, which is that most folks (hopefully, or we'd like to think so) who participate in such things are extremely educated + aware of the surrounding problems and are near-obsessed with boundaries, consent, equality, and play -- and when folks from outside who aren't aware of the necessity of that obsession try to play at it, is when things go terribly awry. Bondage porn is terribly irrepresentative in the worst way of what the "ideal" of those of us into kink would like to say it's "actually" like.

I am a 40 something year old longtime feminist, political theorist, and 2+ decades long activist/organizer for women's rights, LGBT rights, anti-racism, social and economic justice, and anti-violence work and in defense of sexual freedom and freedom of expression. I am also an out and proud femme identified queer woman, a longtime out and proud masochist and BDSM practitioner/educator, and an out and proud survivor of multiple forms of genuine violence, including anti-queer hate crimes, child abuse, incest, and random stranger sexual assault. I've included all of these various labels for myself by way of introduction, to provide a context for what I'm about to say, and because I think it's important to make the point that the identities above are specific, different, and in no way mutually exclusive. Some of these identities (the adult chosen ones) are to me necessary, life-saving, and freeing. They are also, importantly, consentual. Some of my other identities, such as my multiple survivor labels, are states that were thrust upon me against my will, without consent, and they are traumas which I've spent many years mindfully working through and overcoming.

I am writing to say that most of the comments on this board have taken my breath away in terms of their almost proud and defiant stupidity and their willful ignorance and level of blind judgementalism. I find it astounding that so many people who have stepped forward to define themselves as concerned with both sociology and images seemingly know neither the definition of "image" nor the meaning of "sociological". An image is NOT reality; it is a depiction of someone's version of reality. A mannequin is NOT a person with the will to consent or decline. Not all women are victims, not all men are perpetrators, and moreover not all women in SM define themselves as bottoms/submissive and not all men in SM define themselves as tops/dominant. There is a crucial difference between imagery and reality, and between granting consent and being acted on in defiance of one's lack of consent. Please, people, at least pick up a non-partial basic manual about SM, pornography, the construction of marketable imagery, female sexuality, female sexual agency, the relation between authentic lived experiences and subjective depictions of them, and last but not least about the essence of consent and lack of consent and what constitutes and drives abuse, rape and sexual assault before making sweeping comments that trivialize all of the above. You'll do all of us a world of good.

I think the underlying concern is the baseline response to such images when not provided with a particular context. Assuming the audience will receive the image with understanding and empathy is unfounded. What will children infer from such images? What precedents are potentially suggested? Even if I can appreciate something artistically, emotionally, erotically, etc., the damage it may impose is inescapable. When dealing with things such as this, we should err on the side of caution.

hey , my daughter's did the modelling and photography for the sole experience art piece. Controversial yes. Love it and sometimes images speak louder than words. Waiting on the artist statement. Sometimes an images evokes controversy and that is what art is all about.