photo by me

This is nothing new. People have been using sex or sex appeal to sell things since the dawn of advertising, I would guess. I think of bathing suit clad beauties perched on old muscle cars. Or the half naked dancing man in Kmart commercials.

It’s about sex, baby. And it sells.

One company, shai clothing (pronounced “shy”), decided to take it up a notch. They aren’t just using sex – they are using porn to sell their clothes. I’m not talking soft core porn where you only see breasts and hear noises. Oh, no…it’s porn. Vaginal and anal penetration, blowjobs, and more. They have sections for men with men, women with women and women with men.

To be fair, they also have an “under 18″ area for those who are not of legal age to still be able to buy their clothing and they do stress that their site has porn on it and that it is safeguarded by one of those parental nanny systems.

Shai is a European company. It is not regulated by the same laws that regulate those within the United States.

That being said, they are very proactive about taking personal responsibility for what is shown and seen on the internet. In their Copyright & Credits they state,

Rules for Kids (Minors, Under legal age)
If you are under legal age, you should not enter this website!

SHAÏ believes that children using the Internet require special protection, and we urge parents or guardians to explain Internet safety to their children. Parents are urged to spend time online with their children to become familiar the Internet in general.

Control tools are available from online services and software manufacturers to help create a safer environment for children. This web-site automatically alerts Parental Control Systems regarding its X-rated content.

For more information, please visit: http://www.icra.org/

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? They have a feedback section where people are complaining about how blatant it is. People are complaining about how accessible it is.

But this is the thing…we are responsible for what happens on our computers. If our children are online, we are ultimately responsible for what they are doing, what they are seeing, and what they are accessing. We are. Not another company. Us.

When Willow comes over to visit, I am careful about what goes up on my screen. When I’m visiting flickr, I know that I may see some nudity and I use discretion in visiting the site.

We’ve tried, as a society, to completely remove ourselves from responsibility over our (and our childrens’) actions. We try to place blame everywhere else but where it ultimately resides: with us.

We are responsible for what happens on our machines. We have the power to disconnect. We have the power to lock them down. We have the power to disengage.

We should take these responsibilities seriously.