Honey Birdette Lingerie Ads Criticized for “Porn-Style Images”

Shoppers in Australia are taking on a lingerie brand they say is showcasing ads with "porn-style images" — but the clothing retailer claims they're about "empowering" women.

In late October, lingerie company Honey Birdette unveiled its office-party-themed holiday campaign featuring women in lingerie and men in suits. Its ads also began appearing in malls, including Westfield Fountain Gate, a mall outside of Melbourne, Australia.

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It was at this mall that a dad of three named Kenneth Thor noticed the ads, and he soon after created a Change.org petition referring to the "porn-style images" in the ads and encouraging the mall to take them down. "This shop front featured near naked women clad only with sheer lingerie in all their raunchy glory. These images are not something that I wanted my young kids to see, so I hurried past hoping that my kids would not notice," he wrote. "The Honey Birdette posters depicting women in hyper-sexualised poses and various states of undress introduces concepts of pornography and sexuality to a hapless public, including little 4-year-old girls like my daughter." The petition had received over 31,000 signatures by time of publication.

An Australian group called Collective Shout, which says it works to end "the objectification of women," also joined the campaign against the brand's advertisements. "The placement of this signage in family-friendly areas signifies a cultural context that accepts the second-class status of women as objects," Laura Mcnally, the group's operations manager, said to The Sydney Morning Herald. "This is not to tell women what they should or shouldn't wear, this is about addressing cultural drivers that lead to gender inequality."

Honey Birdette's founder rejected these claims. "We've spent the last 11 years empowering women, all this group wants to do is disempower women; it's 2017, it's time to grow up," Eloise Monaghan told The Sydney Morning Herald of the ads' critics. The Sydney Morning Herald also reported that Monaghan sent an email to Honey Birdette stores on Friday encouraging them to "show [critics] that Australia is for women's bodies, not against them."

A statement from Scentre Group, the corporation behind Westfield shopping centers, indicated that the group is open to hearing from critics of the brand's ads. "As with all its retail partners, Scentre Group has continued to work closely with Honey Birdette in the period it has operated in the group's portfolio, and it also implements a number of processes — on a case-by-case basis — which may address any customer concerns," Scentre Group's head of corporate affairs Julia Clarke told The Sydney Morning Herald.

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