Where would you expect to find these pics?
Oh, just on a regular episode of Britain’s Next Top Model which screened on Fox TV here this week.
In another example of the mainstreaming of sex industry themes, BNTM gave us threesomes, girl-on-girl, girl-on-girl-on-boy, crotch shots, breasts falling out of flimsy bits of material, dry humping and pseudo bondage.
All this and more in series six episode two.
In the lingerie shoot for Victoria Holt’s Fred and Ginger line, the designer informs the would-be models it’s not intended as a “sleazy page 3 shoot”. It is to be seductive and classy. Then she tells two of them to act like animals in the girl-on-girl scenes.
The young women are urged to overcome feelings of reluctance or hesitation and, in the words of judge and host Elle McPherson “embrace that part of you without being embarrassed by it.” (I don’t recall McPherson ever doing fake lesbian scenes to promote her Intimates range).
But some of the would-be models find it difficult to reconcile exposing themselves in a sexual way with their desire not to reveal their breasts to all of the British Empire. And the tongue-kissing scenes with other women don’t come naturally. The crew calls out the specific acts they want the girls to do for the camera.
Says Kirsty: “It was a bit like a lesbian orgy…a bit creepy, but you have to get into it otherwise… [rest unclear but I think she meant otherwise you might get kicked off the show]. Amelia says: “I felt as if the shoot was on big orgy…I felt some shots inappropriate but I had to do it because that’s what I was expected to do.”
A couple of the female models had trouble keeping their unsupported breasts inside the lingerie. Which was of course, all part of the script. Revealing naked body parts is supposed to demonstrate ‘confidence’, showing how well the girls could conform to the porn script. If you don’t want to flash your crotch for the camera, then you’re just lacking ‘confidence’. Empowered, liberated women should have no problems with simulating porn sex.
The models have to look like they are enjoying it if they’re going to make it in the increasingly pornified world of modelling and fashion. But, as Susan confesses after the shoot: “I felt really unsexy”.
Nicole shares her experience of romping on a bed in her outfit: “My boobs just kept falling out. I didn’t feel very safe in it [her outfit] at all. It made me feel uncomfortable, but I thought, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Of course the male model’s sexual parts never fall out of anything.
Harleen (who is Sikh and somehow thought the modelling industry might respect her desire not to have to cavort semi-naked and straddle a man she’d never met) says: “I just felt really degraded”.
The girls had to “play with each other”. The male models were just “props”. The threesomes comprised two females, one male, never the other way around. Two girls, one boy, nice straight male porn fantasy.
Judge Julien describes Tiffany as, a “Maltese sex bomb, definitely one for the men!” He also tells Amelia and Hannah: “You scrubbed up really well. From two ordinary girls to two beautiful creatures to be desired.”
But one of these beautiful creatures rebels. Says Hannah – who had to deal with her breasts being exposed when Amelia is instructed to pull her strap down on a camisole which doesn’t fit her in the first place – “I never want to lose sight of who I am and me in lingerie isn’t me”. So she chucks it all in and decides to become an English teacher instead.
We need more young women who will stick a figurative finger up at the stereotyped, normative, porn-inspired scripts they are expected to live out, not only on shows like thus but in everyday life.
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7 Responses
They always say these kinds of things will be ‘seductive and classy’, then proceed to porn-like shots. The fact the models were uncomfortable should have been indication enough that it was sleazy.
Its a lingerie line that is predominately used in the bedroom, what were you expecting the models to do, stand there and play tennis?
What you seem to keep forgetting is when it comes to You, females, and advertisement shoots, is that the females signed up for it. If the shoot is against your morals, leave, just like Hannah has done.
No one placed a gun to her head and said, “Take her bra off”. The models knew the shoot was going to come up, and it was inevitable to avoid it, and if you start saying they were coerced via a competition to become a super model, they damn well knew a lingerie shoot was coming up, its a super models main money maker.
Fox, clearly the ‘females’ signed up for a fashion shoot, obviously not expecting to be treated as though they are participating in a porn shoot.
There is a difference, or at least their used to be a difference and this is what Melinda’s commentary is about Fox, the mainstreaming of porn into fashion.
And of course, as usual, once a woman consents to something, you can pretty much do what you want right? Even if she walks away feeling like someone’s plaything, like she’s been degraded and exploited. If she expresses those feelings, then she ‘should have known’ when she signed up.
Nobody knew more about what that shoot would involve than the producers and judges of that show. They should know better than to treat women that way.
Great article Melinda.
I posted this comment over at the Drum, in response to your article and the dozens of commenters who apparently wouldn’t be able to find your point if you walked up to them and stuck it up their nose:
Oh, for goodness’ sake. Can so few of you see that this has nothing to do with a fear of sex, a hatred of men or religious zeal? No, it’s about the mainstreaming of hypersexualised, pornified femininity and the manipulation of young women into that particular mould, regardless of whether or not they enjoy playing the part, and the harm that this causes.
These girls don’t want to be pinups or porn stars, acting out sexual fantasies for the camera – they want to be models; regardless of how blurry the boundaries may be they have a right to say no and it it is totally unreasonable of the show’s directors to expect them to prove they have what it takes by acting out sexually. The comments these girls have made put voice to the emotions felt by millions of young women around the world who have suffered the effects of unwanted sexualisation or sexual advances. What’s saddest to me is how easily they just accepted it – but then again, that’s what our culture has trained them to do.
@Fox
“If the shoot is against your morals, leave.”
What makes you think this has anything to do with morals?
“No one placed a gun to her head and said, “Take her bra off”. The models knew the shoot was going to come up, and it was inevitable to avoid it, and if you start saying they were coerced via a competition to become a super model, they damn well knew a lingerie shoot was coming up, its a super models main money maker.”
Should it be acceptable, for a woman to be required to or coerced into performing or simulating sexual acts in order to attain her career goals?
Fox how would you feel if you were the model being asked to remove your panties and engage in ‘playing with other male models.’ Would you tell the male director and the male camera crew that you refuse to engage in pseudo homosexual ‘play’ for viewers’ entertainment. Of course you would because you are male and know that because you are male the director and film crew wouldn’t be coercing you into doing something you didn’t want to do. Not so the case for these young women deliberately sexually exploited by a mediocre company whose only aim is to sexually titilate its male viewers and also earn huge profits.
Remember Fox these young women thought they were participating in a show wherein they were being given the opportunity to become models not to become disposable porn stars for men’s sexual entertainment.
Fox ever heard of how coercion and group dynamics operate? Because that is what happened to these young women because they were not the ones having the power – it was the director and camera crew and because these young women believed they had an opportunity to become models they knew they had to submit to faking sexually degrading acts. Hardly an informed and free choice for these young women was it?
As Nicola J said ‘our culture has trained these young women’ to submit to enacting sexually degrading acts for the sexual entertainment of men and why it is happening is because malestream media censors and prohibits any criticism of malestream pornography and the now common view that women and girls are all men’s disposable sexualised commodities.
But then as Melinda says in her article the male models didn’t lose their towels and display any male genitalia did they? I wonder why not? Neither were the male models told to engage in ‘homosexual play’ again I wonder why not? Answers on a postcard.
Brilliant yet terrifying article.
Well done all the women who have called Fox out on his ignorance towards female explotiation.
Fox what if that was your mother, sister, aunt or daughter? Would you say to her oh well, should have known better? Doubt it.
Overall Fox, you are an idiot.