Holy shit, I cannot fathom how fucking dumb some people are. Really and truly, there are just some horrible, dumb, awful people in this world.
SM, a major department store in the Philippines, pulled this T-shirt from its stores after an angry shopper (and rightfully so) posted the photo on her Facebook.
Are. You. SHITTING ME? “It’s Not Rape, It’s A Snuggle With A Struggle.” You CANNOT be serious.
The store, which has 43 branches in the Philippines and more in China, found out about the offensive shirt from that Facebook post, if you can believe it, and posted this non-apology on its own Facebook page.
Holy shit on a shingle. You had NO IDEA that this was being sold in your stores, and after you pull it, you don’t even post an apology for offending people? Seriously? Not even a half-assed one, like “We apologize if anyone was offended”? You should be getting on your knees and kissing people’s asses for this one, SM.
But more importantly than that, can we talk about how this shirt got made? Someone sat around and thought up that horrible slogan, which must have been pitched and approved at a creative meeting for the brand that makes the shirts. Then it must have gone into production and someone at SM must have seen it and bought it, not to mention the people who distributed it and put it out on the shelves. Nobody thought to say, “Hey, this is a pretty hot-button issue, maybe we shouldn’t make/produce/buy/sell these?” Not a single person thought that or put a stop to this? I don’t care that we’re talking about another fucking country–rape is ONE ZILLION PERCENT WRONG. More than a zillion, actually. It’s just wrong no matter what way you slice it, and rape jokes are never funny.
The fact that someone thought people might want to wear that horrible slogan across their chests, or worse, that people ACTUALLY bought it and are wearing it, is awful on so many levels. I’m so mad I can’t even think of anything creative to say. It’s just so wrong, so insensitive, so hurtful, and so thoughtless, and all of these people should just be ashamed of themselves.
Until the individuals who designed this shirt, or assholes like them, such as the people who made the “Keep Calm and Rape a Lot” shirt that Amazon sold last year are stopped, rape culture will never end. We’ll just be in an endless cycle of violence, shame, disrespect, and degradation. Something needs to be done, and this cycle must be broken. Forever. .
[via Huffington Post]