Cotton On - Sex Positive? or Sex Toys 4 Teens?

[LostintheCycle]

Background on Cotton On​

The Cotton On Group was founded in 1991 in Geelong, Australia and have since expanded to multiple overseas countries [source]. They own multiple stores such as Cotton On, Supre, Typo, Factorie, etc. most of which sell clothing aimed at different demographics. In this article I will be talking about something suspect about the Cotton On store, but first I want to establish an understanding of the Cotton On Group.

My girlfriend has talked to me a bit about Cotton On now and then because it an infamous store. They are known to sell trendy, cheap fast-fashion for people of all ages. Many stores already do this such as Kmart, the particular thing really about Cotton On is that it is quite popular with very young people. I'd say about 13-18 young, I know that my twelve year old niece likes Cotton On and Typo, most of her friends do, and plenty of people in my high school liked these stores as well.

I have found little of Cotton On themselves describing their demographic, but others have done so already and they all mostly agree, though I would say the target demographic is a smidge lower than what they say here even, since a lot of girls now act much older than they actually are in lots of ways.

• Cotton On Case Study on Internationalisation Strategy, Page 4, 2016"Cotton on targets young urban population between 15-30 years old and competes within fast fashion value maket segment"
• Industry Research and Customer Marketing Strategies, University of Newcastle (Australia), 2020"The key consumer profile for the Cotton On Body branch is described as a female youth market, between 15 and 34 years of age (Generation Z). from families from 1-4 people, a young adult living alone to parents of adolescents (Cotton On Group, 2017)."

Whether their stores are popular with teenagers is incidental or not does not matter, because it's clear to most people that they are anyway.

The Incident​

Treat yourself. Text your BFF. Yes, we're serious.

Sometime around February 2021 Cotton On spreads promotional material all over social media about their new 'Self Love' line. Instantly, most people who are aware what Cotton On is are understandably shocked, though some come around and are glad under the guise of sex positivity pushing this whole thing through. Some articles came out but not many are very good.

• Product shill article
• Drivel from a feminist lens
• One half-decent article about wellness industry's stupidity

The one article I found that deals with the subject matter with a whiff of 'neutrality' as well as without a feminist lens that abstracts the glaring issue away, is this one by news.com.au
It was hard to call this article neutral, since the title is "Cotton On's sex toy move sparks bizarre backlash". Sigh.
There is a consistent use of the phrase "pearl clutching". The pearl clutching refers to comments like these which were included.
"My 14-year-old has got you on her Instagram and more than likely would have seen these along with many other teenagers,"
"I think it's a terrible move to sell this under your brand where children's/youth items are sold."
"I'm all for sexuality and purchasing these products if it's what you like but as an adult not teen."
"My 10-year-old daughter loves shopping at Cotton On!"
"A shop that sells kids clothes shouldn't sell this stuff,"
These are reasonable concerns. As I said, the estimations at Cotton On's main demographic is probably somewhat younger than 15 only because of unnoticed changes in what youth are like, which is a very slippery topic to say anything decisively on.
"Since launching this category earlier this year, our emails to customers have been carefully segmented and distributed to people 18 and over,"
This is meaningless, no young girls who buy Cotton On give a shit about their email inbox, and the spokesperson knows this because they aren't dumb. Most of the promotion took place on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Those last two are especially dominated by very young people as we all know.
"Further to this, our Self Love products are built into a hidden experience on the website, so customers must choose to opt in to this part of our online store."
What the fuck is a hidden experience? I did research firsthand and here was my hidden experience. I clicked on 'Womens', then 'Self Love', and then said that yes, I am comfortable seeing sex stuff. There they were ready to add to cart. 'Hidden experience' is public relation bullshit.
As far as I know there is no requirement to check age to purchase things online. This surprised me at first. It makes sense then, that Cotton On only sells these sex toys online, that way they can deal them while still maintaining their fine appearance.
Their range of sex toys is not massive. There are two brands sold, Smile Makers and Vush. One of their items, the Smile Makers Vibrators strikes me as very odd, mostly if you go to the reviews. There's a strange, unanimous insistence of how great these vibrators are... for beginners?
A sex shop is a specialty shop where you can find all sorts of contraptions, but Cotton On don't have any focus on it, they aren't even a pharmacy. Tell me, don't you think it's kind of weird that a teen clothing store is selling ...
While the retailer sells clothes for children and teenagers, its primary target market is adults aged 18 to 30.
Hannah Paine, an "experienced lifestyle journalist" who writes about "beauty, fashion [and] health" says, without referring to any particular comment by Cotton On, says this, despite the fact that any business student case study claims otherwise. Sounds like this quote was pulled out of her ass to cover Cotton On's ass.
Despite some of the most transperant bullshit public relations bandaids, the sole power of sex positivity overpowered literally every single problem because of its awesomeness and they got off 100% scot free, and continue to sell sex toys today, a year or so on.

And so...​

The whole thing looks kind of weird to me. It kind of looks like that maybe Cotton On noticed that teenagers are nervous to buy dildos online from shady shops, especially nervous for their parents to intercept their package, but they also can't get it in a shop. They're probably not fussy, they just want a vibrator. Here came Cotton On. They're selling hip and trendy looking vibrators with cool little names; they trust Cotton On more than unfamiliar specialist shops. Best of all it will come in a Cotton On box that will arouse zero suspicion. If you think I'm being ridiculous consider this: would a regular father (not abnormally paranoid) be interested in his daughters online clothing parcels? With the probably hundreds that come through probably not. He would definitely be interested in a random discrete unmarked box though.

Come on, Cotton On have a de facto target audience of teens, which they weakly deny. They're technically not doing anything illegal I guess, but really... not a single person in the office thought of all the teen girls who'd be buying their vibrators? It just all looks awful. It's not good if you've somehow managed to make it look like your company might be trying to peddle vibrators to teens; because they aren't just making it possible to do, they're practically encouraging it through their sex-positive promotion all over social media. It's a sleazy corporate wink.

There was little backlash that is visible. The extent of it was those few 'pearl-clutching' anecdotes that were tossed aside because sex positivity obviously takes precedence.
We don't need girls who've not hit the age to drive, to smoke or drink, to be using vibrating sex toys. It's not helpful and it's not healthy, and regardless of all that, it doesn't stop the fact that it's a gross ploy to get money from a niche market.

The End​

Thank you to S. for helping me find sources and for providing me information for this. This particular event has been bugging me since it went down last year, and I decided to do a writeup on what the hell is so wrong with it.
Teens will find a way to get what they want. It doesn't make this situation look any less gross.

 

[handoferis]

On the actual topic of younguns buying vibrators, I'd rather they buy vibrators to get their rocks off than to do what me and my mates were doing when we were 14-16, which was fumbling around illegally, terribly and unsafely. Good number of pregnancy scares and whatnot and a lot of very unsafe shit going on in spite of attempts to educate.

On the other hand, the sudden pivot by this company is pretty foul and skeezy and clearly just a combo of sexualizing kids (funny how corpos do that) and trying cynically to profit off it. I'm in a tough situation here, of thinking both that it's better to hand someone a shit vibrator than have them lose their v-card in a bush in their mid-teens, but also that it shouldn't be a teens clothing store doing this. awks all around

 

[manpaint]

As someone really unfamiliar with this subject, what are the potential health consequences of young girls using such devices?

 

[Little River Aral]

I don't see the issue with giving teenage girls sex toys honestly. I've used some stuff as sex toys that could've been a little unsafe, or simply uh, you know, expensive (may have accidentally shot up the water bill one year due to messing with the showerhead), and I could've done much better with a vibrator. Besides, as Eris said, it's much better than teens messing around in dubious ways, pregnancy scares, and so on.

On the other hand I definitely think those shouldn't be sold in kids' stores. Maybe in teenage ones, or in regular stores that cater to adult clothing, but definitely not where there are kids' clothes on display.

 

[SomaSpice]

Horny monkey do as horny monkey will, teens will get their sex toys and drugs and whatever else one way or another.

Though it is quite distasteful how corpos profit out of kids discovering their sexuality and try to make the brand part of their identity, but hey, that's a problem with corporations at large, not just an aussie store selling pleasure cheetos.

 

[power gem]

sure, teens are going to experiment and in theory it's better if they do that with something designed for that purpose rather than random objects from around their room. what i think is more significant is how child sexuality - a topic that is rightfully off limits in most areas of polite society - is so easily commodified and subsumed into the corporate-friendly language of "self-care" and "wellness". (it is interesting that only female sexuality is treated in this way. no one would be talking about "self-love" and "good vibes" if american eagle started selling pocket pussies to 13 year old boys).

in reality i don't think many teens are actually going to order dildos on their parents' credit card. the purpose of this move wasn't to make millions reselling cheap sex toys from china, the surface level goal is to increase brand awareness and engagement by generating social media slapfights about whether the company is engaging in Stunning & Brave Empowerment or Degenerate Pedo Grooming. and we're participating in it now, although it's tempered by the fact that (hopefully) most people on this site aren't in the target demo of tween girls and their parents.

the more abstract goal is to reinforce that nothing is off limits for capital, not even your child's genitals. every aspect of life, no matter how private, must be exposed and exploited for the benefit of marketers. i'm reminded of a recent controversy involving a well-known fashion brand, I'm not going to repeat the brand name or post the pics but most schizoposters here probably know what i'm talking about. they released ads with obvious pedo themes including children holding stuffed animals in bondage gear, court transcripts of CP cases casually sitting on a table, and surface level occult references to evoke the idea of 'satanic ritual abuse'. this predictably led to media coverage and internet outrage condemning BRAND, repeating the name of BRAND and reinforcing BRAND's edgy countercultural image.

boomer qanon posters on social media obviously interpreted this as BRAND sending a hidden message that they and their customers are engaged in a shadowy conspiracy of occult child abuse. in fact there is no hidden message - the message was stated clearly and made as easy as possible for consumers to digest. the ads aren't meant to communicate "let's all meet up at Epstein Island at 10:42 PM tomorrow for some satanic ritual abuse". the intended message is that even the most profane, unspeakable and demonic acts can be harnessed as grist for the mill of marketing and turned into yet another interchangeable set of advertising signifiers. "nothing is true; everything is permitted".

 

[Orlando Smooth]

I was recently at an Urban Outfitters and saw what very much looked to be a magic wand style vibrator disguised as a microphone with something about "your secret is safe" on the packaging that was supposedly about singing alone at home, but it was definitely written in a wink and nod kind of way. I had a visceral reaction of disgust to seeing that, and feel basically the same about this. Make no mistake, this is yet another step in the direction of sexualizing children. Like water on stone, any given drop can be dismissed as insignificant but given enough time you can make the Grand Canyon. How long until pedos manage to attach an M to LGBTQ? A year? A decade? It's hard to say, but there are concentrated efforts to make it happen.

the more abstract goal is to reinforce that nothing is off limits for capital

Capital is cover for the desire to normalize the sexualization of children. I agree with you that it's not some grand conspiracy like the Qtards make it out to be, but a cold calculating business exec understands that the risk of such sexualization outweighs any nebulous benefit of "brand awareness" that would be associated with the ensuing news cycle. This is especially true since, as you point out, the only people who would see this as a good thing are militant girl boss feminists and pedos, neither of whom are the target demographic of teen girls and their parents. These are decisions being made by ideologues under the guise of "just doing business" because they know that is permissible under the neoliberal order and "self care" because that makes them immune from the woke mob.

To those claiming this is safer, I have two things to say:

1. I'm not even convinced of the validity of this statement. How is using cheap sex toys any safer than the homemade makeshift things teens have been using since forever? Additionally, teens have been having sex literally as long as the species has existed. This is nothing new, and we now have the means to both prevent and mitigate almost any negative outcome that a teen is likely to experience.
2. Even if it is true, safety alone is almost never a valid rationale to ban or encourage any given behavior. If we only ever allowed people to do what was most safe, life would be profoundly boring and devoid of meaning.

Should underage kids be able to buy these kind of things? Maybe. That's a debate worth having and you can make a good case for both sides. Should this be marketed to children? Absolutely not. There's a reason we don't allow alcohol, tobacco, weed, or other such things to be marketed to children, yet as soon as as you suggest that children should not have sexual ideology foisted onto them and sexuality marketed to them suddenly it's all "REEEEE YOU'RE DENYING THEM THE RIGHT TO BE THEMSELVES!!!!!!!" Either they're mature enough to make their own decisions or they're not. You can't have it both ways.

All this is without even getting into the fact that the atomization of sexuality is also what leads to the hedonic treadmill and makes it more challenging for people to form meaningful intimate relationships. Sex is about way more than simply having orgasms to escape your dull reality for a brief moment, it exists as the strongest bonding mechanism we have and as such should be taken seriously.

 

[handoferis]

This is nothing new, and we now have the means to both prevent and mitigate almost any negative outcome that a teen is likely to experience.

Regarding this, that's not really the case in all situations anymore - since Roe v Wade got overturned there are now a number of jurisdictions where being a dumb teen that's not thinking straight could be a single-fuckup course to motherhood - something that at least two of my school friends would have gotten walloped with had they been teenagers in $currentYear and in one of those states where abortion has been banned. We may well have the means, but the will isn't always there.

Need to be clear that I agree with the majority of your post, I definitely don't think things like this should be actively marketed at minors and certainly not by clothes shops.

There's a reason we don't allow alcohol, tobacco, weed, or other such things to be marketed to children, yet as soon as as you suggest that children should not have sexual ideology foisted onto them and sexuality marketed to them suddenly it's all "REEEEE YOU'RE DENYING THEM THE RIGHT TO BE THEMSELVES!!!!!!!" Either they're mature enough to make their own decisions or they're not. You can't have it both ways.

Something I often think about is that it's often the same people who are all "we can't let under 18s trans their genders, they might be making a mistake / are not old enough to make that decision" who are totally happy to let young girls be condemned to being a teen mom cause of a mistake. There's logical inconsistency from all sides of the stupid culture war legislation of social relations "debate".

 

[Orlando Smooth]

since Roe v Wade got overturned there are now a number of jurisdictions where being a dumb teen that's not thinking straight could be a single-fuckup course to motherhood

I'm willing to concede that point, though with the widespread access to multiple forms of free contraception I am admittedly of the mindset of "you've got to be pretty fucking dumb to get to that point." And that's coming from someone who had to contemplate abortion at 17, for reference. The only thing more ridiculous than the legal basis on which Roe was determined, is the fact that it was overturned.

There's logical inconsistency from all sides of the stupid culture war legislation of social relations "debate".

Exactly, this is why I hate partisan politics. "You should be free to do what you want with your own body! Unless it's [getting an abortion/rejecting vaccines]." The absolute hypocrisy of both major political parties is beyond parody because the reality is too absurd. The western world will not begin to heal until American boomers die. I don't mean to be overly jaded, but as far as I can tell that's the absolute truth.