Know what’s a truly responsible use of advertising? Capitalizing on a gender scandal to promote your strip club. South Africa’s Teazers threw up this ad, playing off track star Caster Semenya’s forced gender testing.
But don’t think Teazers is going to apologize for exploiting the news cycle; owner Lolly Jackson insists the billboard’s copy has nothing to do with Semenya. “The (Semenya) gender test was the furthest thing from my mind when we did the advert. If it is construed in another way, maybe it should be that I am directing it at Leonard Chuene [the Athletics SA president who lied about the tests] – that I am honest, I do not lie when I put my billboards up there. … I do not want anyone coming here (to Teazers) with the idea that we do not have women. We have women, 100 percent women here. I did a test on them, I am a professional and they are 100 percent women.”
RainaWeather
This is sad and sadly redundant.
Jason
This is both sad and hysterical.
Pete
Poor kid. And that tagline, “Teaze without the sleaze” is horribly bad. No one goes to a strip club for a sleaze-free environment.
hyhybt
Gender testing, no. Species testing yes: she appears to have more than the usual number of breasts.
mattymatt
Judging by the improbably bulges in the photo, I’d say they’re possibly more than 100% women.
wmcarpenter
“I did a test on them, I am a professional and they are 100 percent women.”
YCKTR
He’s an idiot on multiple levels. There’s no such thing as “gender test” – gender is a socially constructed concept…not a physical trait that can tested for…
!
dk
God that’s horribly insensitive. It’s bad enough that poor girl’s business is common knowledge around the world, now people are trying to exploit it with a billboard.
Alleyne
It’s a strip club, an inherently exploitative, demeaning business. We’re expecting something better than this because… why?
aeblikkon
How tragic! Caster was forced to show eir genitals to eir employer because it had nothing to do with eir job. What, ey was a professional athlete, the only justifiably sex-segregated profession?
Queerty’s position, at least when it comes to race, is that it’s OK for people to choose to discriminate against other races, religions, in their own establishments. (and that free speech is absolute, etc) So why can’t someone soliciting a prostitute prefer women-born-women over women-born-men? It’s their business in a private establishment.
Dave
This is no different than any other clever advertising that people buy into. We take headlines and life situtations and make them relateable to a particular demographic. If anyone is going to say this is insensitive…you should write every ad agency out there.
hyhybt
It reminds me of one of the stupider billboards I’ve seen: as best I can remember, it had the silhouette of a pole dancer on either side and in the middle, the words “STRIPPERS! NEED WE SAY MORE?”, all in neon pink on a black background.
There was no business name, address, exit number, etc. They didn’t say where to *find* the strippers, so yes, they probably do need to say more 🙂
Still wondering where the third boob came from, though.
Lolly_Jackson_is_a_pussy
I’ve previously seen Lolly Jackson in television interviews. He is extremely sleazy & I doubt his business is anything but that too. The billboard is so obviously a reference to Semenya’s sex. He should have the balls to admit it, since he is capitilising on 18-year old Caster’s personal, private business.