“Strong opinions”: JD Sports dismisses objections to Playboy products for teens

After we were alerted to youth retailer JD Sports selling merchandise by major porn brand Playboy, we encouraged supporters to contact the company.

The company responded as follows:

Thank you for contacting us at JD Sports Australia Customer Care.

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns. We understand that different brands and products can evoke strong opinions, and we appreciate you taking the time to express yours. We take all customer feedback seriously and will pass your concerns on to the relevant teams for review.

If there’s anything else we can assist with please don't hesitate to contact us

We hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

Read our response below.

“We understand that different brands and products can evoke strong opinions”

Sure, the promotion of a brand founded by a serial rapist and premised on the sexual exploitation of women and little girls may evoke “strong opinions”. As it should for anyone who regards women and girls as human beings worthy of dignity, respect and basic human rights. (Does this include JD Sports?)

In dismissing objections to Playboy’s sexual exploitation of women and girls and the commodification of their bodies for male sexual gratification as merely an opinion – as nothing more than a particular point of view held by some people – JD Sports suggests there might be other, perhaps more valid, opinions to be held in response to the abuse of women and girls by Playboy.

Does JD Sports have an opinion on allegations of pimp and founder Hugh Hefner drugging and raping women, and filming their rapes?

Does JD Sports endorse Playboy’s publication of child sexual abuse material – nude and pornographic images of girls as young as ten as masturbation material for men?

How about the portrayal of little girls as enthusiastic participants in men’s sexual abuse of them – even portraying them as instigators?

How about Playboy continuing to flog pornographic content made of women who are now dead?

Or printing nude and pornographic images of women who had not consented to their publication?

Given JD Sports has framed our objections to this despicable abuse of women and children as an opinion, we’d love to hear theirs. But we don’t have to ask the company for its views on the abuse of women and girls by Playboy. The promotion of the global porn brand to a youth market – and willingness to profit from it – functions as an endorsement. JD Sports executives made their views on women’s humanity clear when they chose to sell Playboy-branded products in their stores, emblazoned with a logo that represents female subordination.