[136] in Humor
HUMOR: Stormy Leather
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Fri Mar 11 14:27:54 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 94 14:25:15 EST
I love the closing statement :)
-Drew
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 18:26:14 -0700
From: Espacionaute Spiff domaine! <matossian@aries.colorado.edu>
Subject: legal leather lather
Forwarded-by: "Linda Branagan" <linda@zen.z-code.com>
Forwarded-by; "Zalman Stern" <zstern@mv.us.adobe.com>
``Leather ad gets lawyers talking''
Miranda Ewell
Mecury News Staff Writer
Buried amid staid law firm announcements and crisply worded
court notices in one of San Francisco's legal newspapers was a recent
ad featuring a photo of a smiling, young black model wearing a
leather bra and collar.
``STORMY LEATHER,'' read the ad in the Feb 7th edition of the
Recorder. ``San Francisco's premier erotic boutique.''
Was it a stroke of marketing genius, as the store's owners
believe? Or was it unbelievably offensive, as some lawyers wrote in
to say? Or was it a simple First Amendment issue, as the paper's
publisher has tried to explain?
The ad has generated more controversy than any other issue to
hit the paper during the current publisher's 2 1/2 year tenure; more
than a dozen letters, a slew of phone calls and several cancelled
subscriptions. And letters -- both in protest and in support -- are
still coming in.
``The fact that the ad strikes some as racist or sexist does
not mean that it is racist and sexist,'' wrote Peter Scheer, the
Recorder's editor and publisher, in response to letters of complaint
Scheer, 42, said he hesitated a moment before approving the
ad but felt reluctant to censor it.
``We're getting into very murky PC (politically correct)
grounds, which is why I am on the side of tolerating images and
opinions that may be offensive to some,'' Scheer said.
``This is San Francisco, after all. As you drive down the
street you're exposed to more sexually explicit images than in most
cities in the world.''
Readers have been deeply divided over the issue.
``I was shocked,'' said Kathleen McQuade, 43, a staff
attorney at Solano County Superior Court who said she plans to cancel
her $525 annual subscription. ``Women attorney's are still trying to
gain respect in this profession and we feel like we've been slapped
in the face.''
Not so, says Alissa Friedman, 32, and Oakland attorney who
regards herself as a feminist and wrote in to defend the ad.
``This isn't using a woman's body to sell a car,'' Friedman
said. ``She's wearing something the store actually sells. I think you
have to draw a distinction between an image that shows a woman as a
sex object and one that shows a woman in an erotic context.''
The store owners have been both pleased and chagrined by the
response.
The ad generated more new business for the store -- mainly
from female attorneys -- than any other ad the boutique has placed,
according to store manager Jenne Blade.
Tucked away in an industrial area South of Market not far
from the Civic Center complex, which includes city hall and state and
federal courts, Stormy Leather sells expensive latex and fetish wear
for women. [Not to mention the Klutz Book of Knots -Z]
``We're a clean well-lighted store owned and run by women for
women,'' Blade said. ``We're not some grungy hole-in-the-wall bookstore
run by the Mafia.''
Still, Stormy Leather has decided to tone down future ads in
the Recorder.
As for why the tiny boutique decided to place an ad in the
legal newspaper in the first place, Blade offered this explanation:
``All the major surveys show that of all the people into the
S&M and leather scene, the two most common groups are psychotherapists
and lawyers. This was purely a marketing decision for us.''
