The mall is no longer America's new Main Street....

....It's America's red light district. Yup. Victoria's Secret has launched a new window display in Virginia that leads to this kind of description on the local Virginia news:

According to the local NBC affiliate, it featured “bare-bottomed mannequins in provocative poses and suggestions of bondage.” They were tarted out with rhinestone garters, fishnet stockings, and feathery thongs. There were also two female mannequins lounging on a bed (one was removed after the first wave of protests). The Washington Post described a scene in which “one scantily clad female mannequin crawling toward another who reclined on a left hip and leaned back on both hands.” All this was in immediate proximity to hordes of teenagers who were mall-walking in the newly expanded shopping center. Several well-traveled adults compared the display to the red-light district of Amsterdam. The Post quoted one woman describing it as the “Little Shop of Whores.” “Slut ware” was the term used by one father, who noted that the “feathery-thong-clad mannequin bent over as if she were adjusting her spike heels.”

The above comes from a National Review Online article by G. Tracy Mehan III discussing the cultural decline manifest in this kind of sleazy sexual display on the public's new Main Street. Certainly I know that our local malls are meant to entice families, with fountains and play areas, and they certainly succeed in doing so. On sunny days, the malls are crawling with families, and they're a very popular and (in parents' mind) safe hangout for teenagers. I wonder when our local merchants, in malls hosting a Victoria's Secret store that boasts these tawdry window displays, are going to notice a decline in customers significant enough for them to begin protesting to the landlord. Customer protests do little but provide free advertising for Victoria's Secret, but complaints from paying tenants who are seeing a drop in revenues may have a much stronger effect on a landlord who wields power.