Risque Reading
If this were true, I would have a LOT more applications to work in my bookstore (not a euphenism, not a euphenism) each year.
***
FROM CNN…
Bus ads: Read a book, get oral sex
NEW YORK (Reuters) — New York officials were red-faced on Friday after they
discovered that clothing ads on city buses that appeared to promote reading
suggested a love of books could be rewarded with oral sex.
The advertisements that ran on about 200 buses across the city in recent
months carried posters displaying a suggestively posed woman in hot pants
kneeling among a pile of books beside the snappy slogan “Read Books, Get
Brain.”
What unhip, unsuspecting local transportation officials did not know was
that “get brain” is street slang for oral sex.
The ads — from hip-hop clothing maker Akademiks, which intended the
double-entendre — was stripped off New York buses on Friday after
transportation officials discovered the street slang meaning.
Metropolitan Transit Authority spokesman Tom Kelly condemned the “vulgar
street phrases” in the racy ads he said were “demeaning women.”
“To me and I believe to everyone else, while it was done by a clothing line,
it would give the impression that it was also promoting reading and
literacy,” Kelly told Reuters.
“It’s easy enough to understand how that would get by based upon someone not
knowing the expression.”
A spokesman for the New York-based clothing maker noted the ad campaign had run since September and “we hadn’t had any complaints at all.”
Hidden meaning
New York officials may not be the only ones caught out.
Akademiks also placed the ads on buses and bus shelters in Miami, Chicago,
Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco and Philadelphia, the company spokesman
said.
Kelly, who said he was in his 60s, said that after he was tipped to the hidden
meaning of the phrase on Thursday he ran a test among some young MTA
workers.
“I went downstairs to the mailroom and showed some of the young guys a copy
of the ad,” he said. “I was watching their faces and they all start smirking.
“Apparently it’s on all the music, in music that’s how they refer to it,” Kelly said. “I didn’t know anything about it and I’m sure the people that approved the ad didn’t.”
Kelly said it was sad that “you can’t take things at face value any longer,” adding, “We’ll have to learn from experience before we accept ads.”
The ads followed another recent advertising controversy at the MTA. A poster
commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the subway was found to contain numerous plugs placed by its designer for the Church of Scientology.
Comments:
Why take the down the advertisements? Learning something new can be a pretty orgasmic experience.
FYI: C’est euphe*m*ism.
I get corrected for that one so many times that I’m all confused now. You have no idea how much I couldn’t care at this point.
Two thoughts:
1) I was WONDERING if this idiotic clothing line was going to finally catch heat for this.
2) On the other hand, if they actually do have to pay for their mistake, IS IT THEIR FAULT THAT THE SLANG IS SO COMPLETELY STUPID? Does that phrase even remotely sound like oral sex? Isn’t it just kinda gross? Yick.