Nice Utah Lady Thinks Of The Children

A nice lady in Orem, Utah, was very upset about some t-shirts in the window of a PacSun store in a mall, because just look at those mostly naked women there! Judy Cox and her 18-year-old son (who you just know has to be delighted at being part of this story) weren't actually shopping at PacSun, but they could see those horribly provocative black and white photos in plain sight. So Ms. Cox went into PacSun and told a manager that those dirty dirty t-shirts with ladies' dirty dirty pillows hanging out had no place in the window, but the manager said the display couldn't come down, not without the OK from the main corporate office.

This did not deter our hero of decency one whit: Judy Cox bought all 19 of the shirts in stock, at a cost of $567. But the joke is on the store! Because, you see, she's going to return the shirts for a refund as close to the end of the 60-day limit as she can. Guess she showed them! It's like that parable where Jesus says "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, but save the receipt."

Cox later sent an email to the Associated Presslisting her demandsexplaining her position:

"These shirts clearly cross a boundary that is continually being pushed on our children in images on the Internet, television and when our families shop in the mall."

Gosh darn those boundaries being pushed like that! And it's pretty cool that someone is willing to put herself on the line and take (refundable) action to stop it!

An emailed statement from PacSun CEO Gary Schoenfeld said that the company is proud to blahblahblah fine products, fashion, and lifestyles hummina-hummina, and added,

"While customer feedback is important to us, we remain committed to the selection of brands and apparel available in our stores,"

We have a feeling this may have been code for "haha, lady, the truck's already at the loading dock."

For her part, Ms. Cox met with Orem city attorney Greg Stephens to see if maybe she could get the store arrested or something, since she's sure the t-shirts violate a city code against public display of "explicit sexual material." We bet he had a lot of fun explaining that this does not mean photos of women in lacy underthings, even if the women have tattoos and are obviously slatterns.

Stephens said he told Cox that she first needed to file a complaint with police. He said police would then review the issue and decide whether it needed to be passed on to the city attorney, a process that could take weeks.

Should be a fun few weeks in Orem. Cox is feeling pretty good about the example she's setting for other parents, and said in an email to the AP,

"I hope my efforts will inspire others to speak up within their communities ... You don't have to purchase $600 worth of T-shirts [which you will return later because you are one cheapass moral crusader -- Dok Zoom], but you can express your concerns to businesses and corporations who promote the display of pornography to children."

Efforts to find actual pornography among the t-shirt selections at PacSun were fruitless, although 28 bucks for a t-shirt does strike us as somewhat obscene.

[ StarTribune.com ]

 Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. He's not sure he'd like anyone who'd wear these t-shirts any more than he'd like the lady trying to ban them.