Listless, leggy dolls: How the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show desexualizes sex — salon.com

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is a difficult phenomenon to describe. It’s a fashion show that happens on a runway, but it’s also taped and heavily edited for an hourlong broadcast on prime-time television. During the runway show, pop stars perform and interact awkwardly with the supermodels marching down the runway. Those models are called “angels,” and as a result, they’re all wearing wings — though what angels have to do with lingerie is anyone’s guess, really. And the angels are modeling expensive, one-of-a-kind lingerie, from a brand that makes most of its money through mall and catalog sales of basic undies. There are carefully enhanced breasts and carefully tanned butt cheeks all over the screen, delicately accented with flowing, beachy hair and pouty kisses blown at the camera. It’s a minefield of questionable sexual imagery.

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