Wings
July 13, 2008
A visit to Holden Beach, North Carolina produced a startling array of horrible things. This store, Wings, was our first stop. It looks like a normal, family friendly store. It carries bathing suits, kids’ toys, and lots of souvenirs, in case you want a little piece of hate to take home with you.
This shot glass was our first clue that this might not be the place for us. Above the “Holden Beach” script at the bottom are the words “The Perfect Woman!” and an image of a pair of legs topped by huge breasts and a rear end. The “perfect woman” has no head. We’re not sure why it has legs, presumably to carry the breasts and butt around. We searched for a “Perfect Man!” glass, perhaps one with a penis atop a wallet, to no avail.
Near the shot glasses were the mugs shaped like breasts, a staple of beach-junk shops. Even though it is illegal for a woman to show her breasts in public, even though breast-feeding in public has caused outrage and uproar, even though there is legal precedent for it being OK to sexually harass a woman because she is simply not wearing a bra, these are perfectly legal and normal to sell. Our searches for household items in the shape of disembodied parts of men’s bodies were fruitless.
Near the mugs was a large display of horrible images of black people. This item shows a wooden carving of black people as savages.
We aren’t sure what this item is for. It was with a collection of “Jamaican” tchotchkes.
It looks an awful lot like this “vintage” humidor found on Ebay, doesn’t it?
But as long as they are Jamaican, not American, it’s OK, right?
This is all just in good fun, right?
More shockingly horrible items were found in the T-shirt section, for those who want to wear their hate instead of put it on a shelf. You will have to decide which of these is the worst:
This shirt shows that men that use strippers are quite aware that women sex workers are desperate, that they only take such degrading jobs because they have to support their families. And the men think that is pretty darned funny.
This is the front of the next shirt.
This is the back.
The text makes it clear that the creator and proud wearers consider a woman to be nothing more than a collection of genital parts, and a woman that has sex with a man is a “slut.”
We’ll end with this shirt, since everyone “loves a happy ending”
We’re honestly not sure what this shirt is trying to convey. Is the creator sophisticated enough to know the horrific ending of “Madame Butterfly”?
Some stats for you: the racial makeup of Holden Beach is 98.73% White, 0.38% African American, 0.25% Native American, 0.25% Asian, and 0.38% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.13% of the population
Given the demographic makeup of the women working at most “happy ending” (meaning “handjobs at the very minimum”) massage parlors, the geisha silhouette seems a little old-fashioned. Perhaps a silhouette of a 12-year-old Thai or Burmese kid would be more accurate.
Also, I have no idea where that winking emoticon came from.
Thank you for clearing that up. How we overlooked “happy ending” as a euphemism for prostitution, we’ll never know. You are right, geishas are practically quaint these days; a starving child would be much more accurate.
Regarding the creepy winking emoticon: it was a default setting in WordPress which has now been turned off. Your comments should no longer sprout faces where you aren’t expecting them.