Sexualizing Down syndrome for profit

It’s a common phrase but all too true: Sex sells. One might ask, why? Because our culture is sex-obsessed. Advertisements use sexual appeal to sell products not remotely sexual in nature, such as tennis shoes, airfare, or even sparkling water. Television streaming service HBO is infamous for its inclusion of the lewd, crude, and outright pornographic in its original productions. And speaking of porn—pornographic images account for 68 million internet search queries and 25 percent of all internet searches. That alone stands as a staggering statistic indicative of the invisible pandemic no one is talking about: sex addiction. In fact, pornography use has been linked to higher rates of sex trafficking, rape and sexual violence, prostitution, and skewed notions of what sex is and should be. Women and girls are usually the first to be harmed by these horrific side effects. And yet, companies continue to use whatever advertising and marketing makes them money—sex included.

So when major news outlets announced recently that popular lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret hired its first model with Down syndrome, it was unsurprising (though perverse) that almost all of them, regardless of political bias, celebrated the move. Sofía Jirau has beaten all odds, news outlets shared, by realizing a lifelong goal of modeling for one of the most exclusive modeling businesses in the world: Victoria’s Secret.

At first blush, one is tempted to laud the inclusion of people with a disability, often maligned for their difference, in an enterprise that focuses so heavily on outward appearance. And the impulse behind the new Victoria’s Secret initiative is presented as noble—to be inclusive and normalize bodies it hasn’t in the past. Many brands have begun diversity and inclusion initiatives in recent years, hiring racially diverse and plus-sized models to participate in their campaigns. The issue is not the diversity, it is the sexualization.

Christians usually celebrate the representation and inclusion of people with disabilities in various spheres. Positive representation of people with Down syndrome in advertisements and movies has become more common in recent years. After all, there’s a normalizing effect to seeing people with disabilities represented in popular media or even in day-to-day life. People fear what they do not know. When one knows (or next best, sees regularly) people with disabilities, it’s much harder to look past their unique personhood, their existential worth.

But while inclusion and representation can be good, they are not goods unto themselves. Victoria’s Secret does not just sell lingerie; it has built an enterprise trading on the sexualization and objectification of women, commercializing their bodies for profit. And now, not just women, but some of the most vulnerable women: women with disabilities.

If anything is being normalized in Victoria’s Secret’s “Love Cloud” campaign, it’s not the inclusion of people with disabilities; it’s the commercialization of women’s bodies. Victoria’s Secret has simply widened its net of who it is willing to commercialize. And the commercialization of women’s bodies is not made virtuous by having even more women involved in it.

This story is a window into the deficit of moral reasoning in our over-sexualized world: Jirau’s inclusion as a Victoria’s Secret Angel is an indicator of how far our culture has succumbed to the idol of sex. When we can’t agree to anything other than that diversity is usually good, even that last mutual point of agreement is spun out to the point of madness.

Jirau says she has dreamed of having a career in fashion since she was a little girl. All women and girls should be able to pursue their dreams, and the fashion industry can and should be more than sex commercialized. But when companies bow to selling sex for profit, as Victoria’s Secret does, its practices are harmful to all.

In a culture that kills 67 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before they’re even born, the last thing women with Down syndrome need is corporations selling images of their sexualized bodies for profit. Christians understand that the most important truth about people with Down syndrome is that they are fully and wonderfully made in God’s image. They are gifts to us all. They are to be treasured, not objectified.

Raúl Martinez, head creative director at Victoria’s Secret, says of the initiative that it’s “a major moment in the brand’s evolution” and that there’s an “incredible inclusive spirit on set” that’s an “important part of the new Victoria’s Secret standard we are creating.” Victoria’s Secret’s standards have always been suspect, but profiting off the sexualization of a disabled woman is a new low. Christians need to see this development for what it really represents.