Okay, I lied about that last one but it was a welcome surprise nonetheless. While my friends pretended it was completely natural (and the shoppers around us made sure I knew it wasn’t), I snapped a few photos of this delightful, tranced plastic lady. If the designer of this window display wasn’t thinking about a pocket watch or crystal swinging in front of her face I’ll eat shoes…or something.

I’m repeating myself a bit here, but the part of me that wishes I’d studied anthropology in college, can’t help but look at perfume ads,  fashion photography, and displays like this and wonder what it is about the mind control fetish that keeps it an unspoken yet consistent staple of media. Content that plays into fetishes concerning various parts of the female body are rampant. The last several years have seen latex-clad dommes and candid reference to D/s & BDSM used in television commercials to promote parental awareness and pistachio consumption. Yet, to me, it still feels as though people are quite reticent where the sexualization of hypnosis and mind control is concerned.

Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I want it to feel more present in mainstream media to alleviate some latent embarrassment at being turned on by an ‘odd’ fetish. Maybe I’m just biased. But maybe the person who designed this mannequin did so just for us; so we could wink at each other as we pass by; so we could share the silent joke that this display is far more lurid than the Victoria’s Secret counterpart next door.

In any case, it made the trip to the mall quite worthwhile; we’ll see if next year’s visit lives up to the precedent.