Digital Culture Studies

They are called Couture Pops; bedazzled lollipop sticks, upon which you screw in a flavoured ball of candy. Pretty young women, who have found a way to create a dubious pastiche of a career out of showing up at events, are paid as promoters, dutifully carrying their candy to events and being photographed sucking on them while walking the red carpet.

I am not even sure where to start, unpacking that photo. Male gaze, sexual objectification of women,  sexualizing the accoutrements of children? Or maybe it is enough to state the obvious: we live in a culture where a young woman’s paid job can be giving a simulated blowjob to a piece of candy while walking the red carpet in order to be photograhed by the media.