Giles Coren

Fifty shades of Santa

If bondage-themed presents are all right for newborns, then I have some suggestions for the rest of us

issue 15 December 2012

During a frantic online rummage for last-minute Christmas presents (I am too old to risk actually purchasing anything on the internet this close to the 25th, but I thought I might find some inspiration for presents I could then go out and buy in the shops and drag home in a bag on a stinking bus full of fat tourists through solid traffic), I came upon something very disturbing indeed: novelty baby clothes inspired by… Fifty Shades of Grey.

You thought the sexualisation of children had gone only as far as six-year-old girls dressed up as Lady Gaga. But it has gone much, much further. Such as, for example, tiny romper suits available on a website called Etsy, with ‘My mummy read Fifty Shades of Grey nine months ago’ written on it.

Nine months. Get it? Hilarious, no doubt. But an odd thing to want to wrap up and put under the tree.

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