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Victoria's Secret was founded 1977 with the intention to market towards adults looking to buy lingerie for their partners. The company was sold to Les Wexner in 1982. The marketing strategy shifted to target the women who would be wearing their products. This shift is important to understand. The brand began by marketing to men to dress up a woman they probably loved or, at the very least, a consenting woman. The shift to market towards women means that the company has the power to determine how women should dress to appeal to the general and inescapable male gaze rather than the gaze of a male they decided to be with. It tells women that they need to look a certain way to be attractive. This shift would not be an issue if the company never expanded in the way that it did.

Under Wexner's ownership, the company expanded rapidly occupying malls throughout the United States. In 2002, Victoria's Secret introduced PINK, a subset of the company targeted towards teenagers and young women. PINK sold apparel and lingerie. Lingerie targeted towards girls aged 13-25.

"Pink, the color that represents tenderness and feminity. The color that evokes childhood, playfulness, and purity. The color assigned to girls before they're even born."

Victoria's Secret sold fragrances, apparel, lingerie, makeup, and more. If you were fem-presenting in the 2000s-2010s, you know that products from Victoria's Secret and PINK were very desirable.

I received my first Victoria's Secret bra at 13 years old. My mother bought it for me. She hunted down the least flashy-looking one. The best we could find still had lace and a little bow in the middle. I never owned anything from PINK. I think my mother saw right through PINK. I was annoyed at the time because the marketing had worked on me, but I understand her reasoning looking back now. I had already been targeted by older men by that age. Even after those experiences, I still wanted to appear attractive to those around my age which led me down a different predatory relationship. It being my first serious relationship meant that it would shape me in ways that felt unbreakable.

Victoria's Secret and PINK products were status symbols amongst the feminine youth along with several other brands that could be found in malls like Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie, and Hollister. I mention those brands specifically because those were the stores in my local mall. These companies are related to L Brands which has renamed to Bath & Body Works Inc. They owned PINK, Victoria's Secret, La Senza, Abercrombie & Fitch, The Limited Too (which rebranded to Justice), and more. Up until 2020, the founder was the CEO of L Brands. His name is Les Wexner, the same Wexner that wrote in a letter to shareholders stating that the PINK customer base brought youthfulness to Victoria's Secret. The same Les Wexner who was friends and business partners with Jeffery Epstein until 2007. The Wexner that created PINK, a lingerie company made to market to children. Victoria's Secret CFO had said something interesting regarding the target market of PINK.

"When somebody's 15 or 16 years old, what do they want to be? They want to be older, and they want to be cool like the girl in college, and that's part of the magic of what we do at Pink."

Following PINK's controversial marketing campaign, Bright Young Things, Victoria's Secret claimed that PINK is a brand for college-aged women and that they had no plans to release a collection for teenagers.

Is it for college-aged women or kids? They didn't claim that it is for adults until after they created bright colored panties that say things like "Wild," "Call Me," and, one of the most egregious ones, "Feeling lucky?" I cannot picture a college-aged woman wearing underwear as disgustingly designed as those products were.

There is something to be said about teenage girls exploring their sexuality and their identity. You can't expect them to wear underwear covered in rainbows and unicorns forever. I certainly didn't want to do that when I was younger. However, it feels predatory to have a whole company with the intention to sell sex to young girls. Girlhood is often tied to consumerism. It's about the clothes we wore, the things we used, the scents on our bodies, and how our hair was styled. Les Wexner's companies had a role in all of those things in the childhoods of Millennials and older Gen Z.

The fashion brands introduced us to shirtless men and told us how to dress. If we weren't skinny enough for those fashion trends, we weren't pretty. Flat stomaches, hairless bodies, and youthfulness. The fragrance brands told us how to smell. My chosen Bath & Body Works scent was sweet pea. Victoria Secret carried fragrances like "Pure Seduction." PINK told us what to wear under our clothes and told us to dress sexy for the male gaze. Wexner wrote that Pink had "brought vitality, youth, energy, and an all-new customer base to base Victoria's Secret." I keep harking on PINK and Victoria's Secret because the existence of PINK at all is gross and because of my own experience with it.

As I mentioned, I was 13 when I got my first Victoria's Secret bra. It was actually quite comfortable. It had no underwire, and it was really well made. Compared to like Hanes bras, it was vastly better in every way, but it wasn't enough for me. It was plain. I needed something for this new boyfriend of mine at the time. I had one other person who I don't count because he was too scared. He ended things within 24 hours via Facebook messages. He works on steam locomotives now which is neat. This other boyfriend was legit though. I mean, he loved me for my well-endowed chest and meek demeanor. I was desperate to please. My interests and opinions though? That wasn't important. What was important to him was how prey-like I was. The influence of Victoria Secret on my self image meant that I would prioritize how attracted this person was to me over anything else in my life. It also meant that I would be insecure about my figure because I wasn't skinny like the models. My well-endowed chest made it hard to find things that fit as well. This insecurity was only further worsened by this boyfriend flat out telling me that he preferred skinny girls. He just liked how easy it was to manipulate me into doing what he wanted because I wanted to feel wanted.

Somehow, a Victoria Secret clerk let me buy lingerie while I was shopping with my friends. These friends bought everything from all of these Les Wexner brands. I was quite jealous of them. They had more money than I did. They've also aligned themselves with the Trump cult now that they're adults, but that's a different story. I bought this lingerie as a child who did not even understand how our government votes on bills or how to just exist in the world in general. I just wanted to be liked by this boyfriend that only liked to use me.

With this Victoria's Secret lingerie, I opened pandora's box. We were far too young, and I rarely said yes over the three to four years (the "relationship" was on and off). My desperate attempt to be loved destroyed my image and dignity. I was pressured, coerced, and manipulated. I was made to feel like I needed this person in my life to survive, but he did not need me. His type was the type that these companies had marketed as attractive. He found someone that fit it far better than I did, and she was just as doe-eyed.

I was 13-16 years old fretting over appealing to the male gaze. I knew what it felt like to be viewed in that way before I knew what it was. My second grade teacher applied lip balm on me with his fingers. He purposely bought the potted lip balm and not the sticks of lip balm. He kept a student back after class to give her leg massages, and he recognized all of us by our hands. My mom didn't believe me until he was arrested trying to look up explicit images of children in a public library years later. I had been chased while I biked to my friends' house across the neighborhood. I cried between gasps trying to catch my breath because I was so scared. At 16, I had far more experiences with older men hitting on me than I did when I was an adult bartending. Somehow, men have more audacity when they're sober and you're younger compared to when you're an adult and they're drunk. Now that I am visibly an adult with smile lines (because I laugh all of time), I am not approached nearly as often I was at 15, 16, or 17. I'm just as pierced as I was then. I actually have more piercings. Men are just really weird about them. What changed is that I have aged, and there's sick men that like younger ladies. Mind you, I am never looking to be approached. It's just a gross realization. I haven't even talked about my worst experiences.

Les Wexner has influenced the male gaze for people my age. Wexner is a named co-conspirator in the Epstein files. The youthful marketing is purposeful, and we are all victims of it. Our girlhood was directly influenced by powerful pedophiles, and we have to learn to work through that. Everything I wanted to be from 10 years old to about 15 was what pedophilic men wanted girls to be. They didn't care about the "attractiveness" of a child. They cared about power, and their influence on our fashion is a part of that power.

Memetic warfare sounds like something a crazed person wrote, but it's real. It's a form of psychological warfare pushed on the masses to distract and desensitize. Nine years ago, the American senate talked about how the American government needs to deploy memetic warfare like they do in the Middle East because "they are better at it than us" and "we invented the internet." We're seeing this memetic warfare being used to desensitize us about the Epstein files. Memes about how people are relieved because they were an "ugly child." This insinuates that the victims are at fault for being "attractive," and it is disgusting. I think it is also vital to mention that not all of the victims were girls. There were some boys. Again, they liked the power.

The fantasies of power are evident in popular pornography categories such as "step-daughter," "teen," and "barely legal." Many people rightfully criticize these categories, but they still remain popular. There's an inherent power dynamic within these fantasies that appeals to the viewers. The material often plays into the young nature of the actress by putting her hair up in pigtails and giving her a school uniform. School uniforms are another crazy thing. It's just horrible.

That ex-partner loved to have power. I played into it because I wanted love. Culture had shaped me into believing that that was what I had to do to be loved. Les Wexner, and ultimately Jeffery Epstein, had influenced the way we thought, so things like my consistent assault and disregard of my own consent could occur. I let him tell me "no means try harder," and I had to be okay with it to be loved. He had no interest in my hobbies or personality, so I had to receive attention somehow. I didn't know what I had experienced was rape until my friend told me just weeks after he left me. She was friends with him as well, but it made her turn against him so quickly. I want to go back to thank her for that. This realization made me approach him to tell him some unsavory things about him. I rightfully destroyed his confidence, but it did nothing for me.

It took a long time to get over this relationship and what it had done to me. When I had gotten there, I found out that he killed himself. I had my first panic attack. From then on, I suffered from a panic disorder and my life crumbled again. I was so mad that I let him have that. I found out from people posting support and love for him. My old friends and random people. He had carved out a space in an underground music scene, so he had a following. Everything he did to me came flooding back, and I could do nothing about it. I was told by one of his fans that I'd be "disrespecting the dead" if I spoke up. I still won't name him because it doesn't matter anymore now that he's dead. It wouldn't do anything for me either because I have moved on.

The pedophilic male gaze and desire of power allowed me to be taken advantage of by this person and other men. I'm certainly not alone either. As I've gotten older, I've only realized how persistent and gross it all is. There's no way you can escape the male gaze as someone who is fem-presenting. If they can find a way to have power, that is all they need. They don't care about how you look, dress, anything. Dress young. Dress mature. Dress in tight clothes. Dress in baggy clothes. Act one way or another, and there is a predator that would love to find a way to have power over you whether it's forceful or strategic.

Even if we try to escape the male gaze, we're accused of appealing to it or live our lives thinking about how it can still affect us. My love for cars isn't for men. It's for me and only me. I think cars have cute souls and personalities, but that interest alone can make someone think that I do it for male attention. Many men have expressed interest in women who are "slightly autistic" which they consider to be women who act a little odd and have interests. It's something so small, yet it's makes it so men think they've found their soulmate. I've had experiences with smaller flings that thought I was their soulmate because I was funny and strange. I realize that this is starting to get tangental. Men just always find a way or a reason to talk to a woman, and it feels like a hunt.

The hunt is terrifying. This is some deep rooted issues of my own that I should probably work on, but the idea of being pursued by a straight man makes me feel like a doe being hunted. I view them as predatory. A straight man's goals in life often are find a woman, infiltrate her, and expect her to sacrifice her wellbeing to carry babies. It just doesn't sit right with me. It's not their fault because there are plenty of decent men who happen to be straight, and they love their partners dearly. There are absolutely good men out there. However, pregnancy is already body horror to me, and childbirth bridges the gap between life and death. It's a task bestowed upon the unwilling facilitated by the male desire to populate. He only provides the genetic information. I just feel strange about it all, and the Epstein files and the Les Wexner connection brings all of this back up for me. The files have instances of children giving birth to their assaulter's babies. I am 26, and I have such deep fears about pregnancy and childbirth that it's like I could puke on command. These children didn't know what was happening to them. The male gaze and desire for power is still at the root of all of this. Everyone suffers from all of this. I just wish there was a world that existed without any sort of carnal desires. I think it would be better that way.

I think what I want to say with all of this is that this generation of women have a lot to work through, and things to teach our kids if we decide to have them. There has to be girlhood with no consumerism because girlhood was influenced by pedophiles and continues to be with child swimsuits getting outrageous and a number of other issues. Girlhood has to be defined by things men don't have sway on because they have historically used it for evil and money.

Like I have mentioned, the files made me have this revelation about my younger years, and old wounds sort of opened because of it. The things done by these powerful people leaves me in pieces. It's been really rough for me to hear about it. I am sickened by the man that leads our country. I already was for a number of reasons, but I think a particular image describes my feelings even better than any words could.

I do realize that I talked in a way that was very man vs woman, but I want to emphasize that I don't follow the idea that gender is just a binary. I have my own views on my own gender, and I find it really difficult to refer to myself as a woman. Predators and victims can fall at any spot on the gender spectrum though. Most reported victims happen to be women and most reported perpetrators happen to be men. This doesn't include unreported assaults. Also, trans men are men and trans women are women. This should just be assumed. Trans people are fetishized by men. They're absolutely victims of the male gaze and rape culture as well.

Don't become desensitized to any of the discussions about the files. It should hurt, and that hurt should be used to require accountability. I am mad that these men had their disgusting fingers in our childhoods, money, lives, and government.

Who cares if the system collapses if these people are held accountable? Fuck, they laugh when the files are mentioned. Howard Lutnick laughs when the files are brought up! Lutnick chose to be friends with Epstein after Epstein was charged with unlawful sex acts with children. Lutnick brought his own kids to Epstein's island. Lutnick thought that we would believe his lies. Same with Elon Musk. They don't take any of this seriously. They really don't. They think that we're stupid, and that we'll just forget all of this.

This all sucks. I wish I could live along a stream and spend my days fishing. Nothing else. Never talk to another soul ever again, but I can't. This affected me deeply, but I will be okay.