By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

Adidas markets World Cup t-shirts that play off stereotypes of sexy Brazilians

How very original. Adidas released–and has now pulled–these two new t-shirts to promote the upcoming World Cup in Brazil.

Adidas Brazilian sexy t-shirts

Get it? Because Brazilian women are oh-so-sexy and obviously exist for your viewing pleasure. In fact, you can go ahead and think of the entire country as–literally–one big piece of ass. 

And it’s not just that these tees play on sexist, racist stereotypes of exotic Latina women. “Looking to score?” is not just a hypothetical play on words here. While there’s little evidence to support the oft-repeated myth that sex trafficking increases around large sporting events, sex tourism is popular in Brazil and there are concerns that the flood of tourist that the World Cup attracts will exacerbate the problem of child sex trafficking in the country. The head of the Brazilian Tourism Board Flávio Dino was not pleased. “We don’t accept that the World Cup be used for illegal practices, like so-called sexual tourism,” he told O Globo. “We ask that Adidas put a stop to the sale of these products.”

Thankfully, they promptly did.

(H/t @Kelleyk43)

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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