Mad about
mannequins

>> Mysterious indecency accusation confuses both Village storeowners and borough officials

WICKED WINDOW? Mad-Âme (note head up skirt)

by ANDREA ZANIN

Gay Village storeowners and Ville-Marie borough representatives are collectively confused thanks to a recent incident involving lesbian store mannequins and a mysterious indecency accusation levelled by an apparently fictitious borough official.

Amy Skinner, owner of Boutique Mad-Âme—a clothing store catering to lesbians, located at 1276 Amherst—put up a window display in the last week of July for Gay Pride. The display featured two mannequins, one standing with one arm raised and holding a riding crop, and a second positioned directly in front of the first on its knees.

“It was really effective,” Skinner recalls. “People responded, came in. It had been up for two weeks when a man came into the store, introduced himself as a Ville-Marie by-law enforcement officer, and said they had received complaints about the display and I had 10 days to change it or I would be cited.” Skinner explains that the warning was a verbal one and that the “officer” did not provide his name.

More recently, Skinner mounted a new display, which stayed up until Sept. 3. “I pushed it a little further than the first one,” she says. This one featured four mannequins, one with its head under another’s dress and wearing rubber gloves, a third standing close by. “The fourth had its head turned away in embarrassment or shame,” Skinner says. “It was really a response to the first incident—I wanted to recognize that it was sexually evocative, but that it was showing safer sex behaviours, and that maybe a quarter of the people I saw reacting to that window display were red-faced about it.

“A few days after that, the same by-law officer came in and said they’d received another complaint and this time I had five days to change the display before being cited with an infraction. There was no specificity in terms of what had to be changed, simply that the display itself had crossed the line and was indecent.”

Standard issue

Other Village clothing storeowners are puzzled—and have never heard of an indecency infraction. When told about the warnings, Sébastien Vallières, co-owner of Le Fétiche Store on Ste-Catherine E., responded, “You’re kidding! I don’t know, people are used to seeing this type of window display. Pretty much all that she’s done, we’ve done, except the head under the skirt. Our displays are always suggestive, but not with gross nudity or anything. Well, that would be hard; they are mannequins. They have no genitals.”

Stéphane Donaldson, marketing director for gay clothing and porn store Priape, also on Ste-Catherine E. and renowned for slick and suggestive displays, seemed equally surprised. “I’ve been here for a year, and no problems so far.” He says Priape’s displays are “very graphic,” but adds that they are careful not to be explicit. “It’s up to the client to interpret. We give options and directions, but the person seeing it can use their imagination.”

Priape’s current window display features male mannequins with medical toys and a gynecology chair. “A lot of men are into fisting and so forth—if you’re not into it, it’s just a chair. If you’re into it, you know what the window is saying.”

Skinner, who is a law student, states that she has researched city by-laws and has been unable to find any that would provide a basis for the warning. “One regulation I found only applies to print materials and print advertising, and I found regulations on signage for erotic establishments and places selling erotic materials. But I don’t do lap dances. This is a clothing store.”

Baffled city

Jacques-Alain Lavallée, communications officer for the Ville-Marie borough, states that there is no record of the Mad-Âme warnings ever being issued. “I have spoken to everyone who could have given the warnings, and nobody is aware of the situation, so I’m perplexed,” he says. “Verbal warnings are very rare, and they are logged in a book; there is always a record. In any case, our inspectors deal with public areas, so there would be no call to intervene because this is inside a place of business.

“Perhaps it’s a private citizen who is offended by the window? But the warnings certainly didn’t come from the borough.”

In response to Lavallée’s statement, Skinner is equally perplexed—and curious. “Maybe it’s just one person from within the community who seriously has too much time on their hands, coming in and posing as an officer—and why would they go to the trouble? Or maybe it’s someone acting outside their authority because they’re personally offended? Now I really want to find out where this is coming from.”

Skinner’s current display features teacher/student mannequins and a “back-to-school” theme focused on sex ed; the mannequins are holding print materials about safer sex practices and gender transitioning, available for free in the store.