I had no idea they were selling sex at the mall!

[Anaamika]

@leftfield6

Not trying to be Barney Badass here, but you’re letting it happen to you. I go to the mall ( more than I want to, believe me) and have seen every variety of sales method and product discussed here. Not one single time has anyone rubbed anything on me, attached anything, or plucked my eyebrows.

And I’m a woman. So men have touched me inappropriately before, without my permission, as happens to most women. But never a stall owner. It just doesn’t happen.

[aruvqan]

@flatlined

After I’ve gotten every thing I can out of the men, I gesture at the very buffed Marine who is following me and tell the women that if they give me enough money, he will take his shirt off. After he’s taken his shirt off and flexed, I tell them that if they give me more money, the Marine will do push ups. That’s when the women start grabbing wallets out of their men’s back pockets.

.

Pictures?

[Cat_Whisperer]

@leftfield6

The same kiosk is at the mall a few miles from my house (suburbs of Atlanta). Same aggressive walking out into the aisles to grab potential customers. Same hard-selling style. And yet my wife has escaped from them by the simple act of not engaging them to the point where they can grab her hand.

If you stop, if you let them stop you and begin the process, yep, you’re now going to have to be rude to break away. So, just don’t let it start. Don’t engage. <snip>

Yup. “Can I ask you a question?” Either respond “No” and just keep walking or just keep walking.

Or tell them to fuck off if you’re in that kind of mood - when you set yourselves up to rely on people’s politeness to take advantage of them, you also set yourself outside of the rules of polite society.

@Anaamika

And I hate them so much and wish everyone would never go to them again, so they would learn it’s not a valid sales technique. Once upon a time I used to like going to the mall when I had nothing better to do on a lunch hour - I can get some walking in, it’s only five minutes away, and I could browse the stores. Now I have these stupid assholes shouting at me at every junction.<snip>

I also like to mall walk (it’s very nice to be able to walk in malls here in winter) and the mall spiders (as I call them) make it that much less pleasant.

@Tully_Mars

One of the nicer things about getting older is that I’m more immune to the attempts. When I was younger and more naive, I was more susceptible to this approach. In a way, it’s sort of sad. Mostly not, though.

A few months back, I was just finishing some truck maintenance in the driveway at the end of a long, frustrating day when an attractive young lady approached me. I had observed her going door-to-door while I was under the truck. She smiled and started her cheery sales pitch (which she assured me was just a survey). I smiled back and in mid-sentence, waved goodbye and turned and walked away. I wanted a hot shower and a cold beer much more than I wanted to listen to her.

She was not prepared for this. How dare a middle-aged man resists her 20-something charms. As I walked away, she huffed, “At least you could be more polite!”

I remarked, without stopping, “Ma’am, that was me being polite.”

Excellent.

@teela_brown

Geez, if I were walking down the street and some stranger walked up and started touching me, I’d punch him (or her) in the nose. Why is it okay for mall whores to do this?

I vote we start socking these vermin outright and see what happens. Will they claim assault? Just say that they approached and touched you against your will and you have every right to defend yourself.

Plan B: carry an airhorn and if one them approaches you, put it right in their face and give it a prolonged blast.

Gah, it’s becoming more like a third-world country every day. A stroll through the mall is like walking through a red-light district or a dodgy bazaar.

My husband wants to grab whatever shit they’re shoving in our faces and launch it as far as he can down the mall. I’m certainly not going to stop him (well, maybe long enough for me to start the video recording on the camera).

[El_Kabong]

@teela_brown

Geez, if I were walking down the street and some stranger walked up and started touching me, I’d punch him (or her) in the nose.

I wouldn’t, but I too have a real problem with people touching me without permission, and it’s fair to say that I actively avoid going to my local mall specifically because of those creepy lotion merchants. I’ve been waylaid a couple times by those yoyos, and both times it ended with some variation of me shouting “WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!”

Over the top, I know, but hey, they caught me by surprise. Now I know to just ignore them and barrel through the kiosk zone.

[YogSothoth]

@pbbth

Men, does it bother you that so much of what is marketed toward you is basically marketed toward your penis? Women, does it bother you that almost nothing people try to sell us is aimed at making you feel desired?

No, my penis is fine with it

[teela_brown]

@Cat_Whisperer

My husband wants to grab whatever shit they’re shoving in our faces and launch it as far as he can down the mall. I’m certainly not going to stop him (well, maybe long enough for me to start the video recording on the camera).

Good one. I wonder if one could bring one of those powerful wrist-slingshots into the mall. Then, when one of the kiosk whores starts brandishing something at you, grab it and slingshot it up into the upper level or into the mall fountain.

“Excuse me, officer, I was just exercising my freedom of speech in a public place.”

[lorene]

@alphaboi867

Was he Israeli by any chance? One of the local malls had this stand selling assorted lotions and spa products from Israel. I got a very strange & intense hard sell from the guy running it. He was telling me all about the product while looking directly into my eyes as he was demonstrating on my right hand. It felty exactly like he was flirting with me (despite him saying he was straight a couple time & his girlfriend uses it). :smack: He was really cute too (probably fresh out of the army). I ended up buying my mother an entire set for Valentine’s Day.

The one time I bought something from one of these kiosks it was the hand/nail stuff that a ridiculously hot woman massaged into my hand. Even though I’m also a woman, by the time I walked away, I felt like I should have pinwheels for eyes and be speaking in a robot voice. Why…yes…I…would…like…to…buy…some…please.

@aruvqan

Pictures?

Aw, jeez. Not this again…

[aruvqan]

@lorene

Aw, jeez. Not this again…

hey I am married, not dead, and female so I like buff guys in or out of uniform…

[lorene]

@aruvqan

hey I am married, not dead, and female so I like buff guys in or out of uniform…

Oh no no—not a criticism of you at all! There’s been another thread with repeated requests for pictures and I was riffing on that.

[Yookeroo]

@flatlined

Sex sells. I beg for money all the time. I wear a low cut vest, leather push up bra and hold my begging jar between my boobs. I usually get bills stuffed into my vest instead of the jar, but that’s just how it rolls when I’m begging for money at a biker event.

After I’ve gotten every thing I can out of the men, I gesture at the very buffed Marine who is following me and tell the women that if they give me enough money, he will take his shirt off. After he’s taken his shirt off and flexed, I tell them that if they give me more money, the Marine will do push ups. That’s when the women start grabbing wallets out of their men’s back pockets.

My shimmies and wiggles and my Marine doing push ups doesn’t mean that we are into the people we are getting money out of, we are just using what we have.

It works.

I think you need an AMA thread.

@aruvqan

hey I am married, not dead, and female so I like buff guys in or out of uniform…

Yeah, but when I guy posts something similar, its the worst thing in the world.

[JRDelirious]

Oh, wow, it must have been what, at least six years ago? that the Dead Sea Sirens caught me by ambush! Some mall in Maryland. I had never heard of nor seen them before, goodness gracious that was some hard sell, and one hot flirty Israeli chick. Damn that took time and effort of the will to extricate. I even remember her nametag - “Avital”. Now I can recognize and just switch on “Manhattan sidewalk” mode and blast past them.

Then it seems they got a different product scheme with something that contained gold, but very similar pitch, I saw that one in the PH Mile in Vegas once.
But sex is being sold all over the mall, in one way or another.

@pbbth

Men, does it bother you that so much of what is marketed toward you is basically marketed toward your penis?

Sometimes peeved that so much is marketed toward my penis but so little of it is for something to actually happen there. I can’t schtup a webhosting service Yet Mr. Happy keeps trying to lead me astray – Avital there was giving me the hard sell in more ways than one :o .

As to this particular kind of strategy, what can I say, male or female we’re human and it just takes the rational cortex to be distracted a mere moment for the more core areas of the brain to go “Whoa… attention from a cutie…” and grab the wheel, and good luck snapping out of it.

@aruqvan

Pictures?

Hey, ya gotta pay, she said so right there…

[sisu]

Well in my case the women really do want me, but I do feel sorry for the rest of you guys.

[flatlined]

@lorene

Oh no no—not a criticism of you at all! There’s been another thread with repeated requests for pictures and I was riffing on that.

I have posted links to the hawt Marines. I have also posted links to pics of them with me. I don’t think that this board is waiting breathlessful for me to make my pics work AND I don’t like my face.

Be warned, if I finally start linking my own pics, the kitteh cuteness will shut everything down.

@Yookeroo

I think you need an AMA thread.

Yeah, but when I guy posts something similar, its the worst thing in the world.

What is AMA, please?

JRDelirious is right. If you want to see, you have to pay

[mandala]

Walmart needs to bring in some hot girls in the grocery department, to force-sell us carrots and spinach. Apart from increasing Walmart’s revenues, think of the good that will do to public health.

[Odesio]

I had a similar experience at a mall in North Little Rock. It was a young Israeli woman aged 22-26 and she was selling some sort Dead Sea Salts that you were supposed to run on your skin for…magic? I have no idea how it was supposed to make me beautiful. She did the same thing that pbbth’s young man did. She made intense eye contact, held my hand in hers while she slowly rubbed the salt into my palm, was so very impressed that I knew some facts about the Dead Sea and went on about how women would love for me to use this product or I could give it as a gift to my special lady. I’ve been on less romantic dates. It was a little weird but I enjoyed the fantasy for about three minutes before moving on. No sale for her.

@pbbth

This sales guy was a very attractive young man who was probably 24 or 25 with a delicious foreign accent and he was* into* me. Not actually into me, of course. I have no delusions that this young man would have looked at me twice if he didn’t want me to buy something but he was very convincing. Gently rubbing lotion into my wrist with slow, circular motions. Gazing longingly into my eyes as he explained how amazing this would be for my already perfect skin. Holding my hands in his to compare my wrists so I could see the intense difference this lotion would make for my complexion. This guy might have wanted me to buy a bottle of lotion but he was selling me the idea that he totally wanted to bone me.

[BigT]

@flatlined

What is AMA, please?

“Ask me anything,” I think. The threads are usually named “Ask the ____,” so I understand the confusion.

[Count_Blucher]

Pbbth, all I can really say for sure is, if that punk tries that at Build-a-Bear, he is SO going to jail…

[JRDelirious]

“AMA” = “Ask Me About…” but yes, here it’s usually as “Ask The…(woman who pimps out hot Marine hunkaliciousness, in this case)”

@Count_Blucher

Pbbth, all I can really say for sure is, if that punk tries that at Build-a-Bear, he is SO going to jail…

Oh, he’d do it to the mothers, of course…

[GrandWino]

@JRDelirious

But sex is being sold all over the mall, in one way or another.

Heheheh… you said “butt sex.”

/Butthead

[Drunky_Smurf]

@Acsenray

That’s a pretty obnoxious thing to say.

It wasn’t surreptitious. It was unexpected. I don’t expect that when in walking by a kiosk in a shopping mall on one of the country’s most affluent counties that a kiosk salesperson is going to attach something to me.

Situational awareness? Bullshit. We walk around in public assuming that people will adhere to certain accepted standards of behavior. If someone deviates from the norm it can be surprising.

No, that’s a pretty accurate thing to say. I’ve been going to the mall all my life and I have never had anyone slather lotion or goo or attach things to me. I guess I’m fucking Jesus over here.