This is a special message. You need to read this post all the way to the end because this is something you need to know about. Take especial notice of the part labeled “Here begins the last entry.”
Today, having requested and been granted permission to do so, I pass on (with minor editorial deletions) a request from my daughter, London Tyndale-Biscoe. The post comprises a sequence of messages that form an as yet incomplete dialogue between her and Groupon. There is an additional message to her from Morality in Media.
I am posting this material now because I think it is too important to wait. I will append to this post anything I receive further.
[Here begins her message.]
Dear Friends and Family,
Please help me in trying to fight the problem of hardcore pornography. I know it’s not easy to change the world, or even to want to become that involved, but we can all do a little something. Morality in Media have again asked its subscribers, of which I’m one, to ask five people I know to boycott Groupon because of its support of hardcore torture pornography that demeans and humiliates women. Can you help out? All it takes is little more than the press of a button! whether you are male or female.
Love,
London
[Here begins the message from Morality in Media.]
From: Dawn Hawkins, Morality In Media
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 9:34 AM
Subject: The Women with Groupon
Women of Groupon, where are you?? Groupon seeks to profit from exploitation and torture of women. What woman at Groupon vetted this company?
Dear London,
We wondered what the women at Groupon think. But, in our research, we cannot find any women who are among Groupon's senior management. One wonders if this is just another case of the boys-will-be-boys corporate culture?
Kink sells the sickest of hardcore videos and live online performances of “young, sexy teens who are overwhelmed and outnumbered…who need to learn a lesson by multiple men,” according to the Kink website. The girls and women are “bound, whipped, objectified and humiliated ... suspended and tied in rope bondage…tormented beyond all reason ...pulled in and out of cages, their tongues clamped, their bodies pinned.”
We want to know what woman working at Groupon vetted this company?
Contact Groupon again!
Today, having requested and been granted permission to do so, I pass on (with minor editorial deletions) a request from my daughter, London Tyndale-Biscoe. The post comprises a sequence of messages that form an as yet incomplete dialogue between her and Groupon. There is an additional message to her from Morality in Media.
I am posting this material now because I think it is too important to wait. I will append to this post anything I receive further.
[Here begins her message.]
Dear Friends and Family,
Please help me in trying to fight the problem of hardcore pornography. I know it’s not easy to change the world, or even to want to become that involved, but we can all do a little something. Morality in Media have again asked its subscribers, of which I’m one, to ask five people I know to boycott Groupon because of its support of hardcore torture pornography that demeans and humiliates women. Can you help out? All it takes is little more than the press of a button! whether you are male or female.
Love,
London
[Here begins the message from Morality in Media.]
From: Dawn Hawkins, Morality In Media
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 9:34 AM
Subject: The Women with Groupon
Women of Groupon, where are you?? Groupon seeks to profit from exploitation and torture of women. What woman at Groupon vetted this company?
Dear London,
We wondered what the women at Groupon think. But, in our research, we cannot find any women who are among Groupon's senior management. One wonders if this is just another case of the boys-will-be-boys corporate culture?
Kink sells the sickest of hardcore videos and live online performances of “young, sexy teens who are overwhelmed and outnumbered…who need to learn a lesson by multiple men,” according to the Kink website. The girls and women are “bound, whipped, objectified and humiliated ... suspended and tied in rope bondage…tormented beyond all reason ...pulled in and out of cages, their tongues clamped, their bodies pinned.”
We want to know what woman working at Groupon vetted this company?
Contact Groupon again!
...
Our national boycott of Groupon is succeeding in getting the press attention we hoped it would. The company has been selling coupons for torture porn company Kink. We announced the boycott after Groupon defended Kink. Instead of taking responsibility and recognizing the concerns of their customers, the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations, Brian Totty, even tried to forward all of your complaints back to us. Needles to say, thousands have now canceled their accounts with Groupon.
Dawn Hawkins
Executive Director
Morality in Media
[Here begins London’s first message to Groupon.]
Subject: REFUND & CANCELLATION - GROUPON #xxxx-xx
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:06:11 -0700
From: London Tyndale-Biscoe
...
Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators:
I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer support since the cancellation I’m requesting is for a particular reason, the fact that your company is supporting another that markets hardcore pornography, which in addition even includes torture and involves teens. That email to customer support reads:
I want to cancel my membership and be refunded immediately for my Groupon #xxxx-xx for 2-Hiking Yoga Classes.
I purchased the Groupon the day before I became aware that you are advertising for Kink, which markets hardcore pornography that humiliates and objectifies young women, including teens. It also promotes torture. I will be sending an email to executives at your company in addition to this demand for a refund and recantation on your part.
As a woman and a human being, I find it incredible and despicable that you would involve yourselves in such damaging activities. Don’t you realize that by enabling Kink you are directly contributing to a profound, persistent and escalating social problem – that you yourselves as individuals and as a company are (ir)responsible for encouraging a sick and dangerous disrespect of women?
Appalled isn’t a strong enough word to convey how I feel about your advertising choice. It’s so flagrant and egregious that I cannot continue in association with your company. Please remove me from your subscription list and refund me for the above Groupon immediately.
Most sincerely,
Mrs London Tyndale-Biscoe
[Here begins a message response from Groupon.]
Groupon Support
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 6:11 PM
To: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer service.
Hi London,
Thanks for your feedback. We certainly didn't intend to offend anyone.
We strive to offer interesting and exciting deals that will appeal to our diverse customer base. We've run deals with this specific business before, and while we realize it may not appeal to everyone, we've received positive customer feedback on past offers.
We thoroughly vet the businesses we feature, which is why we take these concerns seriously. We've found that the tour offered in this deal is historical and informational in nature and provides a unique look inside the landmark San Francisco Armory and its past.
If you'd still like me to unsubscribe you from our daily email list, please let me know and I'll take care of that right away.
Your feedback is extremely important to us and makes an impact in how we choose which businesses to work with in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to share your concerns with us, and please know that we value your opinion as a customer.
John T
Groupon Customer Support
[Here is London's response.]
From: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer service.
Dear John T,
I appreciate that you have replied swiftly. Yes, I do want you to unsubscribe me from the daily email list. Thank you.
I also again request that my Groupon #xxxx-xx be immediately refunded. Please do that and inform me by email. I will look for the money to be refunded to my credit card.
A few words about your and Groupon’s vain comment about not intending to offend anyone --
Have you ever noticed that human beings sometimes, too often, offend when we don’t intend it? Like the woman who cheats on her boyfriend or husband? In pursuing her goal, she doesn’t intend to offend him. The person who steals from your wallet or maybe embezzles Groupon company funds never intends to offend anyone. The man who abducts your son or daughter, or someone else’s, tortures them, sexually abuses them, and kills them probably never intends to offend anyone. Yet damage is done.
The words ‘offensive’ and ‘being offended’ are of late tossed about without much thought, as if taking offense were the core of every disputed matter. But it isn’t. The core of every matter is the matter – it isn’t whether we are or are not offended nor is it whether we have intended or not intended to give offense. The core of the matter here is the question whether supporting and motivating the production, sale and viewing of violent hardcore pornography that revels in and profits from the subjugation and torture of women is morally right or wrong. The answer to that question for me and for many others is that it is wrong and morally reprehensible. I can assure you that I’m only ‘offended’ secondarily, that is, as a response to the primary and preliminary understanding that what Kink is involved in is extremely harmful to others (and to themselves whether they are able to admit this or not), and that your legitimization and promulgation of what you refer to as their ‘interesting and exciting deal[ ]’ implicates yourselves individually and as a corporation in spreading that harm. For my own part, I would be offended at myself if I continued in a relationship with Groupon since I would knowingly be helping you and Kink to spread ‘the compost on the weeds’.
I don’t believe, as I’m sure thousands of other people don’t believe, that what Kink is doing with your aid can honestly be accounted for by saying, ‘it’s only a matter of taste’. Anything can be justified on this flimsiest of arguments. Preferring red to white wine or blue to red clothing or biking to hiking is a matter of taste. None of these relations carry any significant ethical component. But: stealing is just a matter of taste? (the thief simply having a taste for your things). Cheating your best friend is just a matter of taste? Adultery is just a matter of taste? Slavery is a matter of taste? Persuading women to act as victims of sexual predation, humiliation and torture, and inciting others to watch is just a matter of taste? Is murder a matter of taste? Of course it isn’t, and you know it. And you know why. It’s wrong. So is cheating someone out of their money, or out of their trust and peace of mind in the case of a best friend, or that of a wife or husband in adultery, or forcing someone weaker in mind or body on pain of threats, beatings, torture and death to do your personal bidding as in slavery. Helping someone who has fallen in the street, sharing your food with someone who is starving, loving your children, these are good things. You know this also.
So glibly defaulting to the ‘diversity in taste’ argument conveniently allows you to let your own genuine personal and collective knowledge of ethics in human relations fly out the window and leaves you to operate instead on the bankrupt assumption that there is no morality except subjective morality, no truth but subjective truth, and that every point of view is only an opinion. By this valueless token, the victim of murder is entitled to his opinion that murder is bad, while the murderer is entitled to his opinion that it is good – and each, victim and murderer, will surely be offended by the other’s opinion -- neither, of course, having intended this. But of course, this doesn’t fly. You would agree, I hope, that murder is bad – the persons involved are not in the right relationship to one another -- and I strongly suggest that if you sincerely make an effort to investigate its social ramifications, you will have to admit that making, viewing, and marketing violent hardcore pornography isn’t good for human relationships and isn’t good for the human community at large -- and your promotion of it stinks.
That’s all I have to say.
Sincerely,
London Tyndale-Biscoe
[Here begins Groupon's final response.]
From: Groupon Support
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:07 PM
To: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your cus... (ticket #xxxxxxx)
Hi London,
I understand your disappointment, which is why I've gone ahead and refunded your requested Groupon. The refund has gone back to your original form of payment, so you can expect to see it reflected on your statement within 10 business days.
I've also unsubscribed your email address, and you will stop receiving all Groupon promotional emails within 48 hours.
If you decide to join us again down the road, we'd be honored to have you back. In the meantime, please know that we take feedback like this very seriously, and I will absolutely make sure it gets in the right hands.
Kind regards and sincere apologies,
John T
Groupon Customer Support
[Here begins my comment.]
I am pleased that Groupon is making a refund and acknowledging taking feedback very seriously. But this blog post is only about one situation, my daughter's. Groupon is silent on any change in affiliation with Kink that will affect countless others.
I now renew my personal request. Join in helping provide Groupon with the moral incentive to cease and desist from participation in the tearing down of the moral fabric of American Society.
Contact Morality in Media to give them support and contact Groupon to register your moral outrage and your agreement with us.
Thank you.
Our national boycott of Groupon is succeeding in getting the press attention we hoped it would. The company has been selling coupons for torture porn company Kink. We announced the boycott after Groupon defended Kink. Instead of taking responsibility and recognizing the concerns of their customers, the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations, Brian Totty, even tried to forward all of your complaints back to us. Needles to say, thousands have now canceled their accounts with Groupon.
Dawn Hawkins
Executive Director
Morality in Media
[Here begins London’s first message to Groupon.]
Subject: REFUND & CANCELLATION - GROUPON #xxxx-xx
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:06:11 -0700
From: London Tyndale-Biscoe
...
Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators:
I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer support since the cancellation I’m requesting is for a particular reason, the fact that your company is supporting another that markets hardcore pornography, which in addition even includes torture and involves teens. That email to customer support reads:
I want to cancel my membership and be refunded immediately for my Groupon #xxxx-xx for 2-Hiking Yoga Classes.
I purchased the Groupon the day before I became aware that you are advertising for Kink, which markets hardcore pornography that humiliates and objectifies young women, including teens. It also promotes torture. I will be sending an email to executives at your company in addition to this demand for a refund and recantation on your part.
As a woman and a human being, I find it incredible and despicable that you would involve yourselves in such damaging activities. Don’t you realize that by enabling Kink you are directly contributing to a profound, persistent and escalating social problem – that you yourselves as individuals and as a company are (ir)responsible for encouraging a sick and dangerous disrespect of women?
Appalled isn’t a strong enough word to convey how I feel about your advertising choice. It’s so flagrant and egregious that I cannot continue in association with your company. Please remove me from your subscription list and refund me for the above Groupon immediately.
Most sincerely,
Mrs London Tyndale-Biscoe
[Here begins a message response from Groupon.]
Groupon Support
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 6:11 PM
To: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer service.
Hi London,
Thanks for your feedback. We certainly didn't intend to offend anyone.
We strive to offer interesting and exciting deals that will appeal to our diverse customer base. We've run deals with this specific business before, and while we realize it may not appeal to everyone, we've received positive customer feedback on past offers.
We thoroughly vet the businesses we feature, which is why we take these concerns seriously. We've found that the tour offered in this deal is historical and informational in nature and provides a unique look inside the landmark San Francisco Armory and its past.
If you'd still like me to unsubscribe you from our daily email list, please let me know and I'll take care of that right away.
Your feedback is extremely important to us and makes an impact in how we choose which businesses to work with in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to share your concerns with us, and please know that we value your opinion as a customer.
John T
Groupon Customer Support
[Here is London's response.]
From: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer service.
Dear John T,
I appreciate that you have replied swiftly. Yes, I do want you to unsubscribe me from the daily email list. Thank you.
I also again request that my Groupon #xxxx-xx be immediately refunded. Please do that and inform me by email. I will look for the money to be refunded to my credit card.
A few words about your and Groupon’s vain comment about not intending to offend anyone --
Have you ever noticed that human beings sometimes, too often, offend when we don’t intend it? Like the woman who cheats on her boyfriend or husband? In pursuing her goal, she doesn’t intend to offend him. The person who steals from your wallet or maybe embezzles Groupon company funds never intends to offend anyone. The man who abducts your son or daughter, or someone else’s, tortures them, sexually abuses them, and kills them probably never intends to offend anyone. Yet damage is done.
The words ‘offensive’ and ‘being offended’ are of late tossed about without much thought, as if taking offense were the core of every disputed matter. But it isn’t. The core of every matter is the matter – it isn’t whether we are or are not offended nor is it whether we have intended or not intended to give offense. The core of the matter here is the question whether supporting and motivating the production, sale and viewing of violent hardcore pornography that revels in and profits from the subjugation and torture of women is morally right or wrong. The answer to that question for me and for many others is that it is wrong and morally reprehensible. I can assure you that I’m only ‘offended’ secondarily, that is, as a response to the primary and preliminary understanding that what Kink is involved in is extremely harmful to others (and to themselves whether they are able to admit this or not), and that your legitimization and promulgation of what you refer to as their ‘interesting and exciting deal[ ]’ implicates yourselves individually and as a corporation in spreading that harm. For my own part, I would be offended at myself if I continued in a relationship with Groupon since I would knowingly be helping you and Kink to spread ‘the compost on the weeds’.
I don’t believe, as I’m sure thousands of other people don’t believe, that what Kink is doing with your aid can honestly be accounted for by saying, ‘it’s only a matter of taste’. Anything can be justified on this flimsiest of arguments. Preferring red to white wine or blue to red clothing or biking to hiking is a matter of taste. None of these relations carry any significant ethical component. But: stealing is just a matter of taste? (the thief simply having a taste for your things). Cheating your best friend is just a matter of taste? Adultery is just a matter of taste? Slavery is a matter of taste? Persuading women to act as victims of sexual predation, humiliation and torture, and inciting others to watch is just a matter of taste? Is murder a matter of taste? Of course it isn’t, and you know it. And you know why. It’s wrong. So is cheating someone out of their money, or out of their trust and peace of mind in the case of a best friend, or that of a wife or husband in adultery, or forcing someone weaker in mind or body on pain of threats, beatings, torture and death to do your personal bidding as in slavery. Helping someone who has fallen in the street, sharing your food with someone who is starving, loving your children, these are good things. You know this also.
So glibly defaulting to the ‘diversity in taste’ argument conveniently allows you to let your own genuine personal and collective knowledge of ethics in human relations fly out the window and leaves you to operate instead on the bankrupt assumption that there is no morality except subjective morality, no truth but subjective truth, and that every point of view is only an opinion. By this valueless token, the victim of murder is entitled to his opinion that murder is bad, while the murderer is entitled to his opinion that it is good – and each, victim and murderer, will surely be offended by the other’s opinion -- neither, of course, having intended this. But of course, this doesn’t fly. You would agree, I hope, that murder is bad – the persons involved are not in the right relationship to one another -- and I strongly suggest that if you sincerely make an effort to investigate its social ramifications, you will have to admit that making, viewing, and marketing violent hardcore pornography isn’t good for human relationships and isn’t good for the human community at large -- and your promotion of it stinks.
That’s all I have to say.
Sincerely,
London Tyndale-Biscoe
[Here begins Groupon's final response.]
From: Groupon Support
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:07 PM
To: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your cus... (ticket #xxxxxxx)
Hi London,
I understand your disappointment, which is why I've gone ahead and refunded your requested Groupon. The refund has gone back to your original form of payment, so you can expect to see it reflected on your statement within 10 business days.
I've also unsubscribed your email address, and you will stop receiving all Groupon promotional emails within 48 hours.
If you decide to join us again down the road, we'd be honored to have you back. In the meantime, please know that we take feedback like this very seriously, and I will absolutely make sure it gets in the right hands.
Kind regards and sincere apologies,
John T
Groupon Customer Support
[Here begins my comment.]
I am pleased that Groupon is making a refund and acknowledging taking feedback very seriously. But this blog post is only about one situation, my daughter's. Groupon is silent on any change in affiliation with Kink that will affect countless others.
I now renew my personal request. Join in helping provide Groupon with the moral incentive to cease and desist from participation in the tearing down of the moral fabric of American Society.
Contact Morality in Media to give them support and contact Groupon to register your moral outrage and your agreement with us.
Thank you.
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