Saskia does damage control

You've got to hand it to former Banks Girl Saskia Griffith. If most people had to live down the fallout from her chocolate faux pas they would be in bed for days curled up in foetal position. Instead, she attempted to put her side of the story in yesterday's Sunday Sun. She has guts, I have to give her that.

However, Saskia still has a lot to learn about damage control. The whole idea is to try to spin the situation to your advantage, not to make yourself look more foolish than you did in the first place. I'll quote directly from the article:

1. "I feel the need to clarify my position...I was shocked to see in the article ... that I had previously been warned 'that such actions were not in keeping with the image the brewery would want to project for its product line'. I wish to categorically state that this statement is completely untrue and that at no other time during my association with Banks have I ever been cautioned by the management of Banks nor has there been any discussion about my actions or any promotions in which I was involved," she said.

So, Banks Breweries is to blame for not including in the contract that their Calendar Girls shouldn't appear topless in public? I guess they better get their lawyers to work on that loophole.

2. Calling Banks' actions hypocritical, Saskia noted that photographs of previous Banks Calendar Girl winners, featured on the Banks website (up until a few days ago) "were more explicit and revealing than anything I have done in any promotion in which I have participated". She also accused some members of the public of such hypocrisy.

I haven't seen all of the Banks posters ever made, but I sure never saw one featuring a topless pin-up with chocolate smeared on her. As for us being hypocritical, that's exactly my point. The same men (and women) who were drooling over Saskia at the party or while looking at the pictures on the internet would not have been happy at all if she was their wife, girlfriend, sister or daughter.

3. "It lasted all of 15 minutes because my body heat would've gotten to the chocolate. It was supposed to be artistic; a picture of a chocolate mannequin."

I'm glad she cleared that up. I thought girlfriend had been drugged but she was just being "artistic". Excuse me...

4. I think the setting and event were appropriate for that because it was Crop-Over. It wasn't like it was December and we decided to do something like that," she argued.

I guess that says a lot about what Crop Over has come to. Maybe the NCF can work a similar chocolate affair into next year's festival calendar.

5. After the termination of her contract, she was paid all monies due to her which, she thought, was a clear sign that she wasn't in the wrong.

Sweetheart, it's standard to pay out persons when you terminate them before their contract is up....

6. She said Power X Four was known for doing things "outside of the box" and, on previous occasions, did promotions where girls were also topless and wore body paint.

Okay, I see the pattern here. Bad luck then for Saskia she was the one plastered all over the internet.

There's more but you get the picture. She should have just gone with the "I was drunk outa my mind and didn't know what I was doing" story. My beef isn't only with Saskia anyway, but with the way women are objectified in general. Women's bodies are used to sell every product imaginable, and it's only going to get worse as the world becomes more and more sexual.

All I want is for women not to sell themselves short and to realise that their real power lies between their ears and not between their you know where. But, who am I kidding. If Saskia was in the US she would have gotten a book deal and modelling contract outa this....

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