Why France Might Block Shein Completely

France threatens Shine with a ban over childlike sex dolls. Now this is. This is yucky. I won't kid you. France's consumer watchdog says it found sex dolls with a childlike appearance for sale on Shine's website and has referred the case to prosecutors. Economy Minister Roland Leskier warned he would move to block Shine from the French market if it happens again. This is provided for by law, he said, noting the government can prohibit access in cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking or child pornographic materials. Regulators issued a formal notice demanding urgent corrective measure. Under French law, distributing child pornographic material online can bring up to seven years in prison and a €100,000 fine. The warning lands days before Shine opens a permanent Paris store inside the BHV Marseille Marais. Amid an online petition with more than 100,000 signatures, the watchdog also flagged other pornographic products sold without affected age filters. Shine, founded in China and now based in Singapore, has not come in. Okay, what's the real message here? Shine, you got to clean up your act. The idea of selling really, really cheap, chintzy stuff made by slave laborer, okay, people will buy that. But when you put a child's face on a sex doll, you crossed a line. I'm happy to see the French government has said, no, we don't want you here. Other countries should follow suit. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now, I don't want to be a hypocrite here. Shine does make. There's some products in life you want a T shirt to go to one Halloween party, for example, and you don't think you'll ever use it again. Quite often any consumer, those in my own family will say, yeah, I want the cheapest product and you buy something from Shine. And full disclosure, Shine products have been purchased and are in my household. So I'm not holier than thou, but come on, sex dolls with faces of children. Who thought that up? Who thought that was a good idea? And then what executive said, you know what? This came up, it's in development, it's here, we're selling some. Let's roll it out to the whole world and put it in English speaking markets and French speaking markets. At some point you have to use some restraints. And you know, part of capitalism is free market. You can do what you want, essentially, but you do have to follow laws beyond that. There are subtleties of respecting people's culture. It might not be illegal to say I hate all and then insert some racial slur and put that across a suit jacket or an expensive hoodie. It might not be illegal to do that, but it's probably not a good idea to use racial slurs and have on your homepage, I hate. And let's say for example, N word, not a good idea to do that. Not a good idea to have children's faces on sex dolls. Now not saying you have to make. I say this like I'm advising people to make sex dolls. I'm not advising people to manufacture sex dolls. If you are manufacturing sex dolls, okay, have a woman's face, have a man's face. It doesn't have to be an 80 year old and have to be someone old like me, but it shouldn't look like a child. And I understand you go, well, tj, it's just plastic, it's just not a real person. Okay? But it certainly seems like it is encouraging feelings that could lead someone to acts of pedophilia. And that's the last thing we need more of in the United States or Europe or any continent in the world. Let's look at some more facts here. The penalties in France include seven years of prison and $100,000 dollars for online distribution. And this regards their promoting child pornographic serials. Now if it's a sex doll and the sex doll is anatomically correct and built for something and it clearly looks like a child, it would seem like it would be illegal. It would fit their definitions of being illegal. Watchdogs say the listings in kids left little doubt that this was child pornographic in nature. I haven't seen it. Frankly, I don't want to see it. If you have to check this out for yourself, that's up to you. There's a 24 hour rule. Remove clearly illegal content or face ISP blocks and search delistings. Now I'm assuming they've done that. I'm not going to search for it. I don't, I don't want to come back and have to explain to anyone. Tj, why were you searching for pornograph for pornographic sex dolls that look like children? I don't even want to look for it and I'm not going to. Let's assume they did the right thing just for their own financial concerns of not wanting to get fined and wanting to get banned. China is increasingly getting a lot of attention. I'm not going to tell you it's always wrong to buy products manufactured less expensively in other countries. I can't honestly tell you. The whole premise of capitalism is that certain countries can do certain things, things better than others and everyone should be able to sell in a free market way so that everyone benefits. Because most workers in America, they don't really want to work in a factory. Whether it's making a sex doll or anything else, it's not fun work. The concept of comparative advantage. Different countries at different stages of their, their evolution in the capitalistic system do certain things better than others at differing cost scales. And before you get holier than that, I want you to go through your closet right now. Look at the label of everything you have. Go in your kitchen and look at the label of everything. If you're an American and you don't have at least 30% made in China, I think you're not really looking at the labels carefully.