Come See the Sadistic Side of Sears

50 Shades of Sears?

Department store pulls men's bondage gear from website after customer complaints. . . but women's leather lingerie is still available   

By Catherine Townsend/Daily Mail

Sears has pulled bondage gear from its website after an image of a man wearing a leather harness was widely circulated online. 

Some customers were shocked that the retail chain best known for auto parts and appliances featured erotic accessories on its Elegant Moments page. 

But many of the raciest items for men - including the leather collar with chains ($17.59) and the 4 Piece Adjustable Harness ($55.99) - have been removed from the website. Others were disappearing at a rapid rate at press time. 

The items were being sold through Sears's marketplace, which allows online shoppers to order online from additional vendors. 

The Marketplace has edited questionable items in the past: In 2012 the company took down a link to another Elegant moments lingerie set with a see-through pink mesh top.

'The terms on our Marketplace prohibit images from displaying nudity and see-through clothing. Most often, we see third party sellers blocking out the nudity in the images,' a Sears spokesperson explained at the time.

'We perform ad-hoc content audits to remove inappropriate items and also take customer feedback and react very quickly.'

It remains unclear why some of the men's items that don't technically show nudity such as the collars and leather and mesh shorts ($21.59) have been removed, while leather G-strings, corsets, and sexy costumes for women remain available.

Whatever happened to seeing the softer side of Sears? I guess getting softer means trading in a chainsaw for nipple clamps. Sears should probably take a look into revamping the entire Marketplace concept.

I’m sure there’s a time and place for purchasing S&M gear. I’m just betting its 2 a.m. from adamandeve.com or from that weird porno shop on the rough side of town, not at the more than century old retailed known for tools and lawn mowers. Of course I’m sure there are some S&M tools more powerful than anything they have in Hardware or Lawn & Garden.

It’s a good thing this was just limited to online merchandise. Imagine some poor old man stumbling into a Sears looking for a gallon of paint and a hedge trimmer and leaving head to toe in leather with a ball gag in his mouth. Just imagine if they sold pets. They’d be out of gerbils in a week.