Martial Arts Exec Offers Bizarre Defense For Nipply Photoshoot

The marital arts gear company Manto angered fans when it tweeted a picture of “Two girls fighting over a Manto Tshirt!” and exposing one woman’s nipple in the process. But never fear — the company’s owner has a helpful mathematical explanation.

The picture (NSFW version here) sparked enough outrage that Manto posted an apology of sorts on its Facebook page, writing that “we had no creative control over the photoshoot” and “we have for years been sponsoring (also with cash, which not many other brands do for women competitors) multiple female athletes at both amateur and professional levels, and we will continue to do so.” A number of fans chimed in with their support — one Michael Otero helpfully pointed out that “People especially women need to just relax! The women who were offended were probably gay women who like women anyway but yet felt threatened.” Then Manto owner Alberto Marchetti decided to weigh in:

I wouldn’t have apologized, the photo shoot is not intended for women, it’s for men.
Men don’t need to apologize because they like sexy women! It’s the 21st century! If women’s skin offends u too bad for you!

Later, he added this fascinating mansplanation:

I think a lot of the women who posted here made what at a glance appeared like valid statements, but at a closer look they are making a simple but crucial mistake: they are fighting against nature itself!
Women are sex objects to men, just as men are sex objects to women.
That’s the nature of the game, and we must thank the Great Architect for that, or none of us will be here now!

Women/Men are definitely more than that, but when it comes to 1+1 and simple essence of a human being the attraction towards the other sex is one of the strongest impulses next to hunger and fear of death.

In my opinion women are portrayed in the media the way they want to be portrayed. There are publications that talk about successful business women just as there are ones that talk about the sex appeal women have on men, but then again how many women do you see buying Business Week at the news stand? They have a choice, no one is forcing them, $5 in their pockets, but which magazine will they buy to read on the plane?
Remember, media is a reflection of a societies’ desires, not vice versa.

This didn’t sit right with some women in the MMA community. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) blogger Georgette Oden had a particularly cogent response:

I’m neither gay nor felt threatened by (other) attractive women — not that it matters. Note we’re not complaining about hot girls, nudity, porn or the like — the problem is the derogatory message. Why do women grapplers need to be sexualized? Why can’t they/we be appreciated for being badasses instead of T&A grabasses? BJJ is a great way for women/men to learn self defense. Why muddy the waters with softcore?

Why indeed? Well, you know, because 1+1. Great Architect. Nature. We contacted Manto to see if Marchetti would like to clarify his comments, and we received this response from company spokesman Michal Mucha:

Thank you for contacting us regarding the “controversial” photoshoot that we don’t find that controversial at all- after 5 minutes research you will find that ALL (yes, all of them) fight wear companies are using “sexy” semi-naked models in their PR (ads, hostesses at the booths and events etc) and most of men’s magazines (playboy, maxim, fhm,men’s health, ufc magazine etc etc) are producing similar photoshoots very often. Again- please remember that the photoshoot was not organized by our company- we have just provided gear and space.

Alberto Marchetti is MANTO distributor in the US. He didn’t have prior knowledge and wasn’t in any way involved in the photoshoot that took place in Europe, and he actually only found out about it once it was published in the magazine. In the comments he wrote regarding the photoshoot he was only representing himself not the brand MANTO, just like many other male and female commentators on our facebook page. You know our brand’s opinion on this case from the explanation we have posted.

We’d still love to hear Marchetti walk us through that math — we’ve contacted him directly via Facebook but have yet to receive a response.