Clintons has removed a birthday card from its shelves after it was branded “vile” and “sexist”.
The card shows a bear lying on its back with its legs open accompanied by the text: “After a few Birthday drinks she was up for pretty much anything!”
It was removed from stores after a customer complained about its content, labelling the card "disgusting".
Lucy Dunne shared a picture of it on Twitter and wrote: “Happy Birthday to any woman who ‘deigns’ to have a drink on their birthday. Found this in my local card shop.”
Another twitter user commented on the post with: “Oh god, that is SO VILE.”
Clintons responded on Twitter, saying: “We sincerely apologise for any offence caused."
Ms Dunne, who is the deputy editor of The Pool – an online news site aimed at women, asked the retailer to stop selling the offending item and Clintons later responded: “We have received confirmation from our buying team that all stores will remove this card from sale tomorrow.”
But Tim Fairs, VP of marketing for Clintons, told the Standard that it was important to put the incident "into perspective" and argued that humour on cards can be "a polarising issue”.
“I think we have absolutely done the right thing in this instance by taking it off the shelves but, to put it into context, many of our customers would not find that card offensive and would find it quite funny," he said.
“It is a balance – and we have had many posts from people supporting the range so to say that all customers are offended by the card is not true.
"We try to be progessive and we want to offer our customers a broad selection of cards to choose from.”
