Tensions Mount Over 'Misogynistic' Van Parked By Bed-Stuy School

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Regan Good has stayed away from her local grocery store for weeks, hoping to avoid an image of a half-naked woman with a gas tank door protruding from her behind.

"I just honestly don't want to go by it," said Good. "As a woman ... you feel really angry. You feel depressed that men still think this stuff."

The 'it' Good wants to avoid is a black van parked near Ideal Food Basket on the corner of Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Van Buren Street — half a block away from a Bed-Stuy pre-k and elementary school — covered with images of lingerie-clad women and promotions for an online magazine "Pluckit Vlog."

Good has launched a petition demanding the van move away from the corner, arguing the images are misogynist and send harmful messages to students on their way to P.S. 025 Eubie Blake.

But van owner William Norfort argues the images celebrate women's bodies and promote a serious, and often ignored topic: Men's health.

"Men, especially minority men, we don’t get check-ups, we don’t visit the doctor frequently," Norfort said, noting that the van is aimed at having men visit his online health magazine. "What better way to do that than [the photos]."

Warning: Sensitive imagery below.

Photos of the van show it does not include specific information about healthcare resources for men.

The van does have the words “Men’s Health” written on the side, above the words, “Toyz,” and social media hashtags promoting “PluckIt Blogazine,” an online website which does include articles on men’s health, as well as cars, boats, trucks, planes, food, travel and a “models” page users must pay to access.

Norfort hopes the van will serve someday as a mobile studio for photoshoots for content for his website, which puts out calendars and video slideshows.

Warning: Sensitive imagery below.

But for more than 200 people who've signed Good's online petition, the images speak for themselves.

“I have young children who I’m trying to raise as decent humans who respect women,” Lise Lava commented. “This is so offensive!"

Several local parents signed the petition because they don’t want their kids to walk by the van every day on their way to P.S. 025 Eubie Blake, which teaches students from Pre-K through fifth grade.

"My child should not have to pass these degrading images every day on his way to and from school," Grace Cho wrote in the petition comment section. "How do I teach him that all people deserve respect when he sees women depicted as objects, on such public display?"

It turns out"offensive," when it comes to state law, presents with very particular criteria.

New York bans public displays that include "offensive sexual material," which it defines as actual or simulated sexual contact, "sado-masochistic abuse" or nudity.

Nudity is also carefully defined to include "unclothed genitals, pubic area or buttocks, or of the female subject's unclothed or apparently unclothed breast."

Whether or not the positioning of a woman's near-naked body over a van gas tank meets these statutes remains unclear. Two attorneys, the local council member, state senator and NYPD did not reply to requests for comment on the legality or appropriateness of the van.

For many petitioners, the major problem is the van's location near a school, given the "misogynistic" or stereotypical views of women can be specifically harmful to young girls.

Norfort told Patch he understands the petitioners' concerns but does not plan to move the van. He previously had it parked on a quieter street corner, but moved it in front of the grocery store — which has surveillance cameras — after it was robbed, he said.

He contends it should be up to parents to prepare their kids to see adult images, as he must with his own 2-year-old daughter.

"A lot of children have access to TV, phones, social media — a lot worse things are on those devices than what is on the van," Norfort said.

Nofort said if his daughter ever asks about the images, he’ll tell her, "As an adult you have the right to do whatever you want ... this is an art form about how beautiful a woman can be."

The owner of the controversial van is not the only person taking some heat in the neighborhood.

Good says she was called a “Karen” and told the van is “none of her business” when she began putting up flyers for her petition. She admits she might have been "naive" to how complicated her role pushing the issue would be in the historically Black neighborhood.

"I can also see [how] a white woman walking around this neighborhood putting up these posters and calling into question the appropriateness of these images is problematic," Good said. "I was trying to do it for the women of the neighborhood. I certainly didn’t mean to insinuate to be a moral authority."

But Good, a professor at Pratt Institute, said she feels motivated to keep moving the conversation about the van forward because others who approached her shared her anger, including women of all races.

"I’m not trying to prescribe a sanitized neighborhood, period," Good said. "While there’s a lot of great protesting that goes on — signs, graffiti, all these wonderful posters — this is not that."

Her efforts to extend that discussion have even included a conversation with Norfort, who approached her while hanging flyers.

"We were like 'f--- you, f--- you,' Good said. "[But decided] let's talk like people."

Norfort confirmed the conversation “started out kind of rocky."

"She has the right to feel that way,” Norford told Patch. “She's not an enemy of mine."

“We shook hands at the end,” said Good. “And I was like, 'Please rethink this.'"