A Twitter storm blew up in Chile over a business association's Christmas gift to the economy minister: an inflatable sex doll "to stimulate the economy." The X-rated doll was a gift from the Association of Manufacturing and Services Exporters (Asexma) to Economy Minister Luis Felipe Cespedes at its annual dinner.
The association, which gathers the chief executives of some of Chile's leading companies, traditionally gives offbeat gifts to cabinet members at its Christmas dinner. But this one did not go down well with Cespedes's boss, Michelle Bachelet, Chile's first woman president. "What happened at the Asexma dinner cannot be tolerated," she wrote on Twitter. Other Chileans joined in slamming the gift as distasteful in a country troubled by high rates of gender violence.
Cespedes, who is working to do just that in the face of a sharp slowdown, was captured on camera accepting the gift with a wide smile. But he apologized at a press conference a day later.
