My five-year-old son Liam loves going to the mall to ram around with other kids at the play place, where they have big, soft structures to climb around on and plenty of other kids around to chase around and freak-out with.

However, it's also located just a few yards from the local Victoria's Secret store and my wife and I have taken to shielding his eyes when we walk past because of the ridiculously suggestive photography that usually occupies the windows.

Now, I'm as red-blooded an American boy as you'll find - one who doesn't mind looking at pretty girls as much as the next guy - but I must admit, Victoria's Secret has gone a smidge over the top these days for an underwear store. My friend Jason Voiovich commented on this recently with a blog post called Victoria’s Secret: Too sexy for its own good?

The company’s core market - classic lingerie and sleepwear - forms the backbone of the business and the brand. Marketed primarily to women ages 24 to 44, the Victoria’s Secret products are purchased through its mall stores, its mail order catalogs, and its internet site (the catalog and online businesses, few know, set the standards for best-practices for the entire industry, not just clothing).

As adjuncts to the “classic” product lines, Victoria’s Secret markets fragrances and body care products, also through these same channels. The clothing line (jeans, tops, sweaters, and working professional clothing), however, is not sold through its stores (likely due to channel conflicts with its parent company - Limited Brands).

Over the last 10 years, the last five especially, Victoria’s Secret launched one of its most successful brands - Pink - aimed at a younger audience of girls and women aged 16 to 34. Primarily loungewear, the Pink brand is spunky, fun, and brightly colored. The brand has been so successful that the company has expanded several of its mall stores to include a separate “Pink” storefront.

But to Turney’s point, when you ask members of Victoria’s Secret’s core market what they think of the brand, they admitted (without prompting) that the brand has gotten a little too “uncomfortable” for their taste. Too racy. Too revealing. They lamented they needed to walk past all of the “sexy things” in the front of the store to reach the more conservative (yet still very feminine) sleepwear in the back of the store.

They are scared Victoria’s Secret is turning into Frederick’s of Hollywood.

What do you think? Has Victoria's Secret become too sexy for the mall or are they just expanding the market for their brand identity into faster-growing segments at the expense of a slower-growing core?

I for one won't let my daughters wear that stuff ... at least until they're 39 or so.