Cristoph B. sent in this image (found here) of a woman who was supposedly paid by Kodak to “assvertise” at a trade show by wearing Kodak panties and… (well, it’s not safe for work):

I was skeptical; this seemed like the type of thing that might be a hoax. Kodak is a well-established company, and I just didn’t think they’d do this type of novelty marketing. But I haven’t been able to find any stories about it being a hoax, and it was posted at Boing Boing. According to The Spunker, it was a trade show in Ukraine.

While I was reading the post about it at The Spunker, I clicked over to a post about a calendar from the company Euroset (a cell phone company). Euroset’s calendar, given out to important clients, is noteworthy because it features sexualized photos of some of its female managers. Here are some pages from the calendar (found here):

While both the Kodak panties and the calendar can obviously be used as examples of the use of women’s bodies in advertising, the Euroset calendar would be great for a discussion of women and sexualization in the workplace. It brings up some of the paradoxes women in the corporate world face; these women were all in management positions, but face a type of sexualization I’m willing to go out on a limb and bet that the male managers in the firm don’t. Does this translate into less respect for their abilities in the workplace? In what ways might these women benefit (career-wise or in some other way) from taking part? What are the downsides for them? Can we imagine a similar calendar with a company’s male employees?

Of course, an important aspect is how voluntary participation was. Some accounts I read said the women were “forced” to be in the calendar; others said posing for it was strictly voluntary. And apparently the calendar was proposed by a female PR manager. Does the fact that it was a female manger’s idea affect whether people see it as exploitative? I bet that at least some people would judge the calendar less harshly if it was proposed by a woman rather than a man, but it’s just a guess.

Thanks, Cristoph!

UPDATE: Dylan W. sent in a link to this story about a strip club in the UK that offers companies the chance to advertise on the dancers’ behinds. He also included a photo of a woman from Utah who agreed to have the web address of an online gambling site tattooed onto her forehead for $10,000:

She claims she is using the money to send her son to private school. Unless they’ve got some really cheap private schools up in Salt Lake City, I can’t imagine this will pay for more than a year, at the very most, but I dunno.

Thanks, Dylan!