A while ago I posted a set of ads for engagement rings, asking what those ads had to sell you in order to also sell you a diamond ring (see the post here).  Then Miguel sent us the ad below, writing: “This ad is almost too honest.”  Indeed.  Notice that it also supposes that it is the quality of the ring, and not the quality of the groom, that makes a woman happy on the day she says “yes” to marriage.

The relationship between clear skin and sexuality has an interesting history.  In an effort to establish dermatology as a medical subspeciality, aspiring dermatologists strategically linked, in the popular imagination, young women’s acne and lasciviousness.  Doctors argued that acne was a sign of sexual desire or God forbid, masturbation or worse.  Parents worried, then, that this would make their daughters unacceptable marriage partners (at a time when that was disasterous for women) and so would pay a great deal of money to doctors who would promise to cure their daughters of this scarlet dot.  Thus, dermatology was born.

Later, of course, acne became seen as a boy’s issue… But since we had different expectations for boys (in terms of both beauty and sexuality), acne was seen as a “stage” to be endured instead of a “problem” to be cured.  This is more or less like it was when I was a kid in the 1980s.

But today, of course, clear skin is linked to sexual attractiveness, especially for women (thanks, in part, to our friend evolutionary psychology).  And, with dermatologists at their beck and call, upper class teenagers (and adults) no longer have to endure bad skin. Thus, science, sex and skin care seem like natural bed fellows.  Consider this ad:

It’s a subtle threat: “Why not wake up in great skin.” Why would we care?  Who is laying next to you?  Does he know what you look like without make-up?  Without beer goggles?  Without make-up and beer goggles!? And what happens if he finds you disgusting in the bright light of morning?  (This, of course, is a very effective marketing tool because sexual attractiveness is linked to happiness. There is a price to pay for not finding a mate and, we are told over and over and over, that price is very high.)

I also see in the ad a perpetuation of the medicalization of sexual desirability (whether that be “purity” or “beauty”). The “3-step skin care” and “consultation” is a subtle medicalizing and scientizing of the make-up industry.  Lots of make-up companies use the notion of “science” to market their product (i.e., “Prescriptives”) and many of them link this with what is “natural” as well (i.e., Aveda).

Thanks to Jason for sending along the image!

Andrea G. sent this Swiss billboard in after posting about it on her blog:

In her post, she said,

It seems to be related to the the UEFA08 European Soccer Championship which is being hosted here in Switzerland this month. My off-the-cuff translation of “Frauen an den Ball” was “women on the ball”…But when I actually looked closer, I realized that “an” is being used in the accusative, which (in German) implies motion or movement from one place to another rather than fixed location, so the translation is closer to “women coming to the ball”. It turns out if you go to the website advertised, you can download a brochure (pdf) which includes several similar images and a several page summary of the rules of soccer (“das kleine ABC der Fussballregeln” = “the small ABCs of football rules”) apparently targeted towards women to bring them up to speed on the game so they can enjoy the games too. The intro text, which I can’t entirely translate, discusses surprising your man with your knowledge of football so you can talk with him (rather than avoiding the topic as in years past). It certainly seems targeted towards enhancing his pleasure of the games by having an enthusiastic female at his side (rather than a party-pooper who doesn’t care about the games).

Thanks for the post and your encouraging comments, Andrea!

Daniel F. (who has a blog here) sent us this Temptation cookie ad from Mexico, which plays on the idea that men fear independent, strong women:

Daniel’s translation:

Host: Gentlemen, what we feared has happened. You have the new Mexican woman; she is more independent and gives more importance to what she wants.
First man: But, does she cool our beers?
Host: No, never again. And that’s not all. She also wants us to take our children to the pediatrician.
Second man: What’s that?
Host: Pediatrician is the doctor for kids.
Second man: No, the other thing, “children.”
Host: Children are the little people who call us dad.
Third man: And what is that she has in her hand?
Host: This, my friends, is the new Temptation cookie, because the new Mexican woman has her pleasures without guilt and, what’s worse, she doesn’t share.
Woman: Gentlemen, I’m leaving. I have things to do.
Narrator: There’s a new woman and she has new cookies.

The ad also connects sex and food and, in fact, replaces sexual pleasure (and men) with food, a theme Jean Kilbourne mentions in “Killing Us Softly 3”–that women are encouraged to use food to replace sex or console themselves when they have romantic troubles.

It’s also interesting that the ad plays on the idea of old-fashioned Mexican men who expect women to serve them.

Thanks, Daniel!

The other day I came upon this fashion spread in a magazine:

I’m not sure which magazine–I want to say Lucky, but I’m not certain. I just scanned in part of it–I cut out a few things that weren’t that interesting so I could get it in a single scan.

Anyway, I noticed it’s called “Ethnic,” and I started thinking about that label, what makes these “ethnic,” and the choice of that word to describe fashion. The most common element to the collection is animal prints–zebra, leopard, snakeskin, croc, peacock feathers. There were a couple of things that I believe were supposed to be recognizable as “African” prints. I guess those brown shorts are “ethnic” because of the material they’re made from.

But why do we call these fashions “ethnic”? Why not “global”? Or “nature,” since the main themes seem to be animal prints and natural fibers? Or “international”? Why do animal prints, feathers, and grass fibers = ethnic?

It made me think about the way that the things that certain groups do or have go unmarked–so here, there is a category of fashion that is “ethnic,” while apparently all other clothing is ethnicity-less. When I carry a woven bag or wear a shirt with tropical-looking leaves on it, I’m being ethnic, but if I put that purse down and pick up a blue leather one, or change into a shirt with a maple leaf on it, I’d stop being ethnic and go back to being…well, presumably plain-old white, the non-ethnic, non-marked category.

I just thought this might be interesting for a discussion about race and which groups are marked as having a race or ethnicity and which ones (in the U.S., primarily whites) are treated as though they do not have a race/ethnicity and thus aren’t relevant to discussions about racial issues. Or maybe when talking about race/ethnicity as a marketing tool, as something you can put on and take off at will.

Yesterday, one of my favorite blogs, Sociological Images, picked apart amputee alt model Viktoria’s appearance in Bizarre Magazine.

What makes Viktoria “bizarre”? Is it her amputated leg? Is it the fact that she has an amputated leg and is still incredibly sexy? Or is it that she has an amputated leg and still considers herself a sexual person? Is this empowering? And to who? Surely the disabled are desexualized in this country, so it’s nice to see that challenged even, I suppose, in a magazine about weirdos. And yet, I suspect her sexuality is acceptable, fetishizable, only because she conforms to expectations of feminine beauty. In the big scheme of things, does she reproduce the standard of beauty, unattainable for most women, that crushes women’s self-esteem and sense of self-worth? And will disabled women, most of whom (like most non-disabled women) could never dream of being so beautiful, actually look at her and be able to identify? Or will this just draw attention to another way in which they don’t match up?

Now really, I think that SocImages went a little overboard with Viktoria (especially when they dismissed her comments about sexuality as “standard porn star talk”). Maybe it’s because I know her little better than they do, but I think that they oversimplify the genuine place that she comes from in choosing to be a model. However, they do bring up an important discussion that’s been nagging me for some time. What is an alternative model, and what is an alt model’s role in visual culture? In my life, at various points, I came up with 3 different definitions. I believe in each of them, and I have a problem with each of them as well. Here they are below. Which one resonates with you? Do you think it’s a combination of the three below, or something completely different? Opinions, please.

1. The model who challenges society’s notions of beauty.

Examples:

Kenyan-born trans model Biko Beauttah, photographed by Bode Helm.
Velvet D’Amour, photography credit unavailable.

I love these models, but the issue here is that, while they appear to push the boundaries of beauty in some direction, they usually wind up brutally reinforcing another traditional notion in the process. For example, trans models make us rethink gender/beauty, but with their self-presentation they usually reinforce the ideal of a sleek, hairless feminine figure, thus fueling the hair-removal industry. In fact, epilator-manufacturer Philips Norelco has already found a way to to capitalize on this to great effect – just watch this ad. And large models like Velvet D’Amour and skinny-by-comparison but still-considered-plus-size recent ANTM winner Whitney Thompson help to redefine weight in modeling, but what makes them “legitimately beautiful” in the eyes of the mainstream world is their “correct” bone structure, their blond hair. Without some “redeeming quality” of this sort, the world doesn’t recognize them as models, and wouldn’t even give them a shot at making a difference. Mainstream media often presents them as beautiful “in spite of,” not “because of.” While their individual messages are empowering (I love Velvet’s interviews), I don’t find our culture’s use of these models empowering at all.

2. The hottie with strange hair/tattoos/piercings/latex.

Examples:

Mosh, photographed by Vance.
Scar13, photograhed by Nadya Lev.

Like it or not, it’s a valid definition – arguably the most widely-embraced one at that. This idea is epitomized by the Suicide Girls motto: “redefining beauty, one hot, naked chick at a time.” Underneath all the hair dye and black eyeliner, the ideal remains the same: symmetrical faces, clear skin and slim figures with a slightly above-average degree of variation as compared to mainstream modeling. Alterna-porn sites and alt modeling agencies such as Nocturnal Models helped cement this concept, but the biggest reinforcement came from self-proclaimed “alt photographers” and “alt models,” in whom they chose to include and exclude as they built up their online “spheres of influence.” This definition doesn’t make me happy now, though I had no problem with it at 21, when all I did was go clubbing and take pictures that reminded me of how I felt when I was dressed-up on the dance floor. When I realized that my own photography was reinforcing the same standards of beauty that make it difficult for women to have a healthy self-image, I took a step back.

3. The self-made persona.

Examples:

Feisty Diva wearing a hairpiece she created, photographed by Nadya Lev.
Anachronaut, photographed by Nadya Lev.

Another definition of alt model is someone who completely reinvents themselves from head to toe. This could be someone you’d never otherwise notice on the street, yet through inventive styling, self-applied makeup, self-styled clothing and hair, they create a whole new persona for themselves. The ultimate example of this is Mana, who goes from being a middle-aged man to a gothic Loli. These people make up their own beauty, owning their look from head to toe for the purpose of expressing an artistic ideal, proving a political point, etc. But are are they really “models,” or artists who allow you to take their portrait? It’s the most positive concept to me, but is it a valid definition of “model”?

So there you have it. Three definitions, some of which conflict with each other. And still, even after writing all of this out, I’m not sure if I’m even satisfied with my own personal definition, which draws on all three. Something’s bothering me. Something’s missing. Anyone have any idea?

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Nadya Lev, a photographer, blogs for the Coilhouse.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Vesko J. sent in several images from “Bee Movie,” the cartoon with Jerry Seinfeld as the voice of the main bee character, Barry. He says:

Female bee workers exist in the movie, but are hardly visible (unless sexual presence is needed.) They can be seen only for a few seconds in the distant background and don’t have any lines of dialogue (as opposed to random male bee workers, who are clearly visible and have lines of dialogue).

Even the bees, that pollinate the flowers, are male. They are called “pollenjocks” and all the female bees fall for these strong, muscular, brave guys.

These are the pollenjocks. In case you didn’t know, it’s actually female bees who collect pollen.

The pollenjocks are big, muscular male figures who tower over the females, who, as far as I can tell, could be called pollengroupies. They aren’t really individuals with personalities; they exist as background to show how awesome the pollenjocks are. On the other hand, the female characters that are treated as individuals tend to be in the home, such as Barry’s mom. Barry’s love interest is not a female bee but a human female, a florist.

Now, I get it. It’s a kids’ movie, and there’s going to be a lot of anthropomorphizing and such. But how animals are anthropomorphized tells us a lot about our social assumptions and what we’re comfortable with. There’s no reason the worker bees’ sex has to be changed, except that it makes more “sense” to us that the hard-working providers would be male. The choices to make the males the center of the story, to make them bigger than the females, and to portray female bees as fawning groupies desperate for male attention tells us an awful lot about the gender stories we tell ourselves about humans, and that they’re important enough to us that even children’s movies have to recreate those stories, no matter how much fiddling with reality it takes. And even though this is an animated children’s movie about bees that talk, flirt, and wear clothes, I bet an awful lot of people will think the gender hierarchy in the movie is fairly accurate.

Thanks, Vesko!

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

I don’t have an image for this post. What I have is a quote from Bill Napoli, a South Dakota state senator. He doesn’t believe that bills banning abortion should have an exception in cases of rape, because if the woman “really” deserved to get one, she could get it under the health-of-the-mother exception. Here is a direct quote:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

I came upon part of this quote in issue #40 of Bitch magazine (p. 17), but I found the full quote here (scroll down a little past halfway).

What’s interesting to me here isn’t about abortion per se, but the implication of who would and wouldn’t “really” suffer if they were impregnated from a rape. Apparently if you aren’t a virgin or religious, or ARE a virgin but weren’t necessarily planning on staying that way until marriage, then being raped and getting pregnant just wouldn’t be as traumatic as it would to “nice” girls.

It’s also creepy how we often like to think in rather fine detail about the ways good little virgins can be violated. I mean, he could have just said “she was raped,” but no, he decides to make it a bit more graphic. And how bad is “as bad as you can possibly make it”? Is there some measuring stick for how traumatizing different violations are, so you can be sure the girl has suffered enough to qualify as a deserving victim?

It reminds me of an article I read about the myth of the black rapist and the virginal white victim in the post-Reconstruction South (sorry, I don’t remember the article); the author said that detailed stories about how animalistic, savage black men had ravaged delicate white women served as a form of folk porn–people repeated the stories over and over, embellishing as they went. Telling rape stories provided a socially sanctioned outlet for people to talk about sex even in “nice” society, since you were only doing it to warn others of the danger, of course.

So even though there’s no image, I thought the quote might spark some interesting classroom discussion, either about abortion or about sexuality, victimization, and the enduring idea of the deserving and undeserving rape survivor. Or, hell, even a discussion of the social construction of porn–I mean, if you took Napoli’s exact words and put them in a different context and didn’t tell people he was a senator discussing a proposed bill, I bet a lot of people would think it was obscene but interpret it very differently since he was just talking about a hypothetical situation while discussing serious matters such as the law.