Search results for sex in advertising

Over the past few months, a number of readers have sent in examples of college-related advertising with a distinctly sexual theme.  There’s something interesting here. College pursuit, preparation, and achievement are being conflated with sexual prowess (the size of one’s dick, no less).  I suppose it was never was really about smarts.  Still, the overt conflation of (masculine) sexual superiority with academic achievement seems new to me. Am I wrong?

Scott M. and Ed A-N. sent in which penis size is used as a proxy for preparedness for the LSAT:

Stephanie A. sent in this ad for MyEdu, a college management site (whatever that is) that makes an obvious reference to Viagra (the little blue pill that makes for not-so-little erections):

Last but not least, Becky E. and Monica Y. sent in this facebook ad encouraging women to apply to a school loan by suggesting that very-sexy-ladies do the same:

See also our post: using sex to sell the most unlikely things (like organ donation!).

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.

Camille S. sent along a characteristic example of advertising for kids’ toys.  From KMart, the catalog specifies very different ideas for boys versus girls:

In contrast to the KMart advertising, Shannon H. sent a link to the advertising at Bazoongi. Their website, featuring slumber bags and play structures, is both multiracial and breaks down gender stereotypes. Notice that the boys and girls are both modeling boy-ish (blue, sciency) bags and girl-ish (pink, pony, butterfly) bags:

And this “dollhouse,” for example, shows mixed-sex play:

As does this “superhero hut”:

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.

An anonymous frequent reader sent in this Calvin Klein jeans ad that has been removed from billboards in Australia after the Advertising Standards Bureau banned its display on the grounds that it implies sexual assault. I’m putting it after the jump because it might be triggering for some people.

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Anita Sarkeesian, at Feminist Frequency, starts from the beginning.  How is contemporary advertising to children gendered today?  And why does it matter?  With a special discussion of girls and technology.  Enjoy:

(Transcript after the jump.)

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Angela Zhang sent in a Heineken commercial that helpfully illustrates the common depiction of sex and dating as a game or hunt, and alcohol as a tool in that hunt. In the commercial, men are predators in a sexual “jungle,” and attractive women are their “prey.” The true champion in this hunt will not just manage to get his prey — he’ll get her to “surrender” to him voluntarily:

It’s not the first time Heineken has presented itself as a useful tool for your dating life. Also check out this video on women in beer ads. Of course, other times beer ads conflate women’s bodies with beer itself. Or liquor as the response to the loss of patriarchal power. And hey, guys, if you fail in your hunt, don’t worry — it turns out alcohol is better than relationships with women anyway!

Dan S. alerted us to an image, purportedly of an article from the May 13, 1955, episode of Housekeeping Monthly. In it there is a photo of a woman bending over an oven with a list of tips for being a good wife, such as “a good wife always knows her place.” We’ve gotten this image before and never posted on it, much like the list on “How to Be a Good Wife,” attributed around the web to a “1950s home economics textbook.”

So why haven’t we posted the image before? Because it’s a fake. According to Snopes, the list was circulating widely on its own long before it suddenly appeared with the damning image…which is a completely unrelated image from a cover of John Bull magazine (not Housekeeping Monthly) that appeared in 1957, not 1955. Notice the text along the upper right corner of the image–it says “Advertising Archives.” According to Snopes, no one has ever turned up the economics textbook the “How to Be a Good Wife” list supposedly comes from, either.

So what gives? Why do these hoax 1950s-era images/lists keep appearing? I think Snopes makes an interesting case:

It has become fashionable to portray outdated societal behaviors and attitudes — ones we now consider desperately wrongheaded — to be worse than they really were as a way of making a point about how much we’ve improved. When we despair over the human condition and feel the need for a little pat on the back, a few startling comparisons between us modern enlightened folks and those terrible neanderthals of yesteryear give us that. We go away from such readings a bit proud of how we’ve pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and with our halos a bit more brightly burnished.

The juxtaposition of wonderful modernity with a tawdry past also serves to reinforce the ‘rightness’ of current societal stances by  making any other positions appear ludicrous. It reminds folks of the importance of holding on to these newer ways of thinking and to caution them against falling back into older patterns which may be more comfortable but less socially desirable. Such reinforcement works on the principle that if you won’t do a good thing just for its own sake, you’ll surely do it to avoid being laughed at and looked down upon by your peers.

A typical vessel for this sort of comparison is the fabricated or misrepresented bit of text from the “olden days,” some document that purportedly demonstrates how our ancestors endured difficult lives amidst people who once held truly despicable beliefs.

Of course, as the Snopes article goes on to discuss, all kinds of very sexist stuff existed in the ’50s, and there were home-ec textbooks, magazines, etc., that included suggestions along the lines of those listed above.

Given that, it’s not shocking that when we see images of this sort, they immediately seem authentic, and get re-posted around the web despite the sketchy aspects of their origin stories. It’s not like we’ve never posted anything on Soc Images that we later figured out was a hoax (we also get things that we hope, desperately, are hoaxes but turn out to be real).

So there’s a truth behind the general gist of these types of lists, but many of the images themselves are fakes, created to make fun of our hopelessly, and hilariously, sexist past. And given how many real examples of sexist propaganda you could find from the 1950s, it’s worth pondering we find so many fake ones, and how, for some people, they may function to delegitimate concerns about gender inequality or sexism today, because come on, ladies — look how much better we have it than our grandmas did!

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

A clothing-optional resort, Paradise Lakes in Land O’Lakes, is sponsoring a “g-string pageant.” It is advertising its event with the following ad:

In response, the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) has suspended the resort’s membership. They claim that the contest “sexualized the nudist experience.” Instead, the AANR promotes “social, family nude recreation” (story here, via).

What a fantastic example of the different ways in which we can interpret nudity.

See also this post and the thoughtful commentary it inspired.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

That’s the refrain anyway.

But whose sex is sold?  And to who?   If it was simply that sex sold, we’d see men and women equally sexually objectified in popular culture.  Instead, we see, primarily, women sold to (presumably heterosexual) men.  So what are we selling, exactly, if not “sex”   We’re selling men’s sexual subjectivity and women as a sex object.  That is, the idea that men’s desires are centrally important and meaningful, and women’s are not (because women are the object to men’s subjectivity).

That women’s object status and men’s subjectivity is sold to women in women’s magazines (for example, Cosmo and Glamour always feature scantily clad women on the cover) in no way undermines the idea that men’s sexual subjectivity is being sold.  It’s just that it’s being sold to all of us.

For example, if this ad was selling Tango with sex, they’d both end up naked in the fourth frame, no?

The new ad spots for M&Ms also illustrate this nicely. m&ms have been anthropomorphized in advertising for some time. There is only one female m&m and she is, by no accident, the green M&M. If you remember from elementary school, green is for horny. That, also, is no accident.

So male M&Ms come in multiple colors, flavors, shapes, and personalities, but female M&Ms are just sex objects.

In the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue this year, M&Ms went with the theme (found here):

The ad campaign extended beyond Sports Illustrated:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDoJNymbU1Q[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubChW7SLhKE[/youtube]

To sum, if it was simply “sex sells,” we’d see an even pattern of sexualization. But we don’t. More often than not, it is women who are sexualized. What is being sold, really, isn’t sex, but the legitimation and indulgence of (supposedly heterosexual) men’s sexual desires.

Kirsti M. alerted us to an M&M advertising campaign in Australia, where you could vote for your favorite color. All but one of the M&Ms are depicted as males (again, the female is Miss Green).

Here is a screenshot of the page for Red, a satirical take on a Marxist revolutionary:

Some highlights from the text:

Favorite quotes: “The revolution is now!”

Favorite books: “100 Steps to World Domination”

Weight: “Perfect for my shell”

A poster:

Here is a screenshot of the page for Miss Green (notice the others aren’t Mr. Blue or Mr. Red; only the female M&M has a title):

Highlights from the text:

Miss Green, working the polls.

About me: I may have a pretty hard shell, but I assure you I’m sweet on the inside.

Favorite quotes: “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.”

Favorite books: “How to Work the Polls”

Interests: Right now I’m focusing all my attention on the top position.

Campaign policy: All beaches to be nude beaches.

Age: Let’s just say I’m experienced.

A poster:

So again we see the sexualization of the female M&M (she’s “experienced,” focusing on the “top position,” she’s “working the polls” while wrapping her go-go-boot-clad legs around a tree in the manner of a stripper on a stripper pole, her arms and legs are much longer and thinner than the other M&Ms’ are).

In this vintage ad (1970s?), it is clear that it is his “plans” for her that are being appealed to:

NEW! These ads for hearing aids are apparently aimed at men only:

Other great examples include these posts with ads promoting organ donation, an air conditioning technical school, selling pasta, vegetarianism, aviation, cars, war, travel, dentistry, food, more food, houses, and mortgages.  (To see the reverse dynamic, click here and here.)

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.