sex

We’re written before about how the male gaze shapes how “sexy” is marketed and sold. Specifically, when sex is used to sell, we usually see (presumably straight) men’s sexual subjectivity and the sexual objectification of women.   That is, we are all encouraged to see with a straight male gaze and thus, we are presented with a female object of desire. Three choice posts on the topic can be found here, here, and here.

While in New Orleans (again) in July, I attended some of the festivities associated with Tale of the Cocktail. One of them was a cocktail expo with the theme “Seven Deadly Sins.” Sponsored by Cabana Cachaca rum, Lust was personified this way:

Presumably lust is not a feeling exclusive to straight men, yet the Lust booth featured only women dancing.  Because of the primacy of the male gaze, what is believed to be sexy to straight men gets defined as “sexy” for everyone.  The print ad they had displayed features a woman from the waist down, naked:

Thought Experiment:  If nearly naked men had been dancing in those columns, do you think the audience would have thought “hot men for the women!” or “how gay!”?   I think many, if not most, would have thought “how gay!”   A female gaze that validates women’s sexual subjectivity and the sexual objectification of men is simply less accessible for both women and men.   I think if men were dancing in the columns, an objectifying male gaze would still be at play, except this time the gaze would have been aimed at men.

Gay men are often stereotyped as obsessed with fashion, physical fitness, and their overall appearance (i.e., feminine).  The idea that both gay men and women are subject to the male gaze explains a lot about why.

NEW! Amanda C. sent in this ad for a sex party in Chicago.  Like the instance above, “sex” is represented by a woman.  Amanda writes:

If a man’s legs were portrayed, would that mean that the party isn’t “sexy” or that it’s about gay sex? Just another example of how the heterosexual male gaze is universalized.

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

Dmitriy sent us a link to the Candies Foundation, a non-profit organization that wants teenage girls to avoid pregnancy by abstaining from sex.  So they’re going to make abstinence as sexy as possible!  The slogan: “I’m SEXY enough… to keep you waiting”:

I noticed also that the message is aimed exclusively at girls. “You” is implicitly a guy.

The responsibility for keeping teens abstinent and for preventing teen pregnancy, then, falls solely on girls.

Dmitriy also points out that the campaign promotes abstinence, but not the use of birth control. He adds: “we do not combat auto accidents by not driving. we prevent them through driving and safety ed.”

See also this post featuring sweatpants that say “true love waits” across the ass.

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

Chris, at Public Criminology, points to an excellent example of how institutional rules can have unintended and counterproductive consequences. In this case, the rule applies to people convicted of committing sex offenses against children. Such offenders, once released from prison, are disallowed from living with 2,500 feet of schools, parks, churches, or any place where children might congregate.

So far so good.

But it turns out that, in Miami, that translates into everywhere. That is, everywhere is within 2,500 feet of one of these places. The yellow dots in this still the places near which sex offenders are not allowed to live:

Parole officers are at a loss and have instructed released offenders to live under a causeway in the middle of Biscayne Bay (see the red arrow). They even check on them every morning to make sure they are there.

These sex offenders, then, are forced into homelessness by rules designed to protect children.

The video below reports on the situation. In addition to the human rights concerns, there is a concern that the living conditions may actually increase the chances of recidivism.  Living under a bridge: (1) is arguably even less enjoyable than prison, (2) smothers hope of ever reintegrating into society, and (3) is not really conducive to self-improvement.

See also our other posts on rules that apply to released sex offenders here and here.

UPDATE: Comments thread closed.

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

Comic-Con ended yesterday, so I’m afraid you’ve already missed out on a wonderful opportunity. I don’t mean attending Comic-Con itself. I’m referring to a contest that S. and Mordicai K. told us about, the Sin to Win contest from video game company EA (image from Kotaku; also see the discussion at ars technica):

The text about the “steps” of the contest:

1. Commit acts of lust. Take photos with us or any booth babe. 2. Prove it. [Gives Twitter and email address]. 3. Repeat. Find more babes for more chances to win.

Brian Crecente at Kotaku says,

Despite the tone of the contest, the rules state that judge’s reserve the right to disqualify any submission that are “inappropriate for any reason, including without limitation, for depicting or mentioning sex, violence, drugs, alcohol and/or inappropriate language.”

Um…ok…Mixed messages, anyone?

As S. pointed out in the email to us, the “You” figure in the instruction is almost certainly meant to be male (though it theoretically could be a short-hair female), and the prize is specifically a woman–not a date with an attractive person. So we see the reinforcement of the presumption that “gamer = heterosexual male.” S. also says,

You can take photos of “us” (presumably EA employees or possibly developers) instead of or in addition to “booth babes”, but you cannot apparently win dinner with one of “us” — only with “two hot girls.”

So the possible prize isn’t to maybe hang out with some of the people who maybe create or market games, because apparently, who’d want to do that? Or, perhaps, what developer/EA employee wants to spend an evening being forced to hang out with some random contest winner?

For other examples of women being offered as (less explicit) rewards to men, see this post about Tag, a Dell Computer ad, and an Air Conditioning Technical Institute van. I was going to post links to posts about the presumption that gamers are male, but there were so many, it’s easier just to tell you just to go to the “More” tag and then search for “video games” or “video games gender.”

We often talk about things being gendered or racialized on this blog, but we haven’t talked much about how race is gendered and gender racialized.  In a previous post, I wrote:

According to American cultural stereotypes, black people, both men and women, are more masculine than white people. Black men are seen as, somehow, more masculine than white men: they are, stereotypically, more aggressive, more violent, larger, more sexual, and more athletic. Black women, too, as seen as more masculine than white women: they are louder, bossier, more opinionated and, like men, more sexual and more athletic.

Conversely, Asian people, both men and women, are often stereotyped as more feminine than white people.  Asian men are seen as small and less muscular than white men; Asian women are seen as more passive and deferential than white women.

Interracial marriage rates bear out this asymmetry: black women are less likely to marry white men than vice versa and Asian men are less likely to  marry white women than vice versa (see here and here).

The idea, specifically, that Asian women are more passive and deferential than white women, has been used to explain white men’s fetish for Asian women, Western men’s sex tourism in Asian countries, and Western men’s use of Asian mail-order bride services.   Some of these men, it is argued, want a subordinate partner and they find it difficult to meet a white/American woman who is willing to play that role.  You can actually hear a male sex tourist make this argument in this post.

I introduce all of these ideas in order to frame a screenshot sent in by Megan S.  The screenshot is of the front page of a website (antimisandry.com) devoted to fighting misandry, or the “hatred of males as a sex.”  The website purports to “cur[e] feminist indoctrination.”  You’ll see that it is also advertising a dating site specializing in matching up white men with Chinese women:

So… I’m going to guess that, in this case, “anti-misandry” isn’t so much about encouraging women to stop hating men as it is about telling men they are entitled to a woman who will defer to them.

Either that or… unfortunate random ad placement.

Megan also thought this post on men choosing fictional female characters as lovers was related; you might also check out our post on the documentary Guys and Dolls about men who have relationships with expensive and “functional” (if you know what I mean) life-size dolls.

UPDATE: The comments thread on this post is closed.  I strongly suggest reading them, especially if you think that this post was reaching. Very interesting.

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

Usually when we get submissions about ejaculation imagery we add them to our existing post on the topic. But I felt this was worth its own post. The Huffington Post has a link to this lovely Dutch commercial:

Often when we see ejaculation imagery, it’s at least somewhat subtle, or anyway not so blatant–the fluid isn’t white, or it comes out of a bottle instead of appearing to so clearly be associated with, or near, an actual penis.

In another example of ejaculation imagery, Dangger and Dmitriy both sent in a supposed German Sprite ad making the rounds…but for the record, AdFreak says it’s fake. [I also did quite a bit of googling about the Dutch ad, just to be safe, but didn’t find anything indicating it’s not real.]

UPDATE: Reader Jody B. says, “The Dutch commercial is real; I lived in Amsterdam from almost 4 years and saw it on daytime television.” Thanks for letting us know!

Michelle Braun allegedly runs a very large prostitution ring and may be making a deal with the authorities in which she reveals her clients.  The clip from KTLA news below reveals our bizarre, confused relationship with sexuality.  In the clip, reporters suggest that her celebrity clients are likely “shaking in their boots” and “sweating bullets,” have a sort of gleeful disapproval of the whole thing, and yet can’t stop making suggestive remarks: it’s a “juicy” story, Braun is “cozying up to feds,” has a “naughty list” that may be “exposed,” she’s going to tell “all of her dirty little secrets” (that one is used twice).  Of course, you could also just measure the hypocrisy by the on-site reporter’s self-satisfied laugh.

Most of the good stuff is in the first 40 seconds, the remainder is just embarrassingly bad reporting:

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

Readers’ minds think alike, sometimes, and the changing advertising campaign for the “empire building” video game Evony caught the attention of fds, torenc, Assaf N., Elisabeth R., Sabriel, Nicole O., and Liz B. (images found at Gawker and Coding Horror, and hope I didn’t miss anyone who sent it in). Online ads for the game started out like this:

Then they added a woman with a little boob showing:

In case people weren’t noticing the cleavage, the ad evolved into one where the boobs are pointed out a bit more explicitly:

Moving on to a slightly more realistic look:

Christina W. sent us one with a woman actively disrobing and saying “Come play, my Lord”:

Mick H. found a close-up version similar to the one above:

D.R.S. sent us another:

And then they realized they could just dispense with all subtlety and get to the important part:

If that didn’t work, why not straight up near-nudity.  Dan J. found this one here:

This ad submitted by both Alex B. and Kim H. seems to be taking the advertising to a whole new level.  No longer content with boobs, they seem to be moving towards implied female masturbation:

Wtfcats sent this one in:

NEW (Dec. ’09)! Tom R. sent in this next one with a nice “we’re lesbian, but just for you” flair.  Using the term “discreetly”  to imply porn, it reads “join the fun”:

NEW (Jan. ’10)! Thanks to Chris M., Tinpantithesis, and Ryan, we now know that there is an Evony ad that doesn’t say anything about the game at all.  You simply see this image and are invited to click on her boobs, butt, or lips to turn her into the “ideal woman”:

When you click, you are taken to this site, which asks you to sign up for the game because “obvious[ly],” “it makes you feel like King!”

Or sometimes apparently you get this view:

Presumably some players will be disappointed that there isn’t a female “queen” to be saved or oogled in the game at all–the women were invented only for the purpose of adding boobs to the ads. Jeff A. from Coding Horror says,

Evony, thanks for showing us what it means to take advertising on the internet to the absolute rock bottom … then dig a sub-basement under that, and keep on digging until you reach the white-hot molten core of the Earth. I’ve always wondered what that would be like. I guess now I know.

ALSO NEW (Dec. ’09)! Apparently the Evony ads have become such a thing that other games are referencing them to advertise themselves.  Timm F. sent along the ad below making fun of the Evony ads.  It reads, “She is actually in our game, my lord”: