Sex Doesn’t Sell — Exploitation Does
I’m sure that we’ve all heard that age-old saying — sex sells. And it is often taken to be the truth. Not by everyone, admittedly, but it very often is. However, when I look I don’t see sex — I see exploitation. I’ll outline why in this article.
When women in bra and knickers are used to sell products they aren’t selling sex, obviously. They are just…there. There to be looked at. There to be a prop. There to sell a dream — “hey! Buy this insert product here and you’ll have someone as attractive as me!” I’ve also noticed that there are very rarely any naked men in these adverts. Because of course there isn’t. And when there is he isn’t posited as something to own, unlike the women who are often depicted as something to possess, or to stare at, with no thought whatsoever as to their comfort. Underwear-clad women in adverts look vulnerable and submissive. Underwear-clad men look strong and in control. They are also very often, with few exceptions, there with their conventionally pretty, underwear-clad, submissive presumed partner. In other words, men aren’t there for women attracted to men to look at, however women are there to provide eye candy, in the most colloquial term, for men attracted to women to look at. Actually, I’ll go further and say that it’ straight men they want to attract. I mean, I’m pretty sure that they don’t have bisexual men in mind when they make their adverts… Anyway, as I said before, women are often used as props in adverts — they aren’t in control of the situation, instead the situation is in control of them. The Male Gaze is in full effect.
Women are also often shown with expensive objects, as if the message is buy this get someone as pretty as her! This is very Bernaysian as it presents a lifestyle to the viewers and suggests that, if they bought the product, they could attain it. Naturally, in these instances, it suggests that women are something that can be won through having the right possessions — never mind what they actually want! And, again, not much sex there. Connotations of it, yes. But not much sex. Exploitation, yes, but not much sex. But there are huge dollops of incredibly sexist thinking present. Not that much different, incidentally, from the adverts of old. It’s just less obvious to our eyes because we’ve become so accustomed to it, so don’t notice it and don’t see anything unusual with adverts. Were we to get rid of sexism from adverts we would likely look back in horror on what we allowed to be included in them.
Okay, maybe that’s a little cliche — but I’m willing to bet that many would be surprised at what many adverts were built around. Anyway, by offering implying that women will flock to men if they buy a product, or engage with something, the women themselves become products.
There also wasn’t any sex present when Ford had an advert with women stuffed into the back of a car, yet it it certainly holds sexual overtones. I|n this case, somewhat disturbing sexual overtones. Therefore, this is yet another case of sex being presumed to sell when…there isn’t any. Women being stuffed in the back of the car isn’t sexy (unless it’s consensual, of course) it’s disturbing and creepy. This advert was, obviously, deeply misjudged, but it again demonstrates my point — while sex is often presumed to sell, the car may have sold (and probably did!) it might not have been down to the advert. In fact, the advert was so disgusting that it probably put many people off buying the car. If sex sells, why did someone creature an advert where, let’s be honest, there is no sex? I point again to my earlier paragraph about there not being sex, just nudity. And, in this case, something incredibly creepy — because, honestly, I don’t need the mental image of being stuffed into the boot of a car — and I’ll wager many women don’t, either. Instead it terrifies me. Not very sexy… In fact, it’s really quite creepy that someone thought that it was a good advert to produce.
While sex could be said to sell products by bringing (hopefully) positive connotations to the consumer, it still focusses on straight white male pleasure (see the Male Gaze)rather than what women attracted to men would enjoy. Therefore, while it could be said that sex sells, it typically CAN only sell for men, not women attracted to men. Even if men do appear topless they aren’t presented in the same way as nearly-naked women. They aren’t sexualised for one thing. Instead they are often used to sell the product itself — e.g. underwear — while women are so frequently a sideshow that is unconnected to the product itself. Therefore, the near nudity doesn’t need to be there — it was just added for fun. Of course, I would argue that women advertising underwear aimed at them aren’t sexualised — at least, not as much as they are in other adverts. However, these adverts aren’t aimed at men, whereas even adverts pushing products aimed at multiple genders tend not to have nearly-nude men.
Therefore it actually seems like sex doesn’t sell, but objectification of women does. Shocker, right?
Explanations and Examples
Bernays was Freud’s nephew. He thought that, by attaching emotions to objects, people would me more likely to consume the products because they would want to feel those emotions. Thus is the same reasoning behind having celebrities endorse stuff and luxury lifestyles in advertising. They are just selling a product — they’re selling lifestyle. They’re saying — buy this and you’ll be like them! As I also mentioned, they attach emotions to a product. This can be seen with John Lewis’s Christmas averts where they inspire sadness or happiness (there’s no in-between, it seems!) in order to lure people through their doors. Eg: people think — “oh, that was a happy advert, I’ll visit them at Christmas because I enjoyed it — it made me smile. Thus, when they think of John Lewis they feel happy, so the two become linked in their minds.
The Male Gaze was theorised by Laura Mulvey and states that we view the media through the eyes of middle-class white straight men as they create it.
Lynx adverts used to be notorious for this — I don’t know if they still are as I haven’t seen one for a while.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15849142
Lynx-
https://terezapultarova.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/axe_caprio_wallpapers_1024x768_shower_lynx.jpg
Bernays —
http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 Gaze — http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Male_gaze
Male Gaze —
https://digiday.com/marketing/suitsupply-getting-slammed-social-media-sexist-ads/
Suit Supply-
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-02/24/12/enhanced/webdr06/original-28666-1456334389-14.png?downsize=800:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto
