The Role Of Sexuality In Advertising

How many advertisements have been made that overly sexualize women to sell a product? This happens more than it should. Often women are sexualized just to sell a product. This seems like an effective way, since thousands of products are being sold featuring women this way. Most of the time the product that is being advertised has nothing to do with the image itself. Food becomes sexualized giving it a different impact. Women are either made to feel guilty about eating or are encouraged to eat. Men and women begin to see women differently based on the ads they see. Women and men feel by eating the product themselves, they with feel the sexual tension the image is giving off. In Killing Us Softly Four by Jean Kilbourne, she states, “Not only are people objectified in ads, but products are sexualized. We’re encouraged to feel passion for our products rather than our partners. And people and products become interchangeable in the ads." Both images support this idea that women and food are sexualized in ads.

Advertisements are literally everywhere, from ad pop-ups on your computer to the billboards you can see driving down the road. The purpose of these advertisements are to sell a specific item to an audience. The audience being the consumers and the ads being products such consumers purchase, the advertisements try to persuade the viewers that they need that item and that they should buy their companies product. While Schneider alcoholic beverages attempt to sell their product to adults through their advertisements by using very suggestive advertisement method which sexualized alcohol. In addition to using ethos, pathos, and logos to draw in their audience. Lastly, how this sexualized imagery is effecting the world

If you were somewhat hip during the last few years, then you have seen an American Apparel ad. Most, if not all, American Apparel ads feature borderline nude women in extremely exposing poses. For example, one controversial ad is a full body picture of a skinny young woman wearing nothing but American Apparel socks. This theme of hypersexualizing women is very common in advertisements, and especially for products targeted toward men, such as cologne and beer. Many of these ads feature stereotypically attractive and hyper-fit women in little to no clothing bending over in suggestive ways have

Laypersons, Nonspecialist Police Officers, and Specialist Police Officers CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 40, No. 12, December, 2013, 1434–1448. DOI: 10.1177/0093854813494183

Today, every media consumer is ‘’exposed to sexual imagery in advertising. Sex’s use and misuse is constantly before everyone and elicit strong criticism’’ (Richmond & Hartman p.53). As anyone can notice, the use of sex in the media has been happening for several decades and the reason for it is simply because it works. Advertisements that are ‘’naturally sexy’’ tend to be remembered more often than ads that are not. Regarding this fact, the question arising is how ethical is it to use sex appeals in advertisements. In other words, should sex be used as a tool for advertisement? Advertising draws people in and them into buying things based on how the ads make them feel. It is not always fair to assume that everyone knows what the advertisers are doing. This paper will discuss whether sex sells by defining it at first, when and where sexual appeals are used in ads, who is the primary focus in advertising, and the ethical dilemma of using appeals in advertising. But to be more concise about the subject, this paper will be firstly looking at a case study.

Sexualization of females has always been a problem. Many of the commercials from the 60’s to the 2000’s depict women as nothing more than sexual beings to sell a product. We often see commercials that deal nothing with the topic of sex use it as a means of a way to sell products. In my presentation I used two videos one with Paris HIlton and the other with Scarlett Johannson. They each are advertising two well known companies one fast food restaurant and the other a well known appliance. In my essay I will explain how sexuality in media affects adolescents, the percentage between men and women being sexualized and the affect it has on young girls.

The use of sex in advertising as mentioned earlier is said to have boasted a lot company’s revenues, but it also has its negative side which has caused a lot of problems in societies around the world. The idea of using sex in advertising is a very smart way that advertisers use to gain attention of consumers, but it has it's negative effects like depicting women as sex objects, forcing sexual innuendos on children, causing body dissatisfaction among youths even adults and it also attracts negative backlash on the companies that use it. It can attract the wrong kind of attention and sometimes it won't lead to the company becoming a bigger and better brand.

Given the popularity and the exuberant price for a 30 second Super Bowl ad is priced over $4,000,000 (Stauffer, 2013), more and more companies are using racy commercials laced with sexual innuendoes. The use of super model type females trying to sell products to the average football fan aged 18-49 (Gilmartin, 2013), using a variety of themes from Sexual assault (Covert, 2013), to the cliché that women are crazy (Covert, 2013), to a sexual fantasy with a make out session with a Victoria’s secret model and a nerd (Taibi, 2013), to waitresses turning into strippers (Covert, 2013), the list goes on and on; however no matter how the commercial tries to differentiate itself from the other commercials In the same time slot, one thing Is a common denominator between all of them and that is sex.

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

The amount of thinking that went into the decision making towards what ad had the most sexualtiy intended compared to the simpler ad being the OLAY face care to the overly sexual Gigi Hadid ad for a barely noticeable fragrance. These aren’t even the most extreme in today’s media. The point of the matter is that women are just a man’s sexual objects, much like toys that society bends and molds to their standards. Especially in the most recent years with the addition of photoshop in advertisements and media. I have always been a little aware of the secual inuendos in media but this unit and project as a whole have brought it to a new light. I have seen more sexualization of a sandwich in media than i’d like to know. My awareness has definitely been awoken or so to

The use of sex in advertising may create unrealistic ideals for men regarding women, however, it is a powerful tool for selling products. Through the years advertisers have shown through their advertisements that sex does sell products. Especially when selling to the male viewers. Sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation, and its strength is biological and instinctive, the genetic imperative of reproduction (Taflinger). Sexual desire is an instinctive reaction in animals, and a person?s perception of a suitable mate is the basis (Taflinger). That perception is usually a set of criteria that the opposite sex must meet, and those that meet and exceed those criteria will provide the chance for

In today’s society, commercials, ads, and magazines all have one thing in common: sexuality. We are all bombarded my advertisements daily. Advertising has an influence on everyone one way or another. It influences my life by the products I purchase for myself or others, the way I look and being in the “know” of society itself. One visual ad that I have come across that stands out is a fragrance ad by Tom Ford. The designer, Tom Ford is from Texas and then started to create his own line called TOM FORD. He launched a print ad campaign for his fragrance in 2008, which featured two different photos of his fragrance bottle being held by nude women. This banned advertisement for their newest fragrance utilizes America’s dark obsession with what

Sex is everywhere you turn. Victoria’s Secret is notorious for their ads that plaster billboards and the sides of buildings, featuring scantily-clad women suggesting an obvious sexual air. The bags you receive at Abercrombie feature half-dressed models, often two of which may be kissing or touching one another. These sexual images are far too present in the every day lives of young children, much younger than what used to be acceptable. Aside from this moral questionability, ads such as these often contain images of unrealistic body types, which exploit insecurity to make consumers use their product, the result of which can be dangerous to mental and physical health. Finally, when I see ads like the one to the right, and rack my brain

I chose sex in advertising for my research topic because I do not know about it well, even though a lot of sexual images and texts in advertisements. When I was a little kid, I often surprised by ads with sexy woman. Even now, I sometimes have my eyes glued to such kinds of advertising. I wonder that there are some physiological reasons why people pay attention to sex images. Also, learning about sex in advertising is useful for my career because I want to work for an advertising company in the future. I infer that sex sells has both good and bad aspects and I can use it effectively by learning it accurately. If I use it effectively, we can make much money. However, we also take a risk by using sex in ads because

In today’s day and age where sexuality and the need to be thin has become prominent in both fashion and the advertising market, it is important to create product for everyone in mind. The purpose of Forces of Nature’s research is to determine if there is a market in producing clothing that is made with the everyday girl in mind.