SEX! Now I’ve got your attention

**I bet you started reading this article because it has sex in the headline. Such is the pulling power of that word, with all its saucy, scandalous and stimulating connotations.**

And advertisers would certainly seem to agree. Sex is everywhere these days. Whilst I commend the progress associated with responsible sexual discussion, I can’t help but think it’s somewhat debasing and obvious to use sex to sell practically everything. Even Milicano coffee.

When it comes to perfume or M&S lingerie adverts, the implicit intimacy that accompanies the product and thus the sexual content of the adverts are justified, or at the very least expected.

However, the other day I was perusing through Facebook when I came across a rather disturbing ad. A consumer site called ‘Flubit’, that helps customers find better deals, was promoting reading season. With winter encroaching, what better way to spend your time than drinking tea and catching up with Austen? However, the picture they chose to represent this intellectual and relatively innocent activity was of a lady curled up on the sofa reading a book, placed in her crotch no less, with a cheeky bit of thigh flashing.

I’m not so prudish to think that baring your body is morally reprehensible, but this particular image seemed somewhat unnecessary considering it is winter and her attire was otherwise cosy and demure. And (unless she was reading 50 Shades) the sexual connotations felt entirely out of place.

Advertising agencies claim that sexual imagery is merely grabbing the viewer’s attention, rather than selling the product. It is a term known as ‘borrowed interest’, whereby attraction is generated from the consumer by something unrelated to the brand, or ‘borrowed’. For example, sex has nothing to do with coffee (unless you’re using it to stay awake for a marathon karma sutra session). But by beginning the advert with two people getting it on in the kitchen, Milicano are tapping into a hardwired emotional response, drawing the consumer’s eyes to the screen and to the product.

Still, this is also to suggest that human beings are primitive, instinct-driven individuals who only respond to sexual stimulation. Whilst I’m not advocating a sexless society in which we all live by the ideals of Sandra Dee, I do implore advertising executives to treat us with more respect and not merely as automatons in a consumer-driven society. We don’t buy their products with the sole purpose of wanting to get laid, after all. We’re not cast members of American Pie.

What’s more, the attention grabbing mechanism is usually a scantily clad female body. Lynx adverts are a prolific example, where women in bikinis or angel outfits are at the beck and call of a well-deodorised man. Their bodies are mere instigators for desire, or for a man to look at the TV and think, ‘Phwoar! If I use Lynx I will totes bag a banging babe like that.’ Or something along those lines.

It’s no surprise that you hear chastisement for the over-sexualisation of children and young teenagers when it seemingly permeates every aspect of media consumption.

Some adverts using sex do so cleverly and manage to be thought-provoking rather than just grotesque. I’m thinking of a BMW ad where a provocatively positioned female with her swathes of tumbling blonde curls and a ‘come get me’ facial expression is accompanied by the tagline, ‘You know you’re not the first… But do you really care?’ A little forthright indeed, but it is a pointed and effective use of sex appeal that encourages the consumer to think differently about second-hand cars. It’s still a blatant use of sex to advertise a brand whose connection with the activity is tenuous at best, but it’s less explicit and gratuitous than some of the ones that hit our screens.

A time has to come when we say enough is enough. Sex in advertising isn’t really about morality or feminism or corrupting young minds: it’s simply a tired, derivative formula. Give me an advert that inspires and speaks to the heart or – even better – the mind, rather than the loins and then maybe I’ll consider the product.