Does Sex Sell?

As a current Business Marketing student and longtime feminist, it can be aggravating at times to watch the portrayal of sex and gender roles in mainstream media. From what I am taught, sex is a foolproof way to market your product. But I am tired of the simple-minded gimmicks advertisers use, because in reality the depiction of sex in advertising harmfully represents women more than men. To understand sex in media, we need to understand what it means to “sell sex,” and does it actually work?

In the 1970s, when the Women’s Rights movement was revitalized, the media and advertisers struggled to keep up. Mainstream media still had deep rooted traditional ideas of how women should be portrayed, and advertisers did not know how to face this new culture. Because of this, advertisers created stereotypes of women, which we still see portrayed today. Media was not used to the idea of an equal relation between men and women, so for men to compensate for this illusion of powerlessness, women were shown as a sexual play toy, something non-threatening.

No women are off limits to the sexualization of our media, anyone from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to Sara Palin have encountered this pressure. Statistics have proven the over-sexualization of women in media, time and time again. In 2013, USC Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism, observed the top 100 films from 2012. Women, compared to men, were four times more likely to wear hyper sexual clothing in these films, and about three times likely to be partially naked.

These companies justify their actions with a simple phrase, “sex sells,” and to a degree they are correct. University of London, in 2013, studied to see if sexual advertisements had a stronger effect on the memory of consumers compared to nonsexual advertisements. They found that both men and women were more likely to remember sexual advertisement better than nonsexual advertisements.

Looking at an image by image bases of advertising only answers half the question. Sex is a large subject in our society. Mainstream media still views sex and anything sexual as a taboo topic. Media rarely address the subject head on, and who’s to blame them? Sex is not really a dinner table topic.

Due to a lack of normalcy within our culture, public interest and curiosity around sex grows. So we enjoy sexual jokes, pictures, and videos to compensate. It allows us to take note of the large presence of sex in society, without actually having to confront the meaning. Companies abuse this trick in marketing, by subtly touching this off-limits subject. Sex is used to create a shock value, showing us something we do not hear people talking about every day.

However, sex nowadays is used so frequently in advertisements, that it no longer has its original scandalous effect. Instead, it upholds false truths about women and stereotypes, which directly impact our media and society.

Sex in the media is no longer just about sex, it’s about women. This is because our culture views anything sexual in relation to a women’s body. Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rule, however most advertisers still sink to portray women by sexually objectifying her figure, and disassociating her opinions from her body.

Selling sex also contributes to a national crutch, preventing real creative progression in our mainstream media. Rather than creating a unique and unprejudiced way of selling the product, advertisers use sex as a cop-out, knowing it will shock us enough to possibly make an impression. If our media and advertisers are going to continue selling bodies, then it needs to go both ways. Sell a man’s body too; do not just sell the false truth of perfection that is alluded to women’s body’s.

So statistically yes, sex does sell, but at what cost? Selling women’s hypersexualized image? These types of actions and attitudes of sex only maintain current misconceptions, and perpetuate stereotypes.