by Jerry Dorsey

Created on: January 13, 2007   Last Updated: April 14, 2007

Advertising is a difficult business, for three reasons.
1. It must communicate a complex message quickly.
2. It must do so in a way that imitates other communications from the advertiser
3. It must do so in a way that will stand out from its competition.

Item number 1 is difficult to accomplish without comparisons and associations, given the short time the advertiser has to make an impression. Sexuality in advertising has been used primarily to lengthen that short amount of time that the audience is willing to give their attention to the advertiser.

Sexual stimulation of every type, including the presentation of provocative images, has been offered as a very simple type of service since the earliest economies, not unlike drug use, as the sexual stimulation triggers chemical reactions in the human brain that the user finds pleasurable. Magazines, websites, and television channels offering variations on this "service" have proven to be lucrative businesses for their operators.

In essence, the use of sexuality in advertising then represents an odd kind of promotional offer. The proposal: If you agree to watch this sales pitch, you will see sexually stimulating images that you might normally have to invest time or money to obtain...for free. If the stimulation provided through the promotion is strong enough, customers will take advantage of it as often as possible.

The growing pervasiveness of advertising then translates into a growing pervasiveness of sexuality. This ease of access to sexual stimulation leads the advertiser back to item number 3 above. In order to stand out, the value that the advertiser offers as part of his "promotional offer" must increase. In terms of the evolution of this competition, that means increasingly intense stimulation.

This continuing escalation makes it increasingly difficult for messages that come without similarly compelling "promotional offers" to be heard. This convinces more communicators to use sexuality in this way, so that their message might compete with others.

As these competitions go on, seemingly without end, community leaders can be tempted (or instructed by their constituents) to involve themselves and set boundaries on the expression of sexuality. Meanwhile, the advertisers privately hope that these leaders will get involved, ensuring that their advertisements will be shown on television news, become popularized on the Internet, and be written about in magazines. It is a particularly lucrative for an advertiser to be seen as "too hot". Meanwhile, the often well-intentioned objectors take the success of the advertiser as a personal affront, and cite the situation as proof that sexuality in advertising is lowering human values.

Neither the existence of these kinds of materials, nor the success of controversial advertisers indicate that sexuality in advertising has an affect on human values. If anything, it should be taken as proof of the community's understanding that controversy is a reward to an advertiser. If a community chooses to let free will and the free market dictate which advertisers should be rewarded and which should not, that is not an indictment of their values, but of the mistakes that they have observed and learned from.

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