by April Wilson

Created on: January 22, 2010   Last Updated: January 24, 2010

Asking if sex will always be a part of advertising is like asking if food will always be a part of life. Human beings are sexual creatures. In America we live in a society that is a bizarre cross between Puritanical and Beavis and Butthead. and perhaps the Beavis and Butthead mentality is merely a reaction of the Puritanical.

We've been brought up to believe sex is dirty, obscene, and wrong. Human beings stifle their urges more than any other mammal and not only based on consent, but propriety and social restrictions placed on them by their church, their community, their friends, their parents, etc. In a culture this squeamish about sex, it's got to come out somewhere.

Advertising is a natural place for sex to come out. Advertising is all about "what we want." And we all know that we all want sex.  We might not all want a Rolex. We might not all want a particular pair of shoes. We might not all want that bottle of suntan lotion, but if you slap someone sexy on the cover and we think of sex... well we all want sex.  If the guy wearing the rolex has some pretty eye candy on his arm, somehow our brain short circuits and we think we want the Rolex.

Now maybe we do want the Rolex. Or maybe we just want the sex. If we're male and straight we want the female eye candy. If we're female and straight, we want to "be" the eye candy. If we can't have either or be the eye candy right this second, the next best thing is to own the same thing the people in those positions own.

There is a part of our brain known as the Lizard brain that does not truly understand the difference in a real event and an imagined event. In this part of the brain real memories play happily alongside novels, movies, and advertising. While we may be able to consciously sit and think it out and realize that we will not become automatically sexy if we own this or that product, the part of our brain that saw it and thought of it as a real experience protests.

We also can look to all the rich and powerful people who have a Rolex (or whatever other product) who are somehow more sexually appealing to the opposite sex. In truth, the reason they are more sexually appealing is a lot more complicated than just owning one, or even a collection of advertised products. Nevertheless, it's the simple answer, so we go for it on some level.

Because of this easy "in" with the human mind in advertising, sex will always be a part of advertising.

Learn more about this author, April Wilson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.