Gender Differences In American Advertisements

In American advertisements and entertainment, sex is everywhere. Women in revealing bikinis are on TV, shirtless men displaying six packs are on billboards, and couples in intimate poses take up glossy two-page spaces in magazines. This is by no means unintentional. Media moguls make calculated moves when inserting touches of sensuality and eroticism into their publications, for reasons wrapped into one simple yet popular phrase: sex sells. This idea then can reflect the opposite way in the eyes of their viewers, making them believe that if they buy, then they too will be more likely to receive sexual satisfaction like the ad models thanks to whatever goods they have purchased. It’s impossible to deny when viewing many of the media sources
Within the short eighteen seconds, two men begin contacting each other with implied interest in hooking up, one asking the other if he’s interested and the other requesting private photographs. The ad culminates with the two men intimately kissing and removing each other’s clothing in a dark room, before flashing briefly to one model’s face and finally overlaying with the logo for Calvin Klein jeans. Captured all in dark lighting and mostly in above-the-waist shots, it’s nearly impossible to see the jeans either wear, placing the focus far more heavily on their sensual interactions. While the ad is rather unique for depicting two men together as their ideal, the basic theme of the commercial is still very much tried and true; with distinct imagery Calvin Klein jeans can be tied to sexual satisfaction, and if you buy them, you just might experience it too, regardless of how little they had to do with the depicted scene
For those items, there’s an entirely new onslaught of seductive ads to be found. The commercial for Sean John’s fragrance 3AM is a prime example of how sexual imagery can be used to make products appeal to consumers. Marketed as a unisex fragrance, the video stars company head Sean “Diddy” Combs and girlfriend Cassie Ventura. Scenes jump between the perspectives of both and vary between the two fighting and embracing, but ultimately the advert reaches unexpected heights of eroticism from televised productions as Ventura’s bare breasts are shown and the two clearly imitate intercourse while partially nude. The ad concludes with an image of the 3AM bottle and its logo, wrapping all sexual imagery and its potential for buyers into the product. With such overt images and so few chaste scenes in comparison, the commercial relies almost wholeheartedly on the idea that the chance of sexual satisfaction can sell its