So what makes the advertisements based on sex so lucrative? Obviously, the first reason could be that sex = 'pleasure'. So it is pleasurable for men and women to watch and sense the passion and pleasurable instincts that can be brought to the screen by simple suggestive moods, poses, and details. But, I reckon that is the only reason. Because look at babies. We all tend to coo and awee at babies, and we cannot help but get attracted towards the 'cuteness' factor. Isn't that a pleasurable instinct?? I can fairly agree that not all of us are crazy about babies but yes most of us cannot ignore them either. So, apart from pleasure there is something more that these advertisements provide.
Now let us look at the demographics of the audience. The majority of the buyers are still women despite the fact that most of the sex selling ads have semi-nude ladies in them. Now men have a lucrative factor that makes them a worthy buyer, they like sex, and they want sex. When they see sexy ladies, they want to know what that sexy lady wants from them and fantasize about having them. When it comes to women, it gets a little complicated. Women seldom give importance to what they want. They are sometimes more worried about what others want from them. I am not generalizing, but I speak for myself. I would love to be selfish to my needs, but not at the cost of knowing what others may need from me. When women see and notice the semi-nude ladies, they also tend to feel a responsibility in knowing what men want, and subsequently what men would look for in a woman like her.
So, I may be bold as to say that men are not the only ones who fantasize about 'women', but to an extent women fantasize about other women too. I guess women also want to know what men want and how they can be the next subject of attraction. So the formula for selling sex as a factor of 'want and need' is a success with both men and women. And so my next question would be how did a 'taboo' subject like sex become such a big mass media selling factor?
Our society for ages have not been addressing sex in the public until recently. I am not saying we were prudent before, we still have age old 'kama-sutra' and such pornographic tales and escapades happening for centuries. But, correct me if I am wrong, pornography is not equivalent to sex. Pornography tends to devalue the act of sex by turning it to a pure physical pleasure product. While ads still do not show or portray pornography in them, they are taking the sexual nuances and interweaving them in a passionate and attractive package that makes us interested. Even back then many such hush-hush topics were involving sex and the affairs of our neighbors or kith and kin. But, they remained hush-hush and never really became a public topic to discuss such as politics, movies, or cars. I think for many ages we just took it for granted that sex is purely meant for reproduction and therefore any pleasure or passion derived from it is just an 'add-on'. When society started to realize that passion and pleasure could sometimes over-ride the need to reproduce, it sprouted to an increase in need for prostitutes and affairs.
So, if my understanding is correct, as civilization progressed we began to understand that comfort, luxury and pleasure are not just subject to our lifestyle, but they can actually become objects of desire that we may covet, buy, or achieve in due course of time. So everyone became a master of his own pleasures, and the person attaining pleasures became pleasurable in the eyes of others as well. If you saw someone driving a Lexus, or BMW, and if you owned a Toyota Camry, you could be eyeing the old lady with the BMW convertible and think 'damn, u lucky old.." Similarly when men start having affairs with many women, the other men had only two choices: either join the clan of men and enjoy the pleasure, or become a mere spectator and enjoy hearing and seeing it, as a mode of indirect pleasure. Women also started to have similar thoughts by this time, because I am sure they must also have wondered what makes those prostitutes so lucrative, and also to understand that men's needs have changed and therefore they should start becoming more assertive about their looks. So I guess the rules of attraction changed just then..and since being prostitute was looked down upon, even though now it is considered fashion, it is still a taboo. Preferring to be attractive became a prerogative and therefore they started including the tactics of the new rules of the sex game, while still maintaining their integrity of being an upstanding citizen of society.
When media became prevalent, it was not long before people making ads started catching up on to the trend and realizing that if prostitutes could make money out of their act, then they could take the tactics and make money with just subtle hints and still remain safe because they would have merely scraped the surface. Take Axe for example. They base their soap on the pure instinct about passion and attraction. No one cares if they eventually get women because of the soap, but they dwell on the possibilities after looking at the ad and so the trend catches on. Take the example of perfumes, women saying fragnances are important to the look and feel of their body, gives every woman the want and need to want to possess those powers of attraction. Take Haagen Dazs icecream.. they portray icecream as an aphrodisiac for passion, enjoy a sexy night with icecream.. is a lucrative offer.. because it is pleasure to the eyes as well our taste buds. I mean.. the subtlety of this subject gave the media clan a powerful hand in approaching taboo subjects without getting scorned upon by the society. Even now sex and adult jokes are easily the most popular and considered most hilarious.
On the whole, the only thing that makes me wonder is.. when we as people are finding a subject taboo and yet still we are tempted to approach the same subject again and again in every walk of our life; it tends to make me believe that we are no different than babies. When you tell a baby oooh dont touch that.. the baby will get distracted for a short while but still come back and try to touch it again and again. It defies logic.. but that's how our human nature is. Why the media is using sex as a selling factor when it is an awkward subject to talk about in public, is an enigma..and it defies logic.. but I guess only our brains can tell us why we are the way we are.
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