Do ads that use sex to sell their products degrade women? – Part 15
Advertisements are not degrading to woman because the ladies that we see in sexually-explicit mediums choose to look the way that their contract states. All over the world beauty is sought. Most people would like to look attractive to other people and when they see an ad. that depicts a model of beauty it might not match the way they see themselves in the mirror. Usually if a person feels degraded by something it means that they are offended. Beauty is not offensive and thus it is used to make money by placing a sexy image to a particular product. The intention of these marketing companies to attract attention to their product by using any legal means available. The woman of these advertisements are compensated according to the agreement of their contract and if they where degraded they would not have signed the document and the sex-appeal would not be published or placed on television.
If I where to launch an ad. campaign and my marketing team told me that more money would be made if we hired an attractive lady or man then I would be willing to contract for their representation. The intention of putting this hypothetical team together would be for the sole purpose of procuring more credits in the bank not to harm anyone. There is nothing degrading about receiving a check for your looks: in fact it is a complement in my opinion. The human body is a thing of beauty and there is not an ethical reason why we shouldn’t promote it as such. If you feel degraded because some one has hired a pretty model to sell any product then you most likely are offended by what you see in the mirror and not on T.V. or posters. It is a scapegoat to feel degraded by an advertisement.
These companies are intentionally tring to make money not an issue with woman. If you truly are offended by the human body then you might want to think about not being human. However I do not believe that there is surgery for species-reassignment-surgery: just kidding. Seriously, if sex is your problem with civilization and the way it operates then you might not want to promote procreation because we need sex to make more babies. There is nothing degrading about giving another person a desire to make-love, so way not sell a product in the process. It is very inefficient to complain about what is seen on T.V. because you have the liberty of turning it off. The companies also have the liberty of selling any product within the confines of the law that they so choose and the buyer will be turned on to that product if they desire.
How the media is altering our perception of beauty – Part 4
Beauty should be subjective; it should exist in the eye of the beholder and nowhere else. If this was not the case then very few people would find partners. To a degree it is up to the individual what they perceive as beautiful however the fashion industry together with the weekly glossies are edging closer and closer to producing a yard stick for attractiveness.
Subjective beauty of course exists, but in today’s society, who is brave enough to give their own (outrageous) perspective.
Fashion has existed probably as long has it has been proper to cover up ones bits and pieces .Ancient Egyptians, Romans and other such ancient peoples used clothes to reflect social status. Amusingly one of the ways ancient Egyptian woman showed how wealthy they were, was to use the length of their skirt.
In times of old, money and fashion went hand in hand. Wealth was displayed on a person’s body.
Today a person’s body is displayed. This seems a fantastic step forward to display and glorify the human body for what is, not what it owns. However it seems I am, once again, over optimistic about the human race and its attitude towards beauty.
The problem comes when we take for granted that we have food and security and become obsessed with making ourselves feel better. We become slaves to marketing.
Advertising tells us what we need to fulfill our needs’ so to speak. Campaigns point out what is wrong with most people and then offers us a solution. In terms of beauty, every day we are reminded of our own ugliness. Ugliness in this sense means something which does not look fabulous on a camera; for this is how we now see those beautiful’ people we strive to be like. Beauty within this marketing sphere simply means features which do not get in the way of products. Catwalk (or Runway) models are skeletal so spectators can ignore them and will be drawn to the designs. The size of models also has practical benefits when assigning models to outfits.
This marketable size does not correlate well with the purpose of human beauty or indeed with beauty among any species of animal; which is sex. The single reason that human beings seek to make themselves more attractive, is so somebody will select to reproduce with them. Once again survival of the human race is paramount, more so than actualization.
Why then does the size zero phenomenon make women so waif-like they look sexless and sometimes shockingly lose their fertility.
Our primeval reaction towards human physical attractiveness
