Sex sells - comments wanted

[imagineitkc]

1) I am not sure if you can exploited someone who isn't exploiting themselves. Are women in general being exploited

because of a few models? I don't know. I don't feel like I am less of a person because of Victoria Secret models.

Though I would appreciate it if when I walk through the mall this holiday my son didn't look at their larger than life breast.

But better I deal with these issues now. I think that there was more exploiting going on from Mattel with Barbie than I

see with modern billboards.

 

2) Of course media and advertisements shape the peoples views of perfection, society world wide is effected by it. I

was in Mexico City when I saw an ad for a credit card company spanning across a huge run down apartment complex, it

implied that if you got their credit card you could have a better life. This was sad....It covered several stories of a

apartment windows. This is an exploitation of a society if you ask me and there weren't any necked people in the ad.

Here's the deal... There are naked people in ads all the time and our obesity rate (in the us, anyway) is still really high.

There are other ads that influence society more than the Perfumes, Expensive Clothing, Alcohol, and Jewelry; all of

which are not necessities. Take a look at the needs of our society and see how those advertisements are effecting us

today. I think that the idea of "coffee to go" has more of an effect on society. It tells people that it is ok to eat fast

food, it's ok that you don't have time for the other stuff and since we all feel we need more time, this is one truly amazing

campaign that lacks necked people. Plus you get to support the special olympics and who doesnt want to do that?

Help others and free up your time...Much better plan.

The world of marketing goes much deeper than sex. Sex is just the hot topic and one that is in the public eye a lot.

But when you get into how Snaple came to be the number one drink of New York City and how Starbucks grew a cross

america in a span of about 10 years you will see that the best advertising are the ones that don't choose to sell sex.

They pick a lifestyle market and a need in our society and they fill the void or so they promise. And that my folks is

what we fallow and how advertising effects all people even when we choose to disengage our selves from typical

society, honestly we can't. Popular culture is infiltrated by the media we are merely passers by.

 

This is what read on the back of my vitamin water the other day,

 

"ah, orange juice commercials. funny stuff. mom cheerfully prepares some huge breakfast while the rest of her family

sleeps. sure, this could happen. but every morning? please. maybe if mom were heavily medicated, in which case, we

wouldn't condone operating a stove or any electrical appliance.

for those of us who don't live in an orange juice commercial, there's still a way to get your morning nutrition. this product

has calcium and lots of vitamin c, so you can get your day started right, minus the whole stepford mom thing."

 

3) Well, I have been doing commercial photography for 8 years. And have stepped into a new market starting November

25th, I really don't think that I would be hired for a lot of jobs if I mainly photographed nude images or sold sex. But it

can get a photographer attention and since the professional photographers are becoming the new celebrities this tactic is

often used especially with the thought that bad publicity is better than none. Check out professional photographer Tom

Ford. He has a series of photographs that he took selling his new cologne and the images are of necked models with

the bottle of cologne stuck in suggestive places. The images were banned from a lot of magazines but the publicity of

being banned probably got him more attention and free advertising in the long run.

[jonathancharlesphoto]

According to psychologists men think about sex every few minutes (or is it seconds?) so it's not surprising that photographs with some sexual connection will attract more interest from men than those with none. The whole concept of beauty, which is an important factor in art, is based at least partly on sexual attractiveness (of women). Because women understand this, and being attractive is important to them, they share this interest - not just men's but women's magazines have beautiful women on the covers.

 

The old adage that "Sex sells" is just a practical consequence of this interest and applies both to advertising and to art / photography itself.

[imagineitkc]

Hi Jonathan it is ever 7 seconds.

[don_e]

"1) Do you feel that women are overly exploited in media and advertisements?"

 

Nah. Just exploited.

 

"2) Do you think that media and advertisements shape the peoples views of perfection?"

 

Yep.

 

"3) As a photographer, do you feel that sexual photos would get your work more attention?"

 

No. It wouldn't be my work then, would it?

[Norma Desmond]

Jonathan--

 

The whole concept of Beauty is actually predicated much more on a moral quest for goodness than on any sort

of sexual attractiveness. And, in terms of the Beauty of the body, it was the male body that mostly informed the

Western sense of Beauty from the times of the ancient Greeks, not the female. The idealized nude statues were more

often of male gods, athletes, and youths.

 

http://www.helium.com/items/983558-a-brief-history-of-ancient-greek-art

 

"Greek philosophy was built upon the presupposition that happiness is the highest good. Philosophers differed in their

interpretation of what happiness is and the best method for achieving it, but shared the same conviction that it is the

ultimate goal of life. Accordingly, the Greeks were concerned with understanding beauty, and how beauty can contribute

to the highest good. They would investigate beauty in association with truth and goodness, which also pointed to the

divine."

 

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Beauty

 

There is an important aspect of this more transcendent sense of Beauty that is very relevant to art and aesthetics, as

opposed merely to a contemporary sense of Beauty with its ubiquitous emphasis on the sexualization of women.

[sobeystudio]

Desirae-

"maybe you should listen or ignore this post, if you don’t have anything of value to add"

 

You are totally right- and I was being fairly contemptuous in my previous response. I do still believe that the post

itself is NOT by a friend, but by the student themselves. Whoever it is that posted the question, just signed up to PNET

the day of the post, and that shows me that they have yet to add to any discussion prior, and most likely will be taking

all of OUR comments and using them for THEIR paper- talk about exploitation! Secondly, I do think the questions are

already answered in a variety of manner throughout the internet and that a competent student would have very little

trouble finding them, but a lazy one (and yes cunning too) would have us do their work for them. The questions also, are

completely loaded and beg for greater clarification, specificity, examples and a better understanding of what we as

professional photographers do in our respective careers. Hopefully their professors will be able to see this too.

[bluphoto]

Sure, sex sells. Sex is the method by which we procreate and we are programmed to be attracted to mates who appear to be fit and healthy (so maybe that does rule out many of todays supermodels!)

 

The whole point of marketing and advertising is to induce an emotional response in the viewer. What more powerful response than in response to a picture of a potential mate.

 

A similar emotional response would be to show someone who hasn't eaten for a week a picture of a succulent juicy steak with steaming gravy etc. Don't tell me I'm sexually turned on by that (some maybe, but not me).

 

That said, personally, for me, beauty is what sells a product, rather than sexuality itself. It still creates an emotional response, but not generally in my jeans.

 

I don't think anyone will argue that many women are simply more beautiful than men - hence the reason why even womens magazines carry covers depicting beautiful women - no they don't buy the mag because they are attracted by the womans sexuality, instead they are attracted by her beauty.

 

So in summary, yes, sex sells, but it's by no means the only marketing tool there is.

[Norma Desmond]

"I don't think anyone will argue that many women are simply more beautiful than men - hence the reason why even

womens magazines carry covers depicting beautiful women"

 

I'll argue.

 

The reason women adorn both the covers of men's and of women's magazines is because our modern and contemporary

culture has idealized the beauty of women over men and objectified (used) women more than men. You are right, in women's

magazines it has nothing to do with "attraction" per se. But it also has little to do with Beauty, per se, and a lot to do with culturally

ingrained standards.

 

The Greeks idealized the male body.

 

Does that mean ancient Greek men were more beautiful than ancient Greek women? I doubt it.

 

It's political, it's social, and it's cultural.

[pnital]

YES,to all 3 of them.

 

Fred, in the Greek Classic period, social norms were as well a reason( but not only) that the sculpturer was

concentrating on man's bodies, and also because they did not arrive in the begining, to depict well the woman's body

organs. It developed with women sculpturing ,when they scceeded depicting women, with their clothes.... Nowaday

even though they use man's body as well for advertising, it is women that are exploited for publication, and the idea

is to influence regular women ( psychologicaly) to belive that if they will do this and this, or buy this or that product,

they will look uptodate, and be compatible to the beauty in the woman's photo ,at the magazine....If you look at the

beauty industry( magazines, stores, outside signposts) they use younger and younger beautiful models, in order to

influence young regular looking youngsters and older woman/ man to look younger, using the products( cloths,

sports, traveling cosmetics, fashion icons..... etc.. They do it as well for men, ( for all of them)... but it is not so

spread as it is in using women, as models..

 

So it is especialy commercial, in a commercial/consumer society, but as well cultural, social and political as you

have stated .

[don_e]

Beauty has nothing to do with it and neither does male or female. Selling does not involve engaging the

intellect, instead it seeks to bypass it and get directly to biological responses. The reason sex sells is that

sexual stimuli are just that; it bypasses the intellect and makes you look. The same with violence (flight or

fight); it makes you look. That's the point. Making you look gives them the moment or two needed to make the

bait 'n switch: they aren't selling sex, they're selling soap.

 

Other things besides sex and violence make you look, for example transgressing norms, for example the period of

noisey lip smacking chewing in tv commercials for processed foodstuffs in societies where chewing politely and

quietly with your mouth closed is the norm.

[polydemic]

1) Yes. It's been that way for thousands of years & nothing can stop it. Women's Lib has been trying for decades, which created more protection for women, but hasn't been able to stop exploitation & crimes against women. Laws can change outward appearances in public but not deep-seated attitudes. All other desires (wealth, popularity, ego, material possessions, trends, etc) are exploited in the media & advertisement just as well.

 

2) Over the years, I've heard of many young women dieting themselves to death, to fit the media's standard of woman's body. I've heard of many attacks on women of certain types that have driven many young woment to suicide. Dispite the recent messages of body acceptance by some, the problem continues.

 

3) Personally I don't. But if another does, I can't judge.

[chris_waller]

I knew a guy some twenty-five years ago who ran a compnay that sold small components to the engineering trade - nuts, bolts, hand-tools, etc. His sales staff were all very attractive young ladies, some of whom who had been air-hostesses. Since the majority of his customers were works' engineers and thus, at that time, exclusively male, he knew that they would order stuff just to see the sales reps, regardless of whether they needed anything. I knew one works engineer who had bought enough 1/2" Whitworth bolts in store to build a battleship!

[dugstervision]

1) Do you feel that women are overly exploited in media and advertisements?

 

No. What we humans do for monetary compensation, is mostly decided by our own personal goals and directives. Is a

prostitute a victim of male lust? No, I don't think so. Advertisements are all about selling

a product. Many people find it more enjoyable to watch a commercial or ANYTHING that has beautiful content. I

agree with Fred. Your academic context implies the wrongness of enjoying a visual aspect of sexuality. I think

that warped view has puritanical roots. We want to take beautiful photos. It is impossible to separate sex from

beauty. Sex/procreation uses beauty as a mechanism to attain a goal of reproduction. Photographers use beauty,

EXPLOIT beauty in all forms to create 'good' photos for various purposes. If beautiful women in ads are

considered 'exploited', then you could also say all figures in all beautiful photos are also exploited. It's

ridiculous. It's looking at the world in overly simple terms: victim/ victimizer. Academia is still promoting the

idea that sexual attraction is some kind of negative perversion. I'm exaggerating, but just a little.

 

2) Do you think that media and advertisements shape the peoples views of perfection?

 

Sure, but remember the media is us. The media is from society, not androids from Mars.

It is totally NATURAL, to judge a potential mate, in terms of physical perfection. That's

a genetic directive for creating healthy offspring.

 

3) As a photographer, do you feel that sexual photos would get your work more attention?

 

Hey that's a good idea! When you say 'sexual', I assume you are not talking about

f&%king or porn. I assume you mean the 'beauty of the figure', which is formidable.

I think the photo artist should use all tools and all subjects available. I also think artists

should narrow their niche, as a way to create a recognizable identity.

[j_sevigny]

The reason men and women grace the covers of mens and womens magazines is that publishers know men by magazines to look at women and women buy magazines to look at how women look in order to "improve" how they look.

 

1) The word exploited is really reactionary. Objectified, yes.

 

2) I think the answer to this is pretty obvious.

 

3) If I wanted to take pictures to get more attention I would probably shoot only nudes or blown apart bodies in Iraq. Like any artist, I want attention. But as I'm not making a lot of money in the arts, I have the freedom to go about trying to attract attention on my own terms.

[seriousgoose]

Is this supposed to be single spaced, or double? And how do you want your citations formatted?

[mike_hitchen]

1) Nope. In the 70s women's rights groups used to comlain about the sexist and exploitative advertising when women were used. Now the advertising industries are using virtually the same scenarios but with men (himbos as opposed to bimbos) and it is called 'ironic'. Go figure. Maybe the difference now is that both sidea are doing it so it is OK (personally I call it hypocrisy)

 

2) yes. Otherwise political parties and dollar-rich companies would not bother doing it. There are heaps of popular science books explaining how it works

 

3). Always. But only on the innate level that we are genetically programmed to notice overtly sexual stimuli. In a vast majority of cases the attention it gets is only fleeting when the viewer realises it is distasteful, or repugnant, or derivative or just plain plain poor quality. It is quite a skill to use sex effectively in photos and adverts.

 

I hope "your student" (where have I heard that one before) has time to surf the internet.

[raymondborg]

1) Yes, I think that woman are overly exploited in the media for commericial reasons.

2) Yes, in general they show woman in a perfect shape.

3) Sexual photos will get more attention from the general public. But keep in mind the the majority of the public are'nt artists. The artist photographer will see it from a different perspective.

[kbstella]

<p>

<p >1) Do you feel that women are overly exploited in media and advertisements?</p>

<p >Yes. Anyone who feels otherwise is kidding themselves or simply ignorant. I have worked on both sides of the camera and I can't even remember how many times I have been pressured to take my clothes off or reveal parts of my body. It becomes exploitive when I'm offered higher pay for getting nude. Many male photographic models state clearly that they will NOT do nude work but they still get good work. I've never taken it personally but it's simply the truth. When I was a student in collage it made more sense to do nude work, whether I really wanted to or not, because I needed the money. Photographers and sketch artists were exploiting my need for money - conversely, I did the same thing to my models, the only difference being that when I did that to men, many of them thought I was coming on to them, (LOL), which is one of the reasons I like working with gay models (or with straight men, I prefer to have his gf present) - no misunderstandings!</p>

<p >2) Do you think that media and advertisements shape the peoples views of perfection?</p>

<p >Absolutely.</p>

<p >3) As a photographer, do you feel that sexual photos would get your work more attention?</p>

<p >Of course! In college I did a lot of film photography and it was the (female) nudes that always got the attention. No matter how nice a landscape I did, it simply couldn't compete. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >This has simply been my personal experience. Make of it what you will.</p>

</p>