Background: A number of studies of advertising have emphasized the orientation of products and their consumption to males—their identity and sexuality. Particularly evident is the focus of women’s products on securing men: “Often the advertisements imply that the product’s main purpose is to improve the user’s appeal to men, as the panty-hose advertisement which claims ‘gentlemen prefer Hanes.’ The underlying advertising message for a product advertised in this manner is that the ultimate benefit of product usage is to give men pleasure” (Courtney and Whipple 1983:103-4). Nancy Chodorow’s discussion of masculinity and femininity suggests that much of the problem with the oppression of women and the maintenance of patriarchy involves the male’s “repression and devaluation of femininity on both psychological and cultural levels” (1974:51). The negative and deadly implications of the male sex touted in popular advertising affect men as well as women. Harry Brod’s consideration of pornography and male sexuality suggests that the ultimate end of the degradation of women is not simply the objectification of women, but a loss of intimacy in the male and a alienation from the body (1995).

Focus on the Ads: These ads are sick, plain and simple. They illustrate how so much of our popular culture is geared at the please of male heterosexuality. Image 16, which is a cartoon, is included as it illustrates the socialization of males as a major factor in the development of problematic male sexuality. Ad 77 is the advertising version of this cartoon. Ad 7 is a disturbing ad that approaches pornography.

Why? How to Read Reaction to Ads Controversy Constructions Male Gaze Male Sex Violence Against Men Male Ads Male is Culture Phallic Male Fantasy Homophobia Male Normalization Man as Hero Men in Control Roles Normalization Exotics Women of Color Exotics Surreal Exotics General Difficult Femininity Dolls Naggers Body = Tool Nymphomania Male Objects No Subject Body Parts Becoming Objects Sex Objects Contorted No Product Connection More Body Parts Dehumanization Women as Stupid Women Consumers Women = Nature Only the Body Political Violent Women Faux Power Wet Women Reductionism Body as Landscape Captured Legs as Framing Violence Against Women Women and Fear Death Relationships Sexual Violence Competition Faux Lesbianism Linguistic Violence Constructions of Marriage U.S. Values Global Ads Social Class Ads Kids and Ads Ageism Video Games Advertisers Response Man Show Maxim Side by Side Mock Ads Progressive Ads New Constructions Social Change Bibliography Links Action Hall of Shame

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