"Sex Sells"

Comparison. Expectation. Assumption.

“Sex sells”. I’ve heard it many times. I am sure you have too. Not only do you hear it from advertising agencies defending their attempts to sell products but it is now embedded in the minds of everyday people. And the media is to blame.

We often wonder why society is so “numb” when it comes to seeing sexual, pornographic and violent images. The shock value has disappeared. And this is perhaps why mainstream pornography is widely accepted these days. Because porn is the replacement for advertising. Yes, I understand that advertising images are not portraying full on penetration but they might as well be! The message depicted is the same: that women/females are defined by their bodies. We, as a society, get away with objectifying the women in these ads because they aren’t “real” – they are billboards, commercials, pamphlets, etc. Since they aren’t “real” women, we don’t have to feel guilty about objectifying them. But, sadly, this translates to real life and we begin to treat real women this way.  Using the female body as a sexual object to sell products is the new norm.

You see it everywhere - ads for clothing, beer, cleaning products, items used for personal hygiene, and the list goes on. What does the female body have to do with a cold beer? Nothing. That’s the thing. But beer is a product targeted towards men (because women don’t enjoy beer, right?) and what better way to attract male customers than by offering them something else that they get pleasure from: women. But these companies don’t stop there. They offer a woman who is hyper sexualized, willing to do whatever it takes for male attention and satisfaction, has no mind of her own and nothing important to say. She’s a “convenience”. The most easily accessible convenience there is. She’s a great alternative to your wife, fiancé or girlfriend who is just oh so average looking, who doesn’t put out quite enough to fulfill your needs, who can make decisions for herself, who is intelligent with an abundance of important things to say. In other words, this “woman” who the advertising company has so happily created for men is a great substitute for the real woman they may have at home.

The ads that beer companies use to sell their product are just few of the many that use sex and the female body to make money or improve sales. Like this, for instance. Perhaps here. Here, (prepare yourself), HERE, aaaaaaand here.

I think its safe to say that the replacement of advertising with sexualized images (more so than not featuring women) is the result of the rise of “porn culture”. Mainstream pornography not only degrades women, but allows others to partake in the degradation of women. By buying porn, streaming it or downloading it, your actions are supporting the sexualization and degradation of women. Pornography is hurting real everyday women. We are expected to act, look, and have sex, like porn stars. We are expected to have sex at all times of the day in whatever position is required and in whatever location is preferred. Our bodies are expected to look like the bodies seen in pornography – with fake tits, fake tans, and even sometimes fake vaginas. And when we don’t comply with all of these things – we are seen as prudes. We are made to feel unusual. We are subconsciously (and sometimes not) compared to these “women”. Porn is a performance. While it is indeed a realistic act, it is performance in that it requires an audience and is for entertainment sake. And that is why I add quotations when I refer to them as “women” – because they are merely performing what it is to be “women”. It is an act. I am in no way denouncing them as real people outside of the porn set.

Being a woman, I can write about this because I feel it. I have experience with this issue. I feel as though I cannot always enjoy sex because I constantly feel at competition with girls in porn. It has never been blatantly said to me that I need to act more like a porn star during sex, but I have heard things such as “I need to get this on video” and “Yeah, tell me how good that feels. Tell me how good my cock feels in your pussy”.

I am not a porn star. And while everyone has things that turn them on (“different strokes for different folks”), I don’t like being talked to like that. It makes me feel uncomfortable and obligated to say things I wouldn’t normally say or that I don’t want to say. But if I don’t? I fear I may not be “good” at sex or I may not be considered attractive in bed. Most of the time I voice my awkwardness and inability to say these things but…why should I have to?

It shouldn’t be this way. No woman should ever have to worry that her husband, fiancé, boyfriend, lover, etc. is thinking about another woman when with her - especially a woman that is an image on a television or computer screen. I’m not saying that porn stars are not real people or that they don’t have real feelings or thoughts. But when men put them on a pedestal they become a preferred replacement for the real women they are having sex with – an unrealistic one at that.

Porn exists that doesn’t depict rape, violence, and humiliation. However, it does not get publicized as much as mainstream pornography does. And this is a problem. If boys grow up only watching mainstream porn then this violent and unrealistic portrayal of sex is all that they come to know which lends a hand in how they view women as sexual objects and degrade them as such.