Karie Buss
English 1301
July 2 2014
Using Sex Appeal in Advertisement Is less Effective in Women than Men
Do you think using sex appeal in advertisement is effective? How should a company use
it? Which things should they be aware of? Sex appeal in used in western advertisement to grab
the audience attention. For somebody who is from a Muslim and religious country, facing too
much sex appeal in advertisement could be surprising, shocking, confusing, and sometimes
frustrating. At the first glance here is a free world that generously shows beautiful women
characters in advertisement everywhere. It has an explicit message that women as a half of the
society have the same right of present in advertisement, and be a part of these huge industry,
but what is the reality? Do you think using so much sex appeal in advertisement can’t have
some negative effects especially on women?
Using sex appeal in advertisement is everywhere. You can find them easily in television,
movies, and magazines. Marketers use sex appeal in advertisement to capture more attention.
It is true that commercials which use sex are more memorable. In the article in Journal of Sex
Research, “The Effect of French Television on Recall of Sexual and Nonsexual Advertisement”,
Furnham and Mainaud confirm, there is a connection between sexual advertisement and the
attention, and sexual advertisement cause more attention response to non-sexual
advertisement. The research shows that sexual advertisement will be better recalled than non- sexual advertisement because they are more arousing and unusual, so attracts more attention.
Although this research has done based on French commercials, using a lot of sex appeal in
America can prove the result could be the same in The United State and France. Advertising has
a very important role in today’s business. It has a power to shape the society’s views about
women by how it portrays them. Over using of sex appeal have a negative effect on women.
Sex in advertisement usually trend to stereotype women, and even be offensive to women.
Women and men’s viewpoints about using sex in advertisement are different. Research proves
that first, men are more interested to kind of advertisement. Second, women like more natural
models in advertisement. Third, sometimes using so much objectified women’s characters is
humiliating.
Using sex in advertisement attracts men more than women. The article, “How to Get
Kissably close” says, there are several differences between sex appeal in women and men that
need more consideration. For example, sex appeal in women’s advertisement consider
attractiveness, behavior and esteem, but in men’s magazine it is just about sexual behavior.
This result shows that how women and men’s approach is different about sex appeal. In other
words, women are looking for more passion, attractiveness, and love; on the contrary, men
always look for sexual behavior. Women see it as related to their relationships, but men
generally see sex as more casual subject. The article” Who Is Gazing at Whom? “Conclude that
is sex is used, it appear in advertisement which are for men. Marketers usually use
advertisement with sexual objectification in magazines targeted at male audiences, so they use
more female characters in their advertisement to attract more attention. Showing the body of
the woman character (with under wear or swimsuit), and erasing her face in order to attract
more attention to the woman’s body, showing them from behind with short skirts, or showing
women breast for some beer advertising product are some kind of using sexual objectification.
The article result is that sex advertisements are for men because men are more interested to
watch objectified advertisement’s characters.
The second point that shows gender viewpoint differences