Gentlemen... Hold on to Your Underwear

This ad sums up the modern world of media and product promotions in my mind. When you are standing in line at the grocery store, thumbing through the pages of whatever fashion magazine setting there, you are bombarded by images of super thin, half dressed women selling anything and everything! The amazing thing, these products don't even have to be items that a woman is expected to ever use. This ad is a great example. No it's not the exercise weights that this model is promoting, its the JBS MENS underwear that are being advertised.

There is no sign of feeling or glimmer of a smile even remotely noticeable on this womans' face. She is no longer a human, but rather an object of sexual desire and fantasy. The simple idea is that a woman's body makes this sexy and if men want what's under the clothing then maybe they will want what's on the body. This control and the de-valuing of a woman and her body shows where our society still promotes sexism and the dominate role of men in the real world and the world of buisness.

For women this image invokes (for many) a feeling of negativity towards their own bodies. Being "young, slender, and able-bodied" (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey pg. 150), so when we see woman who are suppose to fulfill that beauty ideal and we don't see ourselves reflected back, many lose their self confidence. I myself have struggled with the idea that "I need to be smaller, I need to look like that more, because then I will be happy". Lucky for me I never went to the extreme of anorexia or bulimia like thousands of girls do. When we finally live in a world where you can open a magazine and see real women with real bodies, then and only then will we as a society be able to tackle problems such as food disorders with more success.

I feel that the placement of the hair over the models chest has become a sort of justification for the advertising world. It is often argued that no extreme parts are being exposed and that the models are wear things such as pasties, so they are not really naked, but when viewing the ad, the viewer is not aware of these facts. They are expected to believe she is naked and that is exactly what they think. And this pose is not comparable to ads for bras and underwear or bathing suits like some would argue. Those items are used by women and are usual therefore advertised towards the female audience. Where there are still questionable depictions in these ads, I can not justify the above ad by comparing to such ads like we see in Victoria Secret etc.

Work Citied:

Gwyn , Kirk, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Womens Lives: Multicultural Perspectives Fifth Addition "Women's Sexuality:Stereotypes, Contradictions, and Double Standards" pg 150. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010.