I was just searching for some lyrics to a Chris Tomlin song. In the margin on the website that posted the lyrics was a picture of a bikini-clad woman. The ad focused on zooming in on the bikini-covered areas. It apparently is for an online game called Evony. I checked it out on wikipedia--not wanting to give any more traffic to the game's site. As far as I can tell, it's a civilization-building game, and it looks to be set in medieval times (when there were definitely no women in bikinis around). Wikipedia even talks about the controversy over the site's ads (which show up all too often in innocent places). If your game isn't good enough to attract people to it on its own, please don't bring us down with you by polluting our screens with your lust-driven images.
This weekend we were watching television at my family's house when an ad for pistachios appeared. It featured a dominatrix, clad in leather, of course, flourishing a whip which was used to crack open a pistachio. Really?! I know that sex sells, but do we need to use it to sell pistachios now? Apparently that's their new marketing technique: innuendo can sell nuts. Shame on you, Wonderful Pistachios. Please don't ruin a food I love.
Sex only sells if we let it. And we've let it for far too long. What would happen if we stood up to such advertising instead of letting in infiltrate our homes? What if we turned off that commercial? Or went so far as to rip that ad out of the magazine and send it back to the company telling them we don't want that around? What if we installed those ad-blockers that many servers (like Firefox) offer? What if we tell companies that we've had enough?
Many of us struggle with those images. While we know they're disgusting and offensive, we're drawn to them at the same time. We want to look away, but we can't entirely avert our eyes. It doesn't help when we keep getting messages telling us that it's okay. It's not. Women are not objects. They're people. Sex is meant to be an intimacy-building expression of love between a married man and woman. You may debate me on this, but I know that when sex gets treated as something recreational, we hurt ourselves and those we share it with.
The more we allow advertising to confuse our minds, telling us that our libido can be satisfied through the things we buy, the more broken our society will become. And the more we try to satisfy our libido rather than build real relationships, the more broken we become. Let's stop letting sex sell. And let's let "the marriage bed be kept pure" (Hebrews 13:4) so it can be a place where sex can flourish as God designed.
7 comments:
I'm all for standing against it. I've got adblockers on my browser, and we avoid tv and magazines with those sorts of ads.
Stand up, turn it off, and write some letters to the companies too.
My personal take on this is that sex-driven advertising actually capitalizes on the link between sex and shame. Despite the supposed openness of our society, the underlying message that most people absorb throughout their lifetimes is that sex is shameful -- hence we snicker at it, hide it, get embarrassed talking to our kids about it, and relegate it to "naughty" contexts like porn magazines and sex shops. At the same time, there's something very powerful about enjoying something that shames us. (Many women do this with food, using shame to heighten their pleasure in eating: "I shouldn't be eating this, but it's sooooo good." Why can't it just be good, period? Why does the guilt trip somehow make it more fun to eat?)
So the more disconnected a product is from sexuality (like cars), the more outrageous it seems to sell it with sexual imagery ... and therefore the more we tap into the sense that "This isn't right. I shouldn't be enjoying this." And then we enjoy it all the more....
Human beings are messed up creatures, for sure!
Thanks, Sue. Those are good points. We need to be grace-driven, rather than shame-driven.
All I have to say is 'amen'. It frustrates me to no end to be objectified - and that it sells things. But I think Sue is definitely onto it with the shame issue - that is HUGE.
The shame-cycle is definitely big with addictions/coping mechanisms (like sex). Thankfully, the Truth shall set you free.
Interesting connection by Sue... and to add to the existential intrigue: Eugene Peterson connects our sex life and our prayer life as two sides of the same quality of intimacy coin (Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Ministry) through reflection of the Song of Songs use during one of the Jewish feasts. Hmmm.
I did it. I wrote Evony LLC and Wonderful Pistachios today. We'll see if they respond.
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