Sex sells: although this phrase is usually asserted somewhat glibly, it nevertheless expresses a widely held and rarely contested belief. If we seek evidence for this belief, we need only look at the profits of the US the porn industry; estimated at $8billion for traditional media (ecommercetimes.com) and anywhere between $750million and $12billion for the internet (caslon.com).

For the purposes of this essay, I define sex as anything that denotes, or connotes, sexual desire. For instance the sexy curves of a car, or the knowing look of a model are both, at least in part, sexual propositions. In the context of advertising, sex is very rarely the 'product' for sale, but it plays a very important role in the 'selling' process. It is standard practice for advertisers to equate sexual desire with desire for a product, or claim that possession of a given product will make us more sexually attractive - even when the product has nothing to do with sex. However, overt sexual messages are usually avoided, as advertisers steer clear of associating their brands with anything too pornographic. For example, in 2002, Yahoo is believed to have abandoned its online pornography division because of threats of an advertising boycott across its entire brand (ecommerce times).

To what extent does sex sell? To try to get a sense of sexual advertising as something quantifiable, I looked at two of the UK's biggest selling magazines: FHM (For Him Magazine) and Cosmopolitan (Fig 1a & b). I wanted to find out how much of their advertising contained 'sex,' in accordance with my definition of the term. Advertising counted for approximately 50% of the content of both magazines and of this, about 45% (for FHM) and about 66% (for Cosmopolitan) used sexual imagery and/or innuendo. Of course it can be argued that the non-advertising content of these magazines is evidence enough that sex sells. So, to get a sense of how much sexual advertising can be found in a more family-orientated setting, I also looked at the Guardian's Weekend magazine 27/9/03 issue (Fig 1c). In this case, about 50% of the magazine was taken up with advertising, but only approximately 10% of that was sexual (see appendix for detailed survey results). Even though this survey does not support generalised claims, its findings suggest that we should treat with suspicion the notion that sex sells, when asserted as a blanket proposition. This is echoed in the advice given to advertising managers, who are told that sex sells less effectively when the appeal is intended to be broad. See (Rothschild: 1987, 250) and (Clarke: 1988, 114).

How does sex sell? To answer this question, I looked primarily at the work of advertising commentators and academics. In The Advertising Handbook, Sean Brierly makes a distinction between two main types of persuasion, 'reason why' advertising, where the appeal is rational, and 'atmosphere' advertising, where the appeal is non-rational (Brierly: 2002, 137). The vast majority of sexual advertising is 'atmosphere advertising,' appealing to our emotions and desires. The 'sexual sell' is therefore commonly used to promote products that do not inherently lend themselves rational persuasive techniques: designer clothes, cigarettes and jewellery for example.

Sexual messages can be either verbal, in the form of spoken or written words, or pictorial, in the form of still or moving images. Verbal sexual advertising can be divided into two categories: erotic language and sexual innuendo. In practice, these forms often combine and are used in combination with pictures--as they are in the examples given here--but for the purposes of clarity in this essay, I will treat them as distinct. The advert for Juicy Rouge lipstick (Fig 2) exemplifies the use of erotic language:

"…The second you see it, you'll love the mouth-watering shiny colours. Juicy.

 The minute it glides on, you'll fall for its feel-so-soft texture. Moisturising. Luscious...."

Here, lipstick is being described in the language of sexual desire. The word play is hardly subtle, unlike the message of the advert, which can only be inferred by a connect-the-dots approach to interpretation (i.e., that the woman, who buys this lipstick, will become "mouth-watering" and "luscious"). A common motif of atmospheric advertising is that it leaves unstated, claims which cannot be rationally substantiated.

Sexual innuendo can be seen very prominently in the advert for the computer game Conflict Desert Storm (Fig 3). A caption exclaims "Nice Arsenal!" under a picture of a woman's bottom in skimpy khaki shorts. Here, sex has nothing to do with the product, but is used solely to grab the viewer's attention. An Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) survey found that women were more hostile to sexual innuendo in advertising than they were to nudity, especially in the form of "nasty puns" (Clark: 1988, 117). This type of advertisement is therefore only found in magazines that are aimed at a male audience like FHM.

The majority of advertising in magazines, posters and on television is image based. Sex, in picture form, has a long history, from the tradition of the nude in Western art to the rise of the pornographic "girlie magazines" in the 1950s. Image based sexual advertising comes in many forms. Again for purposes of clarity, I will separate them into four hypothetically distinct categories: nudity, stereotyping, sex-as-metaphor and controversy.

Nudity has an obvious sexual connotation, as our society places a taboo on public nakedness. It was traditionally assumed that men responded more positively to images of naked women, while women equated sex with romance (Rothschild: 1987, 249). However, recent studies have contradicted this. They have found that both sexes react positively to advertisements in which either naked women or men feature (Messaris: 1997, 48). Nudity is primarily used because it is considered a good "attention grabber" but there are disadvantages. Eric Clark reports on a survey exploring the relationship between the sexiness of an advert and recollection of a product. The results showed that when men were sexually aroused by an advertisement, they could not even recall the advertisement in any detail, let alone remember the product (Clark, 1988, 115). An emerging trend is that men as well as women are now being depicted as sex objects in advertising.  One study even found that men's brand-recollection increased in line with the level of nudity in an advert, as long as the nude was male and not female (Ibid). My research seems to support this finding. For instance, the advert for 'Cool Water' cologne (Fig 4) shows a man lying in the sort of supine pose conventionally associated with the female sex object. Its appearance in the 'lad's mag,' FHM, I think confounds any assumptions that it is intended solely for a homosexual audience.

Although the findings noted in the previous paragraph, suggest that attitudes might be changing, stereotyping of gender roles has traditionally cast men as 'active' and women as 'passive.' Erving Goffman, noted that men "grasp," whilst women "caress" (Goffman: 1979, 29). Ironic, in this post-feminist era, that the liberation of women should be seen to equate with the objectification of men, but even so, there are still many examples of stereotypical images of women to be found in advertising. This is because a stereotype is a form that expresses a lot of information about a person in a very concise way, and is useful in advertising where economy of expression is essential - even if that information rests upon the questionable prejudices of a society. Stereotypical images of women divide into certain types: "classic beauty," "girl-next-door" and "sensual/exotic" (Fig 5a, b & c). These types connote their own particular categories of class, respectability as well as ethnicity. For example, the sensual/exotic type is associated with low status, sexual submissiveness and foreignness (Messaris: 1997, 49).

Metaphorical sexual imagery is commonly found in three contexts: when a euphemism is sought for a sexual product to avoid offence, when an advertiser seeks to liven up a non sexual product, and when a tenuous sexual connection is emphasised, such as sex and food as things that we 'hunger' for. The recent TV advertising for Pot Noodle--"the slag of all snacks"--compares wanting a Pot Noodle to wanting sleazy sex. Paul Messaris points out that sexual metaphors are often used as a joke, as in this case - a knowing wink to the media-savvy consumer (Ibid, 63). References to kinky sexual practices can also be interpreted as metaphors for rebellion. In this context, straight sex equals a boring life (Ibid, 246). Sexual metaphors of this kind are complex, with associations being made, not just between sex and a product, but between sex as standing for a particular attitude, which in turn is being associated with a product.

Sexual controversy in advertising is either inadvertent, or intentional. Usually it is the latter, because of the amount of research an advertising agency does before a campaign goes to air. It is used to gain maximum attention for a brand, or to define it as 'rebellious.' Often, extra publicity gained from a controversial advert--even if it is negative--benefits a campaign, in terms of surplus awareness value. But the risks of this strategy can be immense; one industry insider likened it to balancing on a knife's edge, because sex is an expression of our innermost fears and desires (Clarke: 1988, 113). A recent example was the poster campaign for the perfume "Opium" (Fig 6). In 2000, ASA received 948 complaints for that one advertisement, about 8% of its total for that year (mediaweek.co.uk). The Opium poster nevertheless probably generated hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of free publicity for the brand. However the technique can backfire as is the case with the 1995 campaign for Calvin Klein jeans, (Fig 7). Here, the nature of the negative criticism implied that Calvin Klein was promoting "kiddie porn." This was seen as so damaging to the brand, that the adverts were hastily withdrawn. (Messaris: 1997, 256-257)

Why does sex sell? The answers that come from advertisers are that it is a good "attention grabber" and that it resonates strongly with fundamental desires of the human psyche. But these answers only address the question at its most superficial level and prompt the additional questions: why is sex a good attention grabber? And why does it resonate with our innermost desires? In response to these questions, advertisers are generally silent. Therefore to explore the 'why' in greater depth, I think it is necessary to look outside of the advertising sphere. In my research, I found that the work of two disciplines, Evolutionary Psychology and Freudian Psychoanalysis, to be the most useful, not because the answers they offer are in any way definitive--indeed, I will treat both disciplines critically--but because they offer considered as well as thought-provoking theories.

Evolutionary psychology utilises biological principles to research the structure of the human mind. It states that throughout history there has been a gender imbalance in the species, with usually more males than females (Barrett: 2002, 94). Like other animals, humans mate in order to pass on their genes to the next generation. If mating happens with a 'sexy' partner, then 'sexiness' is one of the characteristics passed on to offspring, who will therefore inherit an advantage when they come to breed (Ibid, 40).

Certain human traits are thought to have evolved for the sole reason of attracting a mate. In men, these can include: height, facial hair, and a deep voice. Women--unique among animals for possessing any at all--have only one, which is related to their body-mass. Studies have indicated that the woman whose body shows that it has sufficient nutrients to be able to nurture a baby is the one that men choose. For example, in traditional societies where food is likely to be scarce, men favour plumper women, while in Western societies, a hip-to-waist ratio of 0.7 is preferred (Ibid, 108).

Research into what women find attractive in men, suggests that they rate a man's ability to acquire resources more highly than they do his physical appearance. Men, on the other hand, primarily look for signs of a woman's fitness to bare children, such as clear unwrinkled skin, luscious hair and facial symmetry. (Low, 2000, 79-80)

So, when a man buys a woman diamonds, it signals to her that he has good "resource control" and when a woman invests in cosmetics, it indicates that she is trying to maximise her reproductive advantage. A criticism of this approach is that it places too much emphasis on biology and too little on social or cultural factors. Present day gender differences (or more accurately gender differences from the pre-feminist era) are assumed to be the result of our species' natural inheritance. Therefore, all we need do to account for them, is deduce the evolutionary reason for their existence. However, some of the conclusions of evolutionary psychology appear to be self-contradictory, for example, why have men evolved sexual characteristics, if women are more interested in their resource control?

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was the first to assert that the unconscious mind was a coherent system that could be investigated. He believed that dreams expressed hidden desires and found that, in the case of adults, these desires were almost always sexual. (Freud: 1991, 520)  From his dream work, Freud concluded that the essential life force in humans--the Eros--was sexual in nature. (Appignanesi: 1992, 75) For Freud, there was no 'normal' sexuality, he believed that sexual desire had no natural object, and men and women were innately bisexual. Therefore, so-called 'perverse' sexual desire only existed because of a social mechanism, which separated desires into those that were acceptable, and those that were unacceptable. He called this mechanism repression. (Ibid, 72-74)

But what is repression? Freud postulated that it was the result of the clash of two opposing forces, which he named the pleasure principle and the reality principle. Above all, humans strive for happiness and recoil from pain. Therefore, in their lives, they try to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Pain comes in many forms: from the body, from the world and from our relations with others. The pleasure principle seeks distraction from pain in a number of ways, the most important being sexual pleasure - extreme pleasure giving the greatest feeling of release. (Freud: 1961, 25- 26) The reality principle is primarily concerned with the avoidance of pain, it says that basic human needs, like shelter and food, must be satisfied before pleasure is considered. This means denying ourselves pleasure in the short term in order to avoid pain in the long term. (Appignanesi: 1992, 69)

This putting-off of pleasure is the beginnings of repression. Freud speculated that it was the dominance of the reality principle over the pleasure principle that led directly to the rise of civilisation. In other words, over time, the needs of the individual became subjugated to the needs of her society, and the sexual pleasure of the individual became ritualised by that society into a series of dos and don'ts.  (Freud: 1961, 51).

Applying this framework to advertising, we can see that it always panders to the pleasure principle. Sex, according to Freud, is the most powerful desire. It is, by its very nature, inexorably intertwined with power and status, which are the main course in the feast of dreams advertisers continually tempt us with. Repression is an unavoidable consequence of civilisation. As societies grow ever more complex, technical, and controlling: the greater the need for their inhabitants to satisfy the desires of their repressed pleasure principles, even if that satisfaction is mediated and vicarious, or like the promises of advertising itself, illusionary - "the magic system" as Raymond Williams famously called it.

Although much of Freud's work is grounded in clinical psychology, many of his later writings are just pure theoretical speculation. There was no consensus as to the correctness of his ideas, even among members of the psychoanalytical movement he founded. His disciple Jung, for example, disagreed that Eros energy was purely sexual (Ibid,116).  Freud's legacy can perhaps be seen as bequeathing humanity a modern myth of sexuality.  Like myths, his theories provide reassurance that we can understand the complexities of the world and our own behaviour, but like myths they also lack the evidence to prove it.

In conclusion, sex undoubtedly sells, but in the context of advertising, we have to be careful to delineate the boundaries of the proposition in order to measure its effectiveness. Sexual advertising is only used in certain contexts. In a mass appeal setting, it can even be seen as counter productive, hence the relative lack of sexual advertising in Weekend, as compared to that in FHM or Cosmopolitan. Sexual advertising is almost exclusively emotionally led, rarely does it make any appeals to our rationality. Even in the area of atmospheric advertising, where it is most strong, sex is by no means the only weapon in the advertisers' armoury. Humour and fear are also powerful aids to selling, but we are not told that "humour sells" or "fear sells." Why is this? Is the association between sex and selling that strong? Or is it just a sign of prurience that we focus so exclusively on it? As human beings, we are all aware of the power that sex has to energise and even terrorise us, adults crave it, children must be protected from it, we reserve our worst insults for those we judge to have transgressed its boundaries. Undoubtedly sex is a powerful force, although perhaps it is only recognised as such, because of the existence of equally powerful forces that oppose it. To adopt Freud's theoretical framework, if the world were governed by the pleasure principle, sex would sell every time and there would be a never-ending line of customers eager to buy. However, the real world is governed by the reality principle, and the capricious dictates of sexual pleasure must be tempered by practical considerations, like finding shelter and having enough food on the table to eat. Sex knows its place in that pecking order; for in the real world, it is sex that has to wait in line.

Selected Bibliography

Apignanesi, Richard, Oscar Zarate, Freud for Beginners, London: Icon books, 1992.

Barrett, Louise, Robin Dunbar, John Lycett. Human Evolutionary Psychology, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002

Brierly, Sean, The Advertising Handbook, London: Routledge, 2002.

Caslon.com, Adult Content Industries profile: Overview URL: www.caslon.com.au/xcontentprofile.htm (accessed 29/10/03)

Clark, Eric, The Want Makers, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1988.

E-Commerce News, Online Porn Profits Still Lurk in Shadows, URL: www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/16088.html  (accessed 29/10/03)

Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents, James Strachy (trans), New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1961.

Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, James Strachy (trans), London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Goffman, Erving, Gender Advertisements, London: Macmillan, 1979

Low, Bobbi S., Why Sex Matters, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

mediaweek.co.uk, Sex, death and outdoor adverts - a recipe for controversy URL: www.mediaweek.co.uk/ThisWeek.Analysis.View.aspx?ContentID=13 (accessed3/11/03)

Messaris, Paul, Visual Pleasures: The Role of Images in Advertising, London: Sage Publications, 1997.

Zigmund, William G., Michael D'Amico, Marketing, Minneapolis: West Publishing Company, 1996

Appendix

A Survey of the Sexual Advertising Found in FHM, Cosmopolitan and Weekend Magazines

Aim

To find out how much sexual advertising these three magazines contained.

Method

I counted (a) the pages of each magazine, and then (b) the number of pages containing advertisements as well as (b) the total number of advertisement. The figures for (b) and (c) are different because, for example, some advertisements spanned two pages and Weekend in particular had pages in which multiple ads were situated. I then ascertained how many advertisements were sexually themed, based on the definition of sex in advertising being "anything that denotes or connotes sexual desire." 

Notes

(i)  I treated the 'Classified' section separately because Weekend did not have one.

(ii) I ignored any fliers the magazines may have contained.

Results

(1) FHM Magazine

No. of pages………………………………………..  316

No. of advertising pages……………………………   127

No. of advertisements………………………………   117

No. of sexually themed advertisements…………….     53

Classified Section: 12 pages (7.5 pages of sexual ads)

(2) Cosmopolitan

No. of pages………………………………………..  368

No. of advertising pages……………………………   178

No. of advertisements………………………………   155

No. of sexually themed advertisements…………….     100

Classified Section: 16 pages (9 page of sexual ads & 5 pages of psychic ads!)

(3) Guardian 'Weekend' Magazine

No. of pages………………………………………..  104

No. of advertising pages……………………………   46.5

No. of advertisements………………………………   67

No. of sexually themed advertisements…………….     7