Selling With Sex

I often hear people get upset when people use sex to sell their products. Firstly, advertising is far from an honest, upstanding industry. Either you begrudge their methods (and in the interest of free speech, I do), or you can attack them on a broader platform. People have reasonable arguments about why selling things with sex is stupid or wrong, but I claim that they're using those arguments to conveniently rail against sex from a sex-negative standpoint. If somebody dislikes sex, they're going to latch onto every good argument against sex that's out there (whether it's a valid argument or not), and they're going to try to lean on the non-sex-specific aspects of those arguments in an attempt to hide their personal moral judgments and make it seem like sex is bad from an objective standpoint, regardless of their personal beliefs.

So, people complain when sex is used to sell a product. I just saw a commercial where an anthropomorphic dog was used to advertise a furniture store. It didn't make any sense to me, it was just a stupid gimmick. I imagine whoever came up with it liked dogs, or just thought people who wear animal costumes are cute, and that it would generate some positive attention, that could be directed towards the product they were trying to sell. Why is sex any different? People like sex, so why should it be off-limits from an advertising standpoint? What if a person commissions a sexy advertisement for their product because they are the type of person who likes sex, and includes sex or sexiness as a part of their general lifestyle image (whether or not it has anything directly to do with the product he's selling)? What is wrong with that?

If you don't like sex, you're more than welcome to shop somewhere else. But don't try to prevent advertisers from choosing to use sex to sell products, and don't try to rob people of their choice to support companies that use those advertisements.

Dislaimer: I have no affiliation with Naked Juice, and my views expressed in this post do not in any way reflect theirs. Unfortunately.