Happy Friday!
I had a serious post in the works that went back to Wednesday’s post about The Hurried Child, addressing Dr. Elkind’s assertion that middle school and even early high school is too young for sex education and that a class is an inappropriate place for sex education to be taking place. But it’s Friday morning, and I’ve decided that’s far too serious a post. I’ll come back to it next week.
So instead… YouTube fun!
This is probably still my favorite condom ad. It manages to have fabulous sexual tension AND community support for safe sex. I only wish I could find it with better resolution!
This ad is funny, engaging, and to the point. The significant downside is that it’s the wrong point and is suggests clearly incorrect information – which makes it a bad ad.
The significant problem with this ad is that you can get a sexually transmitted infection from (a) putting a penis in your mouth as you do during a blow job and (b) having semen in your mouth. So if the chick (and then the guy) were performing oral sex on someone with an STI, they already have it. After the blow job is not the time to ask about STI status, regardless of whether you’ve actually swallowed the semen or not – the time to ask is BEFORE THE BLOW JOB. (And yes, some middle school students need this point clarified. Thankfully most do not.)
And now for the last: the ugly. Before I give you this one, I have a confession to make: I don’t own a television set. So I miss out on most of the outrageous, oversexualized, de-humanizing crap out there directed at women. Nevertheless, this ad made it through. It’s insulting and objectifying for women. It furthers the stereotype of the asshole, heterosexual man. In other words, it’s bad for everyone. And yet – and yet!! – it sells it’s product. That’s what gets me in the end – people will continue to make this same kind of horrible ad until we stop buying into it. So here’s my pitch: Don’t buy any Axe product because of this ad, and the many others like it.
