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The Forum > Article Comments > Advertising blue > Comments

Advertising blue : Comments

By Michael Cook, published 2/1/2008

Surely it is not being prudish to expect neighbourhoods, where children and families congregate, remain free of sexually explicit advertising.

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The most that you can probably say about advertisements for condoms is that it may be in bad taste as some people are offended by sex being advertised in public places. However, to play the "children card" yet again makes me wonder what parents are trying to protect their children against. I am now well into my seventies, yet even in the days when I was growing up when religious dogma and the bible taught that anything sexual was sinful, I knew all about that stuff before I was 8 years old. It always seems to me to be a paradox that aborigines can dance topless outside the Houses of Parliament or at the Olympic games,or coloured people be portrayed naked in National Geographic, and it is accepted without comment, as it should be. Why should things as natural as eating or drinking be portrayed as corrupting children's minds. Perhaps I was lucky in growing up with animals that copulated freely, so there was never any question in my mind how we all originated.
The word pornography is used so freely now to describe anything slightly controversial. It should be used more consistently over the growth of violence depicted in videos and computer games. Education and sex should be an important part of any curriculum, and not be regarded in terms of nudge-nudge-wink-wink and something that was somehow smutty.
Posted by snake, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 11:02:49 AM
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When I read this article I assumed that the offending advert must have been something truly shocking to have elicited this outpouring of rage.

Then I followed the links and found the most innocuous of photos. How can this tame image cause such outrage? I expected to see flailing legs and protruding nipples. Instead we have a couple in a loving embrace with nary a naught bit to be spied.

Any child who works out what this photo is about has long since been sexualised. Why is it that those who have a censorial bent always claim to be protecting the kids? Why not just come out and say that the photo offends you and you'll say whatever needs to be said to remove the offending image?

Then the author tells us that the advert is a "grotesquely offensive slur on women". How? Beats me. But it doesn't hurt to get the radical feminists on side when pounding the censorship drum. Is every commercial image of an attractive young women a slur on all women? Perhaps I ought to be offended that the chap has looks, vigor and biceps that I can no longer aspire to.

"Surely it is not being prudish to expect that busy inner-city neighbourhoods...should remain free of sexually explicit advertising."
Yep. Prudish is exactly the right term.

First they came for the condom advertisers and I did not speak out.....
Posted by mhaze, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 1:11:01 PM
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Perhaps we should all wear hair shirts and whip ourselves during our daily "prayer" sessions, as do "faithful" members of Opus Dei, to overcome our carnal desires.
And put lace coverings on the legs of tables too, while we are at it.
Posted by Ho Hum, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 2:36:32 PM
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The advert reminds me of a poster I once saw many years ago, advertising the film Samson and Delilah, only this time someone stuck a condom advert on it!

A comment from the Aids council of Australia would be useful, detailing the figures on STD transmission, as there has been very minimal public advertising on this issue since the Grim Reaper, twenty one years ago.

Samson lost his hair, sounds as though Michael Cook has also!
Posted by Kipp, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 2:49:15 PM
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I agree with snake and mhaze. Having had a squizz at a photo of the offending billboard, I can see nothing there that I'd be worried about my kids or grandkids seeing. The picture is quite tasteful, there are no genitalia showing, and it is appropriate to the product being advertised.

As mhaze suggests, if kids can work out what's going on in the ad, surely they are sexually aware enough to be exposed to it. Besides which, promoting condom use has to be good in terms of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies in young people.

Michael Cook's objections are indeed "prudish".
Posted by CJ Morgan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 2:59:47 PM
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The sex paranoid puritans at Opus Dei were essentially behind the production and promotion of one of the most vile pieces of sado-masochistic pornography ever produced---it was really a SNUFF film in disguise.
It was promoted by most "right"-thinking (heart dead) christians, including the then pope,as being the perfect missionary tool for bringing "christ" to a world mired in secularism and the evils of cultural "relativism".

I am of course referring to the movie The "Passion" of Christ by Mel Gibson.

To my mind this reference sums up the cultural implications of that vile work of "art".

1. http://www.logosjournal.com/isuue_3.2/hammer_kellner.htm
Posted by Ho Hum, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 3:19:42 PM
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