The Sex Appeal In Advertising Media Essay

Through the years we have found a diversity advertising resources for selling products which have been calling the attention of the costumers, in order to catch their eye to cause they buy those products. One of those resources is the sex appeal which has increased enormously the profits of the firms which used it; however, this enormous selling resource has with it some important negative effects to be aware of. For that reason, the next essay aims to describe and analyze the sometimes imperceptible negative effects that sex appeal in advertising is causing over children, and woman image

Before to start developing this essay, it is very important to know what sex appeal means. Sex appeal can be described as a socially acceptable view of good looking or personal qualities that a person has, which arouse others sexually and in the case of the advertising those are used to capture the attention of the consumers.

Everyday more and more firms are using sex appeal in order to increase their sells, but at the same time many of them are avoiding the use of it because it is causing damages to their images, causing negative effects in the moral values of the people, specially over the teenagers and over the figure of woman.

First of all, we are going to deal with the negative effects that sex appeal advertising has over children. Before describing those negatives effects we are going to know two important quotes that help us to understand more about this issue. The first one was taken from www.mnstate.edu/cmst/cmst100/_Media/advertising.pdf (Shawna Robertson) called “Sex Appeal in Advertising has Negative Effects”

A. Attention getter: It is practically inescapable to turn on the television, browse

internet, page through a magazine, or drive past billboards without seeing some

sort of sex appeal. Sex appeal is the “use of sexual themes that appeal to a

person’s desire to be attractive,” according to the article “Advertising” in the 1999

World Book encyclopedia.

And the second one was taken from: http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/98141.html, “Sex appeal in advertisings negative effects on children”.

Sex appeal in advertising has become an incredibly controversial issue due to its negative effects on children’s self-esteem, body image, manipulation of their young minds into purchasing company products, and lastly the sexual portrayal of children in advertising. It would be a lot easier if there was a clear-cut line between offensive and effective sexual advertisements, but there is not…

Furthermore, advertisements are leading to an unhealthy obsession with good looks and perfect bodies in our youth. The use of sex appeal is causing our society to put an emphasis on appearance and weight, which not only play a role in adults but affects our children as well

As you can read on those fragments, sex appeal is being more and more present in children’s life and it is causing serious damages and negatives effects over them, for example: it is creating stereotypes on perfect bodies over children’s minds, which are affecting children’s self -esteem and creating false images of body perfection.

On the other hand, sex appeal in advertising is causing confusion on children which have two different vision on the matter, the cognition they have about sexuality form advertisements and the values that their parents give them. Although, it is not implicit in the paragraph quoted, sex appeal in advertising is causing anorexia and bulimia because children are more focused on the appearance and the weigh than to live a healthy life.

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Moreover sex appeal in advertising is promoting children’s sexual initiation, which is causing that children got sexual relations without they have a previous knowledge about that, and a big example of that behavior are the reggaeton parties for children and teenagers. If you go there you are going to realize that children are being part of sexual erotic games, where they are expressing behaviors which are against their values because those games are like having sex with clothes, which it is far from being what society and parents want for them.

Sometimes we are more worried about who is going to be the model that this brand is going to present to us, or how much beautiful and perfect she/he is going to look for offer its products that we forget the big damage that that kind of advertising is causing over children. How much time are we going to wait for realizing that we need more responsible advertises on the media for improving children’s health and thinking?

It is our duty as parents to be worried of creating a critical thinking on children’s minds for they can take decisions about what they are watching and buying.

Brands are earning more money every day while children are suffering terrible sicknesses such as anorexia.

It is our decision to say stop to those negative effects, but how? Preferring the brands that work with responsible publicity and teaching to our children that sex appeal messages in advertising are totally wrong, not belonging to our reality.

As you can realize in this paragraph and as Shawna Robertson mentioned, the negative effects that sex appeal in advertising is causing over the woman image are many. For example, woman image is just being used as a sex object in order to increase the profits of the companies. And also, it is being used as a tool in order to empower the advertisement to engage the consumer’s attention and to sell more and more products, but they are forgetting that woman is a very beautiful human being who gives life. Her beautiful image is being degraded because sex appeal in advertising is showing her as a kind of unconsumed prostitution where costumers believe that by getting the product which is being showing, they will get the woman who appears in that advertisement. This is totally wrong; they only are going to have less money in their pockets.

The image of woman has to be mentioned with respect and with admiration because woman has many values which go beyond of a simply sex symbol. Woman is definitely more than that, she is more than an advertise which wake up the senses of men. She is more than an Ideology of perfect bodies. She is the pure image of every mother on this world and we have to protect her by talking with our children about the importance that the role of her in family.

But it is not only everything lost, many different brands are using cartoons in order to avoid the perfect and naked bodies for selling product, which have we know it is not a solution; however, it is a step for changing the false world of publicity that wants to sell an image which it does not exist.

As a conclusion we have to mention that sex appeal in advertising is a tool which is being used in order to engage the attention of the costumers for selling products; however it is causing serious negatives effects which are affecting directly children and the image of woman, damaging their values and causing terrible sickness like anorexia. Those negative effects are more and more present in our society promoting false stereotypes and ideologies for selling products.

Is our task as consumers to prevent those negative effects preferring the products that are making responsible publicity on media, without attempting to physical integrity of people. And also it is important to promote critical thinking over our children’s mind in order to avoid manipulation of media over them.