Selling sex reaches a climax

For most of the film, the writers don’t come anywhere close to what women really want — apart from one scene between Lola (Marisa Tomei) and Nick. Like many men, Nick thinks he’s a tiger in bed — only to learn via Lola’s thoughts that he’s the very opposite. Eventually, he does manage to satisfy her — by paying attention to what’s on her mind during sex. She gets what she wants.

In Business Spotlight 5/2009, you can read about how one company has successfully inserted a scene very much like the one of Lola’s climax into a succesful ad. In fact, the whole ad is a montage of different women “reaching climax” to the Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart's Magic Flute. The ad is for a Durex female "pleasure-enhancing gel”, which claims to help women have an orgasm. The tag line is “all you need”. Really?

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the independent regulator for advertisements in the UK, received several complaints about the advertisement. It’s been called “offensive and overly graphic”. The ASA, however, has ruled that the ad can be shown. Basically, it’s OK for women to (pretend to) orgasm on television after 10 p.m.

"We considered that this ad was not overly graphic, contained no explicit material and was unlikely to cause offence, provided it was scheduled appropriately."

Warning: this ad could cause offence and is not suitable for minors.

I think it makes a change for the sex industry and the advertising world to see sex from the women’s point of view — rather than just using the female sex to sell. I’m just not so keen on the music.

In our exercise, we look at some of the language used in advertising.

Deborah Capras