Overt sexuality in advertising: A discourse analysis of gender responses

Abstract

Recent developments in advertising imagery often involve the use of overt sexuality. Consumer responses to advertisements using a range of sexual explicitness are explored using a discourse analytic approach. The dominant negative themes articulated across sex and age groups concerned the use of sex-role stereotypes and the objectification of women. Dominant positive themes shared by both sexes involved equality in sexual representations and sexuality as art. Younger consumers' discourse concerned how advertising can add symbolic value to consumption by investing the products with a romantic style of sexuality which becomes a potent cultural form drawing its energy from the desires of the body. The shared dominant themes were supported by gendered interpretive repertoires. The unexpected gender consistency in dominant themes is discussed in relation to the cultural function of advertising as art in allowing women to speak more easily of their desires through consumption choices. © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.