When walking around New York this summer, I would see these ads for Equinox gym on pay phone booths, on the sides of buses, and on billboards. I am a member of the Equinox gym, so I took notice. There are SO many aspects of this ad that I find inappropriate and wrong. First off, the ads were photographed by the esteemed Terry Richardson, a photographer that is well known for his highly sexualized images. Whoever made this ad chose him as the photographer because they knew he would deliver sexy, scandalous images. This photograph implies that if you go workout at this gym that you will not only get a hot model body, but your "brainpower" will increase as well. When you look at that female, is the first word that comes to your mind "smart?" Sure, I could be jumping the gun with my assumptions.
The point is that they could have chosen an actual athlete or random "fit" person, disregarding size (fit and healthy people can still be curvaceous), who was on a treadmill or lifting weights. Instead, we have a half naked female, hair down, high knee socks on, with a guy on top wearing glasses... in a library. Take away the words below and this ad could just well be a spread in Playboy magazine.
Since the rise of the internet (and all the porn therein) sex has gotten more and more blunt in advertising. I actually don't have a huge problem with that--I think Americans are generally way too prudish about sex, and we tend to demonize things that aren't hurting anyone (or are a lot of fun between consenting adults). BUT the sex you see in advertising is always the same, and it's almost always man-on-top passive-woman sex. It corrupts, trivializes, and simplifies one of the best things we have.
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