Womens Sex Appeal vs. Mens Sex Appeal Research Paper

Womens Sex Appeal vs. Mens Sex Appeal - Research Paper Example For example, Western society is inundated with sexually-explicit materials in many advertising formats as a means of gaining male or female devotion to a particular product or service. Depending on the imagery and the market, whether male or female, it can often create a stimulus response that ultimately leads to higher sales volumes for the product. In Asia, visual representations of partially-clothed men and women are much less common based on regulatory presence or stern, traditional cultural beliefs on sexuality. The most common similarity between men and women, when determining sex appeal, is based on physical appearance and not biological factors, such as chemical pheromone response. Advertising and the development of a liberal culture related to sex seem to be the most important factors that have created the modern view of sex appeal in both men and women. THE FEMALE VIEW Men clearly consider the importance of female sex appeal which is evident with the high volume of sexually -explicit materials that sell annually to male audiences. It is also evident with the large amount of advertising that is constructed and promoted to male consumers depicting women in various sexual postures. However, women seem to have a distorted view of their own sex appeal that might well be a product of advertising. The company Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie company specializing in underwear products (bras and panties), uses very slender and fit models in their on-air advertising and print promotions as a means of gaining consumer attention for the female market. One might automatically think that this type of advertising would be more effective for male consumers rather than female buyers considering the imagery used depicts same-gender models dressed in scant Victoria’s Secret products. However, women have a distorted view of sex appeal when measuring themselves to the models displayed in this type of advertising. They think, â€Å"Wow, she looks awesome. I shou ld get that outfit so I can look that good too† (Blair, Stephenson, Hill & Green, 111). Why is this? Where most Victoria’s Secret products are sold, the cultures are liberal and Westernized where this type of advertising is acceptable at the social level. The high volume of companies that use this type of advertising, realizing how women view themselves in proportion to more sleek and toned models, continue to reinforce that this is the pinnacle of modern beauty and that women should actively seek to model these images. It is not, then, so much a product of personal or biologically-borne belief that this is the highest aesthetic of beauty, it is a product of engrained cultural imagery depicting slender women that has become a cultural norm related to beauty. Though there are some companies that defy this symbolic view of beauty by using larger, fuller models, the majority of sexually-oriented imagery continues to reinforce the slender form as the most ideal model for wo men to strive to achieve. Advertising such as Victoria’s Secret give women a goal to achieve related to beauty as it is a somewhat armored cultural belief that has remained durable over the past several decades. Thus, when a woman is asked what constitutes sex appeal in another woman, it is likely they will draw on these slender models as a guide and proclaim that female sex appeal is akin only to the type of women portrayed in this type of advertising and television or print imagery. In other cultures, such as in Asia, â€Å"women are very comfortable with being women and they are comfortable with their own sexuality† (Kautzky, 20). Women in Singapore were asked whether they ever purchased sexy