Why does sex sell?

Advertising
Lots of products utilize sex in some form to advertise their products. Music videos are like adverts of the artist as its all about them and their music so these are sexualised too. Some adverts show sexual intimacy between couples, some show men or women posed in a seductive way or experiencing sexual pleasure, or some feature semi-naked women who aren't sexualised but there bodies may desire and gaze at, some may feature parts of the body so we focus on that specific part of flesh usually the breasts without acknowledging the whole person.

Why are sexual adverts successful?

Implied sexual success-the products is linked to images of attractive couples or sexually successful individuals, the adverts make the consume feel that the product will make them more sexually attractive/successful.
Primal Impulse- Sexual desire is the driving force in nature, a primal impulse that cannot be rationalised or explained. Freud called this sexual impulse the libido. Therefore by appealing to a primal emotional impulse, advertisers are able bypass rational decisions about buying products.
Scopophillia is the pleasure derived from looking at other peoples' bodies.
Our minds form a subconscious link between the pleasure the spectator gets from looking, and the product. So the subliminal suggestion is that consuming the product will create the same pleasure.Because of the controversies surrounding gender and sex in the media, there have been many writers, social scientists and theorists who have tried to offer more complex ideas about how images of men and women and sexuality are portrayed in the media