Sexual descrimination in the media.

I play guitar, and I decided to buy a Guitar magazine from the drugstore near my house. As i walked over to the magazine section, I couldn't find a guitar magazine anywhere.

Then I realised that they were there, but I thought that they were porn magazines.
Now you may be thinking "How is it possible to mistake a guitar magazine for a porn magazine?" Well, if you saw the cover of this magazine, you would have thought so, too.

There was no guitar on musician on the front of this magazine; there was half naked girls though.


So I thought to myself: Why?
Do the editors of this magazine think that it's only men who play guitar?
Because if they do, they are wrong. This made me want to cry almost. I want to be able to buy a magazine about something i love, and not have to feel uncomfortable or out of place buying it. Just because I have a vagina does NOT mean that i am not interested in guitar playing.

Just a side note: I didn't end up buying the magazine. I felt uncomfortable just looking at it.

When I pick up my guitar, I do not think of scantilly clad women. I think of MUSIC.

And besides, what if I decided to pick up the magazine and flip though it to see what's inside? if i did, someone may have thought that I was looking at porn in the middle of the drug store.

This made me want to contact the editor of the magazine and yell

"HOW THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT TO SELL COPIES OF YOUR STUPID MAGAZINE WHEN YOU PUT RANDOM SLUTS ON THE COVER OF IT. THIS IS GROSS, AND YOU ARE A DISGRACE. NO WOMEN ARE GOING TO PICK UP THIS MAGAZINE!! YOU SUCK!!!!!111one1!"

Then I realised that the shelf was still full of these magazines. Nobody had picked one up yet. This made me laugh, because i just knew that it was probablly because of the pervertedness of the cover.

The point of this is, the magazine editors are sexist. They are aiming their adviertisements at men. How many women do you think picked up that magazine? Maybe a couple did. But I know that I sure as hell didn't.




it's the same with alot of beer commercials. Alot of the commercials involve some guy talking, while some scantilly clad women are standing in the background having a wet t-shirt contest, or crap like that.

Do they not realise that women drink beer, too?
Do they not realise that they would sell more beer to more people if they would stop being lazy and think of more ideas for their commercials instead of throwing some random wet horny girls in there.


In Axe commercials, men are shown with good looking women climbing all over them after they put the deoderant on. I find this gross. Unless you're Mike Dirnt or something, no girl would ever degrade herself to that level, and just starting climbing on you and rubbing up against you. If you want to show that your product works, why not show a smelly guy putting on the Axe, and then being happy afterwards that he doesn't smell disgusting.

As a girl, I am sick of seeing young women and girls exploited in the media. i want it to stop, and I want it to stop NOW.

Do you think the media is going just a little too far.

This is really showing off ONLY women, but you get the picture, but why else would those guys be taking pictures?

Just to support the argument...

That second ad is a really bad example and doesn't support your argument at all.

Ok. Neither does your comment.
Amf frankly, neither does this one.

Getting back on topic...

City Of Angels:

I think it's wrong. There's a couple of guitar magazines that I have that aren't like that.

She's not just talking about guitar magazines, she's talking about the media in general.

The media is crap. They discriminize everyone and everything. Not just men or women. Some people thrive on it and others are disgusted by it, but I personally kind of think thats the point. And these people are paid to this kind of shit, the women on the magazines or whatever, they get paid to look slutty or horny or act fake............ Do you think it would be possible to get the guys from Green Day in an Axe commecial?

Sex sells bb.

But yeah, I agree.

If women want to pose naked on magazines or engage in pornography, they have every right to, and I dont think its discrimination at all. If you don't like the media they produce, don't buy it.

All products have a target audience, if they want to aim their magazine at men they have every right to, how is that sexist? You advertise to who you want to buy your product.

Who Stole My Pants?:

Do you think it would be possible to get the guys from Green Day in an Axe commecial?

Oh God, if they were I'd audition to be one of the girls...

I think the problim is it's so common people dont even notice sometimes.

Kurtni:

If women want to pose naked on magazines or engage in pornography, they have every right to, and I dont think its discrimination at all. If you don't like the media they produce, don't buy it.

All products have a target audience, if they want to aim their magazine at men they have every right to, how is that sexist? You advertise to who you want to buy your product.

But these days everything is kind of sold by sex. If you don't buy the stuff, then you're shit out of luck. You might as well throw out your TV, never pick up a magazine, never drink beer, stop using deoderant, and stop listening to music.

And as for the women posing for these pictures; you're right. It's their body, and it's their choice. These days, women should take full advantage of their rights and do whatever the hell they want with themselves. But could you imagine how many little girls saw those magazines and thought "is that how women are supposed to look?"

The point is, it was a guitar magazine. It wasn't a magazine about half-naked women. They should be making their target audiences guitar players not horny people. (although horny=good.) If they're going to sell that crap, than maybe they should go into the porn business instead. It would be alot easier than writing all of those articles, and interviewing all of those musicians. They could easily just take all of that time and money that they used to take a couple of nude shots of random people screwing, and put that in the magazine instead. It would make alot more sense.

I don't really care if sex sells. But it seems like people are only trying to sell things to men thse days. Until I see pictures of half-naked men on the front of magazines and in random commercials, I am going to continue to complain and boycott.

And to Whole Stole My Pants?...

That would be radtacular if Green Day were in an axe commercial.

StephonaNobisPacem:

But these days everything is kind of sold by sex. If you don't buy the stuff, then you're shit out of luck. You might as well throw out your TV, never pick up a magazine, never drink beer, stop using deoderant, and stop listening to music.

Whats your point? They still have every right to advertise how they want- and I think you're exaggerating.

StephonaNobisPacem:

And as for the women posing for these pictures; you're right. It's their body, and it's their choice. These days, women should take full advantage of their rights and do whatever the hell they want with themselves. But could you imagine how many little girls saw those magazines and thought "is that how women are supposed to look?"

Parent's need to monitor their kids intake of the media, the girls who pose provocatively are not responsible for all the little girls in the world.

StephonaNobisPacem:

The point is, it was a guitar magazine. It wasn't a magazine about half-naked women. They should be making their target audiences guitar players not [b]horny people.[/b

Why are you qualified to tell them who they should and shouldn't make their audience? Thats their decision, not yours.

StephonaNobisPacem:

If they're going to sell that crap, than maybe they should go into the porn business instead.

So,provocative pictures automatically equal porn? I think not.

StephonaNobisPacem:

It would be alot easier than writing all of those articles, and interviewing all of those musicians. They could easily just take all of that time and money that they used to take a couple of nude shots of random people screwing, and put that in the magazine instead. It would make alot more sense.

Heterosexual males make up a large percentage of guitar magazine readers, they're playing to the desires of their audiences. Sexual advertising and porn are not the same.

StephonaNobisPacem:

I don't really care if sex sells. But it seems like people are only trying to sell things to men thse days. Until I see pictures of half-naked men on the front of magazines and in random commercials, I am going to continue to complain and boycott.

You can complain all you want, but it won't change the companies because they're not trying to sell to you- they're aiming their ads and products at men.

To an extent I think it is degrading, but then again, I think sex is at the root of most advertisements these days. And in your post, you don't consider the fact that men aren't the only gender to be turned on by semi-naked women.

Nudity in itself isn't something that we should be ashamed of. And not all adverts are like the ones you mentioned - at least in the UK. Recently, there was a weird lynx advert with a guy made out of chocolate and beer adverts tend to be quite original, not just resorting to naked women. So perhaps, culturally, it differs from country to country.

Bloodraine:

To an extent I think it is degrading, but then again, I think sex is at the root of most advertisements these days. And in your post, you don't consider the fact that men aren't the only gender to be turned on by semi-naked women.

Nudity in itself isn't something that we should be ashamed of. And not all adverts are like the ones you mentioned - at least in the UK. Recently, there was a weird lynx advert with a guy made out of chocolate and beer adverts tend to be quite original, not just resorting to naked women. So perhaps, culturally, it differs from country to country.

The reason I don't consider women being attracted to women in the post, is because when you look at the whole picture, there's alot more straight men than there are homosexual women. I just found it easier to leave them out of the picture until somebody else brought them up, because I was too lazy to right any more in the post. Thank you for bringing it up.


You are right, there is no reason to be ashamed about nudity OR sexuality. It's completely natural. But it's NOT human to take something natural like sexuality or nudity, and use it to sell a product. It's not a genuine way of advertising. If you want to sell deoderant, there's no need to make an advirtisement with lots of good looking ladies jumping on a man. Really cool graphics and a nice 30 second audio talking about the efficiency of the product would work just fine. If the makers of the magazine want to sell the magazine to more people, than they should put guitar related stuff on the front of the magazine. Iwouldn't even mind it that much if they put a naked girl holding a guitar on the front of it. At least it's guitar related. they could sell so many more magazines to so many more people if they would just make their magazine covers more appropriate for all age groups and sexualities. I'm sure alot of men would still pick up the magazine if there was a picture of a guitar on the front of it instead of a woman wearing lingerie. Not only would men pick up the magazine, but women and children probablly would, too. (I'm not saying that children wouldn't pick up the magazine if there was sexual content on the front of it, I'm just saying that their parents might not appreciate it if they did.)



Btw... what's Lynx? I'm in Canada, so I'm guessing we don't have that product here.

StephonaNobisPacem:

But it's NOT human to take something natural like sexuality or nudity, and use it to sell a product. It's not a genuine way of advertising. If you want to sell deoderant, there's no need to make an advirtisement with lots of good looking ladies jumping on a man. Really cool graphics and a nice 30 second audio talking about the efficiency of the product would work just fine.

Not human? Then what is it, exactly?

And I don't see how its not genuine, seeing as how its a very real and authentic part of the advertising industry. Maybe genuine wasn't the word you meant to use.

As for other methods working just fine, that may be true in some cases, but this method works "just fine" too, seeing as how they're selling their product.

Nudity IS human, though.

I wouldn't say it's wrong, but it does kind of give false hope. Like, "Oh, if I use this product that can be ME."

Graphics and audio don't show how the products work, tbh. Men like women, so it's kind of a given to put women in these ads. If they felt sexually discriminated against, they wouldn't do it.

For example of my "false hope", there is an ad on Sophie Monk naked on chili peppers and it is for people to go vegetarian. Men will see that and go "Wow. She's hot. Maybe if I go vegetarian, I could get a hot girl."

Sex sells.

Sure its degrading, but I'm sure there are lesbian who play guitar who jumped for joy when they saw a hot chick holding a guitar or whatever.

I really honestly don't think it's as big of a deal as you're making it out to be. I mean, take the art world and it's evolution, for example. Naked women appear in far more paintings than naked men, because men were the ones buying the paintings. And it's the same with products like guitar magazines and Axe cologne. They're aiming the product at men. I'm sure if they were marketing for women, they wouldn't have used half-naked women.

I can see where your coming from, but like the girl ^ above said,'' I'm sure if they were marketing for women, they wouldn't have used half-naked women.'' and I agree, maybe they need to remarket some products as they should be aware that Women want to buy that product too. But I think atm alot of things are sold by sex, and the amount will proberly keep increasing .. So we shouldn't feel embaressed about buying a magazine or whatever because of the cover, if we want to read the content inside.