Sexy or Sexist

I downloaded some TV series that one of the M1 recommended for my wife "Emily in Paris" and heard (in the background - I wasn't watching) a discussion about advertising and the phrase "Sexy or Sexist". Then this morning on a basketball website (no really) I saw this:



So what do you think about this and advertising that uses women's bodies to sell goods. Sexy or Sexist or both?

Hello John, how is your holiday ? If i believe the video you share with us, you really want to swim soon... 

About this video, I really hate this type of presentation of new clothes developped by a brand or a creator. Why ? Because this is always extravagant and the clothes cost an arm ahah. I watch the video and some clothes are just a piece of fabric but if the models here want to wearing this type of clothes, it's their choice (and I suppose the contract can be attractive ahah). In marketing, researchers say that the sexe or sexy attracts people and wins their attention but it will not increase for sure the sales of the product. 

To answer your question, I will say that is both : Sexy and Sexist. Objectively, women are beautiful and to see wonderful women naked like this afford the attention of people for sure because that's sexy. In contrast, in this type of industry, we always value physic aspects of men or women and that's ridiculous. As Fabrice Luchini said in the TV Show Quotidien "A face is above all its defects, Cocteau said cultivate them, it's your soul". I prefer this way to think than the fashion's world has given us from many yeaaaaaaaaaars. 

Link of the video :
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvm.tiktok.com%2FZMeLH9sCT%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0goTPDuORxB2n9YBTXXn6TIvk1pAf6jBSGpdGYA4z3xdK3e9fEzKNVBTk&h=AT3W4SdynEY7djalo5AjELM-U9kZxhxoAA6trdg5dLH7LpuAjo0z9oxFvRM1Kom4CZ4m32PedwfuEsidvNmT4K502ggk4WhhruA_7N8wp8xiF9KBO7veWuQydhCdtGpuxDtl3A

To answer your question I think that the main problem in this kind of advertising is that it's often the same beauty criteria that are put forward in this kind of advertising. It's always somehow "perfect" women who are represented in these ads and therefore there is a great lack of diversity in the profile of the models. This lack of diversity is especially a problem among children and young adolescent girls who are in the process of building their own identity. When they see this kind of video all the time on ads, internet and social networks, they can be complexed because of their natural flaws and feel bad afterwards. The "idealization" of a perfect woman without any physical defects can therefore be detrimental to the development of young adolescent girls, because of ads like that but mostly because of "reality TV" in my opinion ...

So is it sexy ? Well as a simple man I have to admit that yes it's sexy, I'm not going to lie, but it's also sexist since in this kind of advertising the women's bodies are only used as mere marketing objects and there is no diversity at all in the profile of these women. However women are free of their bodies and therefore they are the ones who decide to do this kind of advertising or not. The only problem, for me, is the image of women's status in general that is conveyed to children and adolescents in this kind of ads.

Hello Jonh!

To answer the sexy or sexist question, you first have to think about how women's bodies are used as objects. To talk about the video you put on the forum, I think that this kind of demonstration can create complexes in women who don't have the same physical shapes as the models who parade. We see beautiful women passing by throughout the video (I haven't watched everything but I imagine) whereas the reality is completely different and there are many more types of morphology than those presented. But, in this video we present a brand of women's clothing (well I think) so it's quite normal that it's girls who parade. What I find even more disturbing is when we use women's bodies to sell products that have nothing to do with naked bodies. I am thinking for example of cars in advertisements or at trade fairs where there is a certain very macho culture where women are presented as decorative objects. You can see that opinion has taken hold of the subject and is moving things forward a little.

On the one hand, advertisers are much more careful about the images they use and brands don't want to have an image considered "sexist". Moreover, the traditions at the big events are also changing a little bit, we can note the Tour de France which has now put an end to the tradition of hostesses (see link). As my classmates didn't, I think it's also important to talk about the fact that men too can be complicated by the way we use the body as an image and as an object.

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/cyclisme-les-hotesses-sur-le-podium-du-tour-de-france-cest-du-passe

Concerning the ad that you've posted, I would say that it's not sexist. In fact, it's "normal" to use female to show how swimwear would look like in real life (even if they choose body types that do not represent real life). But in another context like an ad for electricity, it would be 100% sexist because it would be women's objectification. 
The subject that you chose is funny because I've recently reported an ad that I saw in a paper magazine because it's sexist and women objectification. Indeed, the company (an air conditioning company) used a woman's legs that was holding a bra on her hand (it takes half of the advertising) to promote their company. They also decided to have this wonderful text "it's cold, Benoit Samson warms you up." so at first, I thought it was an ad for lingerie but no... 
Hopefully, advertisers will stop using female as an object to sell their stuff.

Using women’s bodies to sell a product, which has nothing to do with the woman or her body, is not a good thing and usually it is sexist. I mean why use a woman in a bikini to show a car or appliances?
How can anyone have this idea and thinks it is a good idea? Maybe the reason they choose this form of advertising is because they want to be seen and talked about. But they can lose customers because of that.
The video that you posted is not really “sexist”, it is a brand of swimwear, so the models have to parade in bikini and yes, their bikini are sexy. But it can exceed the sexist limit, because the fact that the brand decides to choose women with the same shape, a slim waist, nice breasts, no stretch marks, no cellulite, it can be associate with sexism. The brand wants the perfect women to represent them, to feel that the brand is sexy.
Fortunately, nowadays, more and more brands are choosing models with different shapes and morphology, because every women are beautiful and can be sexy in any case.

The advertising show how easy it is to attract people. When you see this kind of ad, in my opinion, people think if they wear this bathing suit, they’ll look like the woman on the catwalk but they’re wrong. Women on this ad are posing, dancing and have oil on there body that might help to be sexy but that does not represent a quarter of the women population, all the women and the men do not look like model for sure. Women (and men) want to be sexy, that’s right, but there are different ways.

It is also kind of sexist because considering a woman beautiful, she doesn’t have to be naked for that. She can absolutely beautiful and sexy with clothes…

This video remembers me the shows of Victoria Secret, you don’t even have to know the brand if you have watched the video above. The brand sale rather lingerie or bathing suits and only showed thin and tall model, they did not the diversity of bodies, that’s why the brand had to stop the show. It is an other example of how some designer house use women.

Regarding to the advertisements that use women's bodies to sell the products, I think that if they do that, it's because unfortunately it works. We are in a society that looks primarily at the physical, because women have special attributes, they are often used to sell. But I think it's a pity, because in addition to giving a bad image of women, it shows how much the human being is susceptible to influence. In this video, the women's bodies are highlighted, but I find it neither sexist nor sexy. For me it's borderline vulgar. I have more the impression that it is a parade of bodies rather than swimsuits.

To answer the question : sexy or sexiest, I think on the advertisements they use a lot women's bodies to sell products, because women bodies are attractive for sell.
I think it's bad because they use women body and sometimes they don't use the bodies right and try just to be sexy to increase the sales but in the same time I think it's good thing because it show who women can be free to show their bodies if they want, and be powerful.
I think it's the society who change this image because at first it's just a bodies and people sexualize this and it shouldn't be like this.

Are women deliberately perpetuating this? Is "sex" the ultimate manipultive hook that women have over men?

Perpetuating the sexism ?

Florian D. wrote:Perpetuating the sexism ?

yeah

Is it in the interests of certain sections of the (female) public to maintain our sexist society?

Men are led by their sexual reproductive organ. (notice I didn't stoop too low in my language - I accidently typed manguage which could be a new word for this -there).

Well,

This is a very interesting question and one that I think would be the subject of much debate.

To give my opinion quickly, I think that a minority of women use their charms to manipulate certain "weak" men. I think this was more common when morals were different and the law of the strongest "physical" was in place. Now we live in a society where everyone's rights are recognised and enforced (well, more or less), so women have no interest to manipulating men. To conclude, I think that using charm to manipulate a person of the opposite sex is not only attributable to women and that many men also do it.

What can i say to a such particular subject.. Well, as a man, i can not say that is not sexy.. These ladies looks like barbies.. But you know, everyone is sexy, it's just that not everyone puts it forward. In fact, each one has his beauty criteria and not all men/women see the beauty with the same eye. After all, being sexy, beautiful and all that stuff are just a matter of subjectivity.
Now if it is sexist? I don"t think so because in this case, they are advertising bikinis with women and that it's not out of context. Maybe they could have put a mix of different women but i guess it was there choices and there strategy of marketing.

Sexy or sexist, the border is hard to determine. The ad you send to us shows a fashion show where it's not unusual to see women, almost naked the most of time, but maybe this is where the problem is? Everyone has the same opinion about that, models don't reflect the reality and unfortunally a lot of girls identify themselves with them and try to be as they are. I find this situation very sad because beauty is not define by our physical appareance but it's how our society works: its define the beauty canon...

To answer at your question, men are weak when they are in front a beautifull woman, and we are able to see when someone is intimidate by us. Everybody likes power and it's really difficult for us, as a woman, to success in this world because, not to change, it's run by men And this is the reason why our world is going so bad...
But we are more intelligent of that and we don't need to use our body to manipulate people and have we want. Of course, this is the faster way to success but I don't think this could work in the following years. Youngs generations are sick of the situation and I think that things will change. At least, I hope so.

This subject could be a good catchphrase for a TV show debate. In fact, I think that the answer is not universal, it depends on our point of view and beliefs. For my part, I’m from the ones who believe that it would be extreme to talk about “sexism” in such situation because these women are just doing their job (which I’m sure they love). Of course, they incarnate perfectly women’s sexiness and they are paid for that, they act sexy to sell clothes and it is okay because that’s how it works. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I would encourage this way of selling, using women bodies, but I believe that it mustn’t be a motive for feminist people to be mad at.