Mixed Messages

I was reflecting on whether or not to write a Valentine’s Day post again this year (is it a tradition, because I’ve done them so often before, or just a recycling of old material?) when I saw an ad for KY products that attempted to address the time-honored question of just what does one get a male significant other for Valentine’s Day in the first place. As you might expect, the company was advising the viewer that what her significant other wants most would be sex, preferably with the assistance of one of the many fine KY brand personal lubricants. Clearly it’s a tongue-in-cheek ad, intended to be funny and just sexy enough to cut through the clutter of incessant television advertising. But watching it, I couldn’t help but feel that there were several problems with this approach…

First of all, the company is perpetuating the old stereotype of men being obsessed with having more sex, along with the implication that women are almost equally dedicated to have as little sex as possible. As always, I will leave moral and philosophical discussions about whether such stereotypes are sexist, elitist or generally detrimental to our society to those better qualified to have such discussions, and simply point out that this is a problematic message for a company that specializes in selling products that facilitate sex to be promoting. Just like any other company, KY needs to convince as many people to make use of its products as it possibly can, not just on February 14, but at all times, and reinforcing the popular belief that half of the population should want to avoid the primary activity in which your product is used does not seem like a strategically sound choice…

Even worse, though, is the possibility that the other half of the population might take the same message to heart. If male customers accept that what their significant other wants most is to avoid having sex with them, it would logically follow that they should offer her a night (or a selection of nights) without any demands (or even requests) of a sexual nature. One could easily imagine a variation on those novelty “coupon books” that offer coupons good for various sexual activities, only in this case they excuse the woman presenting them from such activities at her discretion. At which point, KY is not only missing out on opportunities to sell its products, but also eliminating any chance that their male customers might buy something on the vague or distant hope of using it…

Personally, I’ve always found the stereotype to be annoying, if not outright insulting, because of the remarkably low opinion of all human beings it of necessity perpetuates. Not all men are monomaniacal perverts spending all of their time focused on sex, or such miserable partners that no same woman would ever want them – and, by the same token, not all women are frigid, conniving manipulators who exploit that weakness in their counterparts in order to get what they want by participating in an activity in which they derive no enjoyment whatsoever. In fact, I would argue that neither of these things are inherently correct, and that most of the people who conform to these behavior patterns are doing so because they have been socialized into doing so by elements of the popular/media culture in which they live…

Now, I’m not claiming to have any better answers for KY, let alone for human civilization in general. None of my degrees are in marketing or advertising, let alone psychology, sociology or anthropology. I’m just saying that perpetuating behavioral stereotypes that influence people to avoid using your product may not be the best way of selling it…