According to sexual economy theory, women want occasional and special sex in their lives. The relation of many women to sexual images has always been negative, and specialists decided to research to detect how this negativity appears. There were two advertisements for cheap and expensive products, which included some sexual images. Women showed more negativity to this advertisement strategy when cheap products were promoted rather than expensive. Consequently, this paper will present how experiments were conducted and why women have a different attitude to sexual images and sex in general than men.
Heterosexual women believe that sex should have a high value and be planned. This attitude appeals because for women, sex is not one of the central parts of their lives, and they are serious about choosing a partner. Sexual economic theory states that women are ready to have sex when they gain something like money, affection, children, marriage. The connection of sexual images with expensive products increases the value of sex in a woman’s life and decreases it when advertised products are cheap. Women often become upset and angry because of the cheap promotions using sexual images. The study is mostly focused on these feelings and why they usually appear in women rather than in men.
One of the first experiments aimed to determine whether sexual images in advertisements influence women and what feelings they express while watching different types of promotions. Every woman had to watch two product promotions and rate them. These two videos presented women’s watches, but one of them included many sexual scenes, and the other just showed snow-capped mountains. The price also varied from $10 to $1250 to make the experiment more accurate. Then participants had to decide what moments made them happy and what forced them to become angry. The results showed that women are furious when advertisements of cheap products include sexual images and more comfortable when promotions of expensive products have sexual hints. However, some researchers suggested that women might like expensive products more, and sexual images do not play significant roles. However, an additional study took place, and it was found out that the price does not greatly affect women’s attitude to promoted products. Consequently, women’s attitude towards sex has a high value, even in such areas as advertising.
The second experiment aimed to continue the first experiment with slight changes like promoting men’s watches and analyzing how sexual images affect both genders. Male’s attitude to advertisings with sexual moments was not affected by the difference in price, while women showed a great percentage of dissatisfaction. The results showed that negative effects depend on gender, but a positive attitude does not always depend on gender. This experiment could prove the difference of perspective to cheap and expensive products in more depth.
I believe that the desires of men and women are often diverse, and the attitude to many things in the world is different for each gender. This research helped me understand how such a narrow topic affects people and what real-life examples allow people to prove their theories. Moreover, this study is useful in many life spheres like marketing and psychology, and it might be helpful for me in the future.
Two experiments stated how sexual images affect women and why they have different effects on mood. For cheap products, sexual moments in advertising are not acceptable, and women express negative emotions in relation to such promotions. However, sexual images in promotions of expensive products evoke positive emotions, and such advertisements are appropriate in production. This research has a great impact on the marketing sphere and the audience’s attitude to advertisings.