Sex(hausted)? Curiosity About Whether 'Being Sexy Sells Science'

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by Kylie Sturgess

Crowd-sourcing via ‘tweeting’ appears to become the trend du jour for getting a quick answer! But how would you respond if someone asked you on Twitter whether Science is seen as “this elite thing, inaccessible by most

” – and what would be a good solution?

I immediately recalled an email from nearly a year ago, with their answer to a similar question:

Sex up science, sex up skepticism! Make it appealing and challenge the insidious kind of sexism that is an obstacle to those who want to mix intellectualism with topless pictures. I think it’s the sexually liberated, young feminists who are threatening, but I also think that they are the people who will attract the most new young people to the movement.

However, over the past six months I’ve received pretty much the opposite message from another science communicator and a photographer who works in the advertising industry:

Don’t fall for thinking that sex appeal is needed to promote science well. It’s more complicated than that!

Naturally, with most of these kinds of questions, it just makes me come up with more questions. I guess that’s why I enjoy interviewing people so much!

What exactly is being ’sexed-up’ in this case? The scientists? The communicators? The scientific findings? Or is it an overall question about ‘can we promote science better in general this way’?

Just how badly (or well?) is the promotion of scientific findings being done now anyway? Is it ‘resorting to dirty tactics’ to have sex do the selling? Particularly in this ‘third-wave feminism’ era, when there is no demonstrably all-encompassing single feminist idea? Am I being sexist if I think that it’s only about using female sex-appeal?

… so, you can see the problem I have with answering just one question – when a million others flood to mind!

Sex In Advertising – Some Research

Studies on sex in advertising includes looking at gender differences and responses. A survey done by Media Analyzer back in 2000 (pdf)

is a well-illustrated and fairly straight-forward look at ads and sex-appeal:

MediaAnalyzer Software & Research in Somerville, Mass., recently set out to explore how men and women look at sexually themed ads and what effect, if any, that visual behavior might have on the ads’ effectiveness. In September, the company had 200 men and 200 women take an online test. The first part of the test solicited general opinions about sex in advertising…

The second part involved a visual test in which Media-Analyzer used its Attention Tracking software to follow the visual behavior of respondents as they looked at 10 print ads. (The software has users move the mouse over each ad to indicate where he or she is looking.) The ad sample consisted of two U.S. print ads, one sexual and one nonsexual, from each of five product categories…

Responses to the general questions in the survey revealed that sex in ads is a polarizing issue. While almost half of men (48 percent) said they like sexual ads, few women did (8 per cent). Most men (63 percent) said sexual ads have a high stopping power for them; fewer women thought so (28 percent). Also, most women (58 percent) said there is too much sex in advertising; only 29 percent of men said so. Women were also much more likely than men to say that sexual ads promote a deterioration of moral and social values and that they are demeaning for the models used in them.

More recently, a 2009 study looked at whether ‘it is men or women you’re talking about when you’re selling something?’ – because there is a recorded difference – Science Daily – ‘Does Sex Sell? New Study Shows How To Make Women Respond To Sexy Ads’:

Authors Darren W. Dahl (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Jaideep Sengupta (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), and Kathleen D. Vohs (University of Minnesota) followed up on earlier research that has demonstrated that women exhibit negative reactions to explicit sexual content in advertising.

“Our work builds upon existing perspectives in sexual psychology, which argues for stark differences in men’s and women’s sexual beliefs and motivations. This literature portrays men as having positive attitudes towards casual and recreational sex, whereas women value the emotional intimacy and commitment that can surround the sexual relationship,” explain the authors.

…The authors urge marketers to “exercise caution” when it comes to sex in advertising, but they needn’t abandon it altogether. “The present experiments also revealed that the appropriate use of positioning and relationship context can improve women’s attitudes toward the ad and brand,” they conclude.

It’s a factor touched upon in this NY Times article; the doctors are mostly men, and the sales reps are mostly women – ‘Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales’ in the NY Times

. Cheerleaders for science, women pushing sales in the USA -  a practice that is illegal in Australia, however.

Heterosexuals Need Only Apply?

I have also found myself pondering (usually when I try to figure out the phenomenon of Lady GaGa – I have concluded that perhaps I am just not the target audience and leave it up to Helen Razer to work it out

in situ…) how gay and lesbian audiences view the use of sex in advertising?

A study by Hicks suggests that in ads directed at lesbian audiences in their own publications are quite different to the so-called ‘lesbian chic’ advertising in mainstream publications, which are often directed at heterosexual women. So then, I ask myself, is sex in advertising primarily driven by satisfying the heterosexual male gaze, even in women’s publications like Cosmo – compared to lesbian-only publications? If you did choose to ‘sex-up science’, with lab coats revealing the female or male form – is it going to be for ‘heterosexuals only’?

When Does It Cross The Line?

Also, what if one does not relate to the notion of sex being used to sell a product in general, and finds it a turn-off? In a JREF forum board discussion using sex to sell skepticism in particular, my friend ‘Athon’ responded:

I do, however, think there remains a culture which risks continuing to reinforce those very stereotypes of male dominance that I thought were being addressed.
The … aim, as far as I could tell was initially less about the ‘beauty and brains’ chanting, but more about addressing a perceived imbalance in how [science] was portrayed. Hell, I still can’t see what physical beauty even has to do with a form of philosophy! Yet as time progressed, I saw beauty being referred to more often…. It got me thinking ’so, ugly girls aren’t being represented here? WTF?’. Not to mention one too many comments that were more about angst, bitching or being witty than addressing a stereotype, bridging a gap or promoting practical thinking skills.

From all this, I see that one person’s ’sexually liberated’ could quite easily be another person’s ‘explicit content’, another’s ‘borderline pornography’ or another’s ‘blatant flouting of social norms regarding modesty’ – or even ‘aggressive in-your-face sexual exploitation’. We all have different views about what is acceptable and different opinions about what crosses the line.

It also leads to putting aside the label ’sexy’ as being a part of the ’selling’ or ‘communicating’ – and begins to produce questions like: ‘what is the best way to get a different message out about seeing the world that challenges preconceived ideals – that science is still a worthy and educational benefit?’ and ‘will it appeal in cases where explicit content is not the best vehicle for a message’?

Cases that come to mind include:

Educational institutions and educational systems, where there will absolutely be a ‘conservative standard’ maintained, which will not allow overly explicit content – imagine a teacher who loses their job or a school that has parents pull kids out because the students are given access to such material? Dr Petra Boynton in the Skeptic Zone interview (#78)

discussed how one school went a little ‘too far’ in using explicit terms when teaching sex-education, for example.

Communities where cultural and societal tendencies towards modesty (whilst not exactly censorship, more of a traditionalism that would not eagerly endorse explicit content – working in an Islamic College was one experience I had). Or maybe communities where overly-explicit content may be used as an excuse to censor non-explicit content (’they say they’re about promoting the scientific method, but they’re using foul language, are sexually-graphic and I heard this about their lifestyle….’) – when they are in fact aiming to censor concepts like anti-creationism or criticism of pseudoscience.

Perhaps there’s communities where explicit content will be completely out of the question, despite a keen demographic who may wish to encourage rationalism? Or ones where explicit depictions of a sexualised figure is seen as overtly aggressive, irrelevant or distracting to people, and just plain gender-divisive (as illustrated in the research).

Finally – Feminism

Sure, you might argue that to be pro-science is to be pro-feminism. That it appears to lead to empowered, educated decision-making in regards to one’s health and economic status and how one should question anti-scientific beliefs in society. It should be true for women, as well as for men.

But feminism, as we both know, hasn’t traditionally been palatable in the mainstream anyway. ‘Feminism’ is often interpreted differently by different people, including the unfortunate stereotypes of ‘man-hating’ or ‘not for men’ – or even ’something that has corrupted Western society’ – especially if you are thinking of getting non-Western cultures onside.

I have been accused of marginalising the empowerment that some women claim they get from possessing ‘female intuition’. Or ignoring the community spirit gathered from shared paranormal beliefs, even though I have found little to scientifically support those claims. I’ve also been challenged that I’m ignoring the history of women and communities who have been arguably mistreated by scientific progress, like Skloot’s account of Henrietta Lacks and her family

. The book ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ details how the Lacks had a variety of factors including their sex, their race, economic-status, and even access to education used against their right to make informed decisions about their health, let alone what happened to their genetic material.

Combine that with decades of debates about the objectification of women in society through sexy advertising, discussions about pornography and explicit material – and what it may or may not do to relationships and respect for women? The result is I just can’t shake a flippant pom-pom in response while wearing a clinging lab coat – and expect it to easily change minds: Yea Science!

Case-By-Case – Just In Case

I’m certain there’s more permutations and mixtures of the not-quite-convinced who will take the approach of ‘we better not play the sexy-card – just in case‘. I just know from my own experience, that there’s some material which appeals to me as an adult in the way it cleverly promotes an idea or concept – but I’ll never use it with a younger generation in a teaching context.

Maybe there will indeed be some who will stumble across the ‘socially unacceptable’ – you can’t shield everyone from everything! – and it will prompt them to question issues like pseudoscience and the paranormal? I guess it’s up for grabs as to whether communities that promote science and / or skepticism will see that as a risk worth taking.

Maybe, I conclude, the promotion of science via sex-appeal isn’t really the easy answer I was once given via email. I guess that’s why I now tend more towards a generally conservative, broad-umbrella approach, that has a better chance of reaching more people – rather than putting all my energies and trust into ‘being sexy in order to sell science’.
Select Bibliography

Dahl, D., Sengupta, J., & Vohs, K. (2009). Sex in Advertising: Gender Differences and the Role of Relationship Commitment Journal of Consumer Research, 36 (2), 215-231.

Hicks, G. (2002) ‘Media at the Margins: Homoerotic appeals to the gay and lesbian community. in Reichert, T. & Lambiase, J. (eds) Sex in Advertising: Perspectives on the erotic appeal. Michele Bohbot: USA.

Sengupta, J & Dahl, D. (2008). Gender-related reactions to gratuitous sex appeals in advertising Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18 (1), 62-78.

Skloot, R. (2010). The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown Publishing Group (NY).

Tong, Rosemarie (2009). Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (3 ed.). Westview Press (Perseus Books).