Sexual Revolution: There oughtta be a law
I appreciate sexual freedom.
I say that unequivocally. There are a lot of pieces of art, as well as more mundane studies and lines of inquiry that would once have been unacceptable to the mainstream public discourse that are now totally integrated. I think that’s a good thing. The problem is that, every time free speech makes a gain, plutocratic corporate interests trying to use it is cover to rape our minds and our wallets. SEXUAL IMAGES SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN ADVERTISING. There oughtta be a law.
The same principles which compel us to defend a work of art like Navakov’s Lolita, or the comedy of Lenny Bruce, or of the Freudian study of human sexuality, or even television shows like Sex in the City (I’ve still never seen an episode, but its definitely made my social life more interesting) cannot POSSIBLY apply to commercials, whatever they are selling. I believe that sex, like art, is sacred, and sexual imagery in advertising is profanity. If it is being employed to spread corporate logo faeces in the mind of the public, then and only then can the public use of sexual images really be called DEGRADING. Sex in advertising makes terrible psychological associations in people’s minds, and the narratives of the sexual plots, in television advertising in particular, play to our lowest urges and deepest insecurities. It does nothing good. Most importantly, sex never, ever, REALLY has anything to do with the product being advertised. The use of sexual imagery to this end is indefensible.
Some idiots might bring up the question, “can’t commercials be art?”
The answer is no. They can’t. Even if you aren’t the moron who asked that question, (and I'm not going to argue about it, I'm just going to call you stupid) please consider the quotation beneath the cut with respect to the complaint that I have just made...
“As a matter of fact, it went utterly against the grain to take money at all. When anyone showed interest in my poetry or my magical writings, the attitude so delighted me that I felt it utterly shameful to have any kind of commercial transaction with so noble an individual, and I used, as often as not, to beg him to accept the book as a present.
My feeling about accepting money is even more general than this; it rasps every delicate nerve. I feel that the world owes me a handsome income and I have no shame whatever in taking it, provided it is a sort of tribute. The fortune I had inherited was perfectly all right and it never occurred to me to inquire into its sources. Widowers' Houses shocked without convincing me. Thinking it over, I suppose fraud and robbery are the only two sources of wealth, bar exceptional cases; and I suppose that after all the most honest and most honourable way of getting money is to sell one's writings.
Yet I still feel there is something very wrong about it. Good work is priceless and bad work is worthless. Besides, even the best writers are tempted to do their worst work by the fact that publishers, as a class, are persuaded that the public prefer rubbish. The fact is that there are hardly half a dozen writers in England today who have not sold out to the enemy. Even when their good work has been a success, Mammon grips them and whispers, "More money for more work." One ought to have an independent income or another profession. There is hardly one first-rate writer in the last century who has not been starved, persecuted, slandered, bullied, exiled, imprisoned or driven to drink or drowning.”
- Aleister Crowley, The Confessions p. 603-604
I say that unequivocally. There are a lot of pieces of art, as well as more mundane studies and lines of inquiry that would once have been unacceptable to the mainstream public discourse that are now totally integrated. I think that’s a good thing. The problem is that, every time free speech makes a gain, plutocratic corporate interests trying to use it is cover to rape our minds and our wallets. SEXUAL IMAGES SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN ADVERTISING. There oughtta be a law.
The same principles which compel us to defend a work of art like Navakov’s Lolita, or the comedy of Lenny Bruce, or of the Freudian study of human sexuality, or even television shows like Sex in the City (I’ve still never seen an episode, but its definitely made my social life more interesting) cannot POSSIBLY apply to commercials, whatever they are selling. I believe that sex, like art, is sacred, and sexual imagery in advertising is profanity. If it is being employed to spread corporate logo faeces in the mind of the public, then and only then can the public use of sexual images really be called DEGRADING. Sex in advertising makes terrible psychological associations in people’s minds, and the narratives of the sexual plots, in television advertising in particular, play to our lowest urges and deepest insecurities. It does nothing good. Most importantly, sex never, ever, REALLY has anything to do with the product being advertised. The use of sexual imagery to this end is indefensible.
Some idiots might bring up the question, “can’t commercials be art?”
The answer is no. They can’t. Even if you aren’t the moron who asked that question, (and I'm not going to argue about it, I'm just going to call you stupid) please consider the quotation beneath the cut with respect to the complaint that I have just made...
“As a matter of fact, it went utterly against the grain to take money at all. When anyone showed interest in my poetry or my magical writings, the attitude so delighted me that I felt it utterly shameful to have any kind of commercial transaction with so noble an individual, and I used, as often as not, to beg him to accept the book as a present.
My feeling about accepting money is even more general than this; it rasps every delicate nerve. I feel that the world owes me a handsome income and I have no shame whatever in taking it, provided it is a sort of tribute. The fortune I had inherited was perfectly all right and it never occurred to me to inquire into its sources. Widowers' Houses shocked without convincing me. Thinking it over, I suppose fraud and robbery are the only two sources of wealth, bar exceptional cases; and I suppose that after all the most honest and most honourable way of getting money is to sell one's writings.
Yet I still feel there is something very wrong about it. Good work is priceless and bad work is worthless. Besides, even the best writers are tempted to do their worst work by the fact that publishers, as a class, are persuaded that the public prefer rubbish. The fact is that there are hardly half a dozen writers in England today who have not sold out to the enemy. Even when their good work has been a success, Mammon grips them and whispers, "More money for more work." One ought to have an independent income or another profession. There is hardly one first-rate writer in the last century who has not been starved, persecuted, slandered, bullied, exiled, imprisoned or driven to drink or drowning.”
- Aleister Crowley, The Confessions p. 603-604