Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Following up on this post about the messages a “pro-virginity” billboard is (or was) inadvertently (or not) sending to men.

There’s ordinarily a problem in advertisement criticism where the response to too much scrutiny is “well, it’s just an ad — “real” people just won’t spend that much time thinking about it.” All well and good except CoolVirginity’s ad was a billboard and those typically stay up for a month, giving the average local driver who sees it plenty of exposure to it.

That said let’s just take another look at that “Ultimate Wedding Gift …Your Virginity” billboard.

First of all, it’s not so great that an abstinence-promoting billboard…

Image, and post inspiration, from Feministing.com.

...reminds us of the iconic erotic album cover from the pre-consent era.

Photo by Flickr user eppleart.

Again, the album cover might not be familiar to the young women the designers think they’re trying to reach. But that’s not really relevant since I’m talking about the branding and marketing influence the billboard would inadvertently (or not) have on men, including considerably older men.

Furthermore, the ostensible “bride” in the photo looks disturbingly young. For instance in comments Heather Corinna pointed out the billboard is also reminiscent of 12-year-old Brooke Shields who played a pre-pubescent prostitute in “Pretty Baby!” And this is where it starts to make a difference how recent the website might be. Despite its recent discovery by the blogosphere, the copyright info on the site itself is dated 2004-2005, and based on a pretty quick browse it doesn’t look like any other dates are later than 2004. I mention this because the text of the site mentions the model’s name. A little bit of Googling puts her at age 16 in 2003 (in an article citing her teen abstinence activism.) So anyway, if the billboard is new then no problem — the model is now a college senior an an adult. If the ad is old she not only looks “barely legal” but she would have been barely an adult. Which, like the movie “Pretty Baby” would just be really creepy.

Again, the young women the billboard is supposed to be aimed at might not be aware of Brooke Shield’s role in a 1978 movie (though it does seem to still be in rotation on some cable networks.) But that’s beside the point since I’m talking about the perhaps unintended message the ad sends to men, including-but-not-limited-to much older men.

Another point: Like the recent Huckabee bookshelf/cross brouhaha, the billboard designers may argue that they used photo-studo props designed to fit the format, that ain’t no marriage bed she’s sitting on — it’s a single or, at best, double, and very much a single girl’s room rather than a married woman’s. Perfectly fine, you say, for very young women to identify with when inviting them to see their virginity as a “precious gift” for the “right” man. Sure. But since more than very young women would be likely to see the billboard you want to pay attention to what other sorts of invitations it might be sending to men who are already reeling from the general pornification of the universe.

And then there’s the direct symbolism of an underage (or underage-looking) girl, in her bedroom, in a sexually receptive posture, contemplating “giving” someone sex *all wrapped up with a big you-deserve-it-big-guy ribbon. A red ribbon, no less! As Holly said, also in comments, “interesting point about the message to guys — ‘Taking a woman’s virginity is the best thing EVER!’ That’s kinda creepy.” Uh-m’yeum, kinda really creepy.

Bottom line, though, is that if one was serious about abstinence one wouldn’t go about eroticizing virginity! Not eroticizing it to girls. Not eroticizing it to women. Not eroticizing it to men.

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Final note: When I talk about messages or invitations being sent to men, I’m not asking that such messages not be sent because we’re all poor old sex-class, hormone-addled, can’t-help-ourselves men. I happen to think we can help ourselves just fine. I’m thinking more along the lines of, hey, shit like that is kind of insulting, y’know?