Still working my way back through older comments I ran into a great one from TLT in response to this post about housework as the traditionally “missing” displacement fetish for women. TLT says

I recently figured out that this is exactly what I find revolting about a TV ad for Betty Crocker Warm Delights.

Yes, even the name sounds sexual. Yet, Warm Delights are these…things that you open, add water to, cook in the microwave for a few minutes, and get what ostensibly is a dessert.

As far as I’m concerned, the only time dessert comes out of the microwave is if you put a slice of cold pie in there for 20 seconds before you put the ice cream on it, but that’s something else altogether.

The commercial shows women (and only women) eating these things, often in a bed and/or in pajamas, moaning and sighing, eyes closed. Some even lick the spoons and forks they’re eating with. I think one even licks the bowl it’s in.

It all seems to suggest that what you (woman with misplaced, confused, repressed sexual desire) will get out of this box is sexual pleasure, not some overpriced combination of chemicals that probably tastes only vaguely of chocolate.(Chocolate being another one of those things that is supposed to drive women just crazy)

It’s hard to catalog the variations of stereotypes and nonsense that ad perpetuates. Let’s see…there’s “Women don’t really want, need or like sex. They just want dessert…and probably jewelry.” Or, how about “You don’t really need/want/deserve sex. Just eat this cake and shut up. You’ll feel better about spending your nights in bed alone.” Or, my favorite “It’s just too much work to cook something yummy for yourself, or even to go to a bakery to get it. Just put this in the microwave, it’s just as good.”

Ick. Just ick.

She said it here.

What seems really troubling about that ad (and, you know, that’s sort of a theme in a lot of ads and not just that one) is what an empty displacement it is. Once upon a time, maybe, one could have argued there was some sort of overall benefit for women sublimating their sexual expression into nurturing family with food. Or something. But the women in these ads are almost alway depicted as single or, occasionally, partnered but alone (as in you see a darkened sleeping form next to the awake woman who’s slurping cookie dough or something.) And so they’re taking what might have once been a nominally beneficial sublimation and shifting the “nurturing indulgence” back on the woman herself… which is kind of nuts in the way only sublimation (or, long as we’re batting around Freud, the “return of the repressed”) can be nuts: she’s alone or single and so she’s expressing sexuality by… feeding herself!

I suppose you can’t expect Betty Crocker Corp., which sells only sweets, to try and sell anything else. But… but… but… &%#@#%~!

It’s just *so “no-sex” class! Why not “sell” the woman on giving direct pleasure? Or using the spoon to give herself real orgasms?** Or if that’s too racy or presumptuous how about just eating the flipping dessert?

(For the record they throw different kinds of sublimation at men so I can’t comment directly. There was a great Saturday Night Live or Mad sketch doing the YouTube rounds a while ago about a man having a maximal shampoo-ad experience in the shower that I’d like to link to. I think it ends with him asleep against the shower door? Anyone have a link? For that matter, let me know about any other similar uselessly-sublimating ads you’ve got YouTube links to. Update: From Bunny here’s one link: MadTV “Herbal Elements”, and from JFPBookworm here’s a Will Ferrell/SNL take on the same concept. .)

[** Does anyone do that any more? When I was in high-school a heck of a lot of girls in our informal sex-ed circle swore by masturbating with the backs of soup- or tablespoons. —fl]