Advertising: Why we think sexy men are men and sexy women are objects

Toronto Star:

Society has grown accustomed to depictions of scantily clad women being used to sell everything from hamburgers to SUVs, now a study has found that at a basic cognitive level, both men and women see images of sexy women’s bodies as objects, while sexy-looking men are viewed as people.

“We are continually confronted with that kind of image: when you look at a TV show or advertisement, or when you just want to download a movie on the Internet, you have windows that open and you can see some very attractive and sexualized girl inviting you to join a chat room,” said the study’s co-author Philippe Bernard, a social psychology doctoral candidate at Belgium’s Université libre de Bruxelles.

“It makes sense to use the female or male body when you want to sell beauty products, but when you want sell a car or beer, we suspect that it’s not very relevant.

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