10/22/10

Calvin Klein Jeans X ad banned for allegedly promoting rape


Australia's Advertising Standards Bureau has banned a Calvin Klein X Jeans autumn/winter ad after it received 50+ complaints that the images suggest gang rape and violence. The ad shows model Lara Stone surrounded by shirtless men with her head laying in one man’s lap while another appears to be climbing over her. 

Clinical psychologist and sex abuse worker Alison Grundy told the Herald Sun that the ad was "clearly intimating" gang rape. "If we continue to subject future generations of young men to great barrages of aggressive, misogynist, oversexualized, and violent imagery in pornography, movies, computer games, and advertising, we will continue to see the rates of sexual violence against women and children that continue unabated today. Or worse," she told the paper.

Since Calvin Klein's controversial billboards are often met with requests for censorship, the company decided to censor itself for Calvin Klein Jeans's Fall 2010 campaign in the USA.
.

While the ad might sugges group sex or a foursome, it doesn't look violent to me at all. I just don't get that even today, images of a man being grasped by a bunch of women is considered 'hot', but when you place a woman in the centre, people see it as inappropriate. Not everything that implies group sex, neccessarily implies group rape. For all I know, the ad represents a woman's fantasy of feeling desired because of the sexy underwear she's wearing! Are the Aussies exaggerating? What do you think?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comments! :)

Related Posts with Thumbnails