Sex & Sales: Why Sex Sells So Well (Part 1 of 2)

By Jess Bousa (the author of his forth coming book,
Cultural-Deficit Disorder: Unconforming to the Patterns of this World)

Sex sells everything from real estate to website domains. Movies, music and TV shows regularly inundate us with sexual images and innuendos. Changing the channel does not prevent, but only prolongs us from seeing another provocatively dressed woman selling cosmetics or man modeling clothes.

Why does sex sell so well?

Advertisers discovered the secret to sales: satisfy the most powerful human desire.

Lance Swearengin, in a Facebook survey I conducted, believes sex sells so well because “it appeals to the deepest natural desire that produces incredible pleasure. If a product can say that it can produce similar results or make that pleasure happen, who wouldn't want it?”

When advertisers use sex as a vehicle in promoting products, they strike a cord connected to most powerful human drive. Scientists have linked sexual pleasure with the most powerful neuro chemicals in the body.

Scientists have validated God’s word. The Bible records the creation of human beings. In the creation story, humans were designed by God to reproduce through sexual intercourse, producing sexual pleasure. God instituted marriage between a man and woman to be the best environment where sexual pleasure was experienced (Genesis 2:24). The most powerful human chemicals were to be regularly released in the unconditional commitment of marriage, not watching commercials or reading magazines.

Sexually directed commercials satisfy in ways God ultimately designed marriage to fulfill our sex drive. Instead of moving towards marriage as well as marriage as the best avenue for sexual satisfaction, advertisers have plastered sexually provocative images and ideas everywhere. These images and ideas strike a cord, causing a dumpster response.

The culture has accepted the dumpster, not the banquet. Dumpster sex satisfies temporally, but you can only eat from the dumpster for so long until it makes you nausea, Christopher West preaches.

Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, has made billions of dollars by selling dumpster sex. Playboy has changed the world by selling a brand of sex outside of God’s best. On one hand, Hefner has done a service by not abandoning sex altogether. But, on the other hand, he has done a major disservice by reducing sex down to a dumpster experience—something outside of God’s best--a surgically enhanced body that's photo-shopped.

The majority of people imagine the career of porn stars as glamorous. However, as the saying goes, "Not everything that glitters is gold." Becca Brat, a porn star, reported, “I hung out with a lot of people in the Adult industry, everybody from contract girls to gonzo actresses. Everybody has the same problems. Everybody is on drugs. It's an empty lifestyle trying to fill up a void…I became horribly addicted to heroin and crack. I overdosed at least 3 times, had tricks pull knives on me, have been beaten half to death–the only reason I am still here is God.”

Becca Brat’s experience validates that the dumpster does not satisfy. The dumpster is the idea of sex that sells so well. It’s the crazy glue that sticks advertisements to our minds. And because idea’s have consequences. They call for a response. So when sexually provocative images and ideas are tangled up in an ad for beer or website domains like GoDaddy with the provocatively dressed woman the idea’s transmitted stick. The provocative women evoke the idea of sex. The idea of sex sticks the idea being pitched to our consciousness. The problem is the idea of sex sticking the most to our consciousness is an idea of sex outside of marriage—God’s best.

Ultimate sexual satisfaction results from relationship, not advertisements. If we dissect the idea of sex that sells, we find a sex with no commitment. If there is no commitment, there is no safety and security in the relationship. If there is no safety and security, then individuals will not expose their nakedness both internally and externally. If there nakedness is not exposed then intimacy will not be developed. Without commitment, security, safety, and intimacy, sex is a selfish act. Do not buy an illusion of sex or allow the dumpster to satisfy you. God’s best is marriage.

Marketing website domains with half naked GoDaddy girls might arouse the masses, but it will not raise the relational bar in America. Do not except counterfeits. God has a prepared a banquet for humans. You will not discover it by fantasizing over the lifestyle from the actors in Desperate Housewives or reading Playboy magazines. Enjoying the banquet in a dumpster culture takes discernment of the many images and ideas all around us. What you allow to satisfy you will determine what you eat from: the dumpster or the banquet.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of Sex & Sales:
Pornographers discovered the secret to sales: fulfill an unrealistic fantasy.