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Ann Marie Willis

September 5, 2016
ENGL 1127
Assignment 1- Revision #2
What Does Sex Sell?
The phrase sex sells has been used commonly for decades in our society, and more
recently, this type of advertising has become extremely controversial. In a time that seems to be
one of progressivism, including feminism and overall equality, the issue of companies using
sexual appeal to get attention by consumers has been brought into light. To the feminists,
walking by a magazine stand and seeing nothing but beautiful women being objectified is cringeworthy. While it is impossible to deny that sex appeal doesnt exist in advertising, a research
article written by Elizabeth Monk-Turner and her colleagues, titled, Who is gazing at whom? A
look at how sex is used in magazine advertisements, examines whether or not women are the
sole victims of objectification, and if they are, where are they most objectified? Through the
discussion of her research on the use of sex appeal in advertising, Monk-Turner effectively
proves, without bias, that the sexuality of women is used in marketing more than that of men,
which ultimately solidifies the gender stereotypes that exist in our world today.
In her article, Monk-Turner and her team provide a response to Laura Mulveys theory of
the male gaze, which questions the effect of sex in advertising. Throughout the article, the
researchers discuss their survey of 287 advertisements that were randomly selected from
numerous genres of magazines to analyze sex appeal. In order to test their effectiveness, the
advertisements were divided into four categories: gender of the actor, product type, whether or
not sex was used to sell the product, and what kind of sexuality (if used) was shown. Taking each
of these four categories into consideration, the selected advertisements ultimately offered support
for Mulveys theory, showing that the majority of advertisements that used sexual appeal to sell a

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product objectified women and were geared to a primarily male audience (Monk-Turner et al
202).
Perhaps the quality that makes the research teams article most convincing is the way
they organize the writing. Because the article is based on a research experiment, it is important
that she lays out the information in a way that makes sense to the reader. By offering a section of
background at the beginning, Monk-Turner and her team give their research context, which
ultimately gives it reason. They make the research more relevant by stating that much research
explores how sex is used in advertising, but argue that research to date focuses on gender
representation in advertising; how gender roles are depicted; and the objectification of women in
advertising (Monk-Turner et al 203). By using other researchers findings from the past, MonkTurner and team form three hypotheses for their, more current, experiment. Their first hypothesis
is that in male audiences, they will see more advertising characters depicted in an objectified
way compared to gender-neutral or female audiences. Based on the research of Gamman and
Makinen in 1994, Monk-Turner hypothesizes that they expect to observe the objectification of
magazine characters in product advertisements targeted at women as well. By referring to the
past research of Gamman and Makinen on this same subject, the researchers make their work
gain credibility because it brings in other peoples ideas as well as her own. The last hypothesis
that is formed is that they do not expect to observe the objectification of men, for the pleasure
of female or male audience, in magazine product advertisement (Monk-Turner et al 203). This
statement is one of opinion based mostly on common sense, since the majority of ads seen
around objectify women more than men in general.
After offering their hypotheses, the research team continues by breaking down the
methodology of their experiment, furthering that their tests are believable to their reader. From

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their explanation of the experiment process, the contributors provide the results to the reader. The
results show that the experiment supported the first hypothesis, because the advertisements using
sexual appeal were primarily ones that geared to a male audience. However, the results do not
support the second hypothesis, because objectification rarely appeared to be used in magazines
that were geared towards a female audience (only 16% of the sample objectified women in
magazines aimed at women). The third hypothesis was generally supported by the evidence
which showed that males are not as objectified as women, whether in male-geared or femalegeared magazines (Monk-Turner et al 205). However, in rare cases, such as the frequently shown
Lincoln car commercial featuring Matthew McConaughey, advertisements make a mans life and
status seem desirable to both males and females. Finally, the research team offers a conclusion
which shows the overall representation the data has on society. This conclusion, however, still
avoids the offering of opinion and bias, but asks the reader questions that remain unanswered by
the authors.
Another aspect of the article which makes their argument so convincing is the authors
explanation of the methodology used to conduct this experiment. By explaining the process in
which they took their samples, they prove that their points are not biased, but are factual. MonkTurner and her teams first steps in narrowing their samples was to randomly select nine
magazines that geared toward female, male, and gender-neutral audiences. By dividing the
magazines up into such categories, the team was able to conclude what sexual appeal was trying
to accomplish in marketing, and whom it was marketing to. Next, six coders, three male and
three female, sorted the magazines using personal social experiences as well as information on
magazine websites and how the magazines were categorized by chain-stores. This step offers
crucial evidence that the support for the researchers claim is fair, because both men and women,

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equally, were called to analyze the samples. This is an important aspect of this experiment
because, when dealing with gender stereotypes, it would be unreliable to use only one gender to
analyze who these advertisements were geared to (Monk-Turner 203 et al).
The authors state that once categorized, [they] found that 41% of magazines on [their]
list of 100 were aimed at female audience; 24% were aimed at male audience (Monk-Turner et
al 203). From each list, they randomly selected three magazines: Cosmo Girl, Seventeen, and
Country Living (for female audience), Mens Health, FHM, and Golf Magazine (for male
audience), and People, US News, and World Report (for a neutral audience). From here, the
authors explain, each advertisement that was full-page and had human actors was coded using
four more variables: gender, product being sold, sex used to the sell the product, and type of
sexuality that was used. These four categories provide answers to the original question of
whether sex sells, and specifically, to whom does it sell? By analyzing each of these categories,
Monk-Turner and her colleagues were able to conclude which gender was more objectified, what
made them objectified, and what product was being sold using sexual objectification (MonkTurner et al 204). The procedure that Monk-Turner and her coders take is very important to
recognize and crucial in this type of research because it tells the reader that the process was done
extremely fairly, and has no room for bias or skewing of data.
One suspicion that can be held over Monk-Turner and teams article is the specificity of
the experiment. While the question that the article aims to answer is a broad one that pertains to
marketing in general, the experiment solely focuses on objectification in magazine
advertisements, versus advertisements of all types. While this is a valid suspicion, it is still
unrealistic not to believe or be persuaded by the contributors writing, because their response
does not try to mislead the reader into thinking the study is providing a conclusion to all

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advertising. Pragmatically it would be nearly impossible for a survey of all types of advertising
to be conclusive, which could be a reason why her experiment narrowed in on only magazines.
While it is obvious by many recent social movements, our society is constantly trying to
progress into a more accepting one. With feminism becoming a more and more common term
encompassing a larger percentage of the population, it is only natural that all derogatory
publications and thoughts are highlighted and argued over. Monk-Turner and her team offer the
belief of Gamman and Makinen in the formation of their first hypothesis, that is the skepticism
that advertising has a major impact on the gender roles that still exist in our society. According to
Gamman and Makinen, women are accustomed to being looked at, being an object of gaze, and
likewise conceive themselves as objects (Monk-Turner et al 203). Due to this conception from
women, they are easily inspired by figures in magazines and other ads, because that is what they
believe gets the attention of males. While the results of the researchers experiment show that
objectifying women in ads geared towards women does not actually occur, women could still be
affected by it indirectly. The discussion in this article concludes that women are indeed
objectified in ads, and specifically ads that have a primarily male audience, but who is to say that
women do not pass by the magazines with male audiences in the grocery store and do not turn
their gaze? Even when an ad is geared to males and uses sex to sell, women still see the
objectification and realize that is what gains the attention of males, and they are therefore
affected by it. This means that advertisements that use sex to sell really are strengthening the
gender roles that have always existed, instead of promoting change in our society. The
contributors inclusion of this idea automatically makes the reader feel emotionally impacted by
the topic, and makes it a real-world issue that has deeper meaning than just its experiment. Their
discussion of this topic is done in such a way that their readers are able to realize the facts of the

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topic through their careful research and explanation, while also allowing their readers to feel
some sympathy towards this issue and feel that they need to do something about it. With the
structural constraints of a research paper still present, Monk-Turner and her colleagues do a
brilliant job relating to her reader as well as informing them.

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Works Cited
Monk-Turner, Elizabeth, Kristy Wren, Leanne Mcgill, Chris Matthiae, Stephan Brown, and
Derrick Brooks. "Who Is Gazing at Whom? A Look at How Sex Is Used in Magazine
Advertisements." Journal of Gender Studies 17.3 (2008): 201-09. Web. 1 Sept. 2016.