Does yoghurt make you come? Does shampoo provide you with a throbbing, writhing, screaming climax? I only ask because that seems to be the implication that yoghurt and shampoo adverts are making on a fairly regular basis.
Only last year was the pleasure of eating yoghurt compared to having your clitoris blasted with sperm from a big fireman’s hose. Don’t even try to pick out the subtleties of that, because there aren’t any. It’s not an implication, it’s scarcely metaphorical: yoghurt gives you orgasms.
Balls of deliciousness
At the moment you can see Nicole Scherzinger having one of those Hollywood-style orgasms that bear very little similarity to real-life ones – all head-tossing and ‘yes-yes-yes!’ing – because she’s eating some yoghurt. There’s a defence in libel – evident throughout most of this site – than anything clearly absurd can’t be taken to task for its claims. Hence Carlsberg’s long-running ‘probably the best lager in the world’ and Lynx’s adverts that have always implied that the smelly gas can turn weedy men into fanny magnets.
I guess that’s what’s going on here because I suspect yoghurt is most frequently eaten in place of cakes, biscuits and chocolate – the way a green salad might be chosen over a bag of chips. Surely no-one genuinely loves yoghurt? In the absence of the lack of deliciousness, adverts have made eating yoghurt into some sort of affirming lifestyle choice – it’ll make you sexy, see? Like Nicole Skirtflinger.
The Pussycat Doll can be seen in a variety of scenarios where she finds some time for herself, settles down on a sofa or bed and unveils a Muller yoghurt with the same furtive delight she might unveil a double-ended dildo – usually ending up with yoghurt on her face, doffing a cap to another common meme in advertising; cumshots.
All snark aside, there is something very interesting about yoghurt adverts: they are exclusively aimed at women. You never see a bloke eating yoghurt in adverts: men are never addressed in yoghurt adverts, appearing only for the delectation and amusement of ladies slurping the white stuff.
Why is this? I play cricket every week in the summer and see lads eating yoghurt all the time. I buy it myself. Men eat yoghurt.
There are a number of suggestions for this gender peculiarity: the supposed feyness of yoghurt as a foodstuff; the supposed benefits in digestion, strengthening bones and clearing up vaginal infections (the latter two at least more relevant to women); women are more concerned with dieting and dodging fatty foods; women are more likely to buy groceries; women looks sexier eating food than men do, ergo the food looks better and people of both sexes are more likely to buy it. Either way, I challenge you to find a yoghurt advert that’s aimed at men.
Orgasms in the shower
There’s more. Here’s Scherzinger having another orgasm (alongside some classic Herbal Essences adverts), this time in the shower. No wonder Lewis Hamilton keeps breaking up with her – the woman’s bloody insatiable. What is it with women and their ‘alone time’? Men are never portrayed as having a wank in the shower to sell Tango body gel, not we do we see men having a candle-lit bath and indulging in some furtive eating of Opal Fruits.
Weirdly, while male masturbation is portrayed as scummy and a bit weird in ads, it’s quite the opposite for women. It’s affirming, positive, representing feminine strength and independence. This is, arguably, reflected in a society where a woman admitting to owning a Rampant Rabbit barely raises an eyebrow in polite company, whereas men are rather more circumspect as to their ownernship of device called Fleshlights (if they own them at all).
Women in Advertising: Cleansing, Eating and Sex
This all tells us a lot about the advertising industry, which regularly reduces people down to whatever happens to be dangling – or not – between their legs. Women like eating healthy foods; they like cleaning themselves – so it makes sense to suggest that by eating and cleaning (two habits even flies share with us) women can somehow enjoy something luxurious and indulgent (and therefore be charged lots of money for it), rather than a simple function of existence. They are also likely to buy groceries and cleaning products for the family, so it makes sense that they should be targeted when it comes to adverts.
Ads reduce people down to their fundamental drives. With men it’s often sport, success and machismo. When men are targeted in terms of eating it’s likely to be burgers, fast foods, crisps, chocolate bars. When it comes to sex it’s very much about how to be attractive to women. Men don’t really exist in a vacuum in ads – we see them with their mates, kids, partners. To be a man in an ad is, generally, to be an adjunct of a wider unit.
Ladies, you too have been assessed. In terms of grocery shopping it’s being sensible, smart and outthinking witless men (see the stupid dad meme). In terms of food it’s indulgence, but there’s a significant degree of crossover with sex. With the latter it’s usually appreciating the male form – usually cast as slaves or some other inferior figures – or being worshipped, spoiled, adored. In terms of food and cleansing, more intriguingly, it’s masturbating alone (see above, plus Flake, Galaxy adverts).
What this says about women and their relationship with sex is debatable but if you were going by what advertising tells us, even if it’s on a subconscious level, there’s a very clear implication that female sexuality comes down to a fundamentally solo – secretive, even – pursuit. Women too are portrayed as part of larger units in advertising, but when it comes to down to treating themselves the kids have been sent to the grandparents’ and fella sent down the pub with his mates. Curtains drawn; lights down. Here comes the girl.
That’s what millennia of evolution has come down to and – against all odds – it’s women who are the wankers.