Yes, advertisements use sex to sell their products, but they do not degrade women. Instead, they degrade the people who respond to them, both men and women.

We grow up in a society that teaches us beautiful women look a certain way. The same society also teaches us that virile men also must have a certain "look" different from a woman's. Sure, there are some biological factors at work too, but, for the most part, our society "teaches" us more than our biology gives us and expands upon it. Consider what other societies think is beautiful in men and women.

I can remember seeing documentaries about countries where people stacked rings around their necks, put plates in their lips or expanded their earlobes to attach various object all in the pursuit of beauty. In other countries dyed hair, different styles of dress and certain prescribed, exotic rituals proved or disproved either one's masculinity or femininity. I laughed heartily watching these, thinking to myself how ridiculous the customs were, and then I realized those cultures probably felt the same way about our culture.

In our culture, women "paint" their faces to be more attractive, we assume, to men. Women also have more freedom with their hairstyles, their clothing, and their footwear. If most of us saw a woman with long hair nicely styled, her face made-up to perfection, wearing a short skirt and sporting high-heeled shoes, we might think she was attractive. Yet, if we saw a man dressed the same way, we would think he was more than a bit odd. Just as people born in the countries in the documentaries were not born believing a properly place plate in one's lip was the essence of sexuality, neither are people in this country born believing that women are prettier if they stand all day on shoes featuring one, long heel in the back. These things are learned, and when marketing companies use these facts to sell their products, they are not exploiting and degrading the models in the advertisements, but,rather, exploiting and degrading the people who respond favorably to the advertisement ploy.

If a man, and potential customer, believes a car is better because he sees a picture of a classic, female beauty posed on top of it, does that really degrade the female beauty being paid good money to model? If that man buys the car, takes it home and discovers he is no different than he was before he bought the car, he will know the answer. The same works for women.

If a women believes that paying hundreds of dollars for a closet full of the right shoes for every outfit she owns will make her somehow more of a woman and men will like her more, are the models in the ads who sell her shoes being degraded, or is she, the consumer, herself being degraded? It is likely she will get the answer in a year or two from her podiatrist.

Now, I'm not saying anything against advertising. They want to sell products and it is logical to appeal to people on a basic, animal level to do this. When advertisers use our own, ingrained beliefs and opinions to make money, it is just capitalism, plain and simple. The actors in the ads do not feel exploited or degraded when they take their paychecks to the bank, and the consumer public should not feel exploited if it makes them feel better about themselves to buy products on such a basis. In fact, society should thank advertisers for helping point out the shallow people in society who succumb so freely to sexual advertising. It puts the red flag of caution on each and every one of them, and gives us an idea about what we can expect in the future from such people. So, in a way, sexual advertising actually degrades the people who respond to it more than it degrades the people it represents.