Wednesday, December 18, 2013
The high price is right
So what did the psychologists discover? It seems that women dislike sexual imagery in advertising unless the goods being promoted are very expensive, when they view the imagery as erotic rather than vulgar. I was so surprised by these findings that I rushed to the safari camp and interrupted the manager and his wife during tiffin.
“Oh GB, you big naïve gorilla!” exclaimed the manager’s wife after I told them about the study. “Of course it’s true! If a man offered me a hundred dollars for sex I would slap his face. But if he offered me a million dollars, I would giggle and poke his ribs.”
Far from being disgruntled by his wife’s confession, the manager nodded sagely. “I’d feel exactly the same way if a woman offered to pay me for sex,” he said.
“You wish and as if,” scoffed his wife.
On my way back to the jungle, I considered the matter logically. If a hundred dollars is an insult and a million dollars is a compliment, there must be an intermediate sum at which the issue is finely balanced. What would it be? Ten thousand dollars? Fifty thousand dollars? I suppose every woman has her own crossover price. How fascinating it would be to watch a woman waver between slapping the face and poking the ribs of a man who had offered her that price. The tension would be electric.
Some insults leave no room for ambiguity, of course. A man in Detroit was so angry with his ex-wife that he moved into the next door house and placed a sculpture of an erect middle finger on his patio. Heaven knows what the woman did to provoke such rancour. Maybe she let her lover wear his masonic apron when he was away on business. No end of bad blood can arise from symbolic acts of desecration.
I can’t say I approve of the sculpture, though. What are his other neighbours supposed to say when guests arrive for a dinner party? If you’re going to insult someone, make sure the target is clear to avoid aggravating third parties. If I saw something like that in the jungle, I would hire the chimpanzees to piss all over it.
Let me end with heart-warming news from China, where a lad called Qin Yu was hired to stand in a public square and pay 16 dollars to any woman who would kiss him. Far from taking umbrage at the small sum on offer, passing young ladies were quick to accept his proposition, and a few even gave him their phone number. It just goes to show that some women will be nice without it costing an arm and a leg.
Labels: advertising, flipping the bird, money, selling kisses, sexual imagery, women
