I have a feeling that the most important message one can learn in the advertising business is that sex sells. Putting a pair of boobs next to pretty much anything will get attention. This is the key to any sort of selling strategy, get people to look at your product and the job is closer to being completed. Nothing is easier than using sexuality to sell your product.

A magazine next to a checkout at the grocery store proves this point quite nicely. Half naked women gloss the cover of everything from Maxim to the tabloids. This is because most men are attracted to the very beautiful scantily clad ladies, and women can appreciate other women’s beauty. It is overwhelmingly women on the covers because men don’t pick up a cover with a naked man on it; we avoid it at all costs.

It’s undeniable that sex sells. In fact, it may even be wired into our very being. Prostitution is generally considered to be the world’s oldest profession and it seems to be a very natural thing. Look at what happens when you teach monkeys about the concept of money; they try to hoard it and use it for prostitution. Using bananas for sex is what monkeys do; humans use sex to sell bananas.

Moreover, it is not necessarily a bad thing that society uses beauty to sell products. If you are blessed to be an attractive individual, go ahead and use that to whatever advantage you can. We all have to play with the cards we are dealt, so there shouldn’t be any problem with women supporting themselves through their looks.

Also, it is important to understand that sexuality and beauty sells a lot more than just products in magazines. How about models for photo shoots or runway models that make their living off these jobs? These people rely on these jobs for income, and criticizing them or their industry for the reason that they are doing what they are best at is misguided at best.

Some might argue that using the idea that “Sex Sells” is demeaning to women. However, really thinking about that statement leads one to a different conclusion. First of all, women are choosing to do these kinds of things out of their own free will. No one is forcing them to be beautiful and use that to their advantage. Anyone that says beauty is a curse is someone who is not ugly. In short, women in these situations are doing it for themselves and they obviously like it, otherwise they would be doing something else.

Perhaps it is the fact that I am a man, but I simply cannot see the problem of utilizing sexuality in society. Women aren’t objects, nor does this idea treat them as such. This is simply something that they are good at, better than men at, and I think most women know it. If I was a woman I would totally use sexuality to get ahead. And women get a lot of benefits just for being born that way. How about ladies nights? Cheaper drinks or men just buy them for women anyway because they are pretty.

So sex certainly does sell, and it does it really well. And there is nothing really wrong with that. Women are being praised for what they have and using it, and if everyone is being honest, they like doing just that. Sexuality will continue to make men and women pay attention to what is going on, and it will continue to make everyone who employs in an business strategy that much more successful, because humans are very sexual, and we like it that way.

Richard Stecker is a senior international studies and history double major, and is happy to write witty whimsical words of wisdom for all. Questions and comments can be sent to letters@collegian.com