‘Sex in Ads’

The story “Sex in Ads: It Even Sells Detergent” (July 8) has overlooked one important point. Moral aspects aside, the majority of these ads depict women, and depict them in ways which are essentially degrading.

For most women, who have been quietly (and some not so quietly) striving for the past two centuries for even a modicum of political, economic and social equality, such ads place them squarely back in the realm of Hitler’s “Kirche, Kuche and Kinder” (church, kitchen and children) by perpetuating men’s ideas concerning the roles of both women and sex.

Many of the ads are not only selling the product, they are also selling sex and that is what makes them degrading. There is everything right with the naked human body; there is everything right with sex. Putting the two together in the normal way is essentially a matter of privacy; putting the two together on the TV screen and other public places for whatever stated purpose, is nevertheless designed to appeal to prurient tastes.

As the article says, there are other and far more appealing and balanced ways of selling products. I would not want my children to see such ads--not from a moral standpoint, but because I would not want them to grow up with such an image of women. Incidentally, I make a point of not purchasing such products.

JILL OLECHNO

Inglewood