The Exploitation of Men in Advertisements

In the three above advertisements we see an uncommon trend.  Normally in magazines advertisements for clothing and other products we see women depicted as the docile or submissive character.  We see women looking shy and powerless often while we see men in positions of dominance.  But lately every so often we have been seeing the opposite.  We now see some ads where woman are the powerful ones and men are the ones being objectified or put in a spot where they are seen as lower than the woman.  Dolce and Gabbana recently came out with a line of advertisements where woman are portrayed as dominatrix-type characters controlling men.  We see this illustrated in the two Dolce and Gabbana ads I have attached.  In one a man is at his knees while all of the women are standing, putting him below them.  The man is also the only one who is nude while the women wear clothes.  The woman who is next to the man is also holding him by his neck, which is not an affectionate grip, but one of control.  In the other Dolce and Gabbana ad (the first one) we see similar things.  Again, the women are clothed and the men naked.  Also in this ad the woman are posed in a way where they are controlling the men.  They are either holding them in a pose where restraint is implied or in the case of the man to the right he is bent over covering his head while the woman leans over him holding a whip.  This is a very clear picture of female dominance.  The middle ad is one by Gucci.  In this ad the woman is facing the camera straight on looking into the lens with her eyes.  She is squared foreword, which is a position of control, and also stands up very straight again implying control.  The man in this picture is slumped into the woman’s body and is not even looking at the camera.  He is in a much more submissive and vulnerable stance.  The woman has her arm wrapped around him as if she is holding him up and supporting him.  These ads all demonstrate the change in culture where men are now too being objectified and put in place of women.  These ads are changing the common understanding of men’s sexuality as dominant and always the one in control.  I however have a problem with these ads and ones that objectify women too.  Just because they are now doing it to men does not make it somehow equal and acceptable, it just means more wrongdoings are being put into print.  When it comes to ads like these an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.  We need to eliminate the extreme role that sex plays in advertisements.