Rollerskate to Liberate

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Deconstructing “Sex Sells”

Emily Robinson

We all grew up inundated with it, so much to the point we don’t even really see it anymore. We barely blink at advertisements laden with sexual innuendos, models in provocative positions, scantly clothed individuals selling anything from food to fashion. While the discussion around sexuality used in advertising has centered around magazine and television ads, they are also found in social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, some of which are literal pages for people to be able to purchase sex whether in a virtual or in-person experience. The old adage “sex sells” still holds cultural relevance today, but it is such an ingrained part of our culture that we don’t even really think about what it means. Deconstructing this phrase is so important to understand why sexuality is used so much in our culture to tempt people to purchase products. It has everything to do with the commodification of human bodies, desensitizing us to the reality that we are a part of a system that sees us as individuals to sell too and for sale (Houston-Kolnick, 2020).

A big part of how ‘sex sells’ has to do with objectification. Objectification is the manifestation of an individual, with power and influence,  placing an identity on an individual or people group, usually for the purpose of creating them into an object which then makes it easier for them to be marketed and sold. Objectification is born of stereotypes, prejudice, engendered violence, and racism that creates a demand for a certain “kind” of person, fueling a need for a market to be created to meet that demand (Herrington, 2018).  One study found that this process of objectification is tied to sexualization of individuals which follows a process from being made a sexual object to experiencing sexual violence. It states that “sexualizing objects produce sexual expressions…sexualization is linked to sexual violence…it shapes behavior, public spaces, and the international flow of human bodies (Egan and Hawkes, 2008). 

The question still is why? Why does sex sell so well, why is it so profitable? Is it because “sex immediately grabs attention,” or that we are “hardwired to notice it” (Fallon, 2021)? Yet, we seem to be blind to its influence, as another study pointed out that media has desensitization on our emotional responses and behaviors toward sexuality and violence and do not recognize the influence of cultural and societal narratives around these topics (Houston-Kolnick, 2020).  One of the biggest players in our world today around this issue is social media platforms. 

The influence of social media cannot be underestimated for its impact on individual’s perceptions about their bodies and sexuality. Recent Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, disclosed internal studies done on Instagram’s influence on youth and young adults, who make up 40% of Instagram’s population, showing that 32% of teen girls claimed “when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” because of never being able to measure up to the perfect bodies, pictures and videos of “influencers” (Wells, Horowitz & Seetharaman, 2021).  Facebook’s internal research also “identified the over-sexualization of girls as something that weighs on the mental health of the app’s users” (Wells, et al. 2021).  Haugen states that the company Facebook, now Meta, “prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users” (Allyn, 2021). This example shows that companies may know about the harm that may be done to their consumers, yet still choose to promote and allow material that is harmful to consumers because the bottom line is more important than the health or safety of their consumers. This is emphasized by results from the Polaris Project’s study that showed how social media is a primary place where individuals are recruited into sexual exploitation. From “January of 2015 to December 2017, 250 victims were recruited on Facebook, 120 on a dating site, 78 on Instagram, 489 on other platforms such as craigslist, chat rooms, or a website that could not be identified during the hotline call” (2018). Three quarters of respondents to this survey stated that they were on various internet platforms during their exploitation and 37% stated that they used social media “very frequently.” Facebook and Instagram were the top two social media platforms that individuals being exploited said they were on (Polaris Project, 2018).  

The anti-human trafficking movement is not exempt from unintentionally playing the same “sex sells game” by using sensationalized images of young girls chained up, scantily clad women with bruised faces, and even portraying sexually abusive situations in documentaries, some of which are borderline explicit and focusing on the degradation of the victims. Advocates in the anti-human trafficking movement were interviewed in one study about this trend reflecting that they believe sex trafficking is such a hot topic because it is a “sexy one” (Huston-Kolnick, 2020).  Considering the implications of this statement is a disturbing one, in that by media and anti-human trafficking agencies focusing on the sexy, traumatic parts of the exploitive experience individuals are victimized by, misinformation is fueled about what human trafficking looks like and populations such as labor trafficking and domestic servitude are ignored as trafficked individuals (Huston-Konick, 2020). Not only that, should sexualized images and concepts even be used to communicate how horrific the crime of sexual exploitation is? The conversation of “sex sells” needs to move beyond profit, gains, and other reasons used to justify its influence on violence toward marginalized communities, and must be centered on considering how it impacts the individuals who are exposed to it or exploited by it.   


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