Contemporary Sexuality



It was about a decade ago that a twentyish female pleaded with her male companion: "chuu shite" (kiss me!)"

That ad caused a certain sensation in the news media -- it was deemed everything from uncouth to titillating

But in retrospect it should have been viewed as portentious

For in the past decade what we have witnessed is a steady rise in sexual commentary in ads

without question, the discourse has been more overt and straight-forward than in decades previous
The "chuu shite" ad could be viewed as portentious in terms of its depiction of social dynamics

male-female relationships have consistently been represented in television advertising with the female as more assertive than the male

In fact:
 In contemporary advertising, women are frequently aggressors
Men are very often the reluctant participants or passive recipients of female attentions
It is not enough to talk about "sexuality" as an increased visibility of double entendres or back rubs or winks or chasing men down the street

Because alongside all the physical display are at least two other areas of prominent discourse in contemporary advertising:

  1. feelings and

  2. intimacy

Although these two often share close connection, neither necessarily has to arise in conjunction with sexuality

For this reason it might be best to separate the three and consider them each in turn

Let's first consider a bit more of the historical dimensions of sexuality in Japanese advertising

How communications about sexuality were, how they are now, as well as some possible reasons why that might be



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