The use of "sexy" has come to mirror that which used to be defined as "powerful." While it's true that sex can be used as power, the notion of sex equaling power is now a commonplace western truism.
Seymore Hersh (A writer for the New Yorker) wrote in his report on the Special Forces landing in Afghanistan that the staged nature of the attacks made for exciting television footage, calling it "sexy stuff."
What is sexy about guns? What is sexy about blood spilled over tactical targets and political leaders? The power which these images convey has been equated with the power sex holds over the same men (mostly) in peacetime.
The disappointing underlying failure in this paradox is that the very mechanism by which our only information about wartime is conveyed (the media) is served by making this comparison. Inconstani hit the nail on the head; Sex sells. That which can be made sexy or associated with sex will draw the consumer to what could normally be regarded as morbid, disturbing and moraly corrupt.
There are less damaging examples of this cultural simile in the advertising world. The Europeans spearheaded the sex sells movement but did (and does) so with a certain responsibility to it's patrons; the West, unfortunately, has shed it's intimidation of responsibility in this way and promotes (gamourizes) sex. The good-natured tongue-in-cheek nature is gone; sex is power.
The use of "sexy" has come to mirror that which used to be defined as "powerful." While it's true that sex can be used as power, the notion of sex equaling power is now a commonplace western truism.
Seymore Hersh (A writer for the New Yorker) wrote in his report on the Special Forces landing in Afghanistan that the staged nature of the attacks made for exciting television footage, calling it "sexy stuff."
What is sexy about guns? What is sexy about blood spilled over tactical targets and political leaders? The power which these images convey has been equated with the power sex holds over the same men (mostly) in peacetime.
The disappointing underlying failure in this paradox is that the very mechanism by which our only information about wartime is conveyed (the media) is served by making this comparison. Inconstani hit the nail on the head; Sex sells. That which can be made sexy or associated with sex will draw the consumer to what could normally be regarded as morbid, disturbing and moraly corrupt.
There are less damaging examples of this cultural simile in the advertising world. The Europeans spearheaded the sex sells movement but did (and does) so with a certain responsibility to it's patrons; the West, unfortunately, has shed it's intimidation of responsibility in this way and promotes (gamourizes) sex. The good-natured tongue-in-cheek nature is gone; sex is power.
-Brian