Sex sells. It’s a sad truth, but an undeniable one, and advertisers of all types know it. From sports cars to mouth wash, adverts are full of pert young women with dead eyes, or strapping chaps with square jaws and waxed chests.
It would be nice to think of the liberal world of action sports being above this kind of thing. Alas, it’s not. Just see ESPN magazine’s bestselling 2014 Body Issue for example.
And ESPN’s relatively tasteful images are far from the worst culprits when it comes to appealing to our more base urges in order to shift units.
Remember those Sims snowboards from the early 2000s with Jenna Jameson plastered all over them? Uh-huh, they kind of stick in the memory eh?
“But what about all the positive, non-sexualised role-models in action sports?” I hear you cry. And yes, of course there are tons of them. But that has stopped images like the ones above being produced.
I mean really, what the hell is going on those shots?
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