Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing considers the use of sex to promote brands, magazines, video games, TV programming, music, and movies. Offering both quantitative and qualitative perspectives from leading scholars in a variety of disciplines, this volume addresses a range of integral issues such as media promotion, racial representations, appeals to gay and lesbian communities, content analyses, and case studies. Chapters represent diverse perspectives, addressing such questions as: *What happens when sexual content created for adults reaches children? *What meaning do sexual words and images have within the contexts of sporting events, trade shows, video games, personal ads, or consumer Web sites? *What effects might sex-tinged images have on audiences, and where should the focus be for new effects research? *Where are the current boundaries between pornography and mainstream sexual depictions? Exploring sexual information as it is used in mass media to sell products and programs, Sex in Consumer Culture is an important collection, and it will be of great interest for scholars and students in advertising, marketing, media promotion, persuasion, mass communication & society, and gender studies.

Consumer Sexualities explores women’s experiences of shopping in ‘sex shops’ and using sexual commodities in their everyday lives. This enlightening volume shows how women take up sexual consumer ‘technologies of the self’ to work upon and understand themselves as confident and active sexual agents in postfeminist neoliberal culture. In guiding the reader through the historical emergence of sexual commodities ‘for women’ in feminism and postfeminism, Wood points to the normalisation and regulation of sexual practices and identities in and through consumption. Indeed, women’s accounts show the work involved in constructing the ‘right’ – knowledgeable, tasteful, and confident – orientation to sexual consumption and, by extension, in becoming an intelligibly ‘good’ sexual person. At the same time, the author draws upon de Certeau to show how the ordinary contexts in which sexual commodities are used can lead to unpredictable moments of adaptation, discomfort, playfulness, and resistance. A rich analysis of women’s everyday strategies of ‘making do’ with the kinds of femininity and female sexuality that sex shop culture represents, Consumer Sexualities will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies and gender studies with interests in gender, sexuality, sex, and consumption.

This book covers the gamut of topics related to gender and consumer culture. Changing gender roles have forced scholars and practitioners to re-examine some of the fundamental assumptions and theories in this area. Gender is a core component of identity and thus holds significant implications for how consumers behave in the marketplace. This book offers innovative research in gender and consumer behavior with topics relevant to psychology, marketing, advertising, sociology, women’s studies and cultural studies. It offers 16 chapters of cutting-edge research on gender, international culture and consumption. Unique to this volume is its emphasis on consumption and masculinity and inclusion of topics on a rapidly changing world of issues related to culture and gender in advertising, communications, psychology and consumer behavior.

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. In this provocative ethnography, Debra Curtis examines their sexuality in gripping detail: why do Nevisian girls engage in sexual activity at such young ages? Where is the line between coercion and consent? How does a desire for wealth affect a girl's sexual practices? Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality's contradictions are exposed: power and powerless¡ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure. Pleasures and Perils illuminates the methodological and ethical issues anthropologists face when they conduct research on sex, especially among girls. The sexually explicit narratives conveyed in this book challenge not only the reader's own thoughts on sexuality but also the broader limits and possibilities of ethnography.

What does sexiness mean today? Has sexiness become something that is bought and sold? What identity effects does a sexiness informed by consumer culture have? This book addresses these questions, off the back of a heightened visibility of 'sex', 'sexiness', and 'sexualization' in everyday life.

Explores how evolutionary psychology has begun to identify the prehistoric origins of human behavior and discusses how those discoveries have influenced the way consumer spending is viewed and controlled by companies, retailers, and marketers.

Sex in Advertising: Perspectives on the Erotic Appeal is the first book to thoroughly tackle important issues about sex in advertising. What is it? Does it work? How does it affect individuals and society? Well-respected scholars and popular writers answer these questions as they address the following issues associated with sex in today's advertising environment: gender differences and representation, unintended social effects, subliminal embeds, appeals to the homosexual community, and new media. The book contains a blend of perspectives, including original experimental studies, interpretive and historical analyses, and cultural critiques. The definitive source on sex in advertising, this book: *is centralized around a singular theme: Understanding how sex in advertising appeals work and why they are so prevalent; *includes multiple perspectives to capture the richness of sexual appeals; *brings together viewpoints from both well-known scholars and writers; *provides a wealth of ideas and research questions for those interested in the topic; and *contains discussions of sex in advertising from its roots in the 1700s to online advertising today and beyond. The book is must reading for advertising and gender researchers, scholars, and students. Anyone interested in mass media, consumer psychology, and popular culture will find this book an essential resource.

The Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture is the first reference work to outline the parameters of consumer culture and provide a critical, scholarly resource on consumption and consumerism.

'Roberta Sassatelli has written a thorough and wide-ranging synthetic account of social scientific research on consumption which will set the standard for the second generation of textbooks on cultures of consumption. Consumer Culture is an appealing and lucid introduction to the major themes - historical and contemporary, theoretical and empirical - surrounding the growth, nature and consequences of consumer culture. It will be of professional interest as well as serving a student audience' - Alan Warde, University of Manchester Showing the cultural and institutional processes that have brought the notion of the 'consumer' to life, this book guides the reader on a comprehensive journey through the history of how we have come to understand ourselves as consumers in a consumer society and reveals the profound ambiguities and ambivalences inherent within. While rooted in sociology, Sassatelli draws on the traditions of history, anthropology, geography and economics to give: - A history of the rise of consumer culture around the world; - A richly illustrated analysis of theory from neo-classical economics, to critical theory, to theories of practice and ritual de-commoditization; and - A compelling discussion of the politics underlying our consumption practices. An exemplary introduction to the history and theory of consumer culture, this book provides nuanced answers to some of the most central questions of our time.

Providing one of the first comprehensive, cross-cultural examinations of the dynamic market for sexual services, this book presents an evidence-based look at the multiple factors related to purchasing patterns and demand among clients who have used the internet. The data is drawn from two large surveys of sex workers’ clients in the US and UK. The book presents descriptive baseline data on client engagement with online platforms, demographics and patterns of frequency in different markets, information on smaller niche markets and client reactions to exploitation, safety and changes in the law. The book makes clear that a variety of situational as well as individual factors affect the willingness and ability to purchase sexual services. The view that emerges shatters the stereotypes and generalistions on which much policy is based and demonstrates the complexities surrounding who pays for sex and the contours of sexual consumption in consumer culture.