Asexuality and advertising

[neekabe]

Inspired by the post on a quiet dreamwidth comm meme, have a post.

Does being asexual make it easier to resist advertising messages?

As an introvert and an asexual, commercials and ads that tell me that their product will make people want to be around me and have sex with me are not overly interesting to me (so if I don't buy your product no one will want ever to have sex with me? Perfect!). I've never had much of a problem distancing myself from the various messages that the media presents about how we are all full of problems, and they will help us fix those problems if we just give them our money. Lately I've been wondering how much of that was the result of good work from my parents, and how much of that was simply that the subtext they were selling me wasn't something I was I cared about. I'm not wired to care about sex and popularity.

On the other hand, advertising also sells belonging, which is something that can be very tempting, especially to a person who hasn't quite figured themselves out yet and is still trying to see how they fit into the wider world ('If I buy into this, maybe I will finally understand what the fuss is about').

note: I'm trying to not present this in a way that sounds of "asexuals are better than those silly sexual people who are all slaves to their base desires" because I certainly know many sexual people who do not base their lives on what the TV tells them to do. However, I'm an introvert; I don't know that many people, period. I'm also the only asexual I know, so I hardly have access to a good sample of either side. It's just that my other discussion idea on asexuality and kink didn't seem like a good first post.

Comments

[charamei]

Darn, pipped to the posting post!

As an(other) introvert and asexual, that's a very good question. Although asexuality most likely does provide a buffer against ads selling sex appeal, I suspect that the tendency towards introversion is probably more at play here: I'm asexual because that's what I am, but I'm a virgin because I've never felt a need to follow the crowd and 'fit in' at the expense of my personal comfort, which are traits I associate with extroversion to some extent. They're certainly not traits I specifically associate with sexuality.

(For reference, I'm a possibly-aromantic probably-polyaffectionate asexual, and in Myers-Briggs parlance I'm midway between INFP and INTP.)

[neekabe]

I'm trying to figure out your first line, and am totally lost :grins:

That is a good point, I wonder what the experience of an extroverted asexual would be like. I'm always between INTP and INFP depending on the test.

[charamei]

I'm trying to figure out your first line, and am totally lost :grins:

As a response to the same meme, I was working on a post about how to make it clear that an ace character is ace without resorting to three pages of explanatory exposition. But you got there first and I don't want to swamp the comm, so I'll wait a couple of days :)

There's a person on Acebook who spends a lot of time posting about how depressed he is that he's 'broken' and can't 'be normal'. He's an extreme case, but I wouldn't be surprised if extroverts had the same kind of experiences.

[neekabe]

Ahh, I see. I look forward to reading that post ^_^

My reading comprehension is faily

[charamei]

...aaand I have just this moment realised that this is asexuality, not asexual_fandom. *blushes* I'd actually forgotten I'd joined this comm.

Since my post belongs over there, I guess I should go ahead and write it up.

[nike]

Hmm... Interesting question. I'm an introvert asexual as well and selling me sex doesn't work. Selling me other things can if you can reach me, but I don't watch TV anymore except online or on DVD and tend to switch the channel when ads air on the radio. As such, advertisers aren't really reaching me anyway. If anything, the few that do reach me often piss me off more than anything because I've been trained in how to see how they're selling me something and how objectifying they can be in that effort (advertising aimed at women versus advertising by women fascinates me).

I'm also gonna agree with charamei: I think the introversion plays a large part as well. When I was in my late teens, my response (mostly internalized and acted out) to being told I could be beautiful if I did this, this, and that was "Hell with that, I want to be comfortable and sleep in and who cares what anyone else thinks as long as I'm happy?" And I was happy like that because I didn't care what people thought because I had come to the conclusion that if they didn't like me for who I was, then they weren't worth my time. I still stick to that, although I do make some effort with what people think now because my job requires it to a degree, more's the pity. ;D

[neekabe]

I agree 100% with the "if they don't like me, why would I want them as a friend" mindset. The introversion/asexual combination is the good combination for feeling comfortably different from the rest of the world.

As an aside, I've read other places that a significant number of asexuals are introverted. I wonder if being asexual would be harder if one was extroverted.

[jerico_cacaw]

Does being asexual make it easier to resist advertising messages?

I find those advertisement kind of silly and not a bit enticing. Nonetheless, besides being asexual, I'm also an aromantic, agender, agnostic, apolitical schizoid (and the last one involves blunted affection, anhedonia, avolition and asociality), so I think that disqualifies me from giving an unbiased answer to your question.

[neekabe]

That's also roughly how I feel. It helps that I don't encounter them that often (I don't have a TV, listen to talk radio with no commercials) but when I do, I'm always stunned, and then I remember that I'm not the person they're marketing to, though it confuses me that it works for anyone. I can't really imagine the mindset that advertising would work on.

[fizzyblogic]

so if I don't buy your product no one will want ever to have sex with me? Perfect!

This is exactly my reaction when adverts try to sell me things with sex. "So, if I use this product, I'll be covered in half-naked women? Note to self: avoid this product."

That is, once I've finished laughing and if I watch one at all. I was brought up with a very "ah, the adverts! Time for the mute button and a three-minute conversation or loo break" attitude :D

[neekabe]

Commercials are the reason I watch TV with a book =P

[melannen]

I wonder if being asexual is part of the reason commercials have never reached me much: forget selling me your *product*, the minute your show starts being all about who's hot for who (and who's just plain hot), I'm not interested in the *show*, either!

...so I don't watch all that much TV. (That's not the only reason, but it's a large part of the reason I don't watch a lot of mainstream-popular shows.)

[neekabe]

Yeah, the shows about "omg he's sleeping with her" and "I think he likes me, but I don't know. Should I sleep wtih him?" and the "But I saw person with another person, and I feel betrayed because clearly they were having sex and not doing anything innocent at all, but I'm not going to talk to them about it, because that would be the sane rational response to things, not I'm going to be sneaky and cause more drama and problems with my lack of communication because that's what love is: stalking and skeevy consent issues."
(Err... I just watched a horrible horrible movie, so this is a little bit of an open wound right now ^_~)

I've got a few shows that I watch because they are about things other than who's sleeping with whom. Because as soon as manufactured interpersonal drama (most of which could be resolved with a conversation) starts showing up I'm gone.

It's the one thing that confused me the most in my coming to identify as asexual. I thought everyone was like me, and that television portrayals of relationships was just TV's crazy world, like how everything even remotely flammable explodes. It took me a while to figure out that TV relationships are closer to RL than I thought.

[ambergris]

I'm not especially good at picking up when advertisers are trying to use sex to sell to me. I've always felt that having the most fashionable clothes/ the clearest skin/ the shiniest hair/ the lowest dress size is actually more about competing for status with other women than attracting men (since women tend to notice and care about these things more than men do). I have no problem seeing when they are using sex to sell to men, though, because it's usually pretty blatant and I always feel kind of insulted on their behalf.

Overall, I would say my cynicism probably has more influence over my resistance to advertising than my greysexuality (or my feminism, or my introversion, or my low self-esteem).