Sex in advertising: how it influences young men and women

Abstract: Companies make use of sexual appeal in advertising more now than ever. Very
little research has been conducted of how the youth react to this and
therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of
how the youth perceive sex in advertising. More specifically, it deals with
how the youth define and perceive sexual appeal in advertising. The study
has a qualitative approach and the empirical data was gathered through two
focus group interviews with students from Örnen high school in Luleå.

The findings and conclusions of this study indicated that there are gender
differences of how the youth define and react to sex in advertising. Young
men tend to be more focused on physical attractiveness while young women
focus more on other factors such as movement. Furthermore, our conclusions
suggest that there are differences of how young women and men perceive sex
in advertisement. Our findings suggest that young men are not as affected as
young women concerning buying behavior and self-confidence by the sexual
appeals in advertisements.