Calvin Klein’s outdoor advertising isn’t there to sell product all by itself — it’s meant to generate free publicity and millions of gratis media impressions from all the controversy it creates. And it’s managing to do so with a single billboard in NYC’s SoHo neighborhood. But funny thing: “Neighbors” supposedly only get upset when there’s a hot guy appearing next to her.
A previous SoHo billboard showing three dudes and a lady in casual erotica was yanked after complaints — and replaced with a tamer creative, showing a single dripping wet female.
Now Eva Mendes’s campaign ad, shot by Steven Klein, is causing controversy! Despite an equally provocative Times Square billboard showing Eva solo, this one — that has her grabbing for male model Jamie Dornan’s neither regions — is giving one newspaper an opportunity to quote passers-by calling the billboard “pornography.”
Indeed, Calvin Klein’s spots only become pornographic when male models are introduced to look wholly uninterested in their female partners.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Republican
Oh come on, you can’t even see anything. Fucking prudes.
Latebrosus
Naked mens is threatening, whereas naked womens is not. Go figure.
romeo
It amazes me that anyone in SoHo would think THAT was pornographic. Besides, he’s looking down at her hand like “what does she want with my underpants?” LOL
terrwill
I still don’t get it after all these years………how come a straight man like Calvin Klein always has such Gay ads?? 😛
Keith Kimmel
This country can be so Victorian sometimes.
B
terrwill wrote, “I still don’t get it after all these years………how come a straight man like Calvin Klein always has such Gay ads??”
He knows which men are most likely to buy sexy underwear? 🙂
scott ny'er
Latebrosus is correct.
QFT
romeo
Calvin Klein straight? Since when?
Quake
Society has made male sexuality scary and women’s sexuality angel like.
I just hate these double standards, but people will be people. Dumb and insane
Republican
Romeo,
He DOES look disgusted. Kinda like he’s dealing with a straight chick who won’t take no for an answer.
Joseph
The pic at the link of the exquisitely beautiful Jamie Dornan might be confused for pornography, but certainly not the one with Mendes.
http://gay.skinindex.com/archives/jamie-dornan-nude.jpg
Ted C.
But the examples you’ve chosen have a basic pattern: Shots with a single person are acceptable, but shots with multiple persons in intimate contact are not.
If you want to illustrate sexism or homophobia, I don’t think you’ve succeeded. It might just be that having multiple models in close contact is more suggestive of sex.
Republican
Joseph,
Nice
Republican
Ted,
True. The prudishness is pretty annoying though, especially when there isn’t even actual nudity or fucking involved. His underwear is barely pulled down. What a country.
jason
This phenomenon raised by Queerty is fascinating. It points to the hypocrisy of women, the hypocrisy of conservatives, and the hypocrisy of liberals.
The best analogy can be found in the bisexual double standard. If it’s “two hot chicks”, all of the above are usually singing its praises. But if it’s “two hot guys”, they’re against it. It’s a combination of anti-male and anti-male-to-male.
A lot of this hypocrisy can also be seen in the porn industry and how it promotes female bisexuality as normal and compatible with ordinary heterosexual acts. Male bisexuality, on the other hand, is marginalized and segregated.
jason
Straight guys hate it when confronted with nice male bodies. It brings out their latent bisexuality, which they hate.
Face it – there are millions of straight guys who avidly control their same-sex attractions by ignoring them or avoiding scenarios. When it’s imposed on them by a billboard, it’s a situation they’re not controlling, hence the outrage.
Women can also be unbelievably prudish vis a vis the male form, partly because women like to be the center of attention. They hate it when men are sexier than they are. It inverts the buyer-seller paradigm wherein women are usually the sellers and men the buyers.
LOL
No. 16 really doesn’t know women AT ALL!!!! just like gay men we appreciate the male human form and we don’t greet the sight of the female form with ewwwws
romeo
Jason: your theory doesn’t explain football or wrestling ! The inner queer is totally out of control there. LOL
terrwill
#6 B: That quote was tounge in cheek. 😛 Of course, Calvin Klein knows what Gay men want……………….
He is just so damm straigt!!
For the freakin life of me, I still can’t figger out why he has refused to come out of the damm closet after what 50 years??? Like it is going to be a absolute bombshell that a designer is Gay???????????
hardmannyc
First off, anything can “cause controversy.” I strongly suspect that vast majority of Downtown Manhattanites could give two shits about this.
Second, Calvin Klein is pretty much “out” these days. He just hasn’t proclaimed it on “Oprah.”
Third, does the model have woodie?
romeo
hmmmm, he either has a chubby or he’s hugely hung. Now THAT’S a discussion topic.
Phelicity
It’s sexually provocative and children view it and think that society expects that of them when they grow up… which lately according to them is around 11 years old!!! It’s disgusting, yet effective…