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I'd been quietly seething at the Virgin Mobile Phone ads with their cutesy double-entendres: "other phones give you venereal diseases! but ours are safe! 'cos they're virgin! get it?!" I tried not to make the associative leap I suspected the ads were even making to the myth that sex with a virgin cures you of VD.
Now they've gone too far.
Rape - the hip new advertising gimmick.
Once the initial aaarrghgh! of rage had passed, and I began to quantify my disgust, it occurred to me what a weird analogy this company is using - the "catch" that you supposedly get from other phones isn't actually disease after all - it's contracts and legal documents and long-term commitment. Now I could see where the customer who finds this ad funny is probably also on the run from a dozen women trying to get him to pay child support *; but as I understand it, one of the oldest and most cynical reasons for emphasising one's virginity is to make some guy desperate enough to marry you in exchange for it. But I guess Slutty No Strings mobile phones wasn't a cute enough name.
I'm sending a copy of this to livejournals.com/users/misia, who has been writing a book on the social history of virginity, its myths and abuses. It's pretty pathetic, actually, that I have something like this to send her. In the meantime, Richard Branson - go ph--- yourself.
*Or he will be in a few years - I think the product is actually being aimed at high school students - though presumably not female ones....what's with that?
Now they've gone too far.
Rape - the hip new advertising gimmick.
Once the initial aaarrghgh! of rage had passed, and I began to quantify my disgust, it occurred to me what a weird analogy this company is using - the "catch" that you supposedly get from other phones isn't actually disease after all - it's contracts and legal documents and long-term commitment. Now I could see where the customer who finds this ad funny is probably also on the run from a dozen women trying to get him to pay child support *; but as I understand it, one of the oldest and most cynical reasons for emphasising one's virginity is to make some guy desperate enough to marry you in exchange for it. But I guess Slutty No Strings mobile phones wasn't a cute enough name.
I'm sending a copy of this to livejournals.com/users/misia, who has been writing a book on the social history of virginity, its myths and abuses. It's pretty pathetic, actually, that I have something like this to send her. In the meantime, Richard Branson - go ph--- yourself.
*Or he will be in a few years - I think the product is actually being aimed at high school students - though presumably not female ones....what's with that?
