Up Front by Emma Hart

I don’t think your Modern Manhood is quite Premium enough to cope with me.

Zing!! :-)

She looks like she's being punished for laughing at the stupidly small penis he's holding, she doesn't give a shit about it and is just smirking her way through it like a schoolgirl doing a dare, but you can see from his face that he knows he's laughable and it makes him miserable.

But I've been told I'm not good at judging these things.

Tell 'em, girlfriend!

But I've been told I'm not good at judging these things.

No, that is pretty much how I read their facial expressions.

I don’t know why this is becoming such a thing.

Doesn't your second link there show it isn't so much becoming a thing as has been one for quite some time?

"The thing" is when "vanilla advertising co-opts imagery from BDSM", but I think that the latter image is from actual porn, not advertising.

No, here’s my problem. I really, really don’t like it when vanilla advertising co-opts imagery from BDSM.

No - if you're going to do diet Helmut Newton you're probably going to miss everything that made the guy's work interesting in the first place: The total lack of any filter between his sexual obsessions and his work; how genuinely transgressive it was in the 60's & 70's to see that kind of imagery in commercial advertising and fashion editorial. The very specific personal and cultural context he came out of. That he really didn't give a flying fuck if anyone thought he could only be aroused by a shaved cross-dressing fraulein snarling at his crotch.

You're sure giving them an awful lot of credit for something ripped straight from a Mad Men advertiser. Google images "mad men" ashtray girl.

"The thing" is when "vanilla advertising co-opts imagery from BDSM", but I think that the latter image is from actual porn, not advertising.

I meant, for example, the coffee one. Which is at least D, though not B or S or M.

*high fives*

That's exactly it, Morgan.

And thank you, Emma. Ok, they are riding on the 50 Shades of Shite bandwagon, but yeah, keep it in the porn/erotica world, not the mainstream, where it's just - to resurrect a fun phrase - reinforcing the norms of the patriarchy. No, it's not witty and subversive here.

Oh it's a cigar...
The way he was holding it
I thought a suppository, maybe....

Oh go on. I see superb natural ingredients, big flavor and can-do attitude just like what infused his marriage (so says the prospectus). Makes me want to shoot clay targets and get a three button remote control and buy some stock.

Forgive, I should have got here sooner. I am not well, and my brain is moving very slowly. Bear with.

I meant, for example, the coffee one. Which is at least D, though not B or S or M.

As a side-note, and not directed at Graeme at all, just trying to keep things clear, BDSM is a thingied acronym. Compressed. Something. It stands for Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sadism & Masochism. When Graeme says "D", I am assuming he means "Discipline" not "Dominance".

So, yeah. I'm by no means suggesting that these images have only just started appearing, just that they seem (which I know is awfully subjective) to be getting more common lately. In response, as Tracy points out, to the popularity of Fifty Shades of Not Having a Fucking Clue.

The coffee image is one I find really difficult to parse. I mean, it's stagy and fake and I think it's supposed to be funny, in the context of its time.

But. OTK spanking is, of course, really common in BDSM. It might be part of Discipline, it might equally be part of S&M. So I should have the same issues with it, right? And yet I struggle to, or to connect it in any way to my own experience, because it's just so... silly.

I meant, for example, the coffee one.

I stand corrected. Though, as Emma says, the "discipline" aspect of that is hard to parse. While kink certainly existed then (1950s? 60s?), I would have thought that in a mainstream context that image would have been read more as an appeal to some men's nostalgia for husbandly control than as a reference to a sexual practice.

Going back to the particular context for the image: throughout the whole prospectus, every feature image of men shows them in control (shooting, making beer, winning medals, looking powerful and corporate in the boardroom); every feature image of women shows them as subservient, decorative, and on one case naked. As a package it has nothing to do with BDSM, and everything to do with reinforcing gendered power structures.

While there’s nothing wrong with a bit of consensual boss/secretary fantasy or human furniture play, the ashtray image here is part of a wider narrative which is about a real world of men who make decisions and women without agency, not a sexual scenario negotiated between willing and equal partners. Moa’s strategy is to “influence the influencers”, and they all but explicitly say that the only “influencers” worth reaching are rich white men. Ladies, the only influence you might have is if you drop your knickers at the sight of a stuffed shirt necking an expensive beer.

“I’m appalled” Getting my rail on

and, coat.

..and leotard.

And the beer, its not great.

As a side-note, and not directed at Graeme at all, just trying to keep things clear, BDSM is a thingied acronym. Compressed. Something. It stands for Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sadism & Masochism. When Graeme says “D”, I am assuming he means “Discipline” not “Dominance”.

Learn something new every day.

Was it always that way, or did it evolve? Sort of the opposite of how we moved from Gay and Lesbian to LGBT, LGBTI and google autocomplete suggests, sometimes even LGBTQIA (and I'm sure, others).

The coffee image is one I find really difficult to parse. I mean, it’s stagy and fake and I think it’s supposed to be funny, in the context of its time.

I just don't get the socks.

Was it always that way, or did it evolve?

IANAHistorian, but I believe it agglomerated. So in the seventies, you'd see people talking about just B&D, or S&M. One of the great writers in this area, Clarisse Thorn, who's in her twenties, describes herself as an "S&M Feminist". So like the GLITTFAB acronyms, it breaks down into its component parts sometimes as required.

I see a boy in man’s body trying – and failing – to look dominate with an unlit cigar .
I see a young woman about to throw something heavy at the camera .
I don’t blame her

As someone smack in their target demographic I will never drink a Moa beer again though I will confess that the decision is made easier by the fact that their product is frothy bland suds.
Having viewed the entire prospectus they look like a bunch of Viagra swilling eedjits looking for a sense of direction.
A disgrace to my sex.

Having viewed the entire prospectus they look like a bunch of Viagra swilling eedjits looking for a sense of direction.
A disgrace to my sex.

Whack!
And, +1-
I still enjoy a beer - Moa no more-

Go Pete - I am with you. Actually I have never drunk a Moa beer but from now on I shall spit on Moa beer and challenge those who drink it.

I feel similarly about Tui , don't know why , maybe it was the Tui women brewery workers ad . The only place I have every drunk Tui is in Ngawi near cape Palliser , they have an excellent and illegal pub there that only serves Tui , nothing else.
Tui beer and fresh caught cray by the dozen -- oh yes oh yes