Adverts at 930pm overly too overly sexual...........

[Namechangeforthis2021]

Watching the Great British Pottery Throw Down on REALLY with my (teenage) kids and an advert for Love Honey came on and literally far too overt -finished with a woman in suspenders and some kind of straps across her bum cheeks hitting herself with a whip from behind-WTAF? But all the clips were seemingly about the women needing to dress up to impress the man (but that's another issue!!)
I know it is past 9pm and they are teenagers but it is half term etc.....

Followed by an advert for erectile problems!

I'm no prude but please come on! My kids were pretty revolted particularly my daughter and said 'Yuk, women aren't sexual play things for men' which was the implication of the advert.

I know porn is widely available but we click or don't click but an advert when we are relaxing watching a Pottery Programme -give me a break.

I have very open and frank discussions with my 15 year old son who isn't afraid to ask me anything. But I probably wouldn't pause the LH advert to explain each scene (as other people have suggested to start and open and frank discussion). Look that lady's arse is out, you may come across that now and then during sex. Oh and this is a man climaxing, yeah your face will look like that.
I mean come on if you do this - that is weird.

To all those people saying it's fine, do you take your children with you to the high street stores selling this stuff, do you order online in front of them, do you buy sexy underwear when they are with you? If not, why not, time to have a frank discussion on what you and their dad like??
Bizarre

@Jollyhollyday - no teenager wants to think of their parents having sex, let alone liking it a bit kinky, so your comment is ridiculous. You can talk about sex with your teens without making it personal. Isn't that obvious?

Suprised by all the people asking for the watershed to be later.

If it was at say 9.30 then most people I know would be in bed before the start of any of the second programmes! 11.00 as suggested by others would miss most people, but definately very few people would be up by the end of the programme!

[quote Beseigedbykillersquirrels]@Jollyhollyday - no teenager wants to think of their parents having sex, let alone liking it a bit kinky, so your comment is ridiculous. You can talk about sex with your teens without making it personal. Isn't that obvious?[/quote]
Im pointing out you can be open and frank with your teens without a LH advert forcing a conversation.

@IceLace100

I'm impressed your daughter has picked up on and called out misogyny in the advert. You're clearly doing a good job there!

What I got is that the daughter has parroted something she’s heard her mother say that wasn’t particularly relevant to the advert.

YDNBU. At all.
In my opinion the watershed needs reviewing as TV content has changed so much over the last 10, 20 years.

@Shoppingwithmother

I agree with you, OP.

I’ve actually made a complaint about it before though and been told that the advert passed inspection by the relevant authority. Apparently it’s 9pm or nothing as well - there’s no difference between 9 and 11pm.
I was watching a program on the Channel 5 player with my kids when the advert came on. I think the advert came on at about 9.10pm (actual time). The programme we were watching though was a totally innocuous program which was broadcast in the 8pm slot. So just a warning that if you watch any program, on a catch-up service and it happens to go on longer than 9pm, you can get these adverts appearing within programs which are pre-watershed shows. Apparently there’s nothing wrong with that as far as the rules are concerned.
I think it’s pretty appalling though.

The bit about 9pm vs 11pm is incorrect- the industry body that checks TV ads for compliance before they're aired will apply a different timing restriction to each ad depending on content. There is one for post 7.30pm, post 9pm, post 10pm and post 11pm. The fact is the post 11pm is hardly ever used because what would be the point of advertising anything when most people (children and adults!) are in bed.

According to their website, post 9pm is considered fair for any ad that falls into any of the following descriptions-
• A serious risk of emulation that could result in serious harm.
• Strong (but not overtly graphic) sexual content, including sexual entertainment.
• Open discussion of sex, or strong or crude innuendo.
• Sexual nudity, although not showing nipples, pubic hair or genitalia.
• Strong, repeated interpersonal contact.
• Scenes of threat or horror.
• Aggressive behaviour or visuals of injuries.
• Brief, vague, non-graphic scenes or torture.
• Realistic depictions of crime in a street or urban setting.

While the LH ad is explicit to some, compared to actual pornography or images of people preforming sexual acts it very much lands in the 'strong but not overtly graphic sexual content' category imo.

(I work for a big advertising agency which is why I know the above info!)

Series record. Watch later. Fast forward ads. Job done.

We hardly ever watch ads these days. I haven't the patience.

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels - I mean, nobody wants to think about their parents having sex, but I do agree to being open to discussion involving sex.

My mum was always very open with me, from fairly young, there was no renaming of any terms (why on earth would you call sperm anything but sperm? Special seed? Yuck. It’s sperm and that’s not a derogatory word) it was “people have sex, sometimes to make a baby sometimes for pleasure” different types of sex have been discussed, as well as a truthful answer to my “what’s at the back of Ann summers?” Question when I overheard someone joking about it.

I don’t sit and think “ugh god my mum has sex that’s weird” of course she has sex, I’m here with two other siblings. I don’t sit around thinking about my parents sex life all day. But I’m also not ignorant or immature.

See isn’t a dirty horrible thing that should be kept sheltered from our children if and when they ask questions. We need to stop seeing it this way.

YANBU, I think 9pm is too early.

I absolutely agree with you OP, the watershed should be much later. I personally don't want to be watching some nice gentle documentary which is then interspersed with love honey ads or similar, and I most certainly wouldn't want it if I were watching with teenage kids.

@Justanotherlurker

My 13 year old goes to be at 10.30 in the holidays. I don’t want her watching ‘sex positive’ people with their arses out. Totally inappropriate.

sex positive .... Their sex people Lynne!

Mary whitehouse was born in the wrong century, we have gone full circle where people are parroting an old school conservative.

Mary Whitehouse never criticized what she criticized from a feminist perspective. She had a puritanical and very controlling view of sex and sexuality, which had the vapours at much less than the LoveHoney ad. She saw sex virtually everywhere (as self-proclaimed guardians of public morality are wont to do) and in her view it was disgusting. All of it. Unless it was under the covers and with the lights out and involving a heterosexual married couple. And on the strict understanding it was never talked about or alluded to. Her view of homosexuality was ignorant in the extreme. (She is on record as believing that it was "caused" by STDs in the parents during pregnancy, I'm not joking.)

It's not fair to compare the concerns of the OP and her daughter to MH.

I think LoveHoney ad IS explicit. I don't think the ad for ED help is in the same category because that is a medical issue.

@CroneAVirus

I honestly think children are sexualised too early by this sort of stuff.

Personally, I feel that I was. I used to read More magazine and Just Seventeen when I was a young teen. Articles all about how to give boys blow jobs and kiss with tongues, what fingering is, ‘position of the week’, etc, etc.

It was nothing more than paedophillic wank material. But as the intended ‘target market’ (as opposed to the unintended target market of ephebophiles), I was exposed to way too much, way too soon. It led me and my friends - including my male friends- to have to conversations about these sorts of things before we should have even had it on our radars. This helped create a culture among my peers where boys expected girls to deliver on what they’d learnt in these magazines. And that in turn led me to experiment sexually long before I really wanted to or felt ready. Looking back, I can see how that was traumatising for me.

The media might be different - internet and social media vs print magazines, but nothing else has changed all that very much as far as I can see.

So laugh and call me Mary Whitehouse if you want. But I just see the normalisation of children being exposed to hyper sexual stuff and it being minimised as ‘sex positive’ as grooming and boundary erosion.

There are a million other age-appropriate ways to talk to teens about safe, emotionally healthy sexual experiences that don’t involve having to watch a gay couple fake orgasms on an advert for sex toys.

You won't find me calling you Mary Whitehouse. I agree with what you say. Presenting all that to teens has exactly the effect you are describing: a significant number of boys viewing sex in that way and expecting it from girls. Which often involves pressuring the girls with things they aren't comfortable with. What a template for their adult sex lives. ("Men have to have sex, are entitled to demand it. It's the woman's role to provide it."

It's depressing especially to see all the posts here, on a site mainly for women, that imply, or even say, that the OP is a prude or "frigid", both terms straight out of the sexist man's handbook.

I agree completely, OP. Anyone calling you a prude hasn't seen the advert, which is revolting, and manages to cheapen and fetishise everything it includes. If LH were hoping to upgrade the image of sex products for the 21st century, they couldn't have done a worse job because all the advert achieves is to recall the grubbiness of 1970s sex shops and perverts in dirty macs. And yes, it is difficult to know where to begin in discussing all of that with teenagers, even if (like me) you ordinarily have a good relationship both with them and with their status as sexual individuals, because the advert draws on all kinds of memes and clichés that require an understanding of the culture surrounding sex since the victorian era, which is complex and largely embarrassing for them.

But hey, cool mumsnetters, you crack on with lionising this stuff, and don't trouble yourself to consider what relationship, if any, it might have with how safe and empowered your daughters feel, either in public or in the bedroom. Throwing in a token gay couple doesn't magically remove the gaze from female bodies and anyone who thinks it does is a fool.

Anyone who thinks it’s ‘healthy’ or ‘normal’ to show teenagers images of women in fetishistic lingerie, or adverts about men not being able to get erections, needs to have a word with themselves

Anyone who thinks their teenage DC haven't already seen much, much worse online also needs to have a word with themselves.

If the advert shared by a PP is the one the OP saw then I don't see the issue. There are no naked bodies, the language isn't perverse, there is a good mix of different couples and at no point are women shown to be 'sexual playthings for men'. If anything it looks like women are enjoying themselves and enjoying sex, which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Would it be a bit cringy to watch that advert while in the same room as my Mum when I was a teenager? Probably. But for the time of night, I don't think it is bad at all. It is also after the watershed where we know the tone of adverts can change. For example I hate adverts of horror films, so I avoid TV at that time because there is a chance they will be shown.

Is there anyway you can watch the show on catch up? Or record it in anyway?

Cable channels (and channel 5, ime) have always pushed boundaries with regards to decency.
Channel 5 shows films back to back in the daytime and I've often noted quite a few 15s in there, and the freeview/freesat channels pretty much show whatever they like, regardless! Not suitable for a young child that might be off sick etc.
But that's where parenting comes in.
Your teens have whole porn websites walking around in their pocket 24/7, if they cared to look. A lovehoney advert is nothing!

Your teens have whole porn websites walking around in their pocket 24/7, if they cared to look. A lovehoney advert is nothing

It’s not a race to the bottom

This stuff is pervasive and boundaries are eroded when people say “it’s not as bad as x, y, z

It’s either acceptable or it’s not. For me, not.

Anyone who thinks their teenage DC haven't already seen much, much worse online also needs to have a word with themselves

Underage children viewing “much, much worse” online doesn’t legitimise serving them explicit ads for sex toys during GBBO catch ups.

If you suspect your underage children are viewing “much, much worse” than that online and you’re cool with that then I would consider that a safeguarding issue tbh.

@CroneAVirus , why do some people think up such cool usernames. It's really not fair on us hard of creative thinking.

Tbh watershed issue aside, I'd be slightly more concerned about your daughters comment...she saw an image of a woman dressed up in lingerie for sexual enjoyment and immediately assumed it must be for a man's pleasure? These conversations are awkward, but she clearly picked that up from somewhere and is parroting it, as it is very sad if she genuinely read the situation/image that way. I would be talking to her about that and making it clear that women are allowed sexual gratification also

@RubyFakeLips

Yabu.

I saw a LH advert the other day. Can’t see the issue, it was inclusive, only with adults and not just for the male gaze as you said. What’s the issue, that teens are aware adults engage in sex and shop in relation to that activity. I can’t believe this would be a surprising revelation for them or do they believe themselves to have been immaculate conceptions?

Additionally, it’s also illegal for younger teens to buy alcohol or drive but they’re advertised cars and booze throughout the day. Gambling too and food which will probably give them an early death. Just applying this to sexual content doesn’t hold water.

Talking of porn, there is a belief that the increase of porn has led to huge rises (no pun intended ) in ED amongst young men. So actually young people need ED to be less stigmatised for them.

And you think the solution to that is for young men to take drugs for erectile dysfunction?

So, you think the love honey ad is porn...and its all about women being sexual play things for men...

And yet you haven't actually watched the whole advert, and therefore have failed to understand it isn't porn, and isn't about women being sexual playthings AT ALL... it's actually about people having good sex, no matter who they choose to have that sex with, it even SAYS that in the advert...

The most explicit thing in that advert is bums, bums covered in knickers/undies/suspenders... really not at all explicit, and the issue you most strongly object to is not there, its entirely in YOUR imagination.

I think the problem exists in your head and in what you are teaching your daughters and not the watershed or the content of that advert!

The simple thing to do is watch stuff on catch-up and fast forward the ads if the tv offends you too much - there is an off button as well which has existed as long as TV has, so that you can prevent your eyes seeing offensive material!

@LilMidge01

Tbh watershed issue aside, I'd be slightly more concerned about your daughters comment...she saw an image of a woman dressed up in lingerie for sexual enjoyment and immediately assumed it must be for a man's pleasure? These conversations are awkward, but she clearly picked that up from somewhere and is parroting it, as it is very sad if she genuinely read the situation/image that way. I would be talking to her about that and making it clear that women are allowed sexual gratification also

Probably parroting her mother given her reactions on this thread. Assuming she actually said that, of course.

Sometimes on here it’s like female sexuality doesn’t really exist. Woman who say they like certain sex acts are told they only do it for men. A woman in lingerie apparently only does that for men. It’s impossible for a woman to choose or enjoy sex work. It’s off putting or disgusting when a husband wants to have sex with his wife. We’re all different. I think it’s very important to teach girls their sexuality is what they want it to be and that they should feel comfortable with and assert their boundaries and experience pleasure and be able to communicate about their desires in a healthy way with their partners. Not that things their mothers don’t like are automatically wrong and for men so you should hate them and taunt women who don’t agree with you. But, you know, “cool girls” and all that.

@Avaynia

It’s impossible for a woman to choose or enjoy sex work.

I won't be teaching my daughter that she should aspire to becoming a prostitute. Thanks anyway.