Wet
Background: A very standard apparatus of heterosexual male fantasy is that of the wet woman—a woman is commonly shown in water, perhaps in a pool, hot tub or lake, or perhaps covered in water as from a shower, rainfall or broken fire hydrant. In Dreamworlds II Sut Jhally makes the point that women of the dreamworld seem to be obsessed with being wet. In advertising we also see numerous examples of women exposed in water, often in very sexual situations. The Ads: The following ads represent a clear trope in popular advertising. If one were to type "wet women" into a web search engine, that person would likely discover that most, if not all, of the search results relate to pornographic sites. What this indicates is the power of visual imagery and associated cultural, sexual and political contexts. For example, some popular images illustrate the powerful convention of the women's wet car wash in male heterosexual fantasy. Image 26 and 27 illustrate a before and after ad campaign of an Australian company. The image of the wet woman was, interestingly enough, changed to a wet male after some public outrage. Another Australian campaign is reflected in images 28 and 29. To find out more about this campaign, please see the resources section that follows the ads. Discussion Questions: (1) What does water connate in the advertising related to women? (2) How is it that water, a natural substance, is constructed to take on a sexualized context in advertising? (3) Are there similar representations of men in water?
