article - camilo gomez

The Nipples in Mainstream Advertising
Nipples are the projection of mammal breasts, rounded and protuberant structures
through which breast milk emanates during lactation. The nipple is surrounded by the
areola, which is a circular or elliptical tissue of pigmented skin. It helps to support the
nipple and contains the Montgomery’s glands, which maintain moisture during
breastfeeding. The nipple is commonly said to undergo erection, although, such a change
in form and texture is due to the contraction of the muscles within the areola, a reaction
under the command of the autonomic nervous system, and in response to temperature
changes, touch stimulation, or sexual arousal. Thus, female nipples are also considered an
erogenous zone, more sensitive than those of men, as they are irrigated by wider nerve
supply endings, stimulated by hand and mouth during foreplay.
Nipples, as erotic
receptors, sometimes are sensitive enough to elicit orgasm.
The breasts, one of the most prominent features of female’s body, stand as an emblem of
femininity, fertility, and life’s nourishment. They can also be perceived as metaphors of
abundance, hunger, sexual power, subservience, superiority, liberation, or deviance.
Breasts, and their crowning nipples, have been symbolically interpreted in diverse forms,
according to the intentional or subconscious viewpoints of societies throughout history.
Legends and myths with regard to breasts are found in diverse cultures in which they are
depicted and enshrined as symbols of divine generosity, or represented as nature itself
that has to be controlled and subdued by the power of culture. Breasts may also
symbolize fruitfulness, the holy milk of the virgin, material wealth, prosperity,
sacredness, moral looseness, the temptation of flesh, upper or lower class, rebellion,
upstartness, motherly capacity, gender identity, civil rights, freedom, or simply lactation
and/or sexuality. In modernity, nipples are one of the predominate zones of female erotic
attractiveness. Cross-culturally, breasts, near the eye-level, have played as a relevant
bodily feature. No matter with what symbolic value breasts are endowed, they are a
meaningful indication of the views held by different societies. In the Western world,
breasts and nipples play a crucial role as commercial entities in advertising, popular
culture, and pornography (FreeEssays, 2003:1).
In this piece of writing, we will concentrate mainly on the significance that the nipple has
gained amid printed magazine advertisements, as an absent image exploited by a
patriarchal economic system. The human willingness to wear or avoid the use of clothing
responds to functional concerns linked to the need of keeping body temperature,
protection against the elements, and social considerations. Social norms or rules
regarding the customary covering of intimate parts of the body change according to social
groups, cultural constructs, and time. The presence of suggestive nudity in Western
advertising has overtly increased during the last 25 years (Jeong and Hwang, 2005:3).
In modern Western culture, the bodily parts that face compulsory covering in social
environments are mainly those susceptible to eliciting or experiencing sexual arousal and
those involved in the elimination of excreta. These are the perineum, penis, and scrotum
(in men), and the pudendal cleft, vulva, breasts, and nipples (in women). Different
sunbathing places in Western culture allow the exposure of any of these bodily parts,
differentially. Most beaches are tolerant of string bikinis that only cover the anus and the
vulva, in women, and the penis, the scrotum, and the perineum, in men, leaving the
buttocks visible, while the breasts remain partially covered or exposed. Other places or
events, demarcated as naturist or nudist, allow total nudity. With regard to public space in
Canada, authorities in Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia tolerate exposed breasts’
sunbathing in certain places, according to the Gotopless organization (2011:1), which
advocates for the rights of women to be bare-chested at public space. In the rest of
Canada, apart from places or events devoted to optional clothing, the covering of breasts
in public spaces is compulsory, and particularly, the covering of the nipples.
Diverse parts of the body, cross-culturally and during different times, have been hidden
because societies consider them to incite sexual arousal. The notion of ownership over
bodily parts seems to have been deeply rooted in patriarchal values long before the dawn
of capitalism (Barthel, 1988:2). Women’s ankles, legs, and thighs, the belly, the back,
the head, and even the face, in Islamic fundamentalist regions, are bodily parts that have
to be covered. When, by custom, the majority or the entirety of a population hides any
body part, it becomes a focus of curiosity and of anxiety. The construction and imposed
taboos (strong social prohibitions) related to the vision of human bodily parts generate
curiosity, which, if widely focused upon by social, cultural, and political discourses, may
become the cause for downright social obsession.
The media and advertising are very savvy in exploiting societal fears and obsessions. The
covered, invisible nipple has played a very important role in public space during the last
centuries, but more visibly since the influence of the Victorian era, an epoch that is
commonly associated with strict codes of conduct and moral standards, where
prudishness and repressiveness throughout the 19 century may have been hypocritically
applied locally and throughout the colonies. The sexual organs and the bodily parts
restricted by taboo have always found a channel for breaking into public sphere.
The nipples, in modernity, could have a similar symbolic value for women as the penis
has for men. Well-formed breasts crowned by well-proportioned nipples could have the
same sexual power of attraction, and presumably arousal agency, as a penis would with
the seemingly appropriate length and thickness. The exteriority and visibility of naked
nipples and penises may be considered as more susceptible to judgment in terms of
sexual power, thus, if exposed in public space, could generate great amounts of capital
group or social jealousy. Sexual power constantly negotiates with economic power and
vice-versa.
Therefore, textilism (obsessive dressing) may play a crucial role during the processes of
courtship, conquest, preservation of family values, and material accumulation. Nonnaturist individuals may enhance and compensate with other abilities and capital, while
playing under the same non-nudist set of rules, in order to hunt the appropriate sexual
partner. The way individuals dress and the appearance of their attire, as symbols of
economic or sexual power, are constantly being negotiated and contrasted in mainstream
advertising with on-the-brim nudity, so as to exploit the ultimate powerful tool of
persuasion: nudity, sex, or furthermore, the capacity to enjoy our bodies and to relish
them with blissful orgasms.
In his work Camera Lucida, philosopher and semiologist Roland Barthes, expounds of
two processes to which both eyes and thought are subjected while watching every
photograph. He asserts that every framed image can be construed and pondered under the
notions of studium and punctum (Barthes, 1981:26). Studium, he says, is the
interpretation one gives to a photograph in terms of the cultural, linguistic, and political
assumptions therein recovered. Punctum, he explains, is related to a specific area or point
towards which our wounded eyes tend to return once and again after journeying over the
surface of the image, a focal point that enables the spectator to establish a relationship
with the object or the individual therein depicted. In the following ads’ deconstruction, I
will reveal the punctum of every image, according to personal interpretation, and as an
additional exercise of analysis.
After having construed these concepts and notions, let us analyze seven magazine
advertisements where the nipple is left for the reader, to be imagined as a veiled tool of
power that helps the patriarchal capitalist economic system, based on the principles of
cultural colonization, commoditization, consumerism, economic growth, inequality, and
environmental destruction, maintain momentum:
A. The Caprica ad of a TV series science fiction drama (Vanity Fair, January 2010)
shows a torso and head of a nude woman, slightly turning her back, while her face and
light-colored eyes look straight into the camera. In one hand she is showing a bitten
apple, her other hand placed over her waist. In this case, the arm of the hand holding the
apple is covering her breast and nipple. She has the air of la femme fatale, the angle of the
camera slightly lower to emphasize her superiority over the spectator, while at the same
time her closeness invites appropriation. The word “Caprica” is the featuring text that is
at the same level where her breast should be. The slogan in smaller but upper case letters,
is placed at the level of her eyes, reading: THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY BEGINS
WITH A CHOICE. It is implied that she has just eaten the forbidden fruit from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil; therefore, as in the biblical myth, she has just become aware
of her nakedness. Her hair, which is abundant, midway between trimmed and wild,
suggests her sexual capacity more on the side of nature that of rationality. Again, as in the
myth, as god sentenced, she is inviting the male gaze to rule over her. The bitten piece of
the apple she holds could be evoking the hidden nipple. The lighting on her back
accentuates the lines that suggest her buttocks are also naked. The ad, upon a basic
second level of reading, invites the viewer to make the choice of “denuding” the TV
series, which could prove as exciting as breaking the norms, or simply having sex with
the model. In this image, my eyes fall on the model’s eyes and bitten apple first; then, I
read the big text; I read the rest of the visuals and texts; I end up in the incompleteness of
the apple, as the punctum.
B. Another ad for an aesthetic surgery clinic (Clin d’Oeil, June 2011) utilizes almost the
same layout, but this time the upper torso and smiling face of a nude woman in a frontal
perspective, with light-colored eyes that look straight into the camera, invites the
spectator. Her arms, folded so as to place both her hands on a shoulder, cover her breasts,
one of them almost fully seen except her nipple. The perspective, again, is that of a lower
camera that gives her a dominant look, while her body is depicted so close as to invite
facile appropriation. Inserted, three other pictures show a sequence of before and after
surgery, plus an additional one showing how the offered technique will not leave any
scars while aggrandizing the breasts. These photos do not identify the model, while
showing naked breasts and nipples. The slogan reads: J’aime me sentir sexy ! The logo of
the clinic also depicts the interlacing torsos of a man and a woman. Under the name of
the practitioner doctor, the acronyms of various diplomas attest for his professionalism
and expertise, plus other emblems of professional associations of which he seems to be a
member. As a back drop, at shoulder and face level, silhouettes of flower designs, which
could make up for the absence of the nipples in the featuring photo, for the closeness of
women to nature and beauty, and for how uncomplicated such an operation can be on the
hands of this professional. Her hands, again, are inactive and only serving, to be placed in
such a manner, that their only use is to hide her breasts and nipples. In a second level of
reading, this ad, again, invites male, to have sex with the model, or at least, to convince
her to let the male gaze relish on her nipple’s sight. The punctum, for me, in this image,
after looking at her eyes first, is her teeth; I come back there after having read the text,
seen the images, read the rest of the text, and looked for the absent nipple.
C. Another ad for Olay (Clin d’Oeil, June 2011) liquid shower soap shows a woman’s
turned torso, with no head in the frame, one arm folded so as to cover the breast and
nipple, and the other folded around her waist, with her hand touching her body. She is
covered with soap foam and encircled by suspended streaks of water. Here again, the
perspective of the camera shows an enhanced lower view, which could allude to an
invitation for the spectator to perform oral sex on the model. A collection of products
featuring liquid containers covers her waist, bottles that evoke the woman’s torso lines.
This group of containers is flanked, on both sides, by containers that are reminiscent of
the phallic form. The slogan reads FAITES DE L’ACTION NETTOYANTE un moment
délicieux á moindre coût, the latter lower case phrase in bigger letters than those in upper
case, may suggest and emphasize the pleasure of both having a shower and enjoying sex.
Most of her body is covered by soap foam evoking both the slimy sensations associated
with sexual intercourse and the emission of sperm. The ad is cut just over the line that
separates the buttocks. The suspended water streaks may intend to evoke the emission of
sperm during sexual intercourse; the abundant foam covering most of the back and arm of
the model may intend to evoke the domination of male power over the body of a female,
the whole ad recalling sexual connotations and women’s passivity, being watched by and
displayed for the male gaze. Fingers are the punctum, here, for me. First, I look at her
foamy back and arm; then, I see the set of products and fingers, I read the main text, and
after adventuring about details of water and foam patterns, I fall back into her fingers. I
find it strange that her breast is not there, where it should be, visible, according to her
body and arm positions. It could be an advertising trick, to cut it off with Photoshop.
D. The ad for Lierac Paris (Châtelaine, May 2011) and its product, Huile sensorielle aux
3 fleurs, advises the use of this body oil as a 24-hour skin hydration anoint. In this case,
the image is almost the same as the above commented on, the difference is that the
female model’s body is shown down to her legs, just after the line of her panties, which
are dark, plain, and not bikini like, as if the attention should be redirected to the upper
body, nevertheless, the pelvic area is therein present to tell us something. The perspective
is of a lower camera that looks strait into the light-colored eyes of the model. Her torso is
slanted and she is slightly smiling with her arms folded so as to cover her breasts and
nipples. One arm crosses over the bust; its hand rests passively on her back; the other
hand seems to be caressing the nape of her neck. The whole body appears to be
surrounded by thin circular and elliptical streaks of light, while white dots have also been
placed over her body, as if alluding to the scent and porous reach of the product. The oil
container, also shown in the ad, complements the information related to its multiple uses:
visage, corps & cheveux. There may be two interesting subliminal messages in this ad: its
emphasis on the fact that the oil has multiple uses, hinting perhaps that it can be used as a
sexual intercourse lubricant, a reference that could be confirmed by one part of the text
saying that the anoint is une veritable ode au bien-être et au plaisir. The other visual
queue that may suggest the same possible use of the oil, is the fact that the pelvic area of
the model is shown panty clad, if not just hinting leg’s use. Oil that is applied over the
body in order to have the capability to plonger votre corps dans un état de relaxation
intense, may suggest that a massage from a partner is necessary and invited in order to
complete the promises of the product. In this case, not only are the visual components of
the ad liable for exerting a masculine gaze and narrative, but also are its texts. Finding a
punctum for this image is harder for me, since texts size compete with two small
photographs. I read first the big text; then I look into the model’s eyes; I look at her body,
read the rest of the image including the drawn rose in the container, and end up on her
face that I find expressive.
E. Euphoria, a perfume by Calvin Klein is also advertised (Elle, December 2010) in the
same demeanor: the model is standing on her side, and, her face, aloof, looks into a low
perspective camera; her light-colored eyes gaze into it, with her mouth slightly open and
her hair between neatly done and wild; some hair streaks over her face, hinting both
economical and sexual power. In this case, a dark silken cloth covers her nipple, leaving a
good portion of her breast to be seen. One arm rests folded, its hand falling passively; the
other sustains the cloth, fingers folded above bust level, and holding a huge petal flower.
The ad is designed to communicate style and refinement, as for the minimalist use of
light and objects within its whole frame. The name of the product and of the product
designer is printed just on top of a photo of the perfume container, which is also of highlevel design. The container itself has an organic form that evokes the oval shape of the
female sexual organs and the crowning cap of the container is a vertical cuboid recalling
an engineered phallic form. The perspective on both the model and the container is that of
a lower camera, which enhances the superiority of the commoditized body and of the
anthropomorphized product container. The flower obviously symbolizes the scent of the
perfume, which according to the refinement of the product, must be but as subtle as a
flower’s odor. However, the flower may also intend to evoke the female sexual organs,
considering its size, lushness, and position near the slightly open mouth of the model. In
this image I look first into her eyes, then I look at the flower, then at her mouth, then I go
to the strong image of the container, read the text, go back to the cap of the container,
then I look at her covered breast, and go back to the brighter eye, which is the punctum of
the image.
F. A Guess advertisement publishes a generic ad (Vanity Fair, April 2010) not referring
to any one of its products in particular. We see, again, but here in closer framing, the bust
of a model that with light-colored stares into the camera, the latter looking from a lower
perspective. La femme fatale looks at the spectator with indifference or perhaps,
contempt, while having the only visible arm raised and resting, we guess, on top of her
head. The difference of this ad is that the presence of the nipples is implied by the
typography of the brand name placed over the area where they should be, under a bra-like
shirt that shows the breasts only partially, but very suggestively. The letters of the brand
name are so dark that they tend to merge with the black patterns of the textile of the shirt,
such that the spectator is actually obliged to try to read the name of the brand, over the
area where the nipples should be found. The hairless, shiny, and prominent armpit may
also intend to remind potential clients or followers of the brand, that they also market
perfumes. Capturing my eye, after I look into the eyes of the model, observe her lips, her
hair, her armpit, her bosom, the texture of the shirt she is wearing, and the brand name, I
find the punctum: the bright white button inside the letter “U,” into which I fall, coming
from the dark shadow path formed between her breasts.
G. Dolce & Gabana’s fragance for men (Inside Us, May 2011) responds to women’s ads
by showing a male model that is not standing, that does not look into the camera, and that
shows one of his nipples. The model here is dressed in opposition to most of the other ads
where women’s textilism or sexuality is predominantly exploited. The other ads chosen
for this analysis show women’s bodies standing and emphasizing their nudity or their
breast-power. Here, we see a reclining male that is quite at ease, presumably not trying to
sell his body-image to the spectator, giving himself the authority to look away from the
camera, and yet brandishing class and hegemony power. A hairless chest intentionally
showing a nipple may speak to the spectator about such men’s freedom and agency to
make his erogenous zones visible, even if flat and not protuberant. The perfectly white
shirt may intend to symbolize perfect control both of the situation in which he is
portrayed and of his gender. In this image, the first thing I notice is the face of the model,
his eyes, nose, and mouth; I go back to his eyes, wonder at what he is looking, go to his
nipple, then to the brilliant end of the waist-belt he wears, read the text, look at the
container, look at the vegetal-flower embroidery strip of the cushion on which his arm
rests, and end up at the specular reflection of the belt, which may have been intentionally
emphasized as a phallic metaphor.
Advertisement photography receives its command from the patriarchal capitalistic
ideology, an economic system in which the distribution of power takes place in very
specific ways, maintaining an economy of mass production, consumerism, and diverse
types of hegemony. From this system, a discursive strategy of images is developed,
where patterns are repeatedly occurring (O’Barr 1994:72). The quality of social and
gender relationships produced within capitalism, and on which advertising fueled by
mechanisms of commoditization, base its dynamics in economic and sexual power. The
female and male sexual organs and nipples have become the cruces of attention in
Western media and advertising. The obsessive allusion to their presence or absence,
barely visible in mainstream media and advertising, has rendered it difficult for societies,
to find value in other personal attributes not based on income, acquisition capacity, and
beauty. Only recently, women’s nipples are starting to appear in fashion pictures in
Vogue magazine and other publications in Europe, not anymore as veiled succedaneums
eyes, while rescued from pornography. Are we a society obsessed with sexual imagery
lacking the tenderness and nourishing love that breast-feeding symbolizes?
Modern advertising, profiting from “[t]he Bliss of Semipublic Sex” (Barthel, 1988:37),
may not be compelling consumers to actually buy, but certainly, it tells them about what
to think by praising their efforts for the attainment of and reinforcing their attachment to
beauty (1988:39). Or is it all about the jealousy and resentment men experience with
regard to having far less nervous endings in their nipples and penises than those women
are endowed with in their nipples and clitoris? Or with regard to the reproduction
capacity that women have? Or with regard to motherly feelings and emotions that women
experience during the gestation period? Or with regard to baby suckling and the
emotional ties that such activity lays between mother and child? Or with regard to the
refractory period they have to undergo before being able to reengage in sexual
intercourse after ejaculation? Gender power negotiations over cultural, material, and
sexual capabilities seem to be constantly reflected on and battled through advertising ads.
A few additional questions may help understand the urgent necessity of promoting
change to our mores and customs with respect to the naked body: How does textilism
buttresses gender inequalities? How does textilism promote patriarchal hierarchy,
dominance, and subordination? How does textilism foster the sexualization of children?
How does textilism promote non-solidarity systems of wealth accumulation? How is
textilism related to sexual abuse? How is textilism connected to the sexual
commercialization of children?
Advertising draws its flow and impact from a large pool of social customs, beliefs, fears,
and values. Ads seem to follow a discourse in which references to other published pieces
or ideas generate a response (O’Barr, 1994:73). Moreover, advertisement encourages
social debates about gender power and submission. We should ask ourselves what deep
rooted dynamic of social and economic interest and gain is still playing in our society
with regard to nudophobia (the extreme fear of nudity), when it seems that we are
certainly able to infer the tremendous harm that such a dynamic generates amid gender
power relations and in the realms of women’s and children sexual abuse.
References:
Barthel, Diane
1988 Putting on Appearances. Temple University Press: Philadelphia.
Barthes, Roland
1981 Camera Lucida. Hill and Wang: New York.
FreeEssays.cc
2003 The Female Breast in History. http://www.freeessays.cc/db/27/hec56.shtml,
accessed June 12, 2011.
GoTopless.org
2011 Topless Laws. http://www.gotopless.org/page.php?44, accessed June 12, 2011.
Jeong, Se Hoon and Yoo Ri Hwang
2005 Persuasive Effects of Nudity in Print Advertising: The Moderating Role of Viewer
Gender and Degree of Nudity. Conference Papers. Communication & Mass Media
Complete p1-27. Ebsco.
O’Barr, William
1994 Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising.
Harpercollins: Sydney.