Sexually charged ads of non-sexual enterprises, featuring workers

Remove all ads!

Certain enterprises which do not deal in the sex industry have already been commissioning sexually charged advertisement. It's one thing when a shopping network or an airline uses models, another if the ads feature workers who are actually employed in the company as shop assistants, flight attendants and the like.

Do you think this should be legal? I can hardly imagine that ladies employed there are in full freedom to refuse to participate. It's enough that they don't just make a call for volunteers, but suggest that it would be welcome if they participated in shooting that ad. Those women have homes, children, families, they work to support. They won't always be in a position to refuse and endanger the job they need to have. And they didn't sign up for sexually charged work at all. Shopping assistants need to be nice, flight attendants typically also need to be pretty, but that's where it ends. No bikini shots for ads, customer pleasure and charity.

Personally, I'm against and I believe there should be a prohibition in the law. You can't just say they need to make it strictly voluntary - they will just always find a way around it, e.g. promoting only those people who participate, if not actually using illegal ways of mobbing.

What's your opinion?

I'm not posting links for a reason, so feel free to use your own experience, but please don't provide links to pictures. We don't need to give them publicity.

 

The problem with not providing examples, Chev, is that not all of us are on the bandwagon about female employees being coerced into doing bikini shots by their employers. Given that such behavior is blatantly illegal and that any civil lawyer, even a really bad one, would have a field day with something like this, I kind of doubt that such things are really happening all that often.

 

I'll consider giving some examples, however, I can mention in general a big international shopping network (Media Markt) featuring the female staff of one shop in Playboy and a cheap airline commissioning a calendar with shots of flight attendants in not as much bikinis as raunchy skimpy clothes and poses (Ryanair). This is similar to the Israeli Defence Forces promo action they got criticised for. I'll still not put up links to pictures, though.

As for coercion, I'd say it's at least a large level of pressure - especially in the woman's head. Even if the employer thinks he's just asking insistently, it may look like a request you can't deny from an employee's point of view.

 

I'd call your playboy example a bad one. When playboy does it's "Girls of the Big 10" editions, they are not done with the imprimatur of Big 10 universities. I doubt Media Markt is terribly different.

 

It was an advertisement of the company, not an action by the workers for all I know. They aired the ad on the radio along with the shop's slogans.

My point is that while there is the possibility some people just don't mind taking porn or half-naked shots of themselves for the job, most do and none signed up for that work, while strong pressure exists even if there's no coercion in the strict sense. Just deny such a request by your employer and see what happens.

 

I did track down something on Ryanair. If those 'girls' are emplyees of Ryanair I disapprove plus it is sexist. Only men fly on Ryanair? If they are going to do that the least they could do is include some sexy men.

Seriously I don't think it is right and hope it doesn't catch on.

 

I think, just for safety's sake, it should be illegal. Think of it as a conflict-of-interests sort of thing. If a woman refuses, the boss can say she isn't as much of a 'team player', or as 'outgoing', or whatever, and offer her fewer promotions, less of a Christmas bonus, and generally give her a hard time, 'encouraging' her to 'quit' without doing anything that's blatantly illegal. I'm not saying most would, and I'm not saying I disagree with the idea of using your own employees to advertize, but I think this kind of thing is just risky business. It's better to advertize them in actual business attire (flight attendant's uniform, etc.) or hire outside help than risk any kind of scandal

 

o.0 Are you sure they are actually workers and not just actors pretending to be workers? That would be much easier legally to do.

 

Yeah, they use captions with first names and location of work at Ryanair. Media Markt specifically advertised the Playboy session as one by the workers of a specific shop in a named location.

 

Employee pin-up calenders are not that unusual around here but I would say that 3/4 of them are of virtually (or in some cases completely) undressed men. Typically they are sold to raise money for charity but there is always a self promotion aspect involved. Various groups of firefighters, cops, and nurses are the usual suspects for issuing them but I have seen some pretty weird ones for sale.

Frankly I don't have a problem with the practice but I have always been of the point of view that if an employee is unwilling to do something that an employer insists upon then the employee should leave and find work elsewhere.

 

That leaves me with the idea that you think that the employer has the right to ask that and perhaps even lay off the employee for refusing?

Then what with people who can't find work elsewhere. Who are good specialists in their field but who are not willing to undress for the crowd?

Personally, I believe the action should be strictly outlawed, even if voluntary, and an order, "strong suggestion" and any such, should be a criminal action.

Additionally, I believe a cop posing to nude shots is a disgrace of the uniform and a person undressing for the masses is unfit to perform responsible administrative or social duties.

If it depended on me, I'd make a law that if you're an army or law enforcement officer, a representative, councilman, civil servant, your commision/mandate expires the moment you pose for a sex mag. I'd gladly hand out jail terms to employers "expecting" the ladies of their companies to strip for ads. Two years suspended, ban from executive posts in business for some five years, should teach them. Upon repetition a not suspended term plus sex offender registry. In case of pose or be fired (i.e. proper coercion), immediate registration in the sex offender registry.

If molestation is outlawed, why would expecting workers to strip for ads be okay?

 

Personally I think that the employer should be able to ask their employees to do anything that isn't illegal. I am not a fan of labour laws. It is the employees who should be taking responsibility for determining what they are willing to do, not a bunch of civil servants drafting up labour laws.

If an employer is stupid enough to drive away good employees by making unreasonable demands upon them then it is ultimately the employer who will suffer for it when their competition ends up hiring and retaining the best talent.

As far as the morality issue is concerned, I have no moral objections about nudity. I am not about to go and pose naked for any photographs and I am not going to pay money for any pin-up calendars but if someone is willing to pose for pictures or buy those pictures then that is fine with me.

 

And you see no problem in using peer and boss pressure and methods bordering on coercion (economical at least) to make people pose?

 

No I don't actually. You have constant peer and boss pressure at work to do all kinds of things that you might not want to do. It is up to you to determine what you are or are not willing to do. Personally I would rather have pressure to pose than have pressure to work ever greater amounts of unpaid overtime or pressure to give up my money to contribute to whatever charitable or social activity that the departmental administrator comes up with this month.

Edit: Actually the thought of being asked to pose nude is pretty amusing to me. If anything I would feel sorry for the poor people who unexpectedly happened to see the pictures. There is a reason why it is the cops and firefighters who produce the beefcake calendars and not the chartered accountants.

 

Precisely, though it would take a page or two in a legal opinion.

Standard question from me in such cases, so please take no offence. You are you, but what if you were female, or what if it were your wife or sister or daughter? Would you still prefer that over pressure to work overtime?

Well, what if you were a fresh grad girl with a body to turn male heads but no mind to do that on Playboy pages?

 

No I wouldn't mind it more if it were a female friend, relative, or girlfriend. If they did not want to pose then I would tell them to say no. If there were negative results of saying no then I would tell them to find a new employer who wasn't a complete jerk.

Oh and if they wanted to pose I would be fully supportive of that too.

If I had a pin-up worthy body I probably still wouldn't pose. I have no problems saying no to unreasonable requests and I am well prepared to take my services elsewhere if need be. I suppose I might consider posing if I was compensated well enough for doing so, I have no moral objections to posing, but it isn't something that I am interested in doing.

 

Speak for yourself! I'm as hunky as they come - feast your eyes on this:

My picture

 

So then, not encourage them to weigh the options and so on and do what's best, but rather not do it at all if they have a shade of a problem with it? So you indirectly admit there is a problem?

So the employer is a jerk after all?

Perhaps one day in another thread...

 

If your employer is treating you negatively because you decline to do something outside of your job description then yes they are being a jerk. Posing nude is irrelevent to that as far as I am concerned.

What is or isn't acceptable is a matter for each person to decide for him/herself. To me being asked to pose nude would be no different than being told that I would have to dress up as a clown and perform at a birthday party for one of the executives' children. Actually I would probably prefer to pose nude but that is just what I am more comfortable with.

Quite frankly if I was told that I would have to do either of those in order to maintain or advance my career I would leave. I wouldn't want to work for someone who would treat their employees unfairly like that. However, I do not think that there should be laws requiring the employer not to treat employees like that. I firmly believe in letting the market punish companies who act stupidly.