As of today, Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau has ordered a new Calvin Klein billboard to be pulled after finding it to be suggestive of rape and violence — although also acknowledging that the act “could be consensual.”
“The Board considered that whilst the act depicted could be consensual, the overall impact and most likely takeout is that the scene is suggestive of violence and rape,’’’ they said.
“The Board considered that the image was demeaning to women by suggesting that she is a plaything of these men. It also demeans men by implying sexualised violence against women.”
The billboard features model Lara Stone engaging with three men engaging in what appears to be a “highly sexualised and clearly suggestive of sexual behaviour.” While women’s advocates go as far as describing the ad had connotations of gang rape.
Clinical psychologist Alison Grundy, who works with sex abuse victims, said advertisers were reaching a dangerous new low by using sexual violence as a marketing tool.
“If we continue to subject future generations of young men to great barrages of aggressive, misogynist, over-sexualised and violent imagery in pornography, movies, computer games and advertising, we will continue to see the rates of sexual violence against women and children that continue unabated today. Or worse,” she said.