Wait, this is Wrangler right? The Wrangler Jeans we used to make fun of on the faux cowboys in high school? This is what they have to resort to to keep their dying brand aloft? Muahahahahaha.
Oh wait, murder isn't sexy, no matter how hard you try to emulate Twin Peaks.

I...

don't get it.

...

I have no words.

what the muthafuckinfuck?

How is this selling jeans?

...if I wear the jeans, I'll look dead and that is good?.... wha?

truly, truly fucking horrible.

wow, just wow.

i was trying to figure out how this is supposed to sell anything. the only thing i could think of is that humans are animals and so do violent acts like killing - but wrangler jeans are tough, and can withstand such violent acts (this might be part of the reason why the 2nd girl is missing her shirt but shock! her jeans are still there, thank goodness she was wearing wranglers!)

Wear our jeans! They'll make you look like a corpse!

The weirdest thing is, you know there was an *entire room full* of people at Wrangler who all nodded and smiled when this campaign was unveiled. The hell?

the same ad agency also produced this, which is less brutal/triggering but definitely promulgates a fruity 'sexyfun' misogyny via animals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6V9mtDxn9Q

O/T, mods, but the Livejournal login isn't working. backchannel me if you need the error log.

I don't understand this ad campaign whatsoever. I mean, when there are horribly sexist or racist ads, I sometimes say I don't understand how those ideas could have been approved, but usually I understand the point of the ad on a completely elementary level.

This one? Impenetrable. We are animals therefore we kill each other? What do either of those sentiments have to do with jeans? And who buys a pair of jeans because they saw an ad with a dead woman wearing them? I mean, supposedly people buy, like, Axe body spray because the commercials make it look like you'll get laid. This one makes it look like you'll get killed. That's not really appealing to, um...anyone.

And oh my gosh, Claudrophenia, I had no idea those ads were both produced by the same agency! I watched that Orangina ad yesterday before taking a nap and had a horrible nightmare about it! Worst ad agency ever!

Is it possible that the model isn't supposed to be dead, but rather just rolling around topless in the mud?

If that were the case, the "we" in the slogan would be referring to "we women" who like to slap on a pair of wranglers and mud wrastle.

Then the appeal would be (supposed to be) that if you're a rough-n-tumble mud-gal you might want to choose this brand of jeans.

No?

the ad appears to show humans engaging in what is typically thought to be non-human animal behavior.

It looks like people are drinking out of streams and lakes at night.

I have seen zero corpses. The people featured in the ads on this blog post are not "obviously" dead or alive, and in the ad, people certainly appear to be alive.

To me this campaign isn't particularly compelling, but that's much different than "disturbing" or an instance of sexual violence against women.

I don't think it's any more violent to women than any other major fashion ad.

People have agency to make decisions about what they think is attractive or sexy. Why do we get to legislate what is okay to be sexy and what isn't?

You should definitely do more in-depth research before posting like this. it was a big let-down.

Even besides the fact that the premise of the post is totally wrong, it doesn't address some of the other issues it raises that are also spoken to, such as the agency of humans, the distinction between humans and animals and the way we observe others.

If violence is okay sometimes (it's certainly inevitable), then I fail to understand what about this campaign is "unacceptable" violence.

Ugh, hopefully this will backfire big-time.
I associate Wrangler with a pair of jeans I owned when I was 10 (1992) so this is kinda like cognitive dissonance for me...

Wow, those are freaky. They actually bear resemblance to several crime scene photos I've looked at (yeah, I'm morbid, I look at dead people pictures). Obviously, these are cleaner than a crime scene photo, but they sure did manage a great mock-up. And by great I mean vomit inducing, wtf is wrong with you people sort of great.

xocoatl, the images have a familiarity to them (another site brought up the crime scenes from 'Twin Peaks'). particularly with the shot of the woman's back, above--it looks exactly like a homicide photo. so, this agency is saying 'Wrangler jeans are desirable and attractive because the bodies of dead women are sexy.' or, 'the bodies of dead women are an edgy, forward-looking form of sexiness or attractiveness.' for comparison, would you be likely to buy a brand of children's clothes if the ad campaign showed a baby's arm, pale blue (the color the skin turns after death), coated in dirt, laying in a field? probably not. however, this sort of dialectic is common when it comes to depictions of women in advertising. the cultural idea that violence towards women--particularly sexual violence--is acceptable needs to be challenged.

you ask, 'Why do we get to legislate what is okay to be sexy and what isn't?' the answer is, because we are members of the society in which these depictions exist. for the same reason that 'we' get to 'legislate' that child pornography is not okay, and that slavery is not okay.

inevitability and acceptability are two completely different things, even in the commercial sphere. would it be acceptable to sell food using imagery of victims of starvation, as long as 'they look sexy'? what if you saw an ad for a Big Mac that depicted a dead African child, eyes covered in flies? why is it 'okay' to you if the victims are women? the research YOU need to do is within your OWN assumptions.

for the record, i think several of the other images of the campaign are not really offensive--they are similar to some Diesel promotions from years past, and i can see where the idea of 'okay, we have these hipsters, but we're going to shoot them in the style of rare wildlife footage to make them all feral and raw, all right, go team' could be done in a way that doesn't offend anyone, but as usual, when it's time to push part of the envelope towards extremity, it seemed that dead women was the immediate go-to idea. SIGH.

oh.my.god.

what.the.fuck.

claudrophenia, you fail to respond to the thrust of my post which is that these women are not dead.

They just aren't. the picture you point out is the more obvious of the two. The woman's skin, while pale, is certainly not dead. Her arm is flexed and her neck is raised. It is not an image of a dead woman, just a sexyback.

I think people can advertise with images of dead people if they'd like. You have no argument why that shouldn't be the case. I probably wouldn't buy items that they advertised with dead babies, but it depends on the product. Everyone dies. Why is using images of death bad?

I also don't understand why an image of a dead person is any more violent than that of a live person.

Some people enjoy violence being inflicted upon themselves, or enjoy inflicting violence on others and do so in consensual relationships.

Just because there are people committing violence against women (and men) does not necessarily mean that said violence is culturally acceptable. Even if it does, I fail to see how these ads make violence against women more accepted.

I don't know why you think that just because you're a member of a society that you get to make all the decisions for that society. You can not like the ad, but to be outraged about it just shows how petty and narrow your politics are.

If you think that the system of legislation that we have now is effective or even approaches justice, you're wrong.

it would be okay to use imagery of victims of starvation in advertisements for food. I wouldn't personally think they were appealing images, but I don't think we should censor those images arbitrarily.

(also, why is the dead child African? Your racism is as evident as your authoritarianism)

You claim that child pornography is wrong, but don't really explain why that is. Do children not have sexual identities? Are children not sexual creatures?

In your haste to make sure your viewpoints are legislated as the only correct ones, you elide a lot of important issues and pigeonhole people unfairly.

Every act is an act of violence. Some forms are more or less acceptable than others.

some people like to get objectified, tied up, smacked around and fucked. Some don't. To that I say "to each their own." You have not sufficiently proven your argument that you should get to decide what is okay or not okay for everyone to do.

But her skin is not blue, her feet are flat (they'd be slack or "pointed" were she dead, or even asleep), and her head is lifted out of the water.

I really don't see "death" here: just another wanky ad showing a woman rolling around in muddy water.

I agree with xocoatl that the woman in the second ad doesn't look dead at all to me... More like she's swimming with her head just out of the water and her arm flexing to stroke; and the ripples in the water suggest movement rather than stagnation. I don't see how this is supposed to sell jeans per se, but I also don't see how it's a necessarily violent image.

Umm, looking at the positioning of the second picture (still confused by the first one), the tag line, as well as the video, are they going for a "predator/stealth" theme? Hence the "we are animals" line?

I tried to keep an open mind as some of the other commenters suggested as I viewed these shots.

My simple question is: What comes to mind when you view them? What other images are evoked as you take in these ads?

They don't look like anything else I've ever seen except:

1. Crime scene photos of corpses.
2. Pictures of drowning victims after the Tsunami and after Katrina.
3. Pictures from the "body farm" experiment in Tennessee where forensic anthropologists study decomposition.

Here's what they DON'T look like:

1. Stylized images of "tomboys" playing in the mud. (Their bodies appear inert and ummm, they are semi-clad)
2. Women engaged in rough and tumble sports activities. (If they are being portrayed as "alive," at most they are crawling, on their stomachs, through muck.)

These photos are too up close to even give them any context, so I'm not likely to believe the "sporting" or "rough and tumble" arguments. Are they at a football field? Down at the town's creek? It doesn't matter, because that's not what the ad intended.

This leads me to believe that these images were going just for what most of us saw in them. These images mirror other real images that we have all seen after violence or tragedy has occurred.

I'm not sure why one would have a difficult time believing this as it's not the first time women have been portrayed as corpses for "fashion."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-l-pozner/top-models-beau_b_44331.html

Un-fucking-necessary.

Corpses are not 'fashionable' in anyway. When, oh when will the fashion industry learn, man?

I don't know whether the women look dead or alive to me.

It's a crappy ad at the least for how ambiguous it is...

I wonder how something like this would go down in New Orleans, where people had to deal with the reality of real drowned people? This shows a total lack of taste, but worse yet, a total lack of social sensitivity.

Is there anywhere we can write to the company to complain? Several family members and I are incensed and would like to say something.

They are trying to sell product. What idiot would think that mess would sell product?

...I don't see them as dead btw

xocoatl, your post was the first one here (including the OP) to mention legislation. Critiquing an image and calling for it to be banned aren't really the same thing.

that said...

claudrophenia- "for the same reason that 'we' get to 'legislate' that child pornography is not okay, and that slavery is not okay."

I was under the impression that the reason those things were legislated against was because they had actual, concrete, immediate victims. A creepy, sexist ad campaign doesn't really fall into the same category.

Wow. Sick. As another comment mentioned, this reminds me so much of Susan Faludi's chapters on fashion and beauty in _Backlash_ where she talks about the (re)-advent of the Victorian corpse look. And it reminds me of horror-movie ads, like for _Saw_ and _Hostel_.

I'm really disturbed but also intrigued by this glamorizing and sexualizing of death (primarily women's death), making pain and death sexy. I find it so sick and think it explains SO much about rape and violence and the lack of respect for women in our culture. Though violence is also glamorized to sell shit to men (like the Dolce & Gabbana ad with one of the men slumped over and a bullet hole in his head), using realistic (not even cartoon) ads depicting dead people, male or female, to SELL SHIT is just really repulsive.

There's a gallery of more disgusting ads here at Media Watch: http://www.mediawatch.com/gallery/ads . Some of the images aren't very well sourced or even dated, which annoys me, but there are more very powerful examples of the "dead look" and women in stereotypically deferential poses and situations (lying down, flopping around, half dressed while the men are fully dressed, with facial expressions showing pain or discomfort).

I'd also like to add that the tagline "We are animals" is fucking stupid. No, in fact, we are not "animals." And just because we are biologically animals does not mean we need to act or think or *treat others* like animals.

P.S. To add to arguments about whether the girls are dead or alive: It's ambiguous. You can't tell just from looking at the pictures. But why would an ad writer/director even want to make it ambiguous whether the model was dead or alive if s/he didn't mean to play on suspicions that the model was dead? Why couldn't the writer/director of the second ad, for example, showed the girl's eyes, or show that she was holding her head up ever so slightly?

P.P.S. Even if these aren't attempting to play on the sexualization of violence, they're still resorting to FEAR. That television ad was CLEARLY appealing to fear.

... what the fuck. couldnt agree with vanessa more, the sexualization of violence is jumping off the screen! so disturbing.

what the fuck wrangler, and even more i agree with ellestar when i say, i... don't get it. people want their jeans so much they kill for them? so why are the people still wearing the jeans, wouldn't they have taken them?...

also, love bifemmefatale's comment about how people at wrangler thought this was a good idea...

We constantly get told that today's sophisticated ad campaigns are about brand awareness, so often an ad will seem disconnected from the actual product. The idea is get the brand into the consumer's mind, and what better way to do that than by being controversial?

However, this ad campaign goes beyond being controversial. Sure, I am now aware of the Wrangler brand, and its attempt to "revamp" itself in a highly competitive market, but because of the imagery used, I would exercise my choice and NEVER buy any of their products.

Both of the photos are suggestive to many people of crime scene photos of the corpses of young women. The first one looks like some mutilation has occurred to the legs (and jeans), and the second links sexual attractiveness with death by showing the naked back of a young woman face-down in water. Note that in this photo, the jeans hardly feature.

The TV ad is reminiscent of horror movies when a victim is stalked in a swampy area in the dark with just the crickets singing in the background. The whole aura created is one of predation and fear. And was I correct in glimpsing a couple kissing at the edge of the water toward the end of the ad? Again we have the link between sex and violence, together with a healthy dose of voyeurism.

Some have claimed that there is ambiguity apparent in that the women may not necessarily be dead, but the passive poses, suggestions of violence and locations of the photos and TV ad are strongly indicative that the women could be. All that is really missing to take away any doubt is blood. But maybe that "small detail" is what determines acceptability in the minds of those who created and used this ad campaign, in that they can claim ambiguity as a defence if questioned?

I know in my country, there is an office set up to look into complaints about advertising. If you have such a body in countries where these ads are showing, perhaps contacting them would be a step toward having them independently assessed and hopefully removed.

Way to sexualize violence against women, Wrangler.

And are they suggesting that Wrangler jeans are extra-durable or something? They'll survive a wild-animal attack?

I don't get it either.

Just showed the above 2 photos to my 22 year old son, but covered up the captions and writing. I asked him what they were. For the first he said a dead person, and the second he said a dead woman. I then let him in on the fact that they were ads for jeans. Initially, he was speechless. He then responded with: "What's being dead got to do with jeans?" and "How would that make a woman want to buy their jeans?" He certainly didn't see any ambiguity in the fact that the models appeared dead, but certainly questioned the angle taken by the ad campaign. Although not female, he's in the age demographic these ads would be aiming at. We had a discussion on how violence against women is often linked with sex. Obviously he is not unaware of this given his age, but he fully agreed that its use in an advertising campaign, ironically aimed at women, was extremely questionable.

(also, why is the dead child African? Your racism is as evident as your authoritarianism)

I do not think that claudrophenia was being racist when they mentioned the dead child being African. What I think they meant was that's the image we see when we think of a 'starving child.' Yes, millions of children in America are starving but if someone said "Close your eyes and picture a starving child," most of us would see an African child because those are the pictures brought to us on televison and in the news.

About the pictures, I definately see these as violence against women. To me, they do seem obviously dead. The first one, with the girl face down in the water with no shirt, appears to have bruises up and down her back and a red handprint on her upper arm. The second one seems like she has been viciously attacked. Her jeans are ripped as if in some sort of struggle.

Nothing about these ads makes me want to buy jeans; in fact, I'd be LESS likely to wear a pair of Wrangler jeans now because I don't like their advertising.

"We are Animals"? Then how about showing a person in a savannah roaring like a lion or swimming with pengiuns? There are much better ways to portray that "we are animals". Even a person curled up asleep in the sun like a house cat would be better than those ads.

Holy shit. Gross gross gross creepy creepy gross.

How is this even an ad? Who the hell would want the jeans after seeing these? The tagline doesn't make sense, the photos don't make sense, the product has nothing to do with the advertisement. It's like slasher porn with so context whatsoever.

WEIRD weird weird gross creepy.

The TV ad is trying to look like a nature show: if they could have gotten a Richard Attenborough sound-a-like to narrate it would have sealed it. (Or whoever is the French equivalent.)

The ones in the water are supposed to be like crocs. The ones walking through the woods are supposed to be like deer.

I'm not defending these ads because they're moronic and they're comparing women to animals, and doing it like that's supposed to be a good thing--BUT, there really ARE ads out there that push the death thing, and you can't be the "little feminist who cried murder/rape fantasy" when there are other more obvious takes on the images. You're only going to see murdered corpses if you're looking for them. You call murder/rape fantasy on an ad campaign that clearly isn't going for that, and no one will take you seriously when you call BS on one that really IS sexualizing women as corpses.

Holden: the jeans aren't torn. Those are leaves. I completely agree with you that there are more positive images of animals they could have used (aside from this lurking in the dark covered in mud BS), but it would be better not to compare women to animals at all: I'm not sure the ad-makers of the world are capable of not being awful.

"the "little feminist who cried murder/rape fantasy""

I think that is overly condescending, given that most cultural symbolism type stuff feminism deals with is somewhat subjective, and undoubtedly for every single issue feminists try to tackle there are hoards of people saying they're making much out of nothing.

But, I agree these women aren't dead, which is the way I was more leaning originally anyway. I think's it's a dumb ad, but, the women aren't supposed to be dead.

In the second picture, she's not even floating in the water. She's holding herself out of the water supporting her weight on her arm, and you can see her nose right below where the "r" in Wrangler is.

Holden: the jeans aren't torn. Those are leaves

You're right. I can see that now. I had to get pretty close on the screen to tell the difference but that's probably more due to the fact I need new glasses rather than the ad itself.

If the picture of the naked woman in the water is supposed to make me think of a crocodile, or a predator in the water, then Wrangler fail at advertising.

The first thing I saw was a corpse in the water. It reminded me of that poor kid whose torso was dredged up over here in England a few years back.

I showed it to my OH, independent of the written commentary above, and he saw corpses too.

If they wanted to make that image look like a crocodile in the water, they would not have focussed on her arse. We would have seen just the woman's eyes peering up out of the water, focussed and predatory, or a massive splash of water as she launches herself out of it at some prey. The still, murkiness of the water is what suggests death to me, even more so than the naked and cold-looking body. Moving, live bodies create motion in water.

The positioning of the shoulder, which is the only thing to suggest life, is only noticeable upon a later, closer inspection. And how many people out in the public are going to examine these ads that quickly, when they see them in passing?

Whether or not the women in the ads are supposed to be alive or dead, my immediate reaction was simply appalled shock. Whatever the ads are supposed to represent, I find them disturbing in the extreme. Sexy? Hell no. Frightening? Hell yes.

I would just like to add, for all the people defending the ads, that a) who looks at an ad on the street or in a magazine long enough to notice all these little nuances that supposedly hint at life? We're consumers, not coroners. And b) the bloggers at Gawker saw corpses right away too, and called foul on the campaign. It is not just a feminist reaction to the images.

"If they wanted to make that image look like a crocodile in the water, they would not have focussed on her arse. We would have seen just the woman's eyes peering up out of the water, focussed and predatory..."

I completely agree. I also feel the need to point out that you can't see any of their faces. There's no quicker and easier way to turn a person into an object than to avoid showing a face- a point that has come up on this blog and others over and over again. I don't see how there's any way to deny that the intent here was to show dead victims, even if there are small hints that they didn't actually have to kill anyone during the photo shoot to create that effect.

"I'd also like to add that the tagline "We are animals" is fucking stupid. No, in fact, we are not "animals." And just because we are biologically animals does not mean we need to act or think or *treat others* like animals."

Perhaps this is slightly off-topic, but this statement is pejorative to animals, don't you think? The most despicable behavior on this planet is more accurately human, IMHO.

"that you can't see any of their faces"

But you can see the face, you can see part of the face of the woman in the second picture.

Now, I'm not saying they are good ads, or that they're not objectifying. I think they're bad and a little ambiguous, and most definitely objectifying.

But... I don't really see how anyone could look at them and assume they were dead. I doubt that possibility would have crossed my mind were it not for seeing them first in the context of this post.
That's just me.
Obviously this is an ad different people can see different things in. And while that's common in art, etc. I do think that makes for a bad ad.

Of course, I don't watch many detective shows, but I /do/ watch nature shows.
I wouldn't be surprised if, as is the case with other things, the other media you consume has an impact on what you see here...

I want to say again that I wasn't defending the ads. They're stupid. But they're also obviously not supposed to be of dead people.

Like most particularly vague images, there's a certain "Rorschach test" aspect to it. If we see violence in the inkblot, it says something about our psychology.

And I do apologize if "the little feminist who cried murder/rape fantasy" was too harsh. I was just going for the "boy who cried wolf" concept: that you should only cry wolf when it really IS a wolf, or else no one will take you seriously.

"that you should only cry wolf when it really IS a wolf, or else no one will take you seriously."

I know what you were going for but the problem I was trying to point out about you saying that is that for /most/ feminist issues, it's not as easy as pointing out a wolf vs. no wolf. Usually some level of interpretation is necessary.

Wow, Who killed Laura Palmer? If the model was blond that is. Though If they are referencing Twin Peaks, this ad campaign does make a little bit more sense. Especially since this very month Bust magazine had a fashion spread done in hommage to Twin Peaks. The early 90's is where it's at in the fashion world right now.

That being said, I do think these ads are in bad taste. Why aren't male models depicted in this way? Certainly it does nothing to dispel the notion of women as victims. Very problematic indeed.

I associate Wrangler with a pair of jeans I owned when I was 10 (1992)

For me, it was 1982! I associate these with "poor person" jeans, since my family was very poor at the time and my Wranglers were still hand-me-downs. All the other girls were wearing Gloria Vanderbilt or Chic. :)

Wrangler has been trying to rebrand for a while now (didn't they team with Built By Wendy?). I actually find this direction kind of fascinating, given their past associations. It's almost as if the rebellious grandchild took over the company.

Anyway, the photos kind of make sense after watching the tv spot. I don't doubt for a minute that they did see other similarities (the Body Farm was an excellent example) to postmortem photos, but I get the feeling that maybe the animal instinct creative was the original objective. They don't really offend me personally, but I can definitely see why others have a strong negative reaction.

I just finished a freelance stint at an agency that was responsible for a recent popular date-rapey campaign. It was kind of amusing when one of the interns was creating a portfolio, and I very matter-of-factly said, "oh right, that's the date-rapey one" and she replied, "WHAT??" To be fair, the majority of the people at this place were quality folks...in fact, I suspect I knew exactly from which office the offensive ideas were spawned. It was most likely the same room that contained 3 former frat boys in khakis who constantly screamed about "feminazis" and "turning lesbian," in the spastic style not unlike Frito in "Idiocracy."

If anything, I'm 10 times more offended by ads that target only the dumbed-down "average Joe" group, which is unfortunately, most ads. I'll take a scooting dog (Stanley Steemer!) or a nightmare-inducing image of waking up next to The King any day over the recent glut of ads with "King of Queens" rejects looking at other women with their hot girlfriends across the table (women never look at other men, because we were born without eyes apparently). Or, how about the new Neosporin and Walmart ads bending backward to appeal to the most bland demographic possible? You would think men have absolutely no role in child care whatsoever.

I do see a dude in the print photo on the Ads of the World link, so maybe this falls under offending everyone equally, which bothers me significantly less than catering to the average, uneducated, sexist American.

"they're also obviously not supposed to be of dead people."

I don't think it is so obvious. When I first saw the ads -which wasn't here, actually- I did immediately think it was just another in a long line of "edgy" advertising utilizing murder/death as their controversial focus. I don't think it is obvious that the legs belong to an alive woman, and not a woman who's been dead long enough for leaves to gather around her. I don't think it is obvious that the woman in the water is alive, instead of looking like she's just been dumped there.

The ads may be more ambiguous than other "victim of violence" ads, but I did have to strain to see where the ad wasn't portraying a dead woman instead of straining to see how it was.

"For me, it was 1982! I associate these with "poor person" jeans, since my family was very poor at the time and my Wranglers were still hand-me-downs. All the other girls were wearing Gloria Vanderbilt or Chic."

Me too, which makes the "I made fun of people who wore Wranglers!" comments especially irritating. Rubbing people's noses in your class privilege when you are a child is one thing, being proud of it years later is nauseating.

... this statement is pejorative to animals, don't you think? The most despicable behavior on this planet is more accurately human, IMHO.

Certainly, I agree almost 100% that humans do far more idiotic and horrific things than animals. (Try Kurt Vonnegut's _Galapagos_. Ha.) But I guess I'm thinking of how much pseudo-biological ideas like "instinct" and fields like evolutionary psychology, e.g., are used to justify all kinds of sexist, unjust shit about how it's natural for men to be rapists (look, male mammals appear to "rape" female mammals, and male animals have a higher sex drive!) and why women are oppressed (look, most female mammals are physically weaker than males, too!). These excuses are surprisingly prevalent.

This is why I'm weary about reducing human beings to animals. This is more of the same bullshit we've heard for years as science has offered popular explanations for social phenomena like race and gender discrimination. Human beings may have instincts like animals, yes. But they also have critical thinking abilities, the ability to reflect on their reflections and actions (which, I would argue, animals do not have, at least not in the same capacity).

Also, I'll admit it. Monkeys kind of annoy me.

To me, the models definitely look like they are supposed to be dead. Yes, I can see how some people could view these pictures as like "action shots" or something like that, but obviously that wasn't the intent of the ad because otherwise it would have been made clear that they were rolling in the mud, swimming in a lake, etc. At best it was meant to be ambiguous, at worse they were meant to appear dead.

As far as the live ad, it isn't particularly violent, and it does indeed remind me how the deer in my backyard act when they know I'm looking at them. And while that isn't violent, I don't feel very good about women being likened to docile deer...

In short, I think these ads are distasteful and while there isn't really outright violence against women as much as there is in some ads I've seen, it is more ambiguous than I'd like and I don't even see how it would appeal to ANYONE except for maybe necrophiliacs (which probably isn't a huge market...). It's just unnecessary.

The impression I got looking at the two pictures in the post was definitely that they were of dead people though I found the second photo looked more like a male's legs. I couldn't figure out the intent of the advertiser coupled with the tagline so I googled it and found a website (linked below) which shows more photos, one of which does include another model with her face and eyes above the water and a photo of a male model prone on a rock. Though it is conjecture I believe the advertisers were attempting to take photos of models in which they looked like animals in nature that humans have "surprised" or discovered. For example, they are often frozen in the pics, crossing a road, huddled together, hiding, etc. That said, I still don't know why the two pics in this post were chosen to become ads. If they are supposed to be a continuation of simply portraying humans as if they were animals they are a failure because people aren't interpreting them as that and the message is being lost. If they are supposed to show dead people because killing is part of animal behavior then they also fail to make that animal connection because the "bodies" do not resemble what an animal killed by another animal would look like (a torn off arm, or the "predators" standing around the body with bloody mouths) Regardless of the intent the fact that they are being shown in Europe because they are deemed "too disturbing" for Americans means that feminists on this site are not the only ones who are seeing dead bodies in the ads.
http://www.trendhunter.com/photos/22476/8

xocoatl said: "You claim that child pornography is wrong, but don't really explain why that is. Do children not have sexual identities? Are children not sexual creatures?"

ARE YOU F**KING KIDDING ME??!!

Do children want to be forced into sexual situations they don't understand while some creepy sick adult takes photos for other creepy sick adults to whack off to? Do children like to be exploited? Do the children who are forced into porn speak wistfully of how much they enjoyed it, rather than become traumatized?

Humans, even children, may be sexual beings, but that has ZERO to do with child pornography. You. Sick. Sack. Of. Shit.

RacyT: what do adults understand about sex that children don't?

In my mind, consent is the important factor in any act. Can a child consent to be naked? or to be photographed naked?

I think they can. I know I could (and did). You don't get to speak for children.

Things aren't "bad" in a vacuum, they're only bad for the purpose of something else.

I don't think most of the subjects of "child pornography" consent to being depicted in that way or to engaging in the acts they engage in. I think that's violent and shouldn't happ3en.

I would wager that very few, if any, children would consent to being in pornographic materials, but that being said, if they did, then they should be able to create them. Why not?

I'm not saying that those images are good or wholesome or should be promulgated, I'm just saying that we need to structure the way we think about them differently.

I don't want this post to turn into a debate about the very immoral(in my opinion) and "out there" comments made by xocoatl but I would like to point out that many children are easily influenced into doing things/make unwise decisions/lack wisdom that comes with age and that is the reason why there are laws to protect them. I found xocoatl's comments more disturbing than the original topic of this post.

I would wager that very few, if any, children would consent to being in pornographic materials, but that being said, if they did, then they should be able to create them. Why not?

Can someone please ban the child abuse apologist?

Frankly, I don't see the 'violence' everyone is speaking of. It seems obvious to me that these women aren't dead. The second photo has women floating in a body of water but her head of elevated leading one to infer that she is fully alive (for if she were deceased I can assume her head would be at least partially submerged). One need only look at the tv spot to figure out that the women are meant to be animals, quite alive animals. I still think this is a demeaning form of advertising but by no means are they implying that dead women are being glorified. You are rather inferring that that is what they are doing. I think someone is slightly overeating, but I fully understand hating the campaign none the less.
Also, I am in the same boat as most everyone else when I say that this campaign makes little sense. Even when seen as it is through my eyes (non-violence against women) there is no logical step between being an animal and wanting to buy jeans. Perhaps if they elaborated and showed a few human-animal hybrids fighting and showed the jeans left unscathed after a brutal battle I could understand what these simpletons were going for but all I am getting from these is that these jeans aren't water proof and can be bought near-a-forest-near-you.

At the risk of contributing to a really off-topic debate... With a spot of research, you'll find that in actuality, the majority of child pornography is actually produced and directed by children (that is, people under the age of 18). The famous case of Justin Berry is an example. Also, Pat Califia's "Harmful to Minors" is a really great book concerning children's sexuality, or how society sees a lack thereof.

Again... sorry for derailing the topic train! I just think that the attack on xocoatl isn't a necessary or productive one.

Liana, you state that the majority of child porn is made by those under 18. I fail to see how that makes child pornography alright, especially considering that it has many adult consumers. As to Justin Berry, he was molested at 13 and is quoted as saying "With the help of my family and my psychologist, I now understand that my molestation by Ken was a turning point that sent me on a path to self-destruction." I don't think anyone is denying that children can have sexual urges but as I already stated, there are laws to protect children for a reason. I stand by my statement that I find xocoatl's defense of child pornography disturbing and immoral.

I think xocoatl said something that was maybe overlooked and not quite in defense of child porn at all:

I don't think most of the subjects of "child pornography" consent to being depicted in that way or to engaging in the acts they engage in. I think that's violent and shouldn't happ3en.

I would wager that very few, if any, children would consent to being in pornographic materials, but that being said, if they did, then they should be able to create them. Why not?

I'm not saying that those images are good or wholesome or should be promulgated, I'm just saying that we need to structure the way we think about them differently.

I just typed up a really long response to your comment, Cicada... I think this is a debate worth having, but maybe the comments section of a post about advertising is the wrong venue. Do chat rooms still exist anymore? Oh how I miss AOL! :p

Liana, you might want to look at what Pat Califia had to say after s/he became a parent, in the 1994 edition of Public Sex:

"Today, I believe that the libertarian position I took in these articles sprang from a painful family history that I was not ready or able to face... [these experiences] led me to normalize child/adult sex. The fantasy that such experiences could be loving or healthy protected me from feeling unloved, weak or violated."

"Yes, prepubescent children are sensual and sexual beings who sometimes display that eroticism to adults in a way that may appear to be flirtatious or inviting... [but] One of the prerequisites for giving informed consent is possession of knowledge about what one is consenting to and the potential consequences or outcome of that behaviour... The preening and posing that kids do is a test: 'Is this part of me really okay?' and 'Can I trust you to keep me safe as I grow up?' Adults who engage in sex with prepubescent children flunk that test."

Re: Child Pornography

I think it's /unnecessary/ if not wrong in every single instance, so I have no problem with it being illegal.

I /can/ say I grew up in a family that very much viewed children (and girls in particular) as non-sexual beings, and I think that has led to some confusing feelings and bad experiences I had to work my way through growing up. So I understand the importance of recognizing that children have sexuality, will explore, and will need to make informed decisions.

However, that doesn't mean that, overall, they understand everything, or that pornography is a good thing. Heck, for those of us who /are/ adults and can under the law "consent" to something like pornography, an awful lot of the people partcipating in it do it for less-than-healthy reasons...

I think part of the problem with the "child porn" discussion is that there is a broad range of materials that might fall into that category.

Here we have some comments which seem to imply that it includes any photos of nude children: "Can a child consent to be naked? or to be photographed naked?"

or consensual activity between two underaged (but likely post-pubescent) partners: "With a spot of research, you'll find that in actuality, the majority of child pornography is actually produced and directed by children (that is, people under the age of 18)."

I certainly don't consider child nudes to automatically be porn, and neither does the law. The law does criminalize the second, but I think a lot of reasonable people disagree on this (if a 17 and 16 year-old couple films themselves having sex, I'm not going to lose sleep, anyway.)

There is a lot of room for disagreement on the edges of this issue, but there is a core where most people have settled on a certain agreement: a pre-pubescent child who "consents" to performing a sex-act with an adult and to be being filmed in the sex-act is being exploited and their consent isn't valid under the law.

I can't tell from the comments here if xocoatl disagrees with that consensus.

They also come with a live ad that's being run in France

Who in the world thought these images would be a good idea, seriously?

Very gross.

I have never understood commercials for jeans and I doubt I ever will. They are at best confusing and at worst extremely offensive.

Personally, I don't see any reason to wear anything besides the Sears brand anyway.

This definitely seems less like "We are animals" and more like "YOU [women] are animals." I'd maybe feel a bit better if there was a single male in the ads. The French commercial is even weirder. Silent, long and creepy. I don't think these women are supposed to be dead, but crawling around like animals, which is really insulting enough, don't you think?

Danyell, "I'd maybe feel a bit better if there was a single male in the ads."

Feel better- Cicada Nymph posted link futher upthread to the whole line of photos, including one with a shirtless male.

I'm not sure if the faceless leg shot is male or female.

This is the most revolting thing I've ever seen. Period.

I agree that the print ads in this campaign are disturbing...unacceptable. I don't feel the same about the TV ad. It is surreal but a lot of European advertising is surreal (American advertising tends to be literal). The subtext is that animals need to be wrangled, we are animals, therefore Wrangler jeans are for us. The television would have been less problematic if both male and female models were included. The print is, as I said, unacceptable.

I agree that the law says that children cannot consent to performing a sex act.

Sexuality isn't a "component" of our selves that can be isolated from the other ways we inhabit the world. Every act we take is informed by our sexuality and the way that we understand the actions that we witness is informed by our sexuality.

I feel like many of the arguments used to say that "child pornography" is wrong seem similar to arguments that have been leveraged in the past to prevent other groups (racial and able-ness come to mind) from having sexualities.

Many people say that differently-abled people who have learning difficulties can't consent to sex, but I think that's wrong.

The argument that children, the "mentally handicapped," or, in years past, "the negro, the jew and the oriental" aren't "informed" enough about sex to be responsible about their consent assumes that there is some *essence* of sexual knowledge that one has to possess, but I know there are people of all ages that lack experiential and theoretical knowledges of sexuality.

I think that people should be allowed to perform whatever acts they consent to.

This argument isn't about whether exploitation is good or bad: we all agree that exploitation is bad, it's a question of what constitutes exploitation.

There are people who at 16 or 18 (or any other age) aren't ready to have physically sexual experiences. They shouldn't be forced to.

As a young person I frequently got naked with other young people and played sexual games. I definitely was attracted to and interested in people that were significantly older than me.

No one should be made to do something they don't want to do. But the flip side of the coin to that, for me, is that no one should be prevented from doing something they want if it's consensual.

I think that this ad camp is pretty sorry. Whether they were meant to be corpses or portray animals or whatever, it doesn't relate to jeans and it's not attractive.

I think the fact that this many people are responding to it is raising a lot of other issues, and I agree with the comment someone made about humans being more despicable than animals.

Also, xocoatl, it is true that people should not be made to do something they don't want to do (in most cases) and in some cases people should not be prevented from doing something that they want to do, but you have to realize that not everyone, especially children, understands the concept of responsiblity and consequences for their actions.

We make our kids eat vegetables even though they don't want to. Why? Because vegetables contain vital nutrients necessary for their growth and long-term health.

We keep toddlers from playing in the street even though they would like to. Why? Because we know that they can get hurt. It is a mature adult's responsibilty to care for a child until said child is mentally and psychologically capable to do so him-/her- self.

We say that a person is a consenting adult when s/he is 18 years of age because by then many people have been taught about responsibility and understand that for every action there is a consequence (good or bad) and with that knowledge, they are empowered to make better decisions.

Nobody is saying that children shouldn't masturbate or experiment with same-age peers, Xocoatl. What we are saying is that children's sexuality should not be taken advantage of by adults, nor should it be commodified for consumption by the adult marketplace.

Again, I would urge you to consider how Pat Califia's perspective on this subject changed after s/he became a parent.

There are two points that haven't been responded to:

1. The people depicted in the ad campaign above are not dead. The images in the post were cherry-picked to support a particular viewpoint that has very little, if any substantive basis. I figure most feministing posts are preaching-to-the-choir and let it go, but this one is particularly egregious. It's just not true that they're dead. I think Vanessa owes the community some kind of edit, at least.

2. The line that separates children from adults is arbitrary. I contend that it's a violent and destructive binary, some of y'all disagree. The only argument I can see being made is that it's done "for their own good." That's a pretty bad reason to prevent someone from doing something historically and ethically.

roserama: your use of the pronoun "we" is disabling. What "we" are you saying you speak for? Who gave you authority to speak for this collective?

I know plenty of 18 year olds who make poor decisions. For that matter, I know plenty of 50 year-olds who make bad decisions. 18 also isn't the age of consent everywhere.

I think that we should have dialogue and communication with young people. If we have an honest and thoughtful relationship with young people, then I think we can do a lot of good.

I don't force children to eat their vegetables. I inform them about the risks and trust them to make their own decisions. They learn very quickly.

The process works similarly with very young people. I think we should help empower them to make good decisions.

ShifterCat: I think it's offensive to refer to a person with a s/he pronoun just because they are trans. PATRICK Califia has claimed a masculine gender identity and deserves a "he" as much as anyone else who would prefer that pronoun.

That being said, there is absolutely zero reason why this person is an authority on the subject. Just because Califia thinks that such a relationship can't be healthy doesn't automatically mean that you are correct. You establish points with warrants, not by just quoting people who agree with you.

What does it mean to "take advantage" of a young person's sexuality? I don't understand how looking at pictures of naked children is "taking advantage" of them. Why then are not images of naked adults "taking advantage" of them?

How old does someone have to be before they can make that decision? Any line you can draw will be arbitrary and require exceptions. That's why I think we should jettison the age-based system altogether and have the requirement be consent.

I don't want anyone to get hurt (unless they want to be hurt), I just want a kritical pedagogy.

Just to be clear, xocoatl, are you saying that if I ask a five year old neighbor if it is o.k. to take naked photos of them/engage in sexual poses with them and post them to the internet and they agree then it is ok?

I am stunned by this. The Mad Men mindset that put this together -- from concept to execution (ha) to publication -- needs a lobotomy. It makes me want to hope we've been played but it's too slick for that.

What the fuck...
What is the message here, if I wear your jeans I will be murdered and thrown in a lake, but at least, when someone finds me my ass will look good in Wrangler jeans. Because you now, WE ARE ANIMALS...Clearly!

I hear the arguments both ways here, but I wanted to add in that what I *see* in these two ads is dead people. Both images wouldn't seem out of place to me on a horror movie poster or a murder mystery book jacket, but as a selling point for jeans these ads fail for me.

"I think it's offensive to refer to a person with a s/he pronoun just because they are trans."

At the time that the book I was referring to was published, the transition had not yet been completed.

"...there is absolutely zero reason why this person is an authority on the subject."

Um, gee, because he's a licensed therapist and has spent decades educating himself on human sexuality? Also, it's interesting that his opinion changed significantly after he began to interact on a daily basis with prepubescent children. I'm not a parent myself, so I usually defer to those who are concerning questions about child development.

"I think we should jettison the age-based system altogether and have the requirement be consent."

If you can't understand the difference between consent and informed consent, and how this relates to the huge power differential between children and adults physically, mentally, and emotionally, then I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with you.

Wrangler has always had a crap brand identity and they haven't succeeded in pulling themselves out of the muck with this campaign either, rather i think they have sunk deeper.

Regardless of whether it looks to be dead people, the ad just says dirt and grime, not something i'd like to associate with myself and a pair of jeans; however, as many have mentionned, Wrangler is classically associated with cheapness and unglamour, they don't have the chic brand identity of a D&G to pull off an ad like this.

i think at best the ads are ambiguous. i note the position of the model's shoulder/arm in the second ad and upon closer inspection it does look as though she has her head up, i guess.

but it seems to me like people who make ads generally aren't going for something that has to be examined closely to convey the desired message. most people flip through ads in magazines or only briefly see them on billboards, etc. when i first looked at these shots, they did look dead to me, sort of crime-sceneish or the quick shot of a just-been-offed victim in a horror flick that lets the audience know they're dead. my instinct here is that either that's indeed the impression they were going for or they hired a crap ad firm who failed to accomplish their objective.

the whole "humans are wild, filthy animals" theme is sort of played out, but i'm not opposed to that per se. it's just been executed in a typically misogynistic manner here, glamorizing violence against women.

RE trans pronouns:
If a person has a body of work written under both male and female identities, using both pronouns doesn't seem inappropriate. I know I've had this trouble when talking about a former roommate- when we lived together she lived as a woman, now he lives as a man. It's a lot more difficult to use the 'right' one when you are dealing with a person before and after transition.

RE children and consent

Yes, the age for the distinction is always arbitrary, but that dosn't mean there isn't a distinction. The sexual 'consent' of a 4 year-old is as good as the sexual consent of a woman who has been drugged.

Especially when taken in context with the other ads (http://www.trendhunter.com/photos/22476/8), I think it's clear that these people are not supposed to be dead, and that this is not targeted just to women. The entire campaign features both male and female models in similar poses - there's one fairly similar to the back one posted here with a male model. And I believe the disembodied legs belong to a man, not a woman. I see the point that we (mankind, not just women) are animals and that Wrangler Jeans are the only ones that can stand up to that kind of use. Do I think it's the best campaign ever run? No, but I don't think it's anywhere near as offensive as presented here.

cicada nymph: I don't feel like hypothetical situations like the one you brought up are capable of proving a point. too much is left unsaid, and there are always an infinite number of unanswered questions and histories that never existed.

That being said, the way that you have asked the question: no. That does not seem okay to me.

shiftercat: You can keep acting like I'm failing to understand something if you want, but I've been talking about informed consent this whole time. What does it mean to be "informed"? Why are 18 year-olds "informed" but 17 year-olds are not? What does that knowledge consist of? Are there people who are over 18 who don't possess that knowledge? are there people under 18 who do?

Your argument is that there is some essence of sexual knowledge that people have to possess, but I think everyone understands sex differently and your understanding is too limiting.

This is why the idea of "informed" consent privileges a certain ideology (in this case, a discourse of western scientific rationality that views history and age as a linear progression and says that knowledge is static).

Also, fuck therapists.

To the extent that they make people feel better, I think they're useful, but the institution of psychiatric medicine and psychological knowledge in this country is totally messed up and violent. I think we should oppose it.

Does my knowledge or opinion about children "not count" because I've never had any? Does it not "count" that I am a young person/work with/have worked with children?

I don't have to fight in a war to know it's bad. I don't have to have been raped or have raped to know it's bad. Why should I have to have children before I can have an opinion about young people?

Again, you establish arguments with warrants, not appeals to the authority of others.

fuckdecaf: my guideline is to refer to people as they wish to be referred to. That means I default to calling people their gender of choice regardless of when the story I'm telling about them takes place. So regarding your ex-roommate, I would say that he used to live as a woman, but now he lives as a man. If he's down for the switch, then I would think that it's fine, but referring to people by their chosen identity seems preferable to me. I could be persuaded otherwise, though.

re:consent - depends on the drug, depends on the person, depends on the circumstance. I've had more than my share of drug sex. Does this mean I was raped? I don't think so.

That's why I think lines are blurry. That's why I think steadfast rules are arbitrary and ultimately backfire.

xocoatl-

So if I'm following correctly, arbitrary rules are off the table, but so are specific hypotheticals. That's all very PoMo and good, but you've essentially given no option for anyone to disagree with you.

I really have to know though, under what circumstances would you say a 5 year-old can consent to filmed intercourse with their adult neighbor?

I saw the ads... I didn't see any clear signs of women. Might have been men from the ads displayed, as most of their campaigns feature both men and women and fashion model men look exactly the same as female models from the behind (height, shoulders, builds, hairstyles).

The ad is stupid, but its hardly a conspiracy theory. It features young hipsters (of undefined gender) partying it up so hard like animals that they end up torn apart by the urban jungle.

fuckdecaf:

first, hats off for the excellent pun ("essentially no options"? har har har).

secondly, if your main argumentative strategy is random hypotheticals and arbitrary rules, then I'm just glad that I'm advancing your understanding of debate.

I'd say there are plenty of ways to disagree with me. Arguing that young people don't have agency, or that we should suppress that agency are both valid options. You could also defend nihilism or authoritarianism. Or you could just find something that I say and disagree with it.

I can't imagine circumstances under which I would think it was okay for a five year old to consent to filmed intercourse with a much older person. That being said, it might be possible.

I'm arguing that all consensual sex is okay, and that there shouldn't be age-based requirements on *who* can give consent.

The real question is "what does it mean to give consent?", but it's an issue that no one has really spoken to.

'The real question is "what does it mean to give consent?", but it's an issue that no one has really spoken to.'

I don't know, xocoatl, what do you think?

What about our hypothetical five year-old makes you think they can't say meaningfully "yes" to being a porno star? You would never tell them they had to eat their broccoli, so what non-arbitrary reason would you possibly have for stopping them from having sex with the loving, candy-bearing adult of their choice?

xocoatl:
You are making some rather provocative statements. I very much agree with you that it comes down to what consent means, but I am not really sure how to go about defining that. Obviously, there is something more to it than simply a lack of physical coercion, but I am not sure where one would begin determining exactly what.

I also agree with you that the sharp distinction between a minor and an adult is completely arbitrary. Speaking not specifically about sex--as I have not made any extensive study of human sexuality--but more generally, this is apparent; however, it is also apparent that there is a substantial cognitive difference between a child and an adult. I am not as vulnerable as an infant. The fact that the child/adult gradient is a gradual one does not mean it does not exist.

This vulnerability means that, at least for a little while, children require special protections for their survival. Five-year-olds cannot simply be plopped on the street, told to find a job and an apartment, and go on their way. For this reason in the United States minors have certain rights that adults do not have--education, shelter, and food, for example. If this is acceptable then I do not see why it is not acceptable to, in turn, grant certain rights to adults which minors must have exercised on their behalf. I personally believe that specific rights themselves are also somewhat arbitrary, but it is plainly clear that the rights that would be of value to an adult in her forties would be completely irrelevant to an infant. As I have said, I do not know enough about human sexuality to know for sure whether the right to complete sexual autonomy is relevant to or appropriate for a child. My feeling is that it is probably not, but I could be completely wrong; however, simply stating that the 18-year cut-off mark is arbitrary does not mean that children are the same as adults, or that 5-year-olds are able to consent to sexual activity, or even that the 18-year cut-off is a bad one. For practical reasons a cut-off must exist, even if it is arbitrary.

I apologize if this was a lot of writing used to make a fairly simple point. Now I have a question for you, xocoatl: do you think that children should have the same rights as adults in other respects too?

wow... glad I don't wear wranglers... goodness gracious that's just disgusting.

fuckdecaf:

I think consent is defined contextually. I would feel more comfortable saying intoxicated consent is okay with a longterm partner, but not with someone I haven't met before.

But for other relationships it might not be possible, or possible in different ways. This is why I think hypothetical situations aren't useful: there are always details and back stories that can't be filled in.

The reason I think it's okay to stop this hypothetical five year-old is because you constructed the hypothetical with the reasoning that it wasn't okay and in a situation where you thought the young person was being taken advantage of.

mamram:

I think it's more useful to say that there "can" be differences between the way that young people and older people think, because there can be similarities as well.

There are also young people who I see as more responsible than many of their older peers.

I don't believe there is a "gradient" or a "line" between childhood and adulthood, because I don't think that the difference is linear. It differs wildly in each case. That's why, in my mind, the focus should be on the individual and their ability to give consent or not.

I further think that the way our society functions right now is far from ideal. There are a lot of people who wouldn't be able to "make it" if they were "plopped on the street" and told to get a job and an apartment.

That's another reason why hypotheticals aren't really useful: no one can just "appear" in the street. Everyone has a family and a history. They know people and know the world in a certain way. These made-up people are history- and personality-less.

I think everyone has a right to food, shelter, safety and so on. This is one of the reasons why I don't think our society is functioning very well right now.

I don't think there is such a thing as "sexual autonomy" because our ideas about sexuality are always already informed by society and language. There is no sexuality without others, which means it is defined against them.

We all play a role in shaping each others sexuality because we all participate in society.

I think that children are the exact same as adults, but not in the sense that "adults are children" or "children are adults," but rather that those categories aren't descriptive of peoples' actual states. it attempts to represent essentialized identity categories for those people that don't reflect their individual selves.

Even the system of seeing someone's age as the number of "years" they've been born is arbitrary.

"Practicality" only exists in reference to the systems that we use now, so things are "practical" for given purposes, and not in-and-of-themselves. This means that you're right that an arbitrary cutoff is "practical" but what it's practical *for* is problematic.

I think that we should challenge the categories of "adult" and "child," so, yeah, everyone should have the same rights.

xocoatl:
I definitely see your point, and I agree with you about age not being the best way of assessing an individual's cognitive state. I think we see rights in a fundamentally different way. I don't believe that rights are separable from society and its functional systems. In the wild, there are no rights. Rights are only something that can be granted by a group of people to its members for the purpose of improving the chance of that group's survival, and hence, rights are inherently a practical matter. This is not to say that certain things, such as food and shelter, should not be rights, but as of now, they are not, because the system we are part of has not designated them as such. Were we to eliminate this system, they would not become rights, rather, we would have no rights whatsoever.

Because I see rights as a perk due to us as participants of a system, I think it is necessary to develop a systematic way of determining what rights are most relevant to and appropriate for an individual. Surely there are children who are more able to handle adult rights than certain adults, but I see it as kind of impractical for society to operate on a case-by-case basis. As it is, there is an amount of wiggle room, particularly in certain states. But in order for the appropriate rights and protections to be provided for the majority of people, simplifications must be made: age. Unfortunately, a lot of people probably get stuck in the wrong box. But I don't really see any way around that.

I disagree that sexuality cannot exist without other people. If I had spent my entire life on a deserted island, I would probably spend a significant portion of that time masturbating :)