Banned Ads Starring Lucy Pinder Are 'Degrading To Women,' Says ASA (PHOTOS)

Britain's Advertising Standards Authority, or ASA, must be getting tired lately.

Just this month, the organization has banned the following spots from billboards and televisions:

• Dakota Fanning's racy Marc Jacobs ad
• A set of Drop Dead ads that featured a "too skinny" model
• A Hailee Steinfeld ad that features the actress -- GASP! -- posing on railroad tracks .

And now the ASA is cracking down on another sets of ads, this time for just being straight up "too sexy."

The controversial Lynx deodorant ads, which star UK pinup girl Lucy Pinder, started appearing on major Internet sites in the UK recently. Featuring a bikini-clad Pinder, the copy doles out innuendos like, "What will she do to make you lose control?", "Play with Lucy" and "Put premature perspiration to the test."

The ASA says they received 10 complaints about the ads' salacious messages.

A separate poster ad that doesn't star Pinder received an additional 113 complaints, reports the Guardian. In that ad, a blonde woman stands on a beach wearing bikini bottoms while clutching an undone bikini top against her breasts, with the slogan, "The cleaner you are the dirtier you get."

What's the official reason for the ban? Says the Guardian:

The majority of the complaints to the ASA were that the ad campaign was offensive because it was sexually suggestive, indecent, provocative, glamorised casual sex, and objectified and demeaned women.

The ASA also said that the ads were "clearly intended to imply that using the advertised product would lead to more uninhibited sexual behaviour."

In other words, it's a typical male-targeted ad campaign, right? But what's more understandable, complaints also came from parents who said their children had asked what the "dirty" tagline meant. Awkward!

Unilever, who owns Lynx, said in a statement that their ads weren't meant to be taken so seriously, reports the Daily Mail:

[Unilever] said the products are designed for men aged 17-27 and 'had been had been popular over the years for its playful, sexy, tongue-in-cheek take on the 'mating game' narrative.

Unilever said consumers had 'come to expect, and were comfortable with, the narrative, tone and content seen in their ads.'

It said the video ads 'were designed to be playful, sexy and humorous but not to cause offence.'

You might remember Lynx's last ad campaign, which also landed the company in hot water; a South Africa spot featured sexy angels forsaking their heavenly realm out of lust for an earthly man who's doused himself in Lynx. The ASA cracked down on that campaign after Christians complained the ads were offensive to their religious views.

See the purportedly offensive ads in our slideshow below.

PHOTOS:

Comments

[homealone]

10:19 AM on 12/01/2011

wow. parents can't talk to their kids about what advertising is and is not? people can't discriminate between tongue in cheek and deadly serious? when i was a kid, a woman riding a horse bareback and sidesaddle (a lady godiva thing i think) said "all my men wear english leather or nothing at all." and i knew just what she meant, and i knew it was not the key to the full philosophy of life. i have a great big theory here, coming right up: these ads are "too sexy" because they feature women who look like they eat food, like sex, and are fertile. big no-no; big offense. that is way too sexy---women are supposed to look like they just came in from refugee camp, emaciated and with blackened eyes. real is way too real, real is way too sexy. personally, i wish my kids would see more of this stuff. maybe they'll grow into functioning adults if they see healthy, sexy women. love, Mom

[MRb1000]

02:48 AM on 12/01/2011

What is this butt deodorant! LOL Come on man!

[Palmer Eldritch]

05:51 PM on 11/30/2011

Lynx, Axe...All the same crap in a bottle. If you want to sell crap, you have to sell it to dogs, 'cause only dogs like crap. Hence the Advertising crafted by and for ...yes, DOGS.

[mrgifford7]

08:44 AM on 12/01/2011

Actually, of all the deodorants I've tried, Axe is the only one that keeps me dry all day. And, I walk on two legs, not four. So your statement is pointless, worthless, and just for the sake of argument... thoughtless.

[Paul Frederick]

05:11 PM on 11/30/2011

Operating on their logic then obviously the Muslims are right and all women must be wrapped up in burkas.

[mrgifford7]

05:02 PM on 11/30/2011

You know, every model you see is somebody's wife, daughter, mother or girlfriend... but lets not forget about husband, son, father, or boyfriend. I bet the same women complaining about ads like these have no problems with Hanes, Axe, Calvin Kline, ...etc with Men having broad shoulders, hard chests, a six pack, and possibly a "bulge." If that was my wife or yes even my daughter I would be damn proud (depending on her age of course).

Now, for you parents that worry about your kids seeing these images. It's time to take responsibility and stop blaming everyone else. If you don't want your kids to grow up thinking sex is the way to success, teach them to know better. If you don't want them wearing the smut that is available in their sizes now, don't buy it. The lesson to teach to your children is that if you work hard, eat right, be healthy, you too can be beautiful/sexy/hot/attractive. If they decide to use that to be successful, so be it. The lesson to be learned for the parents are simple... Be a solution. Talk to your kids. Explain to them right and wrong. And STOP BLAMING THE MEDIA (TV,Music,Games) AND TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY. I'm thankful everyday that my parents didn't shelter me, but instead explained and taught me the right way to live and the right way to think.

[Dede Eagleburger]

11:39 AM on 12/01/2011

What a thoughtful post, and I am proud to be your first fan!

[Calinfidel]

04:33 PM on 11/30/2011

All advertising is condescending to low intelligence levels and impulses in one way or another, just like a prostitute pretending to be attracted to you with the purpose of securing a business transaction. Ads for fast food are designed to appeal to peoples' gluttony, auto ads encourage people to get into debt, insurance solicitation tries to appeal to their fear, even well-intentioned so-called humanitarian organizations try to appeal to peoples' sense of guilt for support ..... singling out any one ad campaign is such a petty argument for whatever reason, because they all attempt to pander to the lowest denominator. Rather than try to ban advertising, people are better off just refusing to support companies that indulge in titillating manipulation to sell what is almost always useless crap.

[LanceSmith]

03:54 PM on 11/30/2011

Wow...so other so-called free countries are even more fascist then the US huh?

Thank God for the first amendment!

[omegaman64]

11:45 AM on 11/30/2011

At 65 I do like looking at pretty flowers

[Dede Eagleburger]

11:39 AM on 12/01/2011

good for you!!

[omegaman64]

02:51 AM on 12/02/2011

Thank you, it is the simple truth of an uncomplicated man

[Blastrocat]

11:12 AM on 11/30/2011

Horny old men (a group of which I am a part, but not a proud member) will never understand the whole "demeaning to women" issue. That is why sexual assault is so rampant. I think it stems from a complete lack of empathy and years of media and societal conditioning. However, some of these desensitized men learn to understand the issue more clearly later in the prison laundry room.

[LanceSmith]

03:51 PM on 11/30/2011

Myth: that sexual assault is rampant. There is no statistical evidence to support this belief.

Be proud of being male (even one that admires the female form). Without the males of the world living and dying for their families, we would probably still be living in caves.

[wdef]

07:41 AM on 12/01/2011

But there's lot of inflated estimates by profit-motivated grant-seeking NGOs so it must be true. The manufacturing of abuse statistics, and the ever-broadening legal definition of abuse, is a real problem especially with anything to do with children. We are being conned on some issues.

[wdef]

08:17 AM on 11/30/2011

England is no longer free. I believe they are considering banning lightheartedness as well.

[tiesthatbindus]

10:00 PM on 11/29/2011

I encourage all of those who have read this article to reconsider your opinion of the ASA's actions. Many of you claim that banning these forms of advertising are violations of free speech. I ask you to think about is it really a person's free speech at risk when the desire of the creators of the image is PURE profit. Also, don't many of these images near the line of pornographic? And since being shown or being forced to watch pornographic images before the age of 18 is seen as a form of child sexual abuse, is this really such a lose standard that we want to uphold in the US.

My suggestion is that if we as a country would like to remain an influential power in the world that we start to increase our standards to meet the qualifications of international law. How can we say that our language and the images we see do not affect our thinking when we live in a country in which 1 out of every 4 women will be sexually abused in her lifetime?

If you don't think these images are offensive and degrading to women I challenge you to ask yourself if I woman you loved was asked to use her body to sell a product would you be ok with that? And remember that every women is someone's mother, sister or friend.

I will continue to support ASA's decisions as long as they are inline with these ideals. Thank you.

[joseph crouse]

08:39 AM on 11/30/2011

first off UK not US. You as a US citizen don't get a say in the matter.
Two get your puritanical panties untwisted Mrs Pinder and her like are paid Handsomly for her time to do those photoshoots.

If the woman I loved had a body like that and was asked my dear puritanical friend I would not only be supportive I would probably have pictures made up and have them on my desk at work.
So I can rub my friends noses in the fact that my wife is HOT. id love to know who developed that 1 in 4 statistic because unless you count every little flirtacious pat on the butt or unwelcome pass made as sexual abuse theres not even CLOSE to that many.

[David-Nudes]

11:11 AM on 11/30/2011

i shoot my wife nude al the time! david-nudes.com

[mrgifford7]

05:04 PM on 11/30/2011

I'm sorry I must have read that wrong. Pornography? Really? I could go to the beach or a public pool and see less on a women. If you are talking about the sexual connotation in the text of the ad, then it's the parents responsibility to teach them. If they are too young to teach, chances are, they are too young to understand the connotation anyway. It's not pornography, it's sex education.

[wdef]

07:11 AM on 12/01/2011

My thoughts exactly.

[tiesthatbindus]

10:00 PM on 11/29/2011

I am not a "piece of art" as one person comments.This comment is very dehumanizing to all women. I am a human being, not an object. I for one completely excited that organizations are taking more notice of the sexualization and objectification of women in the media. The dehumanization of any population is the first step in validating violence that is committed against them. And the epidemic of sexualization and objectification of women by advertising increasingly related to the rates of interpersonal violence in our country.

Our culture (media, advertising, music, politics, sports) encourages societal norms based on hypermasculinity, of which one of the characteristics is treating women and women's bodies as commodities that can be bought and sold and consistently connecting masculinity with violence. While of course this does not mean that all or even the majority of men are violent, quite the opposite BUT it does create a culture in which the sexualization of women and violence and aggression are normalized and therefor accepted as part of society when this is NOT how it has to be.

[wdef]

08:18 AM on 11/30/2011

Boring

[joseph crouse]

08:39 AM on 11/30/2011

no you arent (odds are most women arnt)

Mrs Pinder, Most certainly is.

[wdef]

07:12 AM on 12/01/2011

I thought that fascist Andrea Dworkin had died? Her ghost seems to be posting here quite a bit.

[wdef]

07:18 AM on 12/01/2011

You say Mrs Pinder is boring? How do you know? Isn't that grossly unfair stereotyping?

From wikipedia:

"Pinder is an ambassador for Kick 4 Life, a charity that uses football to fight poverty and disease in developing countries.[22] She has also produced original works of art for sale in charity auctions for Keech Hospice Care[23] and Sports For All.[24] Along with Rhian Sugden, she is raising money for "Get Kids Going", a charity giving disabled and young children the chance to participate in sports, by means of inviting sponsorship for her and Rhian's participation in the 2011 Modball Rally."

[tiesthatbindus]

09:59 PM on 11/29/2011

I am a healthy 22-year old woman who is a college student at a progressive university in the US. I study interpersonal violence and the use of advertising to relay messages of societal norms and I am very pleased that the ASA is taking its responsibility seriously and pulling ads that are offensive and degrading to women.

The majority of comments made in response to this article make me very uncomfortable and upset. For starters, I do look amazing without a bra - any woman does. Bras were created purely for support for women who did physical labor and then because socially normal. No woman, no matter how she looks, her weight or what she is wearing or not looks "like a cow" as some person commented. Every person is and should be considered beautiful to themselves and others and by enforcing human-created norms and standards of beauty will are going against the natural diversity that. Why is Angelina Jolie considered beautiful? Because the characteristics she has are what we have been TAUGHT is beauty from a very young age. I do not want to be valued and judged for what I look like and how I dress. I dress and carry myself for my own confidence and should not be devalued based on my own tastes and personal look.

[wdef]

08:41 AM on 11/30/2011

That denies that humans are biological beings. We rate each other on attractiveness scales all the time. And these ratings are astonishingly consistent between cultures and races. If you don't accept that then you're lying to yourself about our essential biological nature. Read the statistics, beauty is not socially determined. It's not in the eye of the beholder. It's a near absolute. There are small variations and individual preferences, yes. What happened is this: before mass media and transport, the most beautiful girl most of us ever saw all our life was that one in our village or the next village. Probably < 1% of the population. We never saw anyone more attractive than those one or two beautiful girls. Economics was much more important than looks in choosing a partner anyway. Nowadays, the media selects thousands of beauties (men and women) who are in the top 0.01% of beauty rankings and puts them on a pedestal. That has exposed us all to extremely attractive people as if they were all around us and we crave it. But banning attractiveness is not a realsitic way to go.

[joseph crouse]

08:41 AM on 11/30/2011

soooo your an unemployable sociology major.

gotcha..

No dear some people are ugly outside and in. Me I'm an ogre. Im comfortable with that fact I rather revel in it.

[Tiberius Casca]

07:39 PM on 11/29/2011

10 complaints, out of a population of 62 million, and you pull the ad for that?? And here I thought the Brits were a bit more enlightened than tha...

[wdef]

07:45 AM on 12/01/2011

Well said Tiberius. I am in favor of upholding the same rights for minorities as for the majority. I am not in favor of a dictatorship by 1/6,200,000th of the population.

[tonytonmsn]

01:13 PM on 11/29/2011

Heck. This story is from Britain. Different culture than I live in....

[LanceSmith]

04:48 PM on 11/30/2011

Not that different. Every time I visit I am struck by how similar we are.

The main difference is that we have a Constitution that captures our rights, while their government is based more on the pre-constitution tradition.

[tonytonmsn]

06:04 PM on 11/30/2011

Thanks.