Progression
It is often thought that the youth of today's generation is exposed to sex much more than they have been in the past. Print ads have evolved a lot since the 1950s, but they still have common characteristics. Ads in the 1950s included subtle sexual features that are more apparent in ads today. For example, these Vogue ads represent similar ways of advertising relevant to the generation. They portray the women as attractive and mysterious. The pictures from our generation are just much more upfront about the sexuality of the advertisement.
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The advertisements to the left also depict sexuality in both generations. These ads may all be considered sexual in their time period. According to William O'Barr, a professor of cultural anthropology, as ads evolve they set, "new standards of sexual license and erotic propriety." Advertisements just continue to get more and more erotic as they evolve. They push the envelope between what is acceptable and what is not. The ads from our generation would not have been acceptable in the 1950s, but the ads shown from the 1950s would not have been acceptable in the 1900s either. It is all about what was acceptable at the time period, so in many ways these ads are more similar than they are different.
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Below are more examples of how advertisements have evolved, and how sexuality was portrayed in the 1950s and now.