The Double Standard of Ad Bans: FKA Twigs vs. Jeremy Allen White

The Debate on Ad Bans

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Calvin Klein ad featuring musical artist FKA twigs, deeming it inappropriate because the 'images composition placed viewers focus on the models body rather than on the clothing being advertised' and it portrayed her as a 'stereotypical sexual object.' A similar set of ads featuring 'The Bear' actor Jeremy Allen White stripping down to his skivvies and giving the camera a sensual stare. According to the New York Times, the authority is reviewing complaints about the ads featuring White, but those ads have so far seen no actual censure.

Journalist Jill Filipovic unpacks the UK's Advertising Standards Authority's decision to ban a Calvin Klein ad featuring musical artist FKA twigs, arguing that there is a double standard regarding which ads are deemed acceptable.

The singer noted this double standard, writing on Instagram: 'i do not see the stereotypical sexual object that they have labelled me. i see a beautiful strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine. in light of reviewing other campaigns past and current of this nature, i cant help but feel there are some double standards here.'

The Power and Representation of Women's Bodies

The relative sexuality on display in the photos is up for interpretation, as is how 'objectified' the people in them are. What's clear, though, is that the Jeremy Allen White ads expose much more of his body than the FKA twigs ad exposes of hers.

The female body has long been treated as more representative of sex than the male one, which is why the term 'sex object' is so overwhelmingly applied to women and so seldomly to men. And it is true that in advertising, women are often sexually objectified, with the female body used as a stand-in for sex itself. When we say that 'sex sells,' what we actually mean is that sexualized female bodies sell things. And often, those bodies are posed in ways that appear passive or receptive, or that even seem child-like.

Feminists, including Kilbourne, have challenged this sexual objectification of women for decades, and we should continue to do so. But nudity isn't the same as objectification. It can be difficult to draw a bright line between 'sexy' and 'sexualized.' And even if ads do sexualize women and so many do, we should be wary of the presumption that women's bodies are inherently objectified and sexualized, while men posed in sexual ways are simply sexy.

The Role of Advertising Standards and Company Responses

The Advertising Standards Authority is charged with maintaining basic standards for ads, and apparently with responding to citizen complaints and these standards are why you aren't going to see full-frontal nudity or extreme violence in an advertisement in the UK. Some violations are obvious. Others, though, are clearly much more subjective.

Not that Calvin Klein is particularly sympathetic or even lucid here. The Calvin Klein company said its ad was from a partnership with FKA twigs, a confident and empowered woman. This is a largely meaningless statement. Would the ad be rightly banned if the woman in it wasn't 'confident' in her appearance, or if she wasn't 'empowered'? What does it even mean for a woman to be 'empowered'? Who empowered her? Do we often describe men as 'empowered'?

Calvin Klein is also no stranger to controversial and highly sexual ads. In 1980, a highly sexualized ad featured a 15-year-old Brooke Shields included crotch shots of Shields in tight jeans, and her saying, 'You know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.' The uproar was enormous and frankly righteous; the ad did encourage viewers to see a teenage girl a child as an underwear-less sex object. Sex sells indeed. But 15-year-olds shouldn't be selling it.