Consumption Junction

Cap'n Crunch is looking for a comeback and placing its bets on social media and a touch of nostalgia.

When it comes to food, sex sells. “The memory of an attractive person preparing your food or drink, no matter where it is, must stimulate some sort of pleasure center in your brain that keeps you going back,” says Dori Molozanov, in a recent Table Matters post, “Coffee, Tea, Or Me?”

According to Molozanov, people are fascinated by being fed by good-looking people.

If television is a reflection of society, then a study of two programs on cable TV by a New Mexico State University researcher may help to expand how women's sexuality is viewed in the United States. Kassia Wosick, assistant professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, recently shared her findings at the Pacific Sociological Association annual conference in Reno, Nev.

At the heart of Wosick's research are two television series that depict women who pay for sex. Wosick, along with one graduate student and two undergraduates, are using content analysis and focus groups to study HBO's "Hung," a scripted production, and ShowTime's "Gigolos," a reality-based series.

..."People have a tendency to dismiss sex research," Wosick said. "They have a tendency to relegate it to biological or physiological, and the sociologist has so much to say about sexuality in general. And partly why my research is so timely and important is that it really brings together traditional discourses with more contemporary discourses in terms of sexuality, the body, pleasure and desire."

Wosick's research involves investigating women's sexual consumerism using the two TV shows. She is looking at how women consume sex-related materials and services in an industry that is traditionally targeted toward men. Wosick is gathering data about women as consumers of pornography, erotic materials, sexual experiences, and also male-focused services such as strip clubs.

We’ve been covering the saga of Russian protest punk group Pussy Riot for over a year now. The feminist collective performed guerrilla musical protests around Russia against Vladimir Putin. One in particular, in a church, ended with members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina sentenced to two years imprisonment for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. The human rights implications of this sentence attracted much worldwide attention, with Amnesty International and celebrities like Sting, Yoko Ono and Madonna speaking out for the women. But something else happened. The “Free Pussy Riot” movement, with its iconic knitted balaclavas and provocative language, became a popular meme. The cause célèbre was even appropriated by the fashion industry.

A small fraction of Americans buy the vast majority of books in this country. Goodreads gives Jeff Bezos & Co. a direct line into their thoughts and habits.

Michael Massaia is a documentary style photographer who specializes in black and white film. His "Lost: Las Vegas Call Girl Cards" series touches on the over-saturation of advertising, commodification, waste, and salaciousness within our culture.

How we live by 2050? Industrial designer Joshua Harris has created a concept that in the future, we could use a clothing printer to manufacture our clothes at home.

Using sex to sell merchandise is hardly a new tactic, but in the 1940s it wasn’t a common one either. And yet in the 1940s and ’50s Springs Cotton Mills, makers of Springmaid Fabrics, put out a series of ads that likely pushed every boundary there was in American marketing with regards to sex appeal.

The Springmaid ads, clearly influenced by pin-up art, made use of double entendre (written by company owners Elliot White Springs) and liberal doses of voyeurism. The illustrations generally fell into one of two categories, with some exceptions: looking up a woman’s skirt or seeing her panties fall down around her ankles.  That’s about it. Most of the advertisements came with a short tagline such as “Defy Diaphoresis,” “Protect Yourself,” or “Perfume and Parabolics.” My personal favorite is “We Put the ‘Broad’ in Broadcloth!”

Here’s a gallery of just some of the racy Springmaid Fabrics ads produced by Springs Cotton Mills in the mid-century period.