Archive for the ‘Language in advertising’ Category

« Older Entries

Hard-core gendering

September 12, 2020

Now visible on tv and on the net: Manly Bands, wedding rings and engagement rings for real guy guys: deeply masculine bands that avoid the mere prettiness of so many of the usual rings (and any possible associations with femininity) — and are advertised with over-the-top testosterone-steeped prose.

An ad from the net:

Need a wedding band that’ll make you wanna run up a flight of stairs to the Rocky soundtrack? These bestsellers’ll do the trick.

The content is about achieving great physical prowess, emulating a winning prize-fighter. The style of the text is studiously informal (that’ll, wanna, bestsellers’ll) and slangy (do the trick) — guy talk.

The copy on the company’s site is in fact much more elaborately gendered as masculine than this.

And then there’s the name Manly Bands.

(more…)

Posted in Language in advertising, Masculinity, Style and register | 2 Comments »

Le Male, the men’s fragrance

September 7, 2020

(Well, it’s about perfumerie, but it’s Gaultier, he’s flagrantly homoerotic, and he’s going to take us to men’s bodies and mansex. So pieces of this posting are definitely not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Tim Evanson on Facebook today, with an image from a pharmacy window in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland:


(#1) Poster for Jean Paul Gaultier’s men’s fragrance Le Male, featuring a decidedly homoerotic shirtless sailor (credit: FotoFling Scotland)

Tim: Goodness, what ARE they selling?!?!?

AZ: They are selling sailors. Drenched in masculine scents. At very high prices.

McDonald Jason Richard: The best cologne for men in the world.

(more…)

Posted in Books, Clothing, Fashion, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language in advertising, Movies and tv, Shirtlessness | 3 Comments »

Let them eat cake

August 15, 2020

(Totally unsuitable for kids and the sexually modest.)

From the Raging Stallion gay porn studio, the 2020 flick Cake Shop, focused on cake ‘buttock’ and especially on cum as a culinary ingredient. The cover of the video, with the naughty bits fuzzed out:


(#1) At the top: Devin Trez, Jake Nicola, Wade Wolfgar — Trez and Wolfgar with long pendulous half-hard cocks you can view in an AZBlogX posting “Cake Shop” — and  below them, Beaux Banks and Donnie Argento, cupcakes in their mouths, their cakes (‘buttocks’) offered for fucking

There is much play on cakes ‘buttocks’ and on eating cum (that’s a queer thing).

(more…)

Posted in Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Style and register | Leave a Comment »

In Pouchland, where body size is irrelevant

July 31, 2020

From Ann Burlingham on Facebook yesterday, a heads-up:

I’ve been seeing this [Hanes Every Bod] ad, which it seems came out last year, and enjoyed the men singing about underwear in a way that women in ads usually sing about [here Ann extravagizes] birth control or antidepressants.


(#1) The end of the Every Bod ad: assorted body types (very heavy on variants of the young and fit) on the street, exulting in their underwear, every one of them displaying a notable pouch: Vouch for the Pouch! (see the sign)

Just to note that mass-market men’s underwear is rarely so pouch-conscious; that’s the province of premium brands, many of which are uncomplicatedly hawking homowear. More below.

(more…)

Posted in Language and the body, Language in advertising, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

At the Paleo Cafe

July 15, 2020

Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro strip (Wayno’s title: “Farm to Slab”):


(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)

A combination of two cartoon memes: the familiar Caveman meme, plus  a Remarkable Restaurant meme that’s a specialty of the Bizarro strips.

Plus the portmanteau word play in filet magnon (filet mignon + cro-magnon). And a subtle play on a systematic ambiguity between raw and cooked understandings in certain food names, in particular for cuts of meat. You ask for a filet at the Paleo Cafe, you get a hunk of raw meat.

(more…)

Posted in Ambiguity, Comic conventions, Language in advertising, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Metonymy, Portmanteaus | Leave a Comment »

A hose in your pocket

July 1, 2020

This is a piece of moderately raunchy silliness in a time of great difficulty. (I am trying, with increasing desperation, to write just one blog essay a day as proof that I’m Not Dead Yet, but I didn’t manage it yesterday, 6/30.) Most of it is directly or indirectly about penises, so some readers might want to avoid this posting.

A tv commercial for the Silver Bullet Hose proclaims:

Things that used to be big and bulky now fit in your pocket. Even your hose.

The commercial goes on about hoses and nozzles in gee-whiz fashion; it’s probably just enthusiastic salesmanship, but it would be hard to miss the playfully carnal subtext, of symbolic penises.

And the commercial extols the compact and easily portable, in the garden hose world — and, by extension, in the world of men’s bodies. As the possessor of a penis that fits comfortably into most trouser pockets, I applaud the attitude. All praise to the right-sized; let’s look to Michelangelo’s David.

A crucial part of the garden hose pitch is that the Silver Bullet expands to an impressive length when it’s called upon to perform its function. Oh. My.

(more…)

Posted in Language and the body, Language in advertising, Metaphor, Phallicity | 3 Comments »

Masturbation May finale: the naked brownies

May 29, 2020

(Consider the title: not for kids or the sexually modest.)


(#1) Josh Rider and his baking pan; his half-hard dick has been cropped for WordPress modesty, but can be viewed in my AZBlogX posting today, “Josh Rider bakes raw”

(more…)

Posted in Facial expression, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Language and food, Language in advertising | 2 Comments »

Minimalist, and sometimes anti-bacterial

May 20, 2020

(Extremely minimally dressed men, with discussion of their bodies and of mansex in street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Annals of men’s underwear, starting with some extremely minimal items, including one that claims to be anti-bacterial; notes on armpit and crotch sweat and its associated bacteria, with their characterstic smells and tastes; and (a surprise bonus) the advertised virtues of merino wool underwear and t-shirts.

Under the fold, I’ll start with two of the more remarkable minimalist items: the Echo Mesh jock pouch (and harness) from CellBlock13; and pro wrestler John Cena in a hot pink banana hammock.

(more…)

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and animals, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Annals of advertising: the new normal for noses

May 9, 2020

A new tv commercial for Naväge (sometimes just Navage) touts it as just the thing for current times:

Now is the time to make good nasal hygiene the new normal.

The commercial doesn’t seem to be available on-line yet, but here’s an earlier print ad:


“uses powered suction to relieve nasal congestion” (with a saline solution)

(more…)

Posted in Language and medicine, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Portmanteaus, Trade names | 1 Comment »

What’s on YOUR shelf?

April 13, 2020

The bon appétit magazine mailing that came to me today: “Where to Order Your Favorite Pantry Staples Online: Your local grocery store is out of flour. The internet isn’t” by mackenzie fegan on 4/8/20:


(#1) An array of specialty staples to get you through sheltering in place

(more…)

Posted in Language and food, Language in advertising, Movies and tv, Slogans | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries