From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.feminism,soc.men
Subject: advertising (Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?)
Date: 11 Nov 92 11:18:38
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
Distribution: usa
	<MUFFY.92Nov11075211@remarque.berkeley.edu>
	<11NOV199213483870@mary.fordham.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: nissim@mary.fordham.edu's message of Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:48:00 GMT

In article <11NOV199213483870@mary.fordham.edu> nissim@mary.fordham.edu (Leonard J. Nissim) writes:
>In article <MUFFY.92Nov11075211@remarque.berkeley.edu>, 
>muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes...
>>In article <11NOV199210045505@mary.fordham.edu> nissim@mary.fordham.edu (Leonard J. Nissim) writes:
>>>In article <1992Nov11.070434.14395@dragon.acadiau.ca>, 
>>>891666t@dragon.acadiau.ca (Trish Turliuk) writes...
>>>[intermediate posts deleted] 
>>>>Do you *REALLY* equate this necessary survival list with my desire for a
>>>>choice over what kind of images I am forced to see every day? I'll bet
>>				> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>me:
>>>Nobody ever put a gun to my head and said "Watch this or else!"  
>>>Every television set I've ever seen has an "off" switch.

>Muffy: 
>>No billboard I have seen has an "off" switch.  [etc.  discussion of
  the prevalence of advertisements.]

>me: 
>You are not in fact obliged to read any newspapers or magazines whose ads
>*you* find offensive.

Actually, I don't recall saying that I found *any* ads offensive.  Why
do you assume that I do?  All I was discussing was the extreme
difficulty of *avoiding* ads...something which you seem to want to claim
is trivial ("just turn it off").

>[...]  Given the incredibly diverse array of magazines available, there 
>must be some whose ads aren't offensive to you.

Again, this is irrelevant.  Whether or not I find a particular ad
offensive (and we have not yet determined that I find *any* ad
offensive), I cannot avoid *ads* (regardless of offensiveness) in a
magazine while still reading the magazine.

>Ads in books??  Other than ads (with no pictures) for other books printed at
>or near the end pages, I've never seen one.  Honestly. 

Well, maybe we read different books.  I have been reading a lot of
(paperback) mysteries lately, and at least half of them have had a thick
paper ad for "The Agatha Christie" collection stuck (actually bound) in
the middle of the book.  Science fiction books often have similar things
in them.

>It is true that one is subjected to public billboards, bus ads, taxi ads, &c.
>when venturing out.  It is not true that you have to concentrate on them--it is 
>very easy to "tune out" all the clutter, and not be bothered by them.  I don't
>find such ads offensive, just boring.>

Actually, advertisers are very good at "catching the eye" and getting
someone to look at an ad, if they can just get it into the range of
vision of the person.  I don't have much success "tuning things out"
when driving, since I am actually making an effort to be *aware* of my
surroundings...I imagine this is why billboards are so popular.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                               muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
~Weavers' fingers flying on the loom/patterns shift too fast to be
 discerned/all these years of thinking/ended up like this/in front
 of all this beauty/understanding nothing~ - Bruce Cockburn
Xref: sparky soc.women:19332 alt.feminism:4182 soc.men:19082