Sex Toys In The Daytime

Britain’s first ever daytime TV advertisement for a sex toy company will air next week, breaking one of the last taboos of the advertising industry. The 30-second advertisement for Lovehoney, an adult retailer that sells sex toys, lingerie and erotic books, will run on Monday morning on ITV2 during The Real Housewives of New York. It will air for a further two weeks across a variety of channels.

The clip does not feature any sex toys but shows a close-up of a married couple kissing passionately. At the end of the advertisement the couple part and suggestively tell each other to “have a good day”. The strapline is “Live a Sexier Life”. A Lovehoney spokesman compared it to the famous Gold Blend adverts of the 1980s, but “with added desire”. Lovehoney, which has an annual turnover of £13.5m, said that the advertisement will “bring the message of sexual happiness to the UK”.


Advertisements for sex toys have not appeared before the 9pm watershed before. However Lovehoney’s campaign, which has been described as suggestive rather than explicit, was approved by Clearcast, an agency that ensures that television advertisements are compliant with industry guidelines. Tracey Cox, a TV sex expert and author of books such as Supersex for Life, described the advert as “stylish and light-heartedly done”.

Ms Cox, who sells a range of adult toys through Lovehoney, said that the advert is positively tame when compared to some raunchy music videos. “If you look at the ad and compare it to any music video clip – like Rihanna for example – this is pre-school. What they get away with in music videos is crazy,” she said.

Ms Cox said that British consumers need to cast aside their prudishness when it comes to adult toys. She argued that divorce rates would be far lower if married couples were more adventurous in their sex lives. “One in two marriages is failing and a way of dealing with that is to use sex toys. We should be encouraging it,” she said. "Films and television shows have given people high expectations for their love lives, whereas in reality they can be hard work and boring".

Having watched Lovehoney's teaser ad, Stephen Green- National Director of Christian Voice- counters that if people's 'sexual happiness' depends on buying Lovehoney's products then they might be better looking for a psychological or spiritual remedy first. This ad isn't about spreading happiness, it's about making people believe they need a product they don't - creating a market to make a few quid, he argues. The advertising industry has got to realise that what is broadcast affects the cultural environment of us all. No man is an island and no-one knows the unintended consequences of a torrent of sexualised imagery and brutalised language.

Green insists he has heard the arguments that 'all TVs have an off switch' but states you have to see what is on the TV before you can turn it off. If you are walking in a field you can avoid the cowpats but it is not as easy when you are watching TV. Maybe the remote has fallen down the back of the sofa. Maybe Mum just nipped out to the kitchen leaving the tots sat in front of the box.

Green believes many of us have given up on regulators like Ofcom, where the politically-correct liberal agenda rules OK. "I cannot remember the last time they upheld a complaint over morality or decency," he said. "Even Marie Stopes's advert for abortion was allowed through. You can rely on Ofcom's conclusion inevitably to contain the sentiment that 'a majority of viewers would not have been offended because ... blah, blah, blah'. Some will say that the adverts should be shown after the so-called 'watershed' but I am not convinced that the watershed is either observed or that it is logically defensible."

Surely, reasons Green, if children shouldn't be viewing sexual images because they are corrupt and corrupting then adults are compromising themselves as well. "Since when did a need to watch or read pornography or listen to bad language become a mark of being an adult? Just as surely as good art exalts, evil art debases. Pornography and brutality have no place in the culture of a vibrant society, and every civilisation which has exalted sex as we are doing today has been one in its death throes. How much worse does it have to get before people say 'Look, we've had enough of this aggressive sexualisation of society'? Or will the people just go along with it until the judgment falls, in whatever way it might, and we slide collectively down the rubbish chute of history?"