JustASC

I asked Joel Magalnick, editor of the JT News of Seattle, to discuss his paper’s decision to run the above ad (which had been rejected by the daily newspaper, The Seattle Times). Joel’s reply:

Though it ultimately wasn’t my decision to publish the ad – that was left to my publisher – it was her decision to be a sponsor of the production and to support it. It got interesting in our mostly female office after one caller was upset enough about the ad to cancel his subscription. I hadn’t heard so much talk about female genitalia since my wife and I took a birthing class. Not that that’s a bad thing, though I was a bit uncomfortable, since I felt I was hanging around in the women’s locker room, privy to conversation that men are generally shut out from.
The ad that we did run, which was more or less the same version rejected by the Seattle Times wasn’t, in my opinion, distasteful. Yes we (and the Times) are family newspapers, but if we’re talking about a titillating image, this one isn’t it. There’s no context (i.e., other parts of the body attached) that makes you think what you’re looking at is a vagina unless you know what an actual vagina looks like. The same just can’t be said for the male anatomy – a penis (or an insinuation of one) is usually quite obvious. This, to me, is much more subtle than that. I just don’t see any 13-year-old boys getting excited about the ad unless someone points out to them what it is they’re looking at. That’s pretty much what it comes down to, isn’t it?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 9:05 am and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.