This is news???

Body products have always used sex to sell their products. Ads have been targeted at young people for decades. And youngsters are constantly trying to be cool before their years. You haven't noticed these phenomena before? Where the hell have you people been for the past fifty years?

This reminds me of a story I heard from a friend of mine who has a 13-year-old son. She took her son and three of his friends on an ice-skating trip. When they all got in the car, the combined smell of their body spray was so strong, she had to roll down her window-- despite the winter weather!

These boys are so focused on the idea of sexy naked women crawling all over them, they don't realize this stuff is more likely to drive people (especially the female kind) away.

I'm going to insert a controversial point of view here, one completely at odds with the disapproving tone throughout this piece.

Although we wish and we want boys at that age to apply their brains and efforts towards such lofty ideas as - say - Rocket Science, Brain Surgery, Architecture (nevermind those nasty ol' male hormones), at least they're taking the point of view that some effort is required to attract females, rather than simply expect that they're entitled to female attention, that it is their due as males.

I was telling my daughter about a disturbing trend that I noticed among girls and boys of her generation. That boys today, as early as ten, were treating girls as objects designed for their pleasure, rating them based on their sex appeal. I mentioned to her that in my day, boys romanticized girls more. That there was at least a sense of wanting that girl because she was special, and it had more to do with a quality about her, her character as well as her looks. Even the music reflected that. If you can remember Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and Kris Kristofferson's "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)." and Peter Tosh's "Sweet Little Woman Like You." It may have been sentimentally romantic, maybe we had stars in our eyes, but boy, (back then) we girls KNEW we were special.

We walked out of school every day,wearing ties (We went to a Catholic School) and we held our heads high, as the smartest and brightest girls, the best of our generation. LABOR OMNIA VINCIT.

Now we hear of girls, barely in their teens, wondering if they look "sexy", being asked to perform oral sex on some little pimply jerk who passes her on to his friends.

Maybe commercials like AXE will provide them a glimmering of the truth. That any woman with a real sense of identity and self-assurance and confidence will not throw herself at his feet. He's got to earn her repect and regard. And that is a good thing. Because, historically, men have always been better human beings for respecting women.The younger they begin, the better.

What's up wih all the quasi-masonic imagery on the website?

or anything like it of course it would be important (of course none of this would apply to more mature males with more emotionally developed adult sensibilities blah blah balh). An effective means of attracting women is like food to a starving person for all but a tiny fraction of the male poulation who are celebrities/rock stars/etc. It's not really pleasant to see such basic facts of biology so willfully denied. Hand wringing over something like this really suggests that, at least when it comes to sex, we all have out our own internal Taliban.

Axe is the American version of a product in Ireland called Lynx. All the Irish boys in Boston used it. They would go home, stock up on spray-cans of it, and then come back with that wonderful Irish-boy smell. I could walk down the street and pick out the Irish boys walking past me just by the way they smelled.

Now even the gangly brace-faced pimply American teenagers with their pants hanging off their asses and those damn flat-brimmed feed hats wear it and I can't find my lovely irish boys anymore.

What's a girl to do???

When my son was in middle school, there was a cloud of Axe wafting outside the locker room. It was usually used to cover up the sweaty body odor resulting from afterschool athletic pursuits. It was more likely to gag the carpooling mother than attract girls. High schoolers don't even bother with the stuff. It's today's young boys equivalent to Brut or Jovan Musk, or the Love's Baby Soft/Fresh Lemon that we used to slather on after field hockey practice.

The commercials certainly are dumb, but I don't know how many boys really think they are going to get girls with Axe. My son knew he wasn't. ;-)

Insert my chuckle here. I agree with your post wholeheartedly...

What news???

the overly aggressive marketing being used to reach a very specific sub-segment of our youth.

I'm not so sure the posting reflects this well, but those commenting that this is nothing new apparently have no idea how much impact this is having on children.

It is not, as the first letter-writer states, simply "using sex to sell product."

I remember being 12 and 13 years old and trying different colognes (Jovan Musk, Brut, Polo). But there wasn't advertising that was so directed at my age group. And I also know that it wasn't as prevalent as it is today.

I'm not that concerned about boys and sex and misperceptions about how to treat or gain the attention of girls. I'm concerned about how stupid these kids must be now, or are going to feel later, and the irritation this 'fad' will be providing us adults for the next few years.

...is that twelve-year-old boys are both sex-crazed and gullible. Who knew? They're probably the same ones who, decades ago, saved their paper route money to buy gadgets **GUARANTEED** to increase the size of their pectorals and biceps in three weeks!

Sadly, these are exactly the kind who will grow up insisting that women don't want to date "nice guys." Or, at least the women they want to attract.