What's been on my mind...

A few week ago I stumbled on a video that has really stuck with me.
It is called Killing Us Softly 3.
Since that time I have found myself obsessively looking at ads and trying to dissect what the ad is trying to tell me. I have spent hours combing the internet and magazines and it is really profoundly disturbing.
So I thought I would share a couple of them with you.

First up, this lovely Portuguese MTV ad for safe sex....

Okay, I don't speak Portuguese but I get it, having sex with out a condom is dangerous.

I am SURE there was a better way to convey this message. I can think of half a dozen better/different means of telling women that they should use a condom and I am not an advertising executive.
For Example....
I love these ones from the Ministry of Health and Social Services Quebec. They say SO much and without reducing a faceless woman to her sexual parts.
And speaking of her sexual parts, to me these are not the nethers of a grown woman, they are the nethers of a undeveloped prepubescent girl.

I believe in safe sex.
I believe in advertising of safe sex.
I don't believe in equating safe, consensual sex with images that that make sex look sinister and violent.
This picture doesn't sing to me of taking charge of my own reproductive health but screams to me of rape and sexual violence against helpless vulnerable girls.

There are dozens more of these and I am going to try and share some more. But for now I am going to go look at pictures of kitties and flowers to try and erase some of this awfulness.