![\"Your](\"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/yw_hot.png\" "\\"Your")
Until recently, there was a billboard in Nottingham at the junction between Porchester Road and Woodborough Road which carried the ad shown above.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUntil recently, there was a billboard in Nottingham at the junction between Porchester Road and Woodborough Road which carried the ad shown above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The owner of the company, Lee Davies, had seen the same sort of ad used in America \u2013 and if you Google it, they use it a lot \u2013 and decided to use the idea himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In most cases where it is used, they have an image of an attractive female, with the text \u201cYour Wife Is Hot\u201d, and some follow up stuff about getting the air-conditioning sorted out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Davies ran the idea past his family (including females) and none of them found it offensive. Indeed, when it went up in July, he was getting people asking if he could do a male version, which he seemed prepared to do at some point. He\u2019d paid for two months, and that would be setting him back at least \u00a31,500 (probably more), and he almost certainly wanted to check the return on his investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that time, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had received two complaints about it. Frankly, he could have put up a photo of a kitten and some prat would probably have complained. Also, quite frankly, if he had<\/strong> used a photo of a kitten and someone had complained, the ASA would still<\/strong> almost certainly have somehow concocted a reason to ban it. Which they have done now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You see, the ASA has recently introduced rules about the use of gender stereotypes in advertising, so you can no longer advertise, say, a family-oriented product using a picture of a typical family (i.e. the kind everyone would recognise). If you even dare to suggest a family consists of a man and a woman with children, you\u2019re pretty much dead meat. You can\u2019t use white models without running the risk of being convicted of being non-inclusive, and if you try to play the game and put some of the allowed minority groups in it, you\u2019ve then got to wrestle with how your depiction matches up with their perception of themselves. And since that roughly equates to \u201chow long is a piece of string\u201d, you\u2019re basically screwed. Then there\u2019s the matter of whether any females depicted are thin, fat, short, tall, pregnant\u2026 whichever you go for, the others will complain, so you\u2019re screwed again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is the issue of being female in itself. There are several parallel universes running together here, because it\u2019s perfectly OK for a woman to dress attractively (or even to the extent that she could be auditioning for an adult film role), but if a man dares to observe the fact\u2026 he\u2019s dead meat, again. It\u2019s apparently wrong for a man to ask a woman out anymore \u2013 or at least, it could easily turn into such a scenario if the woman decides she is \u201coffended\u201d and reports it. Which could happen anything up to 40 years later, if what I keep reading in the news is true. And if she does report it, the police will drop all their paperwork and cancel all their community meetings immediately, send a SWAT team out, possibly call in the BBC with helicopters and drones and stuff, then put on \u201cextra patrols to reassure the public\u201d. And ruin the rest of the guy\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a nutshell the world has gone mad, and the ASA are a bunch of morons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are thousands of adverts I find offensive one way or another. That bloody TUI ad with the whiny singing girl a couple of Christmases ago, for one. Anything with whistling for another. Anything with rap music of any kind in it. Anything with kids eating \u2013 especially when they\u2019re wearing the food instead of getting it in their mouths, so pretty much anything with babies or toddlers. And don\u2019t even get me started on how they try to show things that really shouldn\u2019t be shown outside the baby-changing facilities in McDonalds, or the changing rooms in a clothes shop \u2013 especially when I\u2019m having my dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I don\u2019t complain. I just moan on the blog about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s nothing wrong with the ad, and the (now) 25 people who have complained should just either be totally ignored, or referred to a psychiatrist for the help they obviously need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n