The advertisement I will be deconstructing for my culture jam was originally formatted as a video advertisement from the company Trojan. For the purposes of this project, part of the advertisement was taken as a screen capture. The Trojan company is known for its production of sexual lubricants and condoms. The specific advertisement in question is that for the company’s dual lubricant set – “pre-game” and “game time”. This product is presented as a complementary set of two lubricants meant for foreplay, “pre-game” and penetrative penis-in-vagina sex, “game time”.
The most notable detail is that the “pre-game” is pink and the “game time” is blue. This not only implies a heteronormative cis-gendered female/male relationship but also implies that sexual foreplay is simply a warm-up to heteronormative P-in-V sex. This advertisement denunciates the value of various ways people may engage in sex as simply existing as a lead up to penetrative sex. It suggests instead that acts considered as “foreplay”, such as digital sex and oral sex, only exist in order to prepare the woman for an act that will provide pleasure for the man. A further implication from the heteronormative construction of this ad is the denunciation of queer sex. The idea that “game time” is equal to penetrative vaginal sex (with a penis) condemns the existence of queer sex as unreal, or as being inferior to heterosexual sex. This advertisement’s act of condemning queer sex also reinstates the social construction of virginity due to the fact that suggesting “game time” is equivalent to P-in-V sex disavowals other forms of (queer) sex. The marginalization of queer forms of sex suggests that people that engage in these forms of sex are still “virgins” have they not also engaged in P-in-V sex.
In short, this advertisement reinstates heteronormative cis-gendered sex while also renouncing queer sex as inferior. It enacts the erasure of various forms of sex and re-establishes the social construction of virginity.
Original Image Address: https://d2z1w4aiblvrwu.cloudfront.net/ad/7xaj/trojan-tonight-get-your-game-on-large-7.jpg