As if dealing with the awful sight of model Heidi Klum’s boobs in a Jordache ad isn’t painful enough, Americans also have to deal with that little mortgage thing that threatens to eat everyone’s home.
Apparently, Australia can discuss both—sex and mortgages—at once. Local lender Virgin Money’s new print and TV ads show a naked old couple being very, very affectionate.
In America, the response would be, ‘how do we keep men, women, and children from contracting polio, HIV, and permanent brain damage from this lascivious ad?’
In Australia, by contrast, the question is, “will these lascivious ads help sell the product?’ The product is mortgages, and the company’s selling point is the advantages of a long-term commitment—they actually lower the rate after several years to reward loyalty.
So are Australian eyeballs somehow tougher than ours? Do they love their kids less than we do?
All the sanctimonious talk from America’s morality police about the media’s gratuitous sex and glamorous young people hooking up instead of falling in love and regretting their tattoos is ironic.
These Australian ads depict what should be the poster children of the Right—old geezers married for 50 years, squeezing each other. And paying their mortgage, of course.
But no, if it’s sex, it’s not OK with us Yanks.
Of course, they might use the Australian ad campaign as a way to reduce adolescent sex and pregnancy. Surely plenty of teens would look at the two oldies getting hot and respond “Eeyewwwwwwww! Gross!”
End of sex—and of future mortgage problems too, perhaps.