SEXIS WRONG

“Fucked up and busy as shit,” he says, wiping his forehead
with the back of his hand. My boyfriend works with power
tools, dangerous chemicals, and heavy equipment. I suppose
our jobs are equally hazardous.
He doesn’t hold anything against porn. He isn’t threatened
by my job. And for that, I think I might be the luckiest girl in
triple-X.
—
2:10 – 4:00 p m : Attend review meeting for an “out of the
box” project that management suggested. Smile and
take it up the ass when management claims the project
strays too far from “the way we do things.” Allot three
hours into schedule for an entire re-do.
These aggravations are well known to all professional advertisers.
It’s the age-old battle of Corporate vs. Creative. Although
it’s mostly guesswork, there are proven tactics that
help marketing campaigns succeed. Sometimes creative
strategies are wrong. Sometimes corporate strategies are
right. But most of the time, these battles are just fucking retarded.
If you’re lucky enough to work on a creative staff for any company
that advocates risk, your bosses have my blessings and
you have my envy.
Here’s an example of why.
Corporate says: We’re doing too much of the same thing.
We’re getting lazy and falling back on formulas instead of expanding
ideas. Let’s have a blue sky! Let’s think NEW. Let’s
think INNOVATION! Let’s think OUTSIDE THE BOX.
Creative says: Okay! We’ve been aching, longing, and praying
to do something new and different. Thank you! We accept
this request with open arms, and we shall proceed beyond
the box.
Corporate says: Excellent. Your deadline is in five days.
Five days pass, and the team reviews the project again.
Creative says: Look at this new ad! We totally got outside
the box on this. See how the woman’s legs are spread, with
a decency dot that doubles as a call to action? See how we
used blue and black on thick kraft paper, instead of pink and
red on regular paper? See how we decided to use a curvy
brunette chick with natural breasts? See how we wrote header
copy that says, “Cum One, Cum All”? Isn’t this different?
Isn’t this clever?
Corporate says: Let’s start with the woman’s legs. They can’t
be spread open that wide. It’s too explicit. The call to action
needs to be the headline, not a decency dot. You need to follow
our existing layout template. The colors are all wrong. Why
did you choose black and blue? Are you connotating a boxing
match or an abusive relationship? You know we use pink and
red as our color scheme. We’re unclear as to why you changed
this. And the kraft paper is too expensive. As far as the girl
goes, you know that thin, big-breasted blondes have more visual
appeal, which is why we always use them. And as far as
the copy goes, no clever, and absolutely NO CUM.
Creative says: But you told us to think outside the box.
Corporate says: We always encourage new ideas. But this
just strays too far from the way we do things.
I deal with every manner of box. Shaved, trimmed, hairy,
young, mature, ugly, pretty, tight, loose, virginal, and veteran,
and I love them all. The only box I don’t love is the box I’m
asked to get out of, then told to get right back in.
—
4:00 – 6:00 p m : Receive your latest round of edited product
copy. Your editors, all 53 of them, disagree with both
your copy and each other. Spend five minutes crying,
ten minutes laughing, and an hour making revisions
from all 53 editors.
After four years of writing product descriptions for Sex
World’s vast treasure of adult products, I’ve noticed that the
copywriting cycle has four stages. First, we’re presented with
more porn and sex toys than anyone should ever handle. Second,
we thoroughly research each item. This is the fun part.
Third, we write “absolutely NO more than 75 words, Libby!”
to describe the unique selling point of each product. And last,
we print out each document and submit them to the painful
process known as copy editing.
Taken out of context, these copy edits are funny to people
who don’t write copy for a living, especially when the editors’
comments in the actual Word documents conflict with each
other:
Are we really sure our customers know what “DP” is?
Our customers know what “DP” is. We’ve been using
that acronym for like 10 years.
I’m not comfortable with assuming they know what
“DP” is. Please spell it out.
Not enough room to spell out “Double Penetration.”
The visual of the girl with two cocks in her holes will
spell it out just fine.
~
Is there another adjective besides “chocolate” or “ebony”
or “cinnamon” to use to describe black performers?
No.
182 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG