Calvin Klein Billboard Raises the Bar, Eyebrows, Ire

"I don't get where people decide what's sexy and what's disgusting," a friend of mine tells me over instant messenger this morning. "It's like a terrible case of groupthink where people get this great creative director, and then follow him over the cliff." I wasn't going to bother writing about the newbie Calvin Klein threesomesque billboard that made its debut today on Houston Street and Lafayette in Soho; I am quite certain that there will be plenty of pro-con discussion about drawing the line and pushing the envelope. There will be heated debates by sweaty, bible-thumping conservatives, furrowed brows on baby-nursing hippie mothers, and probably a couple thousand blog posts like this one. Calvin Klein's advertisements have often been sexually charged: Brooke Shields goes commando, Natalia Vodianova enjoys sex on the beach (not the drink), pretty boys and tomboy girls suggesting androgyny. This advert seems to drive straight through the stop light of suggestion, denying their market the freedom to decide what it means for themselves, and plasters the picture with big bold words that translate to "This is a threesome." Followed by; "Possibly a foursome." Suddenly we have a paradigm shift.

Earlier this year, the accompanying television advertisement—seemingly a behind-the-scenes look at the original Steven Meisel shoot, featuring Natasha Poly, Anna Jagodzinska, Edita Vilkeviciute, and Anna Selezneva (pictured) sprawled over a couch, over the floor, and over three nubile young men—was banned from US airwaves, pending an approved edit for cable TV. The original uncut commercial is still available on Calvin Klein’s site, spurring some in the media to cry conspiracy, calling the ad just another “predictable fake controversy trend” in an attempt to drum up the interest of their web-savvy (and porn-savvy) audience, as well as the “attention of bloggers” in order to “assure it has a longer life and a larger audience.”

Well, as demonstrated by this post, the strategy must have worked, right? And honestly, the full version of the TV ad—showing 18-year-old Vilkeviciute writhing topless beside 19-year-old Selezneva, beneath a very touchy male model attending to the latter as well as the 21-year-old Jagodzinska—would need a miracle to run in a slot after your favorite rerun of The Hills. However, the fact that they’ve expanded this ad from the privacy of our home computer or the relative safety of a European magazine to the stage of public space ... well, America, that’s ”just taking it too far.”

There are laws against fornicating in public, but that’s also why so many couples enjoy getting it on in an alley. I’m simply pondering if this billboard has to be so black and white. Pedestrians questioned in view of the billboard seem to offer up safe opinions, reactions in line with our current social mores: ”I think it’s in poor taste” and ”it’s really inappropriate.” But if this is so shocking, than why does Youporn.com, an American-hosted pornography site, receive an estimated 275,124,153 monthly visitors? Why is ”Megan Fox leaked photos” among today’s top Google searches? Not to say that we Americans are a ravenous, sex-crazed nation, but the Calvin Klein television advertisement banned from American TV is set to air in full on stations across Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. Meanwhile, European magazines like French Vogue routinely portray models giving one another proper rim jobs, and here I am looking at a photo of the act on the world wide web. Bottom line: Sex is no longer stashed underneath your mattress, it’s not locked up behind a password-protected website, it’s not just in France. It’s on in-your-face pop-up ads, and on the main page of your favorite website. It’s more mainstream than ever before, and because of how easily we are able to access it, how is a brand like Calvin Klein, known for pushing the envelope and applying shock and awe tactics, still supposed to portray themselves as cutting edge?

They take sex out of the comfort of one’s house and put it out on the town. Perhaps Calvin Klein isn’t just using sex to sell, per se. What if their point is to go beyond using sex to merely spike a profit and instead spark a dialogue? If something is so easily accessible, it means it’s no longer cutting edge at all—but it doesn’t mean that the topic is fully ready for prime time, either. But sex sells because we like to have it, and we certainly love to Google it, so why not talk about it? And, as the billboard seems to suggest, why don’t we talk about it on the corner of Houston and Lafayette? Because really, all talk about sex is good talk, whether you’re sexting your loved one from afar, explaining the purpose of using a condom in a sex ed class, or telling your little Susie that true love waits. Maybe it isn’t groupthink to follow the creative director over the cliff; maybe it’s groupthink to assume we can stick with our same social norms as long as people are leaking Rihanna pictures.