Do Ads That Use Sex To Sell Their Products Degrade Women?

My commentary is based on the article: Do ads that use sex to sell their products degrade women? 

LINK:http://www.helium.com/items/488716-do-ads-that-use-sex-to-sell-their-products-degrade-women 

The person who wrote the article claims that advertisements, which try to sell their products through somewhat degrading and offensive images of women, are not the ones to blame when it comes to the diminishment of women’s roles. The writer says that women make themselves to be treated in a degraded manner, taking action that makes people think low of them.

However, although I understand the author’s point of view, I disagree a lot of what he has said. I lived in Brazil for about 11 years and have seen many advertisements that displayed women half-naked wearing skimpy underwear. Those advertisements were in very public places such as the highways, in front of restaurants, etc. Whenever I saw the advertisements, I felt very embarrassed and honestly did not know where to look at when the advertisements were in front of me. Hence, when the author says, “Lastly, use of a woman's body in advertisements and their impact has gone down considerably. People have realized that the rich, beautiful but scantily clad woman in the ad promoting a cheaper body lotion or a perfume, does not use the product herself”. The writer may have a point as she claims that the impact of the use of a woman’s body in order to sell a product has gone down, but I don’t agree that the advertisements do not affect the degrading status of women. The advertisements constantly remind people (and mostly men) about the women’s body and how they are used in society. Hence, even though people forget about certain images they had about women, once they see the advertisement, people are automatically lead to think about how women are somewhat more vulnerable. Hence, although I agree that to some extent women are degrading themselves through thoughtless actions, I think that the media plays a great role. The media keeps on playing the role of the reminder, in which it constantly uses women and reminds the public that women are very vulnerable and easy to manipulate.