Sex Sells...?

I am never going to disagree with the marketing mantra that 'sex sells' and I will openly admit that I have ogled my fair share of gorgeous male specimens in advertising campaigns. Additionally, many, many years ago I got a job partly because I could look pleasing to the eye in a mini-skirt. Discussion as to whether these practices are ethical, degrading, sexiest etc. is not my purpose at this time.

My query is can using 'sex' and physical appeal cross the line from alluring to comically ridiculous if a context/implied narrative is lacking and the 'sell' is too obvious? Or is it just me?

Whilst shopping today I walked into one of those surfer/urban/faux-preppy stores; the ones that sell polo-shirts, sloganed t-shirts and cargo pants; play their music uber loud; keep their lights dim; and style their stores like Tiki huts.

What was different about this particular store was that standing in the entrance was a young guy - admittedly very good looking in that all-American way - with a perfect 'model-like' body. How did I know his body was so perfect? He was standing there without this shirt on. A first I thought he was a mannequin, so when he moved I nearly had a heart-attack and then I had to stop myself from laughing hysterically.

Having a topless sales assistant in itself I consider a bit odd, especially in a clothing store, but what really made the situation weird was that it was so obvious that this guy's sole purpose was to stand at the front of the store with his shirt off, without anything else to do except looking good and vaguely uncomfortable.

There is a racy lingerie store here in Toronto that has girls wearing their merchandise, dancing in the store windows, and waving to passers-by.

Both stores are trading on the sexiness of quasi-naked people sells factor, so why did I find the shirtless guy so comically ridiculous but the dancing undies girls 'cheeky'?

I realized that the dancing undies girls fit with the burlesque image of the store, promote its product, and that having them dance gives them an activity to do that vaguely suggests a narrative within a context of the store's purpose and hence is less absurd.

The Tiki-hut-look store's attempt to use the 'sex sells' approach was so awkwardly obvious, lacking even the thinnest vein of contextualization or implied narrative that it looked plain ridiculous. I decided that if the shirtless guy had been waxing his surfboard or some other similar activity that fitted with the image of the store the ploy would have worked and I may have found it cheesy but not ridiculous.

So now I acknowledge that to 'sell' the 'sex' it takes more than quasi-naked bodies to have me sold and that the creation of an implied narrative that fits into the image of the store makes all the difference. I think it's called 'buying into the lifestyle' of the brand.

Am I crazy to need a contrived context and would you have found it sexy?