A very simple picture, a pair of lips made of alcohol bottles with less than 25 words advertising delicious, UV Pink Lemonade Vodka. The lips are easy to understand-a kiss for Valentine’s Day. This is pretty straightforward; a Valentine’s Day party is going to be a lot more fun with alcohol, especially UV Vodka. There is even a recipe for a drink-Secret Crush. What better way to show someone you like him or her, then a mixed drink. This ad is illustrating very clearly how in today’s young adult world alcohol and sex have become tightly linked and viewed as a casual thing.
Valentine’s Day in America is a time to be with a loved partner, to show your love for that person who is most special to you, or maybe just to find a partner who will give you some love for the night. What can help someone in a quest for love? Alcohol. The shape of the lips says a lot. First the shape is one associated with a girl’s lips. Second the color of the lips, pink, is associated with girls, as most guys don’t wear pink lipstick. The lips are slightly open ready for a kiss or perhaps to accept something else within. So the UV Vodka is meant for girls and will make them ready for love. In other words guys if you want some action give your girl some delicious vodka and you have the key to her heart (or mouth or maybe somewhere else that was once guarded by a chastity belt that also required a key, although not a liquid one). In any case alcohol plays a large role it would seem in young guys and girls today getting together for some sexual activities.
This advertisement was from a Rolling Stone magazine. In general Rolling Stone markets to younger people so it is fairly obvious that this ad is targeting young people. Second UV Pink Lemonade is one of the new “pop” alcoholic beverages that are generally targeted to young people. This targeting of young people along with the implied idea that you can obtain sex or at least love using alcohol is fairly widespread through American culture. In fact one of the most popular movies over the summer, Superbad, was based exclusively on the quest of two high school seniors to get alcohol so they could hook up with some hotties. I went to this movie in a full theater and I can tell you I didn’t see anyone who appeared to be much older than college aged. Another movie with a similar target demographic was Knocked Up, which features casual sex between two young people after a night of drinking as the catalyst for the rest of the story. Even when I went to orientation for college this summer one thing that was emphasized was practicing safe sex and the relation of alcohol and sex. If the University feels this is a big enough deal to tell every incoming freshman then this is real and not just based in movies.
The ad even uses the word love. At the bottom it says, “Give your party some love”. Once again the recurring theme of love comes up. Isn’t love something that is intangible and exists between people who have generally built up a relationship over years? This is saying that love is a tangible thing that can be purchased and supplied in colorful bottles. Parties with alcohol are usually quite casual. I have never been to a party where every one loves each other, at least not in the way associated with Valentine’s Day, romantic love. So a different kind of love is going to be found, probably the kind involving a combination of a certain appendage and any number of orifices. Everyone wants to have a good time at a party and what better way than to find some love (and I think we know which kind).
This ad has many signifiers linking alcohol and casual sex among today’s college aged and twenty somethings. The lovely girl’s mouth made of alcohol bottles, the suggestion of buying love in the form of vodka for a party, and the ad bringing up Valentine’s Day as a day to celebrate with alcohol. The use of UV Vodka Pink Lemonade, a drink intended for the young, as well as other examples of the casual nature of sex such as in Superbad, Knocked Up, and that the casual hook ups that are widely expected at college parties, show how alcohol is an integral part of the casual sex that is common among today’s young adults.
