Apparently, “the sexy shot of Mel and her husband was taken to
raise awareness of charity CoppaFeel! ahead of Breast Cancer
Awareness month.” I’m not even sure quite where to start with
pointing out everything that is cringeworthy about this statement,
but let’s try the word ‘sexy’.

Breast cancer already is a ‘sexy’ disease, if you must, not just
because it happens to involve women’s secondary sexual organs, but
because it is one of the most well-publicised, well-funded of
diseases that the human race is trying to be rid of. But cancer
charities’ continuing compulsion to treat its audience like the
guffawing viewers of a Carry-On film and patronise us with
sexualised adverts is not just unnecessary, it’s offensive to us
all.

We know breast cancer involves ‘boobies’. We’ve seen the cause
endorsed by plenty of perky, dewy-skinned young women who still
have both breasts intact. We’re aware of the connection to sex. And
yes, this may have all helped increase our public awareness of the
disease – it’s hard to imagine pancreatic cancer receiving the same
attention, even though it has the lowest
five year survival rate of all cancers suffered in the UK.

But having achieved such a strong presence in the public
consciousness, breast cancer charities now need to use their
position to stop insulting survivors – many of whom do not have
both or even one breast to flash in airbrushed photo campaigns –
and see that their advertising grows the hell up.

As writer Taslima
Nasreen puts it, the focus on the sexualized ‘boobs’ as Mel B
chummily describes them, “emphasizes an elevated status that a
woman’s breast has over her person and … reinforces importance
that society places on these physical objects.” Appropriately,
Taslima’s piece on the harm that breast cancer advertising does to
its admirable objective is called “Did you ever think of
sexualizing penile cancer, dude?”. And don’t even get me started on
naming a campaign ‘Coppafeel’, with all its unpleasant overtones of
surreptitious sexual assault that this implies.

Yet in an even more stunning move, in an attempt to publicise
the certainly under-exposed fact that men can also suffer from
breast cancer, women’s bodies have once again been hijacked to
publicise a male cancer. In
a viral video, Chris O Dowd (a comic I previously believed was
classier than this, but for whom I have now lost all respect),
plays the fictional Lars Larson, ‘health and safety officer for the
‘Topless Female Trampolining World Championship’.

Featuring young, slim, white women in various states of undress
stretching, disrobing and bouncing on trampolines, the video lasts
4 minutes 44 minutes yet fails to actually mention men getting
breast cancer till the viewer has endured 3 minutes 50 seconds of
entirely gratuitous close-ups on female body parts. I thought we
ceased to find bouncing bosoms an amusing and ‘ironic’ way of
promoting a cause somewhere around the time we stopped finding
Benny Hill funny.

But apparently no objectification is too cheap and tacky, as
long as it’s only happening to women and as long as it’s being
justified in the name of ‘a good cause’. This tactic is also deeply
insulting to the male audience at which the campaign is aimed, as
it assumes men are too stupid and simple-minded to take notice of
an informative medical campaign unless it is couched in sexual
imagery so obnoxious that even Peter Stringfellow would deem it ‘a
bit sleazy’.

It’s time to put the boobs away and start behaving like adults.
We know cancer kills, and most of us know we should be checking our
breasts or chests or testicles or bowel movements for signs of
these killers. Those of us who aren’t aware aren’t likely to become
suddenly enlightened because someone shoves a pert pair of tits in
their faces, and if they have proceeded unaware of cancer
advertising for so long, they are probably more likely to be
blinded by the sexualisation and fail to even notice the actual
message of the campaign.

So how about a campaign called ‘Respect’, with clothed men and
women of all ages, shapes and races, giving us some hard facts
about the reality of all cancers and what we can do to prevent
them. Because respect for their audience, both male and female, is
entirely what’s lacking from both campaigns – and more offensive of
all, respect for cancer survivors too.

Article source: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-is-breast-cancer-awareness-made-so-sexy-8135480.html