Scaring Men Healthy: Pokey Czechs & Models with Testicles

by AdFool | October 14, 2011 at 02:22 pm

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For guys, getting old can actually be a good thing. Bad eyes and worse hearing can provide welcome relief from the sights and sounds of everyday idiots. Plus you’re never expected to change your mind about anything - ever. You can say (and wear) whatever the heck you want whether it makes sense (or matches) or not. In fact, as long as you can successfully evade whatever bloodsucking relatives you might have bent on early-euthanization, you’re pretty much set. The only real problems with aging these days are those pesky health issues.

Now dealing with men’s health is tricky. For the first few years of our lives we cry at the smallest thing, allowing mommy to do her best to take the pain away. Eventually though dad takes hold and guys are forced to learn the lessons of manhood that imprint on us for good: stop complaining, suck it up and quit acting like a princess. And generally we do – spending the next four or five decades “shaking it off” and pretending that we’re invincible.

Women, on the other hand, from a very young age are taught to look after themselves properly. Routinely, girls are bundled off to whatever doctor and/or specialist is required to advise on one of their many health concerns. This isn’t to suggest they are any weaker than men, just that women have learned far earlier the value of asking for – and getting – help. They proactively take care of themselves because they have been trained to. It’s no wonder they outlive us – though that reality is being tested evermore as our institutional betters have decided we men need to take better pre-emptive care of our “issues.” Enter advertising, aimed directly at the rapidly aging man.

One spot focuses on that most hated of male checks – the prostate. Getting a prostate exam ranks somewhere behind a root canal and even getting a leg amputated without anaesthesia. For most, a finger in the ass is not exactly aspirational. No matter – that is expected to change thanks to “The Prostate Czech.”

Little more than an online video (plus cheesy graphics), The Prostate Czech is a man of eastern European descent in a red track suit running around offering to check prostates on the spot – on the street, at a shopping cart, in a hockey arena, in a public shower(!), etc. The responses certainly appear real in that most guys either demur without making direct eye contact or do a quick U-Turn and head away from him ASAP. Is it really a fear of better health that prevents men from getting checked or the idea of some hairy weirdo offering to do it on a busy street? Gee, that’s a tough one...........

Another campaign attacks yet another specifically male issue - testicular cancer. This one takes a different tack (Very NSFW), opening on an unbelievably sexy female model named Rhian, lingerie-clad and posing alongside a pounding rock track, as the camera pans her body suggestively. She then turns to camera and asks “Do you want to see me touch myself?” Etiquette aside, it’s safe to assume that most male folks (and even some gals) are saying “yes, please” by this point. Rhian then starts sliding her hands....uh....down there. Hoo boy, this ad is getting.....well, actually it gets pretty freakin’ creepy from here on out.

Rhian actually starts stroking at her crotch and then goes so far as to peel her panties back to reveal.....a great big set of hairy testicles. WHAAAT? As your mouth flops open in disbelief super-hot Rhian starts fondling her....man parts. NOOOOO! Suddenly, she proclaims “This might be easier” as she pulls the so-real-you-can’t-believe-it’s-fake nut sack from her unders and holds it up in the air, going on to explain how a guy ought to be self-checking himself for testicular cancer. Eye-catching? Uh, yes. Memorable? Absolutely....but not likely in the way the creators might have imagined.

Both of these ads exploit the “all attention is good attention” trope to the limit. Yes, they got me to look at their ads but am I really taking either “issue” any more seriously than I did before? Personally, the combination of horrors so scarred me that anytime I see a hot chick, or a large Czech in a track suit, I am tempted to run screaming in the opposite direction.

Instead of trying to “raise awareness” by shocking men with a “Crying Game”-like twist to online stealth porn, or frightening them with images of a stiff-fingered Czech why not suggest they get themselves checked for various maladies so their families won’t have to miss them when they’re gone? Maybe appeal to personal responsibility instead of the funny (or horny) bone? Old guys usually have some of that too. And personally, that approach would cut far more ice with me than video of a fashion model stroking a set of disembodied male testes. I guess I’m just weird like that.