When we talked about the J.Crew ad that featured a female executive painting her son’s toes pink, the interesting backlash that is coming from it reminded me of an ad campaign that Dolce and Gabbana did while I lived in Italy.

The Dolce and Gabbana Florence store is a corner location with display windows spanning 1/4 block on both sides.  These ads were sectioned up to fill the whole window space, the female image on one side and the male on the other.

It was interesting to me that the one featuring the female gained so much more attention (vandalism, broken windows and protestors) than the other (the one featuring the nude male), as both featured what could be viewed as a rape scene,  yet the nude male ad hardly gained mention in the press or from any protestors (possibly due to the male’s subdued appearance, while the female appears to be struggling).

In the end, the ad featuring the female was banned in Spain and Italy, and eventually pulled from the campaign altogether, yet the one featuring the male was allowed to run for a short period before the whole campaign was dropped.

D&G PR denies that they intended to show exploitation or rape in any of the campaign images.