Dylan John Mazziotti

SS205: Sociology, Week 06 Activity Personal Ad Activity

To prepare for this assignment, I read through each of the personal ads provided and did an analysis of the content. What roles are they putting themselves into? How will this role attract other people? Is it genuine? were the questions that I asked myself. based upon this research was complete, I compiled my thoughts below by categorize some of the ads into three theories.

The first theory pertaining to the personal ads, that I wanted to present is patriarchy or male dominance concept. There are at least two ads that stuck out to me that tap into this theory. The Indiana Jones ad reflects himself as a macho adventurer who wants/needs someone by his side. That being said, Marion is a strong character in the films. Secondly, the Hot Business Guy looking for an Occasional Travel Companion on his trips. Which reads to me like a booty call.

The next theory that I pulled from the ads was feminism, where are being strong and independent. One of the add that reflects this is the Take Me As I Am one where the woman is telling the man that he needs to accept her take charge attitude, independence and strength if they are going to share time together. The other ad featuring the 32yo female look for relationship. Her strength and assertiveness is just dripping off each word of the ad.

Lastly, the final theory discovered in these ads is gender reverse. Many of the Men Seeking Women ads had men wearing their hearts on their sleeve and expressing heartfelt sentiments. I suspect that many of these were genuine but could also just being said to attract the women under false pretenses because other ways have not worked previously.

In conclusion, the ads provided were a great sample of what is out there. But, I would have been interested to see the selection of ads here expanded into men seeking men and women seeking women categories to see if these same theories would have applied. It would also be interesting to see if ads would have played it macho or gone more sensitive when attracting the same sex.