i dont have words for this.

This is horrible.

I wrote an email to the company.

You can do so by going to http://www.theaxeeffect.com and at the bottom of the page, three links over, there is a contact us link. It's kind of hard to find because the letters are really small and gray so it blends in with the black background.

For a lot of us, it is hard to think of what to write but once we get started, the words come naturally to us. I thought that I should post the letter that I wrote to them so it can help anyone that wants to write to them get started and come up with ideas of what to write:

I recently came across your video on your web site (http://www.axevice.com/naughtytonice/).

While I have enjoyed your previous ads, such as the one with a woman pole dancing with the pipe that drains the water from a showering man, which was quite funny, I find this campaign to be offensive and disturbing.

To belittle the issues of rape and sexual assault in this manner is not just reprehensible, but it is also damaging. It legitimizes the misconception that sexual assault is about lust, which your product is said to invoke in a woman, while the truth is, sexual assault is about power and domination. To depict the "victim" with a goofy smile on his face, while humorous, minimizes, to the point of dismissing, the psychological consequences of sexual assault and the pain the victim feels, both emotionally and physically. Even the mild term "naughty" to describe the girls who assault these Axe-wearing men further diminishes the heinous nature of these crimes.

Rape is a serious crime in our country, approximately two out of three women get sexually assaulted at some point in their life. This is a seriously problematic statistic. Write down the names of three women that you know. Cross out two of those names. That is the magnitude of how often and how many people suffer. Many of these victims even commit suicide due to the emotional pain they endure.

I appreciate you reading this letter, I hope you take this issue seriously, and decide to stop running this particular ad campaign in order to be a responsible and sensitive company.

Sincerely,
Belladonna Matrka

Superb, Belladonna! Thanks for the inspiring example!

I don't even know what to say.

I tried to send my letter twice, but I got error messages. I used some of your ideas, Bella - thanks.

Here's the letter; hopefully someone associated with Axe will actually read it:
To whom it may concern:

I recently witnessed your video on your web site (http://www.axevice.com/naughtytonice/). While I usually find Axe ads amusing and lighthearted, I was extremely offended at this ad. I feel that it made light of sexual assault, which is completely inappropriate and not an issue to joke about.

RAINN (The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) estimates that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. College students, an agegroup which Axe targets, are four times as likely to be sexually assaulted than any other group. About 60% of assaults are never reportd to police, and about every two minutes, someone in the United States is sexually assaulted. (Information from www.rainn.org/statistics).

Yet the video insinuates that sexual assault is not traumatizing. The "victim" in the video was portrayed with a goofy smile on his face, not experiencing any kind of pain, just shock and possibly pleasure. This depiction could not be more false; rape is a horrible crime which causes severe psychological damage for months or years after the incident and physical pain for weeks. The video insinuated that rape is a crime of lust, committed by individuals who cannot control themselves. The reality is that sexual assaults are about power and domination. Belittling rape is inappropriate and not amusing. It only perpetuates rape myths which further traumatize victims and cause the majority of sexual assaults to go unreported.

Thank you for your time, and I sincerely hope that the company will reconsider this campaign to sell Axe products.

Sincerely,
Emily Kitsmiller

Well I watched enough to get the general idea, I really didn't have the patience to sit the whole thing out. Some people really do have flies circling round the top of their heads!
I've fired off a quick email to them.