See me, feel me, touch me, buy me

No 88: DUREX

DOES the presence of a thin rubbery membrane reduce sexual feeling? Can the presence of Bjork's distinctive voice go some way towards restoring it? These are the vital questions raised by the new Durex ad, which pulls out all the stops to suggest that confident generalised polysensuality beats localised genital concerns anyday. They do this by illustrating every possible sort of sense experience - smell, touch, sound and sight - and, as advertisers will nowadays, switching from black and white to colour.

All the scenes are, of course, in extremely short bursts, since this is an ad which will be closely watched for violations; but slowed down and watched in detail it is like a 1940s film - there is surprisingly little to disturb your children or servants. A man in a white top holds a big red rose to his chest; later a clothed woman straddles a man in a greasy field. Then hands sweep across things - tree trunks, Braille, unidentifiable body surfaces, a woman's lips. There is a good deal of gripping of flesh - looking rather indented - of grass, and an impression of mounting tension. Then a thorough mauling all round with lots of hands, hair and backs. Fin- ally some long shots and some colour and the rather cute 1960s poses we started on.

Feeling is everything they say, identifying Durex with a new generation of aesthetics and higher purposes clearly signposted by Bjork's presence (Spitting Image once had a running gag called "100 uses for Bjork"; here is one of them, to add tone to condoms). But they could equally well use Reeves and Mortimer's version of "Dizzy", because that's the mood. Somewhat surprisingly, however, a respectable young woman told me that she felt this ad could incite her to commit lewd acts straightaway with or without the intervention of rubber membranes.

! Video supplied by Tellex Commercials.