Opinion: Perspective - What now for ad industry as sex no longer sells?

I found myself once in a house of suspect, though high-class, repute.

In pursuit of reportage and experience I watched as handcuffs were snapped and whips deliciously cracked, feeling about as engaged and intrigued as a jaded viewer of one of Channel 4's seedier documentaries.

I had seen it all before, of course - albeit through a TV screen and with rather fruitier commentary. The reality had all the novelty of a Conrad Black expenses claim and was about as titillating. When pornography has become a popular mobile phone download, live sex on Big Brother barely twitches eyebrows, and naked flesh has inched down from the top shelf, sex has lost its shock value.

But has it lost its ability to sell? HeadLightVision, a WPP subsidiary, reckons so.

Its latest study, unleashed this week, claims that sexually explicit advertising has lost its potency. 'Young people of today' are more interested in traditional family values and wholesome ad messages than the flash of a nipple to sell shampoo or the promise of limitless sex if your engine's big enough.

According to HeadLightVision's study, which afforded the FT the opportunity for a rare front-page headline combining the words 'young', 'trendy' and 'sex', our youth are trying to reclaim their lost innocence. Playing bingo, collecting toys from their childhood and a lust for all things 'authentic' and family oriented are the things of the moment.

There is nothing particularly shocking in such revelations. For a nation with the highest levels of teenage pregnancy in Europe and rising cases of sexually transmitted diseases (see below), sex has certainly lost its mystery. And with that has gone the ability to use sexual imagery to create stand-out; glance along the newsagent's shelves now and it's the front covers without sexy women ...