Advertisement Masked as PSA loves oral sex

[Guest Banders Kennany]

Bus ban on sex ads - Slang for oral sex has MTA officials furious

 

Read books, get sex: That's what racy advertisements on hundreds of city buses are suggesting to teens - and red-faced transit bosses are outraged.

The salacious ads by hip-hop clothing line Akademiks declare: "Read Books, Get Brain."

 

But kids say "get brain" does not mean smarts. It's slang for oral sex. And the company behind the ads told the Daily News the slogan choice was no mistake.

 

"We knew this," fessed up Anthony Harrison, Akademiks' ad designer. "It's coded language, city slang. Teens know what it means but the general public doesn't."

 

High school students across the city immediately picked up on the dual meaning. One provocative ad features a curvy, panty-clad woman, on her knees, holding an open book. She isn't reading it.

 

"That's not kosher," said Sharntai Harris, a senior at the Brooklyn High School of the Arts.

 

"That's too sexy to be talking about some book," her classmate Melissa Medina agreed.

 

MTA officials were not so street-savvy, and since September have slapped the ads on the sides of 200 city buses, said Ahysha Donaldson, a spokeswoman for Akademiks.

 

When alerted by The News, MTA officials vowed to start stripping the ads off buses - and blasted Akademiks for hoodwinking them.

 

"It's sad that a company and its advertising agency would appear to be promoting a good cause while instead using vulgar street phrases to demean women," fumed MTA spokesman Tom Kelly.

 

In some posters, young men wear buttoned-down shirts, bulky sweaters and oversized jeans but the women are clad in hot pants and tight sweaters. In one ad, a boy is reading with a half-dressed girl sitting on his lap.

 

Several malls across the nation, including the Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack, Rockland County, refused to display the ads. But they do appear on buses and bus shelters in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco and Philadelphia, Akademiks officials said.

 

Akademiks said the MTA response is the first uproar - but also perhaps the first time a city has figured out the slang.

 

Harrison said the slogan "Read Books, Get Brain," which appears in English, Spanish and Japanese, is an inside joke between teens and the company.

 

"I don't think any kid is going to say, 'If I read "A Tale of Two Cities," I'm going to get sex,'" he said. "They aren't stupid. We were trying to make education relevant in the sea of everything going on now."

 

But Bronx high school teacher Jim Mills, who had overheard his students using the term brain, said he nearly slammed his car into the sidewalk when he saw an Akademiks ad on the side of a Jerome Ave. bus last week.

 

"They are trying to get boys to pick up a book, but the implication is they'll get sex if they get literate," said Mills. "It denigrates education and young women."

 

It marked the latest MTA advertising controversy. A new poster marking the 100th anniversary of the subway contains plugs for the Church of Scientology. And last month, the MTA yanked an ad for a Comedy Central animated series off buses because it showed a cartoon character pulling her shirt up.

 

Here's the ad in question, with the caption from the article:

 

Clothing maker Akademiks’ ad on buses uses slang for sex — and suggestive pose.

 

That girl black or Latino? Either way, Banders likey.

[Guest Banders Kennany]

I thought she had condoms for panties when I first drew my eyes to that picture.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

My life is incomplete because I've yet to have sex with a black girl. Oh, how I want to.

[MrRant 0]

Stop being so white then.

 

Although I have yet to have sex with a Latino.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I'm just gonna go to a strip club tonight and get a lapdance from one of the two black strippers working. Closest I'll get it.

[Slayer 0]

"Get brain" = slang for oral?

 

Since when?

[MrRant 0]

You didn't get the last Observer did you?

[Guest Banders Kennany]

"Get brain" = slang for oral?

 

Since when?

It hasn't permeated the suburbs and whitebread fag class America, but it exists. It's not like you're Mr. Hip and Mr. Up-to-Date.

[Guest Banders Kennany]

What did it say in the last Observer, MrRant?

[Slayer 0]

It's not like you're Mr. Hip and Mr. Up-to-Date.

Says a guy with Will Smith in his av and sig

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

That ad doesn't denigrate shit. Nobody reads anymore and women love giving oral sex.

[Slayer 0]

That teacher is probably one of those touchy-feely new-age types

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

He touches his students LOL.

[The Czech Republic 0]

"Get brain" = slang for oral? 

 

Since when?

It hasn't permeated the suburbs and whitebread fag class America, but it exists. It's not like you're Mr. Hip and Mr. Up-to-Date.

Of course not, he's Joe Cool

[Guest Banders Kennany]

It's not like you're Mr. Hip and Mr. Up-to-Date.

Says a guy with Will Smith in his av and sig

Hey, people still love him. "I Robot" made a lot of money. You might as well be the I Robot as well, the way you go with the majority, you bandwagon hopping stool dropper.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Wow. Somebody snorted a little too much coke this evening.

 

See...I don't understand "get brain." I understand "head," because it's referring to the slang term for the tip of the dick, but..."brain"? I DON'T WANT NO ZOMBIE BLOWJOB.

[Guest Banders Kennany]

Plus it's head because they have to put their head down their as well.

[Guest Banders Kennany]

Sorry, triple post.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Quadruple post, actually.

[Guest ShootingStylesPress]

Yeah, the "brain" and "head" thing does go along with each other. It's weird how language evolves like that.

[Slayer 0]

I bet the girl in Laz's sig gives good brain

[Guest Banders Kennany]

Yeah, the "brain" and "head" thing does go along with each other. It's weird how language evolves like that.

Yea it is. I guess people in the city thought we whitebreads were getting too complacent with using head and wanted to put a new spin on it. It is always people with an ear to the streets who come up with the good slang.

 

I bet the girl in Laz's sig gives good brain

Mmm hmm, I bet she does.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

We usually use "face."

 

Also, incandenza, screwing a black girl doesn't make you any less white. Trust me.

[Guest Haps' Happenin']

Funny article. I'm surprised the subway executives let an ad like that through. They must have thought it was an actual PSA.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I doubt the subway people can spot subliminal messages...

[ant_7000 0]

"Head" "Brain" "Derb" "Face" Brain is more of a East Coast slang for oral sex. Derb is more of a midwest slang for oral sex. Head is universal. I like to say "Slob on my bob/knob" on occasion to a chick.

[ant_7000 0]

My life is incomplete because I've yet to have sex with a black girl. Oh, how I want to.

This is why you can't a black girl is that your not confident. Black women love a strong confident man.

[Special K 0]

Wow Banders, you sure are King Shit for knowing some slang.

 

Generally the east coast has much more and cruder slang than the west, going by my college experience. Get brain is fucking stupid. So is crushing guts. Sex shouldn't sound like Hellraiser.

 

EDIT: 'I, Robot' looked like absolute shite.

[Guest El Satanico]

Sex shouldn't sound like Hellraiser.

Why not? I see nothing wrong with combining horror and sex, sounds fun. Also, I've always said I'd love to see a horror based strip club.

 

Hellraiser is a horror film based on s&m.

[Guest Shutterspeed]

"Get brain" - what a turn-off.