What is the history of The Designated Voyeur? Berger traces it back to the art-historical traditions of the European nude, and given the 1972 publication date of Ways of Seeing and its pervasive influence on visual culture, TDV may well be a standard chapter in advertising school. However, Berger's own explanation of TDV falls far short of covering the examples shown above:

It is true that sometimes a painting includes a male lover. But the woman's attention is very rarely directed towards him. Often she looks away from him or she looks out of the picture towards the one who considers himself her true lover - the spectator-owner. (Berger, page 56)

Berger's analysis - developed in the context of the female nude - asserts that the woman's gaze towards the spectator underlines her role as passive object and property of the painting's male owner. But from a patriarchal perspective why would a male wish to see "his" woman engaged in sexual activity with another male? And from a commercial perspective why would so many mainstream advertisements be based on such a starkly sexist format?

Other factors must be at work. Here is a brief overview of some possibilities:

-- Female eye gaze directed towards the viewer is the bedrock schema for all sex-based male-targeted advertisement.

-- Voyeurism is a taboo for both men and women (with the latter case being comedically illustrated in the 1987 film I've Heard The Mermaids Singing). Having one of the observees gaze towards the viewer with a non-hostile facial expression serves as effective permission for the viewer to voyeur.

-- The True and AAA ads shown above, which depict scenes of suboptimal courtship, appear to be designed primarily for a female demographic, the direct eye gaze in these cases inviting identification from women who have experienced similar situations.

-- Evolutionary psychology suggests that Berger's analysis, while superficially correct, is at a deeper level completely backwards. In particular, EP offers a unified explanation for both the appeal of 16th-century female nude paintings to their male owners, and the appeal of 21st-century cellphone ads to both male and female consumers.

According to EP, female heterosexual partner selection is governed both by perceived ability to provide resources for child-raising and by immediate sexual appeal (the two archetypes being colloquially known as Mr. Right and Mr. Right Now). Again according to EP, a woman who wishes to maximize her genetic success will maintain a long-term partnership with a nurturing male while engaging in periodic sexual liaisons with charismatic non-nurturing males. To the latter this situation is ideal from a genetic perspective, as they achieve genetic success with no outlay of nurturing resources: the cuckoo syndrome, to borrow from avian biology (this is in fact the origin of the word "cuckold").

Considering the EP perspective in the context of TDV, the woman's outwards gaze in the presence of a male partner implies for male viewers that the woman, far from signaling her role as male property, is in fact signaling her active ability to manage multiple sexual partners: the overt one in the image, and the covert one in the role of the male viewer. Thus the viewer of such an image is designated not merely as a sexual desirable, but as a non-nurturing charismatic sexual desirable (if male), or via identification as a partnered sexual desirable (if female). Human nature being what it is, the depicted genetic advantage translates emotionally into a suitably heightened sexual frisson, which to return to the world of art translates in turn into enhanced saleability, whether of 16th-century paintings or 21st-century cellphones.

This is best exemplified by the Tom-and-Nicole image above. This image was the keystone of an ad campaign for the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut, whose story centers on a wife's infidelity.

The Designated Voyeur appears to be a staple of commercial advertising - watch for it and it will show up with surprising regularity. And if you accept the argument from evolutionary psychology, marvel that commercial advertising depends not only on everyday sex and everyday violence, but on everyday adultery too.