Tits and Ass advertising

I visit two roleplaying game sites on a regular basis: RPG.net and EN World. RPG.net is the grand-daddy of the game sites and I've been a regular reader, infrequent poster since its creation, ten years or more... it's been part of my daily online routine for so long I honestly can't remember when precisely it started. I suppose I lose geek points for not being able to recall the precise minute I discovered the site. Oh well. EN World is what Eric Noah's 3rd Edition site morphed into once D&D 3rd Edition launched and Eric retired from the onerous job of moderating the biggest D&D fansite on the internet, and I've been there (in both its forms) for at least five years at this point.

What I want to know is when Tits and Ass advertising took over the banner ads at EN World! Is there some sort of informal T&A Ad contest going on that I don't know about?!

I ask you in advance to pardon this lengthy preamble, but let me be clear: I hate that shit. As a woman who has built a career in the roleplaying game business over the last (holy crap!) NINETEEN years, I have at times been belittled, denigrated, and dismissed based only on my gender, I've worked the booth for the companies I owned only to have some neanderthal walk up and look for any male in the area to talk to (even, let's say, if it's just Ken Hite or some other industry professional utterly unaffiliated with my company who happens to be hanging out behind my booth talking to me), I've been told to "shut up, frigid bitch" by gamer employers whose awkward attempts at romance I've spurned, I've had competitors complain to the men of the company under the mistaken impression that the man was my boss and that they'd be getting me in some sort of trouble because of something I'd said or done that pissed them off, and I have just about zero tolerance for the practice of using "booth babes" who don't have the first idea about the product they're flaunting their bodies for. I'm less judgmental about fantasy illustrations that depict attractive female figures in the context of the settings they're hawking, I don't mind well-rendered paintings of beautiful girls and I've got a pretty broad definition of "appropriate" attire in that context. I dislike being introduced as an after-thought, as "Chris's wife," because I had a career in the game industry several years before Pramas did and I've seen my credibility with strangers evaporate before my eyes after being introduced as 'the wife' because people assume he came first and I'm some sort of sympathy vote or tag-a-long when I was "here" first.

Lately, every day when I visit the EN World front page I'm seeing banner adds that are shamelessly using Tits and Ass to advertise their products. When Avalanche Press did the Tits and Ass thing, they at least had the decency to put their cover babes in chainmail thigh-highs or make the tits and ass somewhat relevant to the setting. Usually, though not always.

Today's D20 advertisers, on the other hand, are barely even trying to stay in bounds (if they're trying at all). It's just Tits and Ass. They're not even trying to dress it up. I log in to the EN World front page and I get treated to this:


or this:


or this:


or this (which is actually saved as "HOOTERBANNER.GIF"!!:


At least this one makes a self-referential statement about advertising with boobies:



After a couple of weeks of this, I finally have to say to my esteemed colleagues: WHAT THE FUCK!? This is the best that you can do? THIS is all you have to entice people to give your product a looksee? TITS? That's what you've got? Thanks guys. Classy.

Thankfully, the RPG.net advertisers haven't felt the need to stoop to straight-up offering titties in their banner ads. Here's hoping the trend holds.