By walking through the tour you are intended to become aroused, meet the kinds of women who you want to have sex with, and then conveniently be directed to a computer where you can order you own orgasm in a bottle.

Sex in cologne advertisements is nothing new. Calvin Klein advertises fragrances using images of sex against a wall, on a beach, and on top of an apartment. The word is out: If you plan on having sex in public, you’d best be wearing cologne.

Axe cologne, however, takes the relationship between sex and advertising to a new level. Now, instead of the glossy, black-and-white, nude stills of the typical cologne ad, you can actually walk through one at the AXElab “Pharamasexual Reasearch Center.”

A few weeks ago, I explored the AXElab as it made the Milwaukee stop of its Midwest tour. It was located in a rented space on Plankington Avenue and was essentially a live infomercial dressed as a laboratory. When I stepped in, I was greeted by a few women about my age in lab coats that would neither protect the wearer from a toxic spill nor be allowed in any recognized laboratory.

I was given a tour of the facility, which included such “sexperiments” as a series of sexually suggestive images created by Rorschach inkblots, and an experiment where a woman achieved an orgasm when exposed to the scent of Axe cologne. I took the tour with two male students from Marquette University and an older gentleman who insisted that he had to repeat the tour to be certain of its effects.

The message of the promotion was clear: If you buy this cologne, you are guaranteed sex with desirable women.

The projected image is much more specific than a standard advertisement. By walking through the tour you are intended to become aroused, meet the kinds of women who you want to have sex with, and then conveniently be directed to a computer where you can order you own orgasm in a bottle.

It is the kind of thing that is effectively so beyond absurd, even its absurdity is beyond question. The AXElab could have convincingly sold jeans, cars, washing machines or any other product as remotely related to sex as cologne. Then again, why else would you buy a product for several times what it’s worth unless you truly believed it would get you laid?

It is the same absurdity as found in Calvin Klein ads: Sex in public requires Obsession perfume. Axe’s slant is that sex with Playmates is possible for the average college student or middle-aged pervert splashed with Axe.

Although I have not been convinced of the effects of “pharmasexual research,” I am, however, anxiously awaiting AXElab’s unveiling of the instantaneous orgasm. The irony is that if they ever developed it, there would apparently be no need for cologne at all.

The scent of the cologne is the standard chemical cologne smell, but why would any woman be attracted by this scent when its market is oversexed college students and over-the-hill pervs?

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