Are women actually turned on by men doing housework? Pine-Sol sure hopes so.

Of course, the latest Pine-Sol ad is a spoof, and a fun one: a film noir-style vista, sweeping score, a mysterious mansion, a glamorous woman ascending winding stairs. Then we see it's "the Pine-Sol lady," Diana Amos, apparently there for an assignation with a hunk, who's mopping. Then she reclines on a rose petal-strewn bed in couture to watch. That, you see, is the power of Pine-Sol.

As Amos tells<,/a> the New York Times, "We all would like our husbands to mop...This says that real men mop, and it breaks it down to: It can be fun, it can be sexy, and women like it clean." Adds Tom McNulty, author of Clean Like a Man: Housekeeping for Men, "I think women do have a fantasy about men cleaning."

My first thought on seeing the Pine-Sol commercial was that it was like those "Porn For Women" books in which we're treated to pictures of beefcakes cleaning and over which I recently heard a group of ladies positively cackling with glee at a bookstore, so there you are. Todd Wasserman at BrandFreak agreed, although he felt at least half the joke was Pine-Sol-Lady-as -sex symbol. (If pushed, I'd say the irony comes more form the fact that Pine-Sol is the most institutional, least sexy aroma on earth with the possible exception of raw sewage.You'd need a bed of roses, too, just to drown it out. )This has clearly become a recognizable trope that women relate to, or at least know is a cliche. But is it just a joke, or have our social mores intersected so powerfully with biology that this does indeed signal un-ironic modern lust? In any case, housework builds libido - so there's that.

Selling a Household Cleaning Product on Its ... Sex Appeal? [NY Times]
Sure, Pine-Sol Cleans, But It Can Also Satisfy Your Wildest Desires [Brand Freak]
Pine-Sol | "Visitor" [YouTube]

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