CYBERSPACE — “Sex sells.” The adage has been around almost as long as selling and sex have been around. It’s to the point, leaves a ton of room for interpretation, and it’s true — at least to a point.As things turn out, the maxim may work differently for different gender groups. New research indicates that although men really are easy targets for marketing innuendo, women are a bit more discerning. In fact, they respond much more strongly to implied messages and external stimuli that may have nothing to do with an ad than they do to T&A in the advertisement itself.

A study soon to be published in The Journal of Consumer Research concluded that both women and men are attuned to subliminal relationship and commitment messages attached to advertisements with erotic content — they’re just attuned to respond differently to the same signals. For example, a suggestive watch advertisement depicting a watch with a bow tied around it appealed to women if the verbal message accompanying the ad alluded to “a gift from a man to the special woman in his life.”

The same ad sent men running for cover.

According to the study’s authors, women “needed the justification of relationship commitment for sexual behavior” while men “typically felt quite uneasy about having to part with substantial pecuniary resources in a dating context.” (For male readers: “Substantial pecuniary resources” in this context refers to “a chunk of change.” Yes, that was a snarky comment aimed right at your privates.)

In a separate experiment, researchers had women read a block of text, then evaluate a completely unrelated, sexually explicit ad. The test group that read a passage about a loving, committed relationship responded more positively to the ad than the test group that read a block of text about a philandering husband.

Draw your own conclusions.