Despite the obvious goal of attracting consumers and stimulating the sale of products and services, the sexual appeal present in mass communication, through its repertoire of images and symbolic representations, also creates and/or reflects the collective imagery that circulates in contemporary society regarding sex and pleasure. In this dissertation we analyze sexuality aspects as they appear in television advertising, using as sample prime-time commercials broadcasted in Rede Globo, all of which were taped in video directly from the TV during twelve consecutive months - from July 2001 to June 2002. Firstly, we contextualized the attitudes regarding sexuality searching for evidence of the interdependence between its manifestations and the social, economical and cultural conditions present in Brazilian society. Next, taking recent theories in Social Psychology as a starting point, we related the role of the sexual appeal as a persuasion strategy with the media`s function in the socialization process. Among our conclusions, we observed that television advertising maintains itself in a traditional cultural model,with stereotypical patterns regarding physical appearance, age, race, sex and the relationship between genders, indicating - and also in a certain way imposing - the sexual standards and the ideology that envelop us all.