'Sex and elections are for adults': Russian magazine uses scantily-clad models to boost voter turnout

In the run-up to the upcoming Russian elections commencing on March 18, Maxim magazine has come up with a campaign, apparently to boost voter turnout, by posting a series of sexually charged pictures and videos. The racy pictures also carried nuanced captions and one of them read: "What happens in the polling booth stays in the polling booth".

The new 'Adults Only,' strategy to sex up the elections has found its place in the magazine just two weeks prior to the election date as the Russian President Vladimir Putin is all set to take charge for yet another six-year term in a highly predictable race. 

'Adults Only' election campaign strategy

The bizarre promotional strategy to improve voter turnout started when a popular social networking site called VKontakte, a Maxim group site, shared election-based memes with bikini-clad women since the start of the year.

One of the campaign photographs showed a topless woman reading a brochure in front of the Russian flag while another image showed a woman in lingerie casting her vote.

The Russian edition of Maxim also had captions that said, "Welcome to the world of adults" and "Are you 18 or older?"

A new video also surfaced on YouTube in February titled, "Sex and elections are for adults only".

A behind-the-scenes video of the shoot has gone viral and has been viewed more than a million times. 

The sponsor of the campaign is, however, still unknown.

Political response to the campaign

"Our elections are a festival – a carnival, even, and at a carnival, the erotic is allowed," a political analyst Konstantin Kalachev was quoted by AFP as saying.

Although political analysts believe that the 'Adult Only' campaign may not boost the voter turnout as the election results are reportedly highly predictable as to who is going to become the next president.

Kalachev, an official from the Central Election Committee, however, denied any involvement in the campaign and said: "Who ordered them and who paid for them, it's impossible to fully find out."