In-universe, this is probably because the crass commercialism of the megacorps defaults to lazy, lowest-common-denominator, sex-sells advertising that condescends to a consumer base that they think of as poor, dumb trash that will eat it up.
I feel the ubiquity of sex is more on a local level than from the megacorps. In a given neighbourhood in Night City, there are likely to be several stores with blaring neon signs going "XXX" and "18+", which implies that whatever alleged degeneration of morals is in this cyberpunk setting, there's still the odd insistence that children are sheltered from overt sexual depictions, despite other public-facing ads being sexualized, or other aspects like violence also being marketed to children (as part of families).
These stores do not appear to be corporate, in that they don't have corporate branding. Their goods and infrastructure might be corporate-produced, but the store itself is presented as a local business.
There might be a possible theme to explore about how the "lowest common denominator" attitude from the megacorps has percolated down to the people they view as such, and thus the "common people" use the same advertising assumptions for themselves. But given some of the other aspects of Cyberpunk 2077, I suspect this theme is inherited from the general cyberpunk aesthetic, without intending to be a discrete statement.
Part of my point is Cyberpunk 2077 made the choice to use sex as the display of this "lowest common denominator" in-game advertising, as the default. There are other potential options, like blood sports (which have some advertisements) and violence (as the other popular option for brain dances), but the "primary paint colour" for the environment of Cyberpunk 2077 is sex. Or more specifically, joyless sex, unlike many of the other vices, which at least claim to provide some amount of happiness. The sexualized depictions almost feel obligatory.
I personally enjoy that you can find datalogs at the crime scenes that let you find out some of the context of how this happened, but it's true that it's all unrelated to the main plot, so if that doesn't interest you then it's just going to be kind of a waste.
To clarify, my antipathy is more about the presentation of the datalogs, rather than what the datalog actually says.
As mentioned, they're written like chatlogs. So first I have to translate the casual chat wording into proper sentences in my head, followed by removing the swearwords, because as far as I can tell the swearwords have no information value whatsoever and are just there as filler. Then I have to kind of gloss over the specific vocabulary of the setting, since I have very little idea what most of it means, and I don't want to assume.
And after all this effort, the core of the datalog is something banal like "exchange of unspecified goods for currency" or "threat of violence for extortion". I don't mind knowing the context of these radiant quests, but I don't want to have to wade through the particular presentation of the datalog to know it.
And, like, though the ads are slightly more sexualised than modern ads, it isn't by very much? The only real surprise is that some of them have nearly-visible erections, which is a big no-no in modern advertising, even if your ad has a woman who's only technically not naked due to strategic word placement.
I'm now wondering if I might be biased because I don't recall the last time I saw a "sexualized" advertisement in RL that was "too sexual" in its context. As in, if there's a near-naked woman (or man) on the ad, it's because the ad is for lingerie. Or a body waxing service, but the one I saw recently seemed to go out of its way to
not depict any humans, sexualized or otherwise. (It was a picture of an orangutan.)
I think I'd have to go to a bookstore and look at a romance book cover to see anything on the lines of the ads I see in Cyberpunk 2077.
I'm not sure if this is due to my location; maybe US advertisements are more sexualized.
Overall, if "sexual depictions everywhere as a theme of moral degeneracy" is an intrinsic part of the cyberpunk genre, I suppose I'll have to try to ignore it. What I'm
really enjoying is the hacking and quick-hacks and the exploration (and exploitation) of networks, so I would guess I'm here for the "cyber" but not for the "punk".
