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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Jul
4
Do. Not. Want.
Filed Under beauty myths, marketing, misogyny, sex and sexuality | Posted by Cara |
You know what would have made me really happy? Finding out that this was photoshopped and just a really fucked up joke.
But. No, it seems that it’s not. Oh my.
You know how a lot of guys seem to involuntarily tense up and bring their legs together when they see another man get hit in the balls? The moment I saw this ad, I believe that I began to know the feeling.
Just in case any of you are still unclear on this: the vagina is SELF-CLEANING. And though modern douches are probably better for you than Lysol, they do also fail to act as effective contraception, and in terms of hygiene are just plain bad for you. Don’t douche. Your vagina will thank you. (And if your vagina/vulva really does have a very strong unbearable smell, you probably have bacterial vaginosis or an STD. Go see your doctor.)
Via. Thanks to Mary for the link.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
The vagina is always constructed as foul and dirty which seems at odds with how much time men want to spend there. It is deeply concerning that using a product such as lysol is supposed to promote a feeling of purity and wholesomeness.
yuck.
“restore every woman’s confidence in her power to please”?
yuck.
Grotesque.
lol I love how she spends nights alone because her vagina doesn’t smell like pine-fresh lysol. I’m thinking perhaps it’s her husband who has some issues here… And, yeah, holy uncomfortable burning sensation!
I don’t even really know what to say to this. I hate things like douche and female powders and such.
I guess all I have to say is eewww.
Thank you!!! The boyfriend and I had a conversation about my “feminine products” or really, my lack thereof shortly after we moved in together. He asked me why he didn’t see douches or vaginal washes at all in the bathroom and I replied with “Well, that’s because I don’t use them.” He found it as odd and being a divorced man, of course I figured that he had been used to seeing products of the sort laying around and he was actually put off by the fact that I would not douche. Since then he has gotten over it, but it took a while before he would accept the fact that my vagina smells like a vagina and that they should never, ever, ever, EVER smell like florals or some other “natural” scent that is not in any way natural when coming from your vagina.
Intimate daintiness? Christ on a cracker!
Hooray for vaginas smelling like vaginas! Seriously, what fool decided that vaginas smell bad anyway? A patriarchal one, I know, but still . . . while women are of course undoubtedly the ones suffering here, I’d still say that a lot of straight dudes are missing out as the result of such ridiculousness.
I read the book The War On Women by that Rabbi guy (he had a tv show called Shalom in the Home for a while). And while I don’t agree with everything he wrote, he did make some compelling arguments about the smell of a vagina. The vagina is supposed to smell like a vagina because the scent is attractive to hetero men. He used quotes from some old letters, if memory serves one was from Napoleon to Josephine and in it he tells her not to bathe because he wants to smell her when he comes home. Spicy!
So, to make a long story short, Rabbi Schmuley (sp?) makes the argument that manufacturers and advertisers have convinced not only Women that there is something wrong with the smell but also men and that this is ridiculous because the smell serves an intended purpose and should not be masked or perfumed away.
I’ve honestly never seen the purpose in douching and I am living proof that hetero men Love the smell of au naturale vagina because I’ve never had a single complaint and I have had plenty of faces at crotch level (once upon a time). I’m married now and it’s one of my husband’s favorite places to be even after these years.
So for those ladies out there who do douche, I understand you may be self-conscious but there’s no need to be. Someone trying to make a buck from selling you crap you don’t need should be familiar enough to us all. Don’t buy into it anymore! Peace!
1. My vagina just turned inside out at the thought of douching with Lysol.
2. Like balls don’t smell like balls.
3. If he weren’t sticking his dick in everything, maybe she wouldn’t have vaginosis.
Okay that comment just cracked me the fuck up. Hahahaha.
I heard that douching in the 1930s was used as (a folk superstition attempt at) birth control, but because to talk about birth control in public advertisements was and still is taboo (yes, I saw the new Sarah Haskins video), they had to sell it as “feminine freshness.”
I don’t know why douches still exist, though. Any feminine health practitioner who knows anything, even ones I’ve seen on advertising-ridden TV, will tell you that it upsets the ecosystem of your cooter and makes you prone to yeast infections and the like.