Et al.

Just because you're a woman...

Am I the only one making a connection between "the gay agenda"'s quest for world domination and the preponderance of advertising that provides waaaaay too much information about the opposite sex? I mean, clearly homosexuality is so appealing that many heterosexuals would rush right off and convert if they got wind of it. Otherwise, why worry so much about whether that homeroom 8th grade teacher is or isn't? Clearly the Cialis and Viagra ads, with their veiled threats of four-hour-plus painful erections are the work of some conspiratorial gay cabal, designed to send hetero women running for the hills at the thought of their menfolks frozen for days into priapic little pre-columbian figurines. It works for me. Two Viagra ads and a couple shots of Angelina Jolie in a damp tanktop, and I'm switchin' sides.

Does anyone but me remember that old tag line for feminine hygiene spray? It went something like this:

"Not just on heavy days...
"Not just between showers...
"But use it every day...
...Just because you're a woman"

And presumably, if you're a woman, your body is so unspeakably foul that you need to put the equivalent of a shot of deodorant on your genitalia...every day.

So in response to Dr. B's question, I'm the kind of feminist who doesn't think her own body is disgusting. And I don't want to be around anyone else who does.

This somewhat tasteless post is occasioned by two recent ad campaigns. The first features a woman in the 'feminine hygiene' aisle of a supermarket, asking women about the state of their pantyliners--the odor, sogginess, and general discomfort, the crowds of dogs trailing them and snuffling at their asses, the humiliation of the generally revolting condition of being female. She has, she claims, the cure for all that--a new kind of panty-liner! Just because you're a woman! This is the kind of thing that causes me to rise hysterically from my couch, slopping my gin and tonic with wild abandon as I shriek "Then change the goddam pad! More than once every three days!"

Yesterday, however, I chanced upon the Oxygen network (my husband calls it "Television for Victims"), which was running an ad for a new product by the makers of Monistat. Ladies, you all know Monistat. The ad features a woman in soft light, wearing a tennis-dress (huh? WTF?) and fondling her slim and shapely arm. "I'm a woman," she says, "And I have a woman's curves." ["A-men, sistah," I shout, holding my g & t aloft in her vague general direction. Finally, a celebration of us full-figure gals!] "But sometimes," she continues, "Those curves can cause chafing..."

Let me see if I have this right. Monistat has now come up with a skin treatment that prevents us "curvy" women (size 8 and up, judging by the model) from the unbearable friction of our unseemly body parts rubbing together, thwack, thwack, thwack all the damn day. Coat yourself with it, and it's like pantyhose in a bottle. Presumably, any body parts fleshy enough to come into contact (can you say "breasts," everyone? "Thighs"?) now require a patented treatment. I happen to know a few women, a very few, whose thighs don't actually touch when they stand with their legs together. Whose breasts never come in contact with an arm, or with the skin over the rib cage. Most of them do not choose this look. I do not choose this look. Flesh, even in sufficient quantities that it intermittently comes into contact with other flesh, does not in and of itself constitute a "condition." Unless, of course, one is a woman...

posted by Unknown @ 4:44 PM