This post is about tampons, as you probably couldn't guess after reading the title. You see, it was a PUN. Get it? You know, “tamped”...the act of tamping.
So tampons. Why would I bring them up, you wonder. Being male, I naturally would not have occasion to use them. Which is precisely my point. They don't concern me, so I'd like to forget they exist.
Why then do commercials try so hard to remind me? I could go my whole life without seeing a tampon commercial and be perfectly fine. But the folks at Tampax just don't seem too concerned about my feelings. I'm regularly exposed to ads where clever menstruaters use their tampons to solve little problems. What luck! You can fix a leaky boat with tampons. Oh rapture! You can use your tampons like a rope. Except these cute little ads still only remind me of what I'd rather not remember; that tampons exist to absorb gooey, bloody discharge.
Some feminine hygiene commercials take it a step further, not even attempting to deliver a message in good taste. I will quote from an ad I saw a year or so ago which has been permanently burned into my memory:
"Some things are kept best among friends. Like painful, burning, feminine itch."
Whoa, way too much detail Ad Lady. If it's kept best among friends, why are you telling the whole world? Yes, the WHOLE WORLD. The orphans in Romania haven’t stopped having nightmares.
Now girls, don't tell me I'm being too squeamish and wimpy and that it's a part of nature and I might as well get used to it. How many commercials do YOU see advertising products to eliminate thick, sweaty back hair on men? It's certainly something that some men deal with, but I seriously doubt anyone wants to be reminded of it.
Alas, I'm throwing up my hands. Really, nothing can be done, since the nature of advertising involves pushing a message through thousands of unintendeds to reach that special target audience. I've accepted that. But can I whine about it anyway? Of course I can. I can also make up verbs like "to tamp.” Don't tamp with me mother-tamper.
5 comments:
I suppose being subjected to all this is man's penance for getting out of the pains of childbirth.
But then again I've heard men sometimes get sympathy pains. What the?! Being pain-free is the WHOLE POINT of not having a uterus. Take that away, and what do we have left?
Haha...the sad thing is I have been guilty, on occasion, of watching lifetime channel movies. (shock, horror). I saw one the other day called "The Glow" which was about old people befriending young couples and killing them. Then they make some pink potion out of their bodily fluids which helps keep them alive. This only reaffirmed my deepset belief that the eldery are after our blood. You've been warned.
They should sometime, just to play with our minds.
You're welcome. But don't be fooled -- there is nothing so trite and insignificant that I won't waste my time writing about it. Next post: stubborn can openers.
i kid you not when i say that i was contemplaitng this very thing today as i was mopping my bathroom floor. not that that has anything to do with the subject matter at hand. i wish that i had something insightfull to say, that might add in some way to your premisis, but i think you have it pretty well covered. i guess i will have to leave it by saying "i second that emotion"
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