Kotex Can’t Say “Vagina” On TV
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Say what you will about the era of Vajazzling—at least people are talking about vaginas, even if they're talking about replacing natural hairs with space crystals, and even if they are actually talking about the pubic area above the vagina, and even if the whole thing should really be called "Pubazzling." Some people don't even want to acknowledge that vaginas exist. Tampon maker Kotex found that out the hard way when it attempted to sell tampon ads that invoked the word "vagina," and found its commercials rejected by three networks.
The New York Times reports that the above ad—in which a young actress mocks traditional tampon ads for their condescending, euphemistic tone—originally referenced the "vagina." When three networks rejected the spot, Kotex subbed in the euphemism "down there" for "vagina," and only two of the three networks rejected it. Now, the commercial contains no direct references to female genitalia—you know, the place where the fucking tampon goes.
The irony is not lost on Kotex. "It's very funny because the whole spot is about censorship," a director of the ad company who created the spot told NYT. "The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we're saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina."
Even without vagina, the ad is still the greatest tampon commercial ever. In it, the actress details all the tampon-ad-related activities she loves engaging in—holding really soft things, running on the beach, twirling, wearing white Spandex—while footage from Kotex's own history of terrible tampon ads plays. It's not "vagina" on TV, but it's still pretty awesome. Here's the final transcript:
How do I feel about my period? We're like this [crosses fingers]. I love it. I want to hold really soft things, like my cat. It makes me feel really pure. Sometimes I just want to run on the beach. I like to twirl, maybe in slow motion. And I do it in my white Spandex. And usually, by the third day, I really just want to dance. The ads on TV are really helpful, because they use that blue liquid, and I'm like, Oh! That's what's supposed to happen!
Thanks to onelovejedi for the tip.
10:18 am
On this subject, I'd like to reprise a Comment I once made in this very forum a few months ago:
Meanwhile, I’d like to share a story apropos of the argument about whether women “are” their body parts. Back in the 1990s I was editing a story by Laura Blumenfeld about the then-trendy topic of the female condom. When we were done with it, the story had to be approved by a top editor at the paper, because it was about sex, and The Post was very, very nervous about sex. The editor liked the story, but he asked us to take out the word “vagina,” which he found distasteful. (Er, he found the WORD distasteful.)
Laura and I argued strenuously that you cannot write a story about the female condom without indicating how it is used, and that it is absolutely impossible to explain this without using the v word. And that there is nothing wrong with the v word.
The editor got all huffy and declared that he would rewrite it himself, which he did. And so there appeared the following line in The Washington Post; it is still in the archives: “The female condom lines the inside of a woman.”
Voila! In trying to be tasteful and sensitive, this editor put into the Washington Post a line SPECIFICALLY equating a woman with her ladypart.
10:24 am
AMAZING. I am writing a story about the female condom and I may just have to dig that line out of Nexis.
10:36 am
Brilliant write up! And Gene's comment is gold. The absolute fear that's associated with the word vagina is out of control.
10:42 am
@Gene Weingarten: as if the female condom somehow lines the entire inside of our body...just beneath the skin...
creepy!
10:48 am
De-lurking just because this calls for a Lebowski quote:
Maude: My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
The Dude: Oh yeah?
Maude: Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson.
And here I'd always thought that line was a bit too over the top...
11:48 am
The censorship of vagina is indeed appalling - in fact, that's how the term "vajayjay" made it into the pop lexicon. But this ad isn't quite as amazing as it seems at first glance - check out our take on it at re:Cycling, the blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.
1:33 pm
Meanwhile ABC broadcast "vagina" to the world via the clip for Vera Farmiga's best supporting actress nomination
2:36 pm
I wonder if they would let penis into a commercial.
3:52 pm
well, those "male enhancement" ads are pretty painfully euphemistic in the same way. "Proven to make a MAN larger"..." "...that CERTAIN PART of a man's body..."
4:47 pm
I love those. It's so forced.
5:51 pm
Ironically enough, the punch line of the commercial is "Why are tampon commercials so ridiculous?" Why indeed.
5:53 pm
Strange. And yet the commercials about colon rectal cancer hit when I am eating dinner. Weird.
6:43 pm
Tampon commercials are ridiculous, the fact that vagina had to be replaced with down there is pathetic but I see a glimmer of hope. What is the motivation of Kotex making these commercials? I highly doubt it's altruistic. You can always tell what an advertiser thinks of you by how they market to you and often they are right. Corporations spend millions in marketing research to get people to buy their products. What this tells me is advertisers are rethinking their view of women. Could this be the beginning of the end of the coveted 18-34 yo male? More than 40% of SuperBowl viewers were female, and more than that represent the paid work force. We vote with our money and Corporate America listens to the one in charge of the purse strings-so to speak.
12:07 am
Oh, the blue liquid! Clearly this commercial worked because I sort of love Kotex for owning up to the absurdity of the blue liquid and now I want to buy their products ... stupid consumerism!
But I HAVE always been very annoyed by the blue liquid. When I get my period, there's nothing blue coming out of my "inside of a woman."
10:01 am
Maybe if Van Diesel & Gina Gershwin become a SuperCouple "vagina" will make it into the media's lexicon; they love their portmanteux. ;O) -j
10:10 am
I'm holding out for VanGina, personally.
12:14 pm
@phira: was thinking about that damn blue liquid too!! It's not even the same viscosity.
11:02 pm
The beauty of the new product line and its campaign is that the team is made up of 95% women from the marketing director to the product engineers to the packaging designers and the team at the ad agencies. They didn't need to spend milions becuase they are living this every day as mothers, sisters, friends, daughters. Hopefully you all visited the website and asked for your free sample - this is more than just wanting to say "vagina" on TV.
And to be balanced, a speaker for the Society of Menstrual Cycle Research worked on Tampax, Kotex's biggest competitor and current market leader. Of course that blog might be a bit biased in its assessment.
6:01 am
Interesting that, even here, the original poster, Gene Weingarten, had to euphemise with several 'v word's and a 'ladypart'. WTF? This confused Brit doesn't understand the problem...
8:01 am
"This is about much more than wanting to say 'vagina' on TV . . . it's also about free tampon samples."
8:09 am
Manek, Weingarten is a big ol' sexist himself. In a hur hur hur funny, way, of course. I stopped reading his Washington Post columns years ago because I was tired of being insulted as a woman, and as a fat woman (the horror!) besides.
Does that help?
8:50 am
I know why they didn't want the word "vagina": because it is about "vulva". vagina is not vulva. vagina is internal organ, vulva is external. no one can see a vagina, but everybody can see a vulva.
get real, people!
10:26 am
I'm probably gonna catch flack for this......... but my daughter is up till 8pm on weekdays and 9pm on weekends. I don't want her hearing those words. We have our own words for those areas(she's six). I don't need to hear the specific words "vagina or vulva" on tv (especially if i'm watching with my daughter, parents or friends). They play tampon and pad commercials at what I consider odd times. Like during star trek.
10:46 am
Melanie, I'm curious as to why you don't want her to hear "those words." Do you think it's bad or harmful for children to know the names of body parts?
10:47 am
@Melanie: Why not? Those are proper, recognised names for parts of the body. I bet you call a nose a nose. What's so different? Why give your daughter a complex about parts of her body?
Doesn't sound healthy to me. Have YOU got a hang-up about it?
11:06 am
@ Manek: "vagina" is not the proper word for that part of the body. So, probably, that's why Melanie doesn't want her daughter to hear that word. And, maybe, because she doesn't like the word "vulva", thinking "dick" is more suitable for a kid, either male or female.
11:15 am
@razvratit:
No. Tampons go inside the vagina. Inside. The vagina. We are talking about the internal structure here, not the external bits.
11:33 am
@ Amanda Hess:
No. Tampons don't go inside vagina. They are applied over vulva. If you are talking about intra-vaginal tampons, that's a different story.
But regular tampons, like the one presented in the ad is applied on your panties and stays over your vulva. Your panties, I suppose, do not go into your vulva, entering into vagina.
And, do you have also internal bits? Are they just SOME bits of meat? I pressume not. They are labias, or lips.
Get real!!!
11:43 am
Razvratit, is english your second language? I think you may be confusing tampons with pads. Tampons go inside the vagina; pads are stuck to underwear.
11:50 am
@razvratit
You are seriously blowing my mind right now. Let's break this down. Kotex markets both tampons and pads. Both are being sold in this advertising campaign ("Why Are Tampon Ads So Ridiculous? U by Kotex. A new line of tampons, pads, and liners."). Tampons are the ones that go inside the vagina; pads are the ones that go inside the panties. Of course I am speaking here of intra-vaginal tampons, because tampons by definition go inside your vagina.
12:00 pm
@ Jenny and Amanda Hess:
Yap, right, English is not my first language. Neither is my second or third, or whatever.
Well, after so throughfully explanations, I understood that you have yet another delimitation: tampons and pads. See, in my country, and I believe, in many other countries, there is no distinction in words. We use tampon for everything. If you try to make a futher delimitation, than you go by intra-vaginal.
Weel, sorry for the my interventions, I just knew native speaking english people use the word "vagina" instead of "vulva".
All the best!
12:03 pm
@razvratit That's awesome! What country are you from? I'm fascinated by this.
12:12 pm
Hehehee, I was sure about you questioning this.
Romania.
And what are you fascinated about?
12:27 pm
Well, I think it's fascinating that there's only one word for tampon and pad in Romania. Escpecially because in the other romanic languages I know (Italian, French, Spanish) there are different words for tampons and pads.
Do you have any idea why it's like that?
Because, I believe, that in earlier centuries women would use some cloths (or something) functioning as pads, while the tampon is a fairly new invention. Maybe, in Romania menstruation is not talked about? So that there never was a word for what women used during their periods?
12:36 pm
@ Dorothy:
Well, first of all, the romanic language part is wrong, but being off-topic, I will not discuss it here.
Secondly, the tampon means, at least in my language, something that is in between two things. From what I know, it is the same in many other languages.
Women used to use a cloth or piece of absorbant paper to put in between their vulva and whatever they wore. Pads are much more recently than tampon.
Thirdly, your comment is a little sarcastic. And your presumption is worst than that.
Fourthly, I can say that normal people don't have to use hundreds of words for every single article.
12:50 pm
@razvratit:
I didn't mean to come off as sarcastic, I was genuinely curious.
I am not so sure about your point four, that we don't need different words for different things. I can still remember that I was really, really scared of tampons when I was a 12 year old girl getting my period for the first time.
(As for the part about the romanic language being wrong: What do you mean?
Spanish: tampon - tampón, pad - compresa, Italian: tampon - tampone, pad: assorbente (igienico), French: tampon - tampon, pad: serviette hygienique)
1:05 pm
@ Dorothy:
In this case romanian women use "tampon intravaginal" or they use the brandname of one of those things: OB.
The whole "romanic langages" thing is wrong, propaganda, not real. But if you want, we can talk about it somewhere else.
The choice of using words that have, basically, same meaning just to make a difference for things like this is because most people become pudical when is about females' genitalia. And, unfortunatelly, it spreads out very quickly.
1:22 pm
The whole “romanic langages” thing is wrong, propaganda, not real.
Oh yes, that sounds interesting and I agree, that this is not the place to talk about it.
I think using the brand name is kind of a special "word" as well - like a pars pro toto. It's used here quite frequently with different sorts of words.
I am still not convinced that tampon and pad have the same meaning, but that might be because of a purely personal reason. For me switching from pads to tampons was kind of a revelation, so in my mind there's this huge difference.
The reason could also be that German, my first language, tends to have a specific word for every specific thing, so that every small difference is reflected in the language.
1:37 pm
@ Dorothy:
I was talking about the words you gave as an example. I don't believe that tampon and assorbente have diferent meaning when not talking about mentruation. Same with the others.
If you want to talk about "latin languages" we can use email addresses. Just don't know the rules here for this matter.
For exemple, romanians use "adidas" for everything that is sportshoe. it is not wright, same with OB.
Just checked for the meaning of tampon in English, and it has the meaning of "A plug of absorbent material inserted into a body cavity or wound to check a flow of blood or to absorb secretions, especially one designed for insertion into the vagina during menstruation." http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tampon.
My bad, but I was kind of misleaded by the ad and the meaning of "tampon" in my language.
All the best.
7:52 pm
Tampon in French has another, primary meaning of "stamp" or "plug". I'm pretty sure that's why English appropriated it as the word for a menstrual product that you push into your vagina.
10:15 pm
@ jenny and manek. Because at six she feels the need to repeat everything at the wrong time. She has a yeast infection issue even with daily baths and using baby wipes each time she uses the bathroom. We use: bum in stead of vulva or vagina. The other day in church... during the sermon.. "Grandma! my bum!! my bum Grandma!!" Basically, she needed to go use wipe cause she was uncomfortable.
If we used vagina or vulva she would have said one of them loud enough for everyone in church to hear. Not to mention in the store, or at school. When she has a bit more selfcontrol and learns not to repeat and talk about everything with EVERYONE, we'll go over more accurate wording. (probably when she's 8 or 9)
(the other day she told the contractor who is building our garage "you need to stop slacking off and get this finished" after hearing her daddy and I talking about it)
10:20 pm
@manek I don't see how using code words with children when they are young will give them a complex.
10:28 pm
@ravanik I think Dorthy meant "romantic languages" which is how many latin based languages such as italian, french and spanish are refered to in the US.
3:18 pm
@ melanie, There is nothing wrong with a child saying the word vulva in church. If she is being too loud about it than you need to explain to her why she doesn't shout in church about anything, not tell her to use the wrong words to talk about her body. That makes her body shameful and that is not okay
6:11 pm
Did you ever think that women will complain if the word vagina is used and the networks don't want letters and calls from thousands of women. It's why words for male genitals are used routinely throughout every show on TV, but you will never hear a slang word for female genitalia. I have heard balls, nuts, dick, pecker, prick, dickhead, and even cock during prime-time on all channels. Why can't tits or pussy be used? It's because of the backlash from women's groups and many women in general.
Could you imagine how many letters and calls NBC would receive if the show Parks and Recreation used the word pussy. But I heard the word dick and balls during the last episode. It's ok for mainstream media to be sexist and bash men, use words for male genitalia, portray men as bumbling idiots, but not women.
It's even ok to show men nude in basic cable shows, but never women. Movies and cable shows even have started showing penises regularly, but a vagina is forbidden. It's given an NC-17 if they try to show it. Only pubic hair or a boob is allowed because women think showing a vagina degrades them. Even the show Spartacus shows penises every episode, but they won't show a vulva so they make the women wear merkins to cover them up.
So in the end, blame women and women's groups for acting like a vagina is so vulgar.
1:41 pm
"She has a yeast infection issue even with daily baths"
Baths could be the cause of the problem...
2:20 pm
@melanie
Baby wipes and soap can actually cause irritation and infections, especially if you're using them a lot. The vagina maintains a specific acidity to protect itself from bugs, and those things can upset the balance.
A 6-year-old with recurrent infections could also be a cause for concerns about sexual abuse.
Also, I second Rebekah on use of anatomically accurate terms. Having special words for genitals indicates that they're somehow secret and shameful.
2:27 pm
On the language issue - It was a perrenial source of amusement in my cadet group (way back in high school) that the Brittish Army field-dressings we used had "tampon" printed on the packaging. I think this was because they were made in France, where the word, as people have said, has alternative connotations, but to our teenage minds this was far more hillarious than it should have been...
2:40 pm
@Melanie, etc.
I think it should be shameful to use the words "vagina" and "vulva" in church, but it's incredibly unrealistic to expect that a six-year-old shouting in church about her vagina would be acceptable, and shame on you for telling Melanie that she's reinforcing the taboo on the word vagine by not letting her daughter hear it because she herself is uncomfortable with it. Her reasoning is completely understandable, and it's cruel of you to stigmatize her for that and tell her that she should let her six-year-old shout whatever she likes in church, social acceptability be damned.
7:08 am
@Jeff.
You are totally correct, but unfortunaly we are just few who have the guts to say it.
And not only in shows. You can see so many so-called works of art being so explicit about men but never about women.
@Melanie.
I believe you are ashamed of what you have between your legs. And I do believe that your attitude is just unappropriate for a human being.
10:33 am
@Jeff,
and why don't write letters and make phone calls to those broadcasters that are sexist and misandrist?
If you and your friends and their friends, and so on, would do just the same as women do, I can guarantee you they will stop being sexists and misandrists.
But I know that in America and England men are taught that they worth nothing, so probably you guys should start changing the mentality of people fiirst, especially women's.
All the best!
7:04 pm
I dont want to hear about anything that has to do with a god damn vagina while i am just trying to watch tv, god