Let's talk vaginas!

But first, let's talk about Lysol.

You may be wondering, "what on earth does Lysol have to do with vaginas?"

This is a very good question.  Let's back up.

I found a very small, very old Lysol glass bottle at my family’s lake house a few years back, after a game of “Trash or Treasure?” - a project in which my Dad’s generation of the family cleaned out a house that had seen 70+ years of family vacationing rambunction - had cleared enough old bathroom products out of a vanity to unearth this cool little box that I later found while earnestly looking for Q-Tips.

Sure, we’d found our fair share of Vaseline in glass jars over the years, the jelly itself having gone a smelly shade of orangey earwax brown sometime back in 1982.  But the Lysol bottle was an epic discovery: not only had we never seen a Lysol bottle that closely resembled a small bottle of vanilla extract, but said bottle was also still in its original jaunty yellow and red box, adorned with mid-century caricatures and stylings.  Score!

For a design and branding nerd like me who also happens to really, really like the mid-century aesthetic, this weird little bottle of household cleaning product was most assuredly an overlooked treasure.

Imagining Don Draper himself envisioning this packaging, I started examining all the panels of the box.  The front of the box is straightforward enough: this is a concentrated household disinfectant that deep cleans, deodorizes and disinfects.  Check.

I then began to examine remaining three panels of the box.  They are below.  The captions will essentially take you through the internal monologue that happened as I read the box, in this order:

Ooh, I like that checkered floor... wait, new pine scent?
Did Lysol have another scent?  Huh.
Wait, Super-clean Baby's Room?  What's happening in Baby's
room that dousing it in Lysol is a good idea?
Oh, Baby Boom years.  Did you really not know any better?
Oh right, y'all were smoking in the nursery and
drinking martinis while pregnant.
Maybe not.

OK, Baby's Room was bad
enough, but... seriously?  Did moms
actually put Lysol on their kids?
Ow, and on burns?
Good God.  This is just wrong.

....um...
...
....
.....what?

Yes, you did read that right.  Lysol was guaranteed by Good Housekeeping to perform its stalwart duty of deep cleaning the easy way, whether you be tackling the big jobs of attics and basements, killing disease in sick rooms, disinfecting and deodorizing your bathrooms and kitchens, or cleansing your (dirty, contaminated) vagina after your (dirty and shameful) menstruation cycle, or a (dirty and slatternly) round of marital relations.

Oh.  Em.  Gee.

At a time when my own grandmother was using this stuff, a bunch of (white) men sitting around a mahogany table in a smoke-tinged office somewhere decided, over a few rounds of Scotch, that it would be a great idea to convince the women of America that they should feel compelled to shoot a household chemical disinfectant into their vaginas (but only after your periods or sex, of course, ladies).

I mean, Good God.  This simply wasn't all that long ago.  And the worst part about this is that some women inevitably did this.

Or maybe the worst part about this is that the people working for Lysol were so unbelievably unethical that they took it upon themselves to find more household uses for their product with a complete disregard to the actual health and well-being of the humans in that household.

Or maybe the worst part is that the people working for Lysol were allowed to be so unbelievably unethical.

Or maybe the worst part is that the people working for large household products corporations are still allowed be so unbelievably unethical, they just have better product marketing people who use photos of meaningful beach walks and names like "Country Flowers" and "Spring Waterfall."

Or maybe the worst part is that there is a magazine called "Good Housekeeping" in the first place, because the entire premise of that magazine is incredibly sexist in both its expectation that women have a duty to live up to a magazine-issued cleanliness standard (as issued by men), and in its expectation that women have the time to do this in the first place - because women don't work, of course, ha ha, weaker sex and all.  Women can be secretaries and whores, brothers, and when they're not servicing us in some way, they'd better darn well be disinfecting their odorously feculent vaginas.

Or maybe the worst part is that American society has such a deeply ingrained sense of patriarchally righteous parochial prudishness that it manifests itself everywhere, including on the suggested product uses of a household cleaning product, because the Christian tradition has somehow led to a blanket condemnation of women as sexual beings in possession of (whisper it now...) vaginas.

And this is when I realized that American culture as a whole is still unreasonably afraid of vaginas.  We are so afraid of vaginas, in fact, that people will stand firmly convinced that women should be using cleaning products to wash out an orifice that is in no actual need of artificial help staying clean.

Here's the reality: a vagina is a part of our bodies.  Like most other parts of our bodies, any unreasonably bad smell is probably a sign that (1) the mouth attached to that body is ingesting food that's full of chemicals and preservatives, (2) that body isn't moving around enough to be healthy and fit, (3) a bath is in order, and/or (4) there is an infection of some sort.

Put simply, if a woman is taking good care of herself, her vagina is doing just fine.  And if there's an infection, a trip to the doctor is a better bet than shooting any sort of cleansing solution inside oneself, whether that solution is a well-known household chemical cleaning agent or a cleverly-marketed chemical cleaning agent with a scent like "Gleeful Springtime" or "Morning Meadows."

The "feminine hygeine" industry doesn't stop at interior cleansing, either: Massengill makes a "feminine cleansing wash" that's especially formulated "For cleansing and refreshing of external vaginal area."

Indeed, my external vagina (that's actually called the "vulva," boys) needs some refreshment, and I can't think of a better way to give her a pick-me-up than to gently lather her in a bunch of known carcinogens and D&C Red #33 (so she can look rosy).

Women are told that we should spend money to clean, scent and groom our vaginas; men are told that they should spend money to enlarge their penises.

And the latter is covered by insurance.

Successful marketing messages are the ones that resonate with an already-existing audience truth.  The existence of the "feminine hygiene" aisle at the drugstore that houses our Fresh Clean Innocent Springtime scented tampons, pads, and washes is, in and of itself, society's message that we women have some extra cleaning to do - and some extra products to buy to do it.

These products are there because they sell, and they sell because people believe that they are necessary.  And it's easy to believe this, because it's a pervasive message that we hear and experience one way in the Church, and in another way with our product manufacturing and packaging and marketing and advertising, and still another way throughout the media in messages and formats that have become so subtle and accepted to us that we don't even notice it.

And so, please: notice it.

And the next time someone tries to convince you that women are treated equally in this country, you might ask that person how many kinds of Penis Wash are on the shelves at the local drugstore.  Or Testicle Scrubbers.  Or razors forumlated especially to adhere to the uniquely rugged curves of a man's ball sack.

In the meantime, I'm off to start a new company for an 8-blade razor that adheres to the uniquely rugged curves of a man's ball sack.  The razors will come in mightily big silver and black packages with free condoms inside, and they will carry superhero, truck and sports-themed designs, and I shall call them "Eroshave."