Because vaginas are offended by polyester

Today smacking: Tampon and pad advertising.

I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got my period, I don’t secretly long for the comforting sensation of silk to caress my nether bits. They do not need to be nursed and reassured that everything is okay; that this will all be over soon, and then we can have a nice, long bath and a hot cup of cocoa. My vulva is really never going to care that much.

Which is why my face seizes up into a teeth-bared sneer when I see ads on TV touting the latest improvements to tampons and pads (or ‘napkins’, as the Brits like to call them, but that puts me far too much in mind of fine dining, and heartless as I may be, I’m not Nosferatu: I don’t fancy imbibing blood on a regular basis. But I digress). The one that really got me going recently was this ad that proclaimed their newest pad was crafted especially for your delicate ladybits with ‘genuine silk, for greater comfort.’

Say what now?

Okay, two points here:

1.) anyone who has ever worn a pad, for any reason, knows there’s no such thing as a comfortable one. They bunch, they stick, they ride, they sometimes leak, they are not form-fitting – no matter what the manufacturers have deluded themselves into believing – and you certainly cannot just ‘forget’ you’re wearing one. Sure, they come in degrees of inconvenience, from ‘surfboard-shaped absorptive brick’ to ‘thin, flexible and cites crack-riding as a favourite pastime’ but no amount of silk cradling your lady-garden is going to change that a menstrual pad is, by nature, hellfire uncomfortable. And;

2.) a menstrual pad is a product designed to absorb a (literally) bloody mess. Great, viscous globules; spongy strings; free-flowing gush: it’s all bloody. Eventually, you throw it out. Isn’t the ‘silk’ content (in single quotes because I believe the silk is about as real as that body wash available just now that claims to contain ‘crushed pearls’) just a tad, you know, wasteful and unnecessary?

So why don’t the advertisers get a bit more frank about it? There seems to be an assumption that someone, somewhere out there, is afraid of actually thinking about what menstrual products are for. That’s why they get saddled with stupid, nonsensical names like ‘feminine protection’ (protection from whom?), ‘feminine hygiene’ (because we’re so ritually unclean), and the dreaded ‘sanitary products’. Someone out there is afraid to admit what these products are actually for. But who is it? Is it men? Are they really completely squicked out by the notion of blood (and nutrient-rich tissue produced to sustain developing life) coming from 'Down There'? Or is it women? Are we really that afraid, likely even ashamed, of our own bodies and their normal functions?

My answer: c) all of the above.

So in the interests of forcing us to stop being so juvenile about it, I really wish the advertisers would just call a spade a spade, and a blood clot a blood clot. We’re not ever going to get any truth in advertising, I can concede that. But a little frankness would go down well. I remember a tampon ad that was played a lot on TV when I was a kid. It featured a young woman walking down the street when a fire hydrant suddenly erupted, shooting a thirty-foot fountain of water into the air. Passers-by, fun-loving rapscallions they were, thought it was a great idea to go dancing and playing in the fountain of water raining down on the street. Young woman looks vexed for a moment. But then, remembering she’s ‘protected’ (which we know because she gives her trusty tampon packet a little tap so it sinks further down into her back pocket), gives us a grin and goes dancing in the fountain, too. The tagline was something to the effect of, “X brand: giving you the freedom to do whatever you want.”

As a child I was utterly perplexed by this ad that never actually used the words 'tampon' or 'period'. I didn’t understand what this packet in her pocket signified, and why it gave her the freedom to dance in a fountain when she apparently couldn’t do so under some other circumstance. Some explanation would have been nice: “Unlike pads, these tampons will plug you up like a wine barrel so you don’t have to worry about bleeding all over the place should you be submerged in water.” That would have assisted my understanding a fair bit, I should think. I know it’s not TV’s job to educate me, but it could try to be honest with me. How about, “We know pads will never be comfortable to wear, but we’ve tried to make ours a bit smoother so at least you don’t chafe your groin down to the sinew”? Refreshing frankness, and not a mention of the comfort of silk in sight.

Yep, that would work for me.

Not just because Kate Moss's breasts are smaller than mine

Today smacking: Celebrity envy

There’s a punishment I can think of that is worse than death. It’s worse than being thrown down a well full of ravenous rats. Worse than eating semi-decomposed slugs. Worse than finding porno pictures of your parents at a ‘key party’ in the 70’s. Worse than getting stuck in an elevator full of someone else’s egg-fart. Worse than the voice of that guy who does the Cillit Bang adverts on TV. Worse, even, than Kirsten Dunst’s need for a supportive bra, or just any bra at all. No, the worst fate in the world, the one I wouldn’t wish on even my archenemy, even if they had kicked me in the shins and convinced me I was adopted, is the fate of being a really famous celebrity. I wouldn’t wish being Britney Spears on anybody.

I begin to feel distinctly uncomfortable when I flip through crap-filled magazines such as heat or OK! and they’re proclaiming that the latest cool thing to do is to wear what Kate Moss is wearing (because, Oh My God, she’s always SO RIGHT NOW), and eat in the same restaurants where Kate Moss is ‘eating’ (help me, I’m dying of laughter-induced hypoxia), and have the same addled and confused boyfriend that Kate Moss has. Well, OK, nobody’s stupid enough to want to follow that last one. But the point is that in these magazines we’re constantly being told that our tiny little lives are not the least bit as exciting or meaningful as those of the celebrities we worship, and so we go ahead and believe that the only way we’ll ever come close to being as interesting as our favourite famous faces is to emulate them. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, I can’t think of anything worse.

Does anyone out there really think that Lindsay Lohan, Posh Spice, or the ‘Jolie-Pitts’ are having any kind of fun? When I think of what celebrities have to do to stay in the limelight, and remain in the public’s good graces, I shudder. There’s the constant need to look good and wear new clothes, the requirement to do and say interesting things, and the absolute necessity to hide all the parts of your life which could – and would – be construed negatively by the press. It’s no wonder so many celebrities say “Fuck it,” to the idea that they will ever have any privacy or be treated like normal people who have a job to do. (Which most of them are, except Paris Hilton, whose earthly purpose scientists have still yet to determine. Personally I’m convinced she’s an alien masquerading as an heiress in order to conduct a social experiment in how readily the people of earth will accept someone as a celebrity simply because we’re told she’s famous, despite the fact that she does nothing, says nothing, and quite apparently eats nothing. Boy, did we ever show them.)

I don’t wonder at all why some celebs end up embracing their own demises, conceding that any publicity is good publicity. So then we have the ‘flashing our bald genitalia as we get out of cars’, the ‘publicly bouncing in and out of rehab’, the ‘inflammatory statements to the press about other celebrities we’re supposedly having a public tiff with’ – because if you can’t keep the press on your good side, then you might as well make them beg for the bad. And if you’ve got some excellent PR behind you, you can do a Kate Moss and get up to all the seedy shit you want, appear all genuinely apologetic about it after a stint in rehab, and end up with more job prospects than before you let yourself be photographed doing lines when you should have been looking after your young daughter.

Of course, many think that it’s a simple case of, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ To some extent I think that this is true, and I think that in the last few decades anyone trying to become famous would have to be severely brain-damaged not to realise how much of their identity and privacy would be sacrificed in achieving that end. But we forget that celebrities are real people, with real fears and hopes and insecurities – oh, truckloads of insecurities – just like the rest of us plebs. You try having every aspect of your personality and all your decisions and beliefs scrutinised by a catty media who don’t care to analyse the real you; see if it doesn’t drive you to coke-fuelled benders and a slippery shame spiral.

Me, I like that I can say unwholesome and politically incorrect things without the world jumping on my back. I can talk about drugs I’ve done without fear of it turning into next week’s big rehab story. I can go across the street for a litre of milk in my pyjamas and feel safe in the knowledge that the only photographs of me doing so will be taken my pervy neighbours who don’t know how to use the internet yet. I can get drunk with my mates every weekend without heat magazine fearing I’m having a breakdown, and best of all, I can put on a few kilos and run around in ill-fitting underwear and nobody gives a flying rat’s arsehole. Sure, I’m poor as hell, but there’s a lot of comfort in being just another civilian.

So nope, nuh-uh, and nosiree Bob; I wouldn’t wish being Kate Moss on anyone.

When dads became bumbling idiots

Today smacking: the Bumbling Idiot Dad archetype

At risk of turning into the old lady sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch, polishing her shotgun and whistling through the gap where that front tooth should be, muttering, “Back in my day, we used to walk to school uphill both ways, even with a broken leg and tuberculosis, and we were grateful for it!” I must express that I feel there’s a gaping hole where our fathers used to be.

I blame this stupid archetype that came along around fifteen years ago: the Bumbling Idiot Dad. This archetype has single-handedly managed to reduce a generation of fathers to the status of the gum stuck to the bottom of the world’s shoe, and it’s so wrong and destructive that it makes me want to scoop out my eyes with a rusty teaspoon for sheer despair.

It began with Homer Simpson, the lovable but unfathomably stupid foil to the upright responsibility of beleaguered wife Marge. Now, since I grew up on a diet of The Simpsons I can hardly bash it with a clear conscience – and besides, that chip the Fox Network put in my brain will shock my neurones into a catatonic stupor, and I hardly want to be more mind-numbingly boring than I already am. But my horror remains that the character of Homer Simpson inspired a league of Bumbling Idiot Dad characters in our comedy sphere, and it’s ruining our appreciation of the actual father role.

You know the type of character the Bumbling Idiot Dad (BID) is. His head is almost permanently in the clouds, and he often conjures inspired but ultimately stupid schemes in order to achieve his ends, which are always selfish and childish. His wife is tempered and patient and supports him no end, though clearly he doesn’t deserve it since he is partially retarded and frequently on the brink of destroying everything the family holds dear. He gives ill-conceived advice to his 2.3 children, sending them on exploits derived of bad decisions. And all the while we laugh, and we laugh, and we laugh – until we choke on our Doritos and realise our arses are plastered to the couch for the rest of eternity.

The shame is that Homer Simpson was pure comedic perfection, but lesser producers, scriptwriters and networks evidently saw the cash cow that The Simpsons quickly became, and since then we’ve been battered from all sides by an army of poorly-rendered, frustratingly stupid characters all trying to imitate the classic BID. But they completely fail to be even remotely funny or clever. (I’m looking at you, Family Guy: you and your shameless Homer and Marge Simpson rip-off characters. And I’m looking at you, Everybody Loves Raymond: you and your complete mockery of the family unit, and your devaluation of really serious relationship issues, you utter waste of space and air time.)

We are turning fatherhood into a running joke.

I feel sorry for dads in all this, because the BID archetype is just small part of a larger deterioration in our culture of the value of the father role. Fathers these days are too often immediately second-class to mothers just by virtue of their being male. Mothers are given custody of their children often quite unquestioningly in custody disputes. Women are taking the final say in reproduction and how and when the family will expand or not. Don’t misread me: it is essential that women take over the microphone when it comes to what they do with their own bodies. But I cannot see how it is fair that, once there are children in the picture, a supposedly equal parenting relationship will intrinsically give the father’s opinions less voice than the mother’s.
(There’s an expansion of this idea over at Violent Acres, if you’re interested.)

I have raved on about how important I think good parenting is. It’s also important to value what both parents essentially are within the family unit, which is, in a nutshell, really crucial and valuable. It’s destructive and foolish to perpetuate a stereotype that so greatly devalues everything that a father is, can be, and should be. Can you imagine if there was an emerging stereotype in our media of the Bumbling Idiot Mother? Oh, how the feminists would crow!

Speaking of which; there are some who will say it is the rise of feminism which has in large part helped to push this deadbeat dad character in to our entertainment in an effort to Put Down the Man, or whatever it is people seem to think Those Feminists are doing these days. But since true feminism is about equality across genders, and not pushing one gender down for the purpose of advancing the other(s), we can’t say it’s all the feminists’ faults. Sorry, angry mob, you’ll have to douse those torches and put down the pitchforks for now.

I’m blaming, in half part, the laziness of our entertainment vehicles for this. How hard is it to come up with a new and interesting set of characters for a new programme, instead of re-hashing the same old stupid stereotypes time after time? It’s not that hard at all, but the thing is, the TV networks don’t have to. It is we who so gleefully lap up this ridiculous premise that it’s funny to laugh at incompetent parenting. This is where I place the rest of the blame. It’s our stupid faults for tuning in to see how Ray Barone will stick his foot in his mouth this week, thereby turning wife Debra into a screeching harridan, or how Peter Griffin’s latest hair-brained scheme will put his family’s life and income in danger while Lois Griffin sits patiently by.

I really wish we wouldn’t watch this crap when there are so many better-sketched characters out there; characters which are grounded in originality and don’t reek of influences much better than themselves. By supporting and believing this crap, we’re helping to destroy everything that a father should aspire to and be proud to be, and we should be really worried.