Via Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet, I learned of this new internet campaign from Stayfree.
At last, my girlish fantasies realized! I have always dreamed of a man who would have dinner almost ready when I got home, and then mansplain the intricacies of feminine hygiene products while the risotto simmered.
Except I grew up in the 1970s, so my fantasy man shaved his face, not his chest, before our date.
[See also A date with Ryan and A date with Trevor.]
Watched A date with Trevor.
“If I could go through this experience every month instead of you… I would.”
Gee… thanks?
This is exactly what I’ve always dreamed, too! I’d go to someone’s house for dinner, and on the table, would be 3 opened disposable menstrual pads. There, in the sensuous candlelight, he’d pitch me *his* preferred form and brand of what goes in my crotch.
The only thing missing is wine glasses filled with that blue liquid.
Wow, and yuck. Amazing, though, how they wove nakedness/sex/heterosexuality, condescension/man knows best, and some sort of pseudo intimacy into all three ads.
also, in the cooking one, when he heads outside, all I could think was that they didn’t even have a bottle of red wine chilling despite cooking steak in a Barolo reduction – god forbid we have red anywhere near menstrual products even if it would be for an appropriate food/wine pairing
There really is a lot going on in these ads, isn’t there?!
I highlighted the mansplaining, but there’s also the line about how thinness is good (don’t you like thinness?) perhaps ironically coming from the man cooking rich food, and the other two men who hate “moisture”.
Yeah, my brain went there – aren’t heterosexual men supposed to *like* wetness?
This was surely inspired by a series of commercials for Brawny paper towels from 2007. But the Brawny ads make me laugh, and the Stayfree ones creep me out.
Can I embed here? Forgive me if it just turns into code…
OK here’s the URL:
Thanks, Therese! I wonder if those were made by the same ad agency.
I wish I’d known about the Brawny ads half an hour ago – I just spoke to a reporter about the Stayfree campaign.
creepy is definitely the right word.
Yeah, really. I feel like playing that Ani Difranco song that reminds men that kittens find their way out of trees themselves, and that men don’t even need to show up…