Ladies, Lock Up Your Vaginas!

Last week there was a lot of talk that The Australian Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) has received a number of complaints about the recent Carefree ad for Acti-Fresh underwear liners. The complaints were regarding the use of the word vagina, as well as the woman being depicted as naked behind a flower, but my complaints are with the marketing product of the product itself.

Although I don’t have a problem with using the word vagina, I have to admit that I too was confused by the woman being naked. Why does she need to be naked? Carefree have said they want to encourage women to feel comfortable talking about their bodies, so possibly they were trying to depict the female body in normalised way. The message is contradicted by the fact that woman’s body is hidden behind the flowers. If we’re so comfortable with it why do we need to hide it?

But it also doesn’t make any sense. You can't wear liners when you're naked. If the ad had shown a woman in her underwear, it would have put the product in the context of being part of a woman’s usual routine of getting dressed, an every day routine. Wearing underpants is not hiding your body. It’s just a normal part of life – many people wear underpants. I think they just wanted to be different. But they were already achieving that by simply saying the word vagina. They didn’t need to do anything else outrageous.

Which brings me to my particular problem with the ad. I’m not offended by the word vagina. I think it’s good that Carefree used the word and spoke openly about its healthy functions. What offends me is the implication that we need to do something about it. If discharge is a healthy thing, what do we need the liners for?

The ad says the liners have '…an absorbent core to lock away wetness and odour, helping you feel clean, dry and fresh every day’. To me, this says that the wetness and the odour is a negative thing; a problem. So although it’s healthy to have vaginal discharge, it’s not acceptable? Of course, there may be women who experience large amounts of discharge or have particular issues that worry them, and they should feel comfortable in dealing with that. But it should not be presented to us something we all need to do something about.

It seems Carefree aren’t the only ones preaching this message. Recently I bought sample pack of U products t came with a free clutch!) Included was a booklet with lots of good information, obviously aimed at girls going through puberty. It also recommended using liners throughout the month for discharge. Personally, I find wearing liners for too long can lead to chafing, which in my opinion is much worse for your feminine hygiene. I won't be taking their advice on that one.

Mamamia recently published 'Dear Makers of Feminine Vagisil Wash', criticising the makers of Vagisil Feminine Wash for making women feel like it is not normal for their vaginas to have an odour. Unfortunately Carefree must have missed that one. The writer even used the word vagina a few times.

I thought that if you were a clean and hygienic person, the usual monthly discharge, wetness and odour should not be a problem. I learnt long ago from Dolly Doctor that vaginas have their own cleaning system, and that you shouldn’t use soap at all in that part of the body.

On an episode of Embarrassing Bodies a young woman was so worried about her odorous discharge that they took a swab and sent it to the lab, only to find the sample devoid of pretty much any bacteria, even the good ones that control things like smell. So the final diagnosis was that she was washing it far too much and the best thing she could do was to leave it alone!

Carefree claim they want to encourage women to talk openly about their bodies, but how many women and teenage girls out there now think the healthy functioning of their bodies is actually something dirty and unclean? Carefree seem to be more concerned with locking our vaginas up than liberating them.

Drilling the Arctic Circle: The Truth is In Here…

Do you ever wonder if there really is life out there? What would happen if Barack Obama announced today that an alien race had contacted us? What would we think? Would we be scared?

Sometimes I think that while it’s just a conspiracy theory, it can’t be proven. And while it can’t be proven right or wrong, it’s safe for us to think about. Safe for us to make movies about or write books about. But imagine if it really were true. It would change everything about the way we see ourselves and the universe. We can’t even get along with our own kind, let alone an alien race.

It makes me think the same thing about the planet. I remember when I first learnt about environmental issues in school. There was a certain optimism; that as the future generation we were the key to solving the problem. And I believed it. Captain Planet always had a happy ending.

That was 20 years ago. And when I look around at what is happening today, things have only gotten worse. It appears that what I once thought of as off limits, no longer is. Will Finding Nemo be enough to save the Great Barrier Reef from coal mining? Malcom Douglas couldn’t stop copper mining in The Kimberly. No one could save Kakadu. And now Shell are planning to drill for oil in the Arctic Circle.

When I heard about it this morning I had an ‘Aha moment’. Oil and mining companies will never stop. They will mine and drill every last bit of oil or mineral that they can find on this planet, until there is none left. That is there job. It doesn’t matter what we say about these resources being precious – not only to the planet but also to our society; where would medicine be without plastics and metals? It doesn’t matter how much we say about any of it because it is their job to get oil and they will keep doing it anywhere and everywhere, until there is none left. I’m not saying this in a sad, save the world kind of way. I’m just saying it in a, this is the truth of the matter, kind of way. It’s like I’ve suddenly grown up and seen the world for what it is.

And that brings me to the next question. What is going to happen to us? Because as long as we keep arguing about climate change - whether or not it’s actually happening, and how we can stop it - it means that it’s not real. It means we don’t really have to think about it.

But cutting down old growth forests and digging up world heritage listed national parks to mine for resources is real. And the future is real. We talk about the future all the time but do we really think about it? Because for me the future has already happened. And it will happen again. But will it be any better than the present? My guess is that if we continue the same way as now, it will be exponentially worse, and in another twenty years time I will probably be saying the exact same thing.

The Shire: Australia’s answer to Jersey Shore, The Hills, The City, Keeping With The Kardashians…

After watching the latest reality show from Network Ten I now understand why every one always bags out The Shire, or should I say ‘God’s Country’.

Watching it I felt shocked, disturbed, a little violated… More like watching Chris Lilley’s The Shire. Even a fictional Ja’mie is a breath of fresh air compared to Sophie and Vernesa. At least she had some level of intelligence. And rapper Rif Raf from the Shire has an uncanny likeness to rapper S.Mouse from Angry Boys. If it wasn’t for the social media frenzy it stirred, one could be forgiven for mistaking the show for a fictional satire.

Funnily enough, I actually watched The Hills for weeks before realising that it was a reality show. I didn’t know anything about the show or its stars and just assumed that it was a teen drama shot in a documentary style. You can’t imagine how shocked I was to find out they were all real people, and that all the storylines on the show were also real, that is, until Heidi got a boob job. 

But in The Shire, even the so-called locals aren’t real. Sophie and Vernesa are apparently from Bankstown and now living in Homebush. That’s about as far from the Shire as you can get without leaving Sydney. It baffles me. Did the producers think we wouldn’t notice? Perhaps they just thought they were too good a talent to miss? Or were they worried about the show not being multi-cultural enough for the modern Australian audience? Whatever they thought, they have demonstrated once again, that you can’t fool the audience. Audiences know crap when they see it.

What really matters is that nobody believed them. Even if a reality show or dramality’ as the show has been labelled, is semi-scripted, it still has to be believable. It’s not about what is real or not, it’s about what is believable. The producers made a fatal mistake including Sophie and Vernesa in the show because just as the mayor of the Shire, Carol Provan said, they were merely cardboard cutouts of Kim Kardashian. Caricatures, not characters; some sort of disfigured specimen of the ridiculous.

But Beckaa? Now there’s an interesting character. She was real enough for me. Sadly she’s been so overshadowed by Sophie and Vernesa that no one’s even mentioned her. If they’d just stuck with her I reckon they would have gotten the trash TV factor just right. She was juicy enough for the whole show.

Cut to:

Beckaa, a spoilt little rich girl with possible daddy issues, two gay best friends who play with her boobs on camera and then say behind her back that that her new fake nose makes her look like a pig.

Now that’s great TV!