Search Results for: free use
On Femfresh, Freshballs, Fellaswipes and scented tampons
Gentlemen, start your engines, because it’s your turn now. Pull down your trousers, hold your dicks aloft, and start wiping them with special cock-cleansing wipes.
That’s right – worry no more. Having ridiculous expectations about your body is now no longer confined to women. And in case you were wondering, there’s also a product for your balls.
Femfresh social media fail
Last week I wrote about Femfresh – that delightful ‘feminine hygiene’ product that purported to ‘woo hoo your froo froo’ with ‘PH-balanced’ wipes, cleansers and sprays. Lovely.
Since then they’ve had something of a PR nightmare, as the Femfresh facebook page has suffered an onslaught of mockery dished out by a human race which, thanks to this, I now have a lot more faith in. Ladies and gentlemen of facebook: I salute you.
If they’ve taken it down, the Wallblog has screenshots.
What’s the point of shouting?
I feel a bit sorry for Femfresh now – yes, they’re peddling a hatefully unnecessary product. But then, so are Tampax – they sell scented tampons. So are Vagisil and Carefree. And yes, so are Freshballs and Fellaswipes.
While it’s great that one of these companies has taken a bit of a battering over a product that is designed to make us feel shameful about the natural genital smells humans produce, the reporting has been a bit confused on the issue.
The lead story (on blogs like The Wall and HuffPo) has been ‘Women start a backlash because a marketing company called their fanny a ‘la-la.” And that’s not strictly the case.
Firstly, it’s not just women. Men are offended by this shit as well – and why wouldn’t they be? Men no more call it a ‘la-la’ than they’d call their dick a ‘dinkle.’ Just because the childish words used in Femfresh’s campaign are about vaginas, that doesn’t mean that you need to have a vagina to recognise how ridiculous the campaign is. There were plenty of men on their facebook page too.
Secondly, people aren’t just angry because a company referred to vaginas as ‘la-la’s. Or ‘nooni’s or ‘kitty’s, for that matter. This language is offensive and patronising, sure, but most of the comments on the page seem to be surrounding the product itself. The misery of discovering that there was yet another thing we were expected to do to our bodies to sanitize them and prettify them before we’d be allowed out in society.
The bright side of Femfresh
I am disgusted by these products – vaginal sprays, dick wipes, scented tampons – and I am disgusted that we live in a world where people are paid to persuade us that they’re necessary.
But I’m actually pretty happy that this happened. We could have watched the next few weeks go by, occasionally making angry comments about the ads plastered on phone boxes or facebook updates about being ‘proud of your pom-pom’, but we didn’t. A huge bunch of people stepped in and gave what Femfresh – in their characteristically euphemistic way – calls ‘feedback.’ They started a massive, angry, stamping kickoff, and told them that we don’t need their bullshit.
So whether you’re male or female, the next time you see an ad or a website for ‘intimate hygiene products’ that tries to persuade you your body is disgusting and unnatural, remember that you’re fine as you are. Not only do you not stink, but the people who think you do just got utterly owned on facebook.
God bless the internet.
On the smell of your vagina
Listen up, ladies, you stink! It’s awful. Did you know that you constantly exude vaginal juices? Have you ever taken the time to just… smell yourself? Sheesh, it’s gross.
We wouldn’t mind, but this repulsive stench isn’t something you confine to the comfort of your own pathetic hovel, you’re out there amongst us in society – at the bus stop, in the office, on the tube – leaking.
You disgust us.
The considerate amongst you will by now be thinking: ‘What’s the solution? How can I prevent the unsavoury odour of my womanhood from penetrating the delicate nostrils of a general public which – completely understandably – thinks I am foul?’
Well, you need to clean yourself up, for a start. Not only should you shower every morning and wash those natural cunty juices away with a special vaginal soap, but ideally you will be aware of your potential to stink during every single waking minute of your day.
Showering in the office can be impractical, but luckily for you we have a solution. A solution to that disgusting thing that your body does. A solution that means vaginal cleanliness is not just something you need to worry about when you’re in the shower – it’s something you’re free to worry about whenever you get within sniffing distance of another human being.
Congratulations, you can ‘woo-hoo your froo froo’ with delightfully scented wipes.
And by ‘woo-hoo your froo-froo’ we mean ‘wipe your cunt.’
You, yes – you. Wipe your cunt, you disgusting bitch.
Or if you – like us – think it’s horrible and can’t bear to touch it, try spraying it with something.
There’s only one thing more abhorrent than the smell of a woman’s vagina, and that’s the smell of a woman’s menstruating vagina. Just the very idea of it has me dry-heaving. So for crying out loud if you’re on your period, have the common decency to buy some scented tampons.
Please don’t buy this shit
It is completely natural to smell of something. It is natural for your vagina to leak, and it is natural for your vagina to smell like… well, a vagina. It isn’t minty-fresh, it isn’t strawberry-flavoured and it certainly isn’t a fucking flower. But every single day marketing people will try and persuade you that it should be sweet-smelling, inoffensive, and as unnoticeable as possible.
So, from the centre of my brain right down to my post-wank musky-scented cunt – I implore you not to buy this shit.
This is important – so important – because over the next ten years this will only get worse. This post was prompted by creepy adverts that appeared in London asking women to buy products that are ‘woo hoo for my froo-froo’ – a noxious spray of marketing pisswank that doesn’t even have the courage to call a vagina ‘a vagina’.
In the future we’ll be asked not just to wax as much hair off our bodies as possible, wear makeup, conform to a certain shape, and have our tits lifted when we have the temerity to age, we’ll also be expected to panic constantly about whether our cunt smells like cunt. And woe betide us if it does.
So don’t buy this shit. Tell your friends not to buy this shit. And most of all, please remind your teenaged daughters why they don’t need to buy this shit. Because over their long lifetimes their cunts will ooze gallons of discharge and girlwank. If they grow up thinking that this is a ‘hygiene problem’ that requires a ‘solution’ we condemn them to an impossible task – making sure that, for as much of the day as possible, their cunts smell like anything but cunt.
It’s miserable, guilt-laden bullshit created by people who want your money. They are not providing a ‘solution’ to your ‘hygiene problem’, they are inventing a problem and a new way for you to feel small, then offering to take your money to make the pain go away.
In case you think I’m being too harsh, in case you’re thinking ‘yes, but some women want this’ – fine. Some women might. I’m not going to dictate whether you should or shouldn’t wipe your cunt with expensively-packaged rags. But what I am saying – no, screaming wildly as I smash my head into the keyboard – is this:
Do it if you want to, but don’t ever let anyone persuade you that you need to.
On equal marriage
Liberals are a funny bunch. We can be powerfully and passionately political, but get so bogged down in earnest discussion that we forget the very basics. I am guilty of this sometimes – I overthink the linguistic implications of trying to ‘reclaim’ the word ‘slut’, and miss out on some fun-sounding slutwalks.
But we should never forget why the basics are important. Last night I had a timely reminder, when I met a friendly, liberal guy in a pub who argued against equal marriage:
“If we let gay people get married then we legitimise the institution of marriage. And aren’t there more important things to do, like fix the economy? Oh, and if gay people can get married then what’s to stop polygamous groups asking for multiple marriages?”
Put on your hard hats, people: I’m about to throw some rocks.
We shouldn’t ‘let’ gay people get married
It is not a question of ‘letting’ anyone do anything – you’re not giving gay people your permission to get married – you are obliged to give them the same rights and freedoms as you’d give anyone else.
If someone is released from prison because they’re found innocent you’re not ‘letting them leave’ you are obliged to give them their freedom back.
There’s a beautiful picture doing the rounds on the internet showing some idiotic right-wingers from 40 years ago protesting against mixed race marriage. It’s contrasted with a contemporary picture of people protesting gay marriage with the slogan “Imagine how stupid you’ll look in 40 years”
Fuck whether you’ll look stupid in 40 years – you look stupid right now. You’re failing to recognise that, regardless of who someone loves, shags and visits Ikea with, they are still fundamentally a person.
So it’s not a question of ‘letting’ gay people do the same as straight people. We are morally obliged to give all people the same basic freedoms. So let’s get on with it.
There are more important things than gay marriage
Yes, there are many things more important than the human rights of those in the western world who are already blessed with rights aplenty. If you’re worried about that then be my guest – pick a charity and open your fucking wallet.
But in the meantime it’s so rare – so heartbreakingly rare – that we have the opportunity to make such a monumental difference. It’s a teeny tiny legislative change, and it’s simple. Compared to dismantling the NHS or reviving a sluggish economy, it’s as simple as breathing in and out.
You could wake up one morning and find yourself in a society that is fundamentally fairer than the one in which you went to bed. That is an opportunity so fantastic that not seizing it seems wilfully destructive. So get on with it.
We’re opening the door to polygamy!
Leaving aside the question of whether we should actually legalise multiple marriages, this is a huge, ridiculous, stinking red herring. Why? Well, legislating for multiple marriages is infinitely more complex and ethically challenging than simply removing the gender specifications from a current marriage law.
It’s not a ‘slippery slope’ – it’s a completely different mountain. We can discuss polygamy another time, but right now we’re talking about legalising gay marriage. Let’s get on with it.
Gay people shouldn’t legitimise the institution of marriage
I am unlikely to ever get married. The party appeals but the rest leaves me cold with horror. I won’t get married – I think marriage is shit. But if some people have the legal right to eat that shit then I don’t see why anyone else shouldn’t have the same goddamn right to chow down on it too.
If you think that marriage is so bad that gay people shouldn’t do it, and you’re waving banners calling for an end to all marriage – gay and straight – then good on you. I won’t march along on your protest but I’ll respect your slightly odd opinion.
But you’re not, are you? You’re not. You’re saying ‘marriage is shit, leave it to the straights’. Which sails so far and fast past the point that the point itself is but a tiny dot on the horizon.
Here, I think, is the key – we should legalise gay marriage even if gay people don’t want it. Because I am straight, I can make a stand against the institution of marriage by choosing not to get married. At the moment some people don’t even have that choice – they can’t actively reject an institution that they were forbidden from joining anyway.
So even if every single gay person in the whole world decides that marriage isn’t for them, they should have the same right as I do to say ‘I don’t’. The act of marriage isn’t as important as the choice itself – a choice which should be offered to all people equally. So let’s get on and offer it.
Being gay is fundamentally wrong
I’m not going to get into this. If your religion or your personal ethics are so viscerally anti-gay marriage then you’re not going to change your mind after reading a rant from a sex blogger. You probably clicked off the page a long time ago, so this post isn’t for you.
It’s for the liberals who argue that there are more important things, for the lefties who say that gay people should boycott marriage because the institution itself is flawed. It’s for the people who say ‘we’ve got civil partnerships, that’s close enough’. It’s for those who aren’t interested one way or another because they know that gay marriage will become legal eventually, so what’s all the fuss about?
This post is for you. At the moment the UK government is holding a consultation on marriage equality. And although I love a good pub debate, I don’t want to sit arguing about the nuanced implications of our individual viewpoints while one of the best opportunities to advance equality slips through our fingertips.
So we can fight about the detail over a pint, or we can recognise that no matter what our liberal quibbles, all people should be treated equally. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?
On men, and how they’re only after one thing
Women – you’re bloody lucky, you know. OK, you might have to deal with a bit of sexual harassment in the workplace, or people making mad assumptions about the way you dress and carry yourself, but it’s all OK because you can have sex any time you like.
On what makes a woman sexy
As a woman who has had sex with a man on more than one occasion, I felt like I might be well-placed to give you some advice on how to become sexy. Here goes.
When I’ve asked men I’ve slept with “what makes me sexy?”, answers have ranged from ‘your enthusiasm for dick’ through ‘your big, fat, argumental mouth’ to ‘the fact that you live quite close by and I’m incredibly lazy.’ But luckily we don’t have to rely on flattery dished out by men I’ve known – FHM has the answer.
Today FHM released its ‘100 sexiest women’ edition and I, completely unscientifically and with pint in hand, logged the key things that stood out about the women in the top 100. See my ‘methodology‘ for more info.
I then spoke to the collection of liberal, pervy, lovely people who follow me on Twitter, and asked what they thought was sexy. The results are in:
What makes a woman sexy, according to FHM
What makes a woman sexy, according to Twitter
Quite the difference, no? It turns out that becoming the sexiest woman in the world might be more difficult than I originally thought.
What does FHM say about ‘sexiness’?
Most of the things mentioned in the bios of FHM’s top 100 were career-related. In fact, almost all of the copy focused either on what the lady had featured in (TV shows, films, magazines, adverts) or songs she had sung. Curiously, although many of them mentioned the women’s careers, there were only 11 mentions of specific achievements – ‘breaking a Guinness World Record’ or ‘kayaking the Amazon’, for instance.
Although there were a few glimpses of their personal interests and passions (one of the top 100 sexiest women campaigns to save Great White Sharks, another is a noted philanthropist) the majority of the copy focused, unsurprisingly, on dribbling odes to their ‘legginess’ or bodies ‘sexy enough to bend time and space.’
What does Twitter say about ‘sexiness’?
Twitter, on the other hand, focused far more on a girl’s attitude – her individuality and confidence were key indicators of sexiness, as were wit and intelligence.
Special mentions go to words like ‘edgy’ and ‘ballsy’, which I personally appreciate in a woman. One enthusiastic gentlemen assured me that the sexiest thing in a woman was her offering ‘even the slightest indication that she’d be willing to touch me.’
But the overall prize goes to the four people who pointed out (though no doubt most others were thinking similar things) that it’s all completely subjective. Personally, I love a girl with attitude – a loudmouthed, argumentative, filthy creature who could beat me in both a fist-fight and an argument. Someone with pretty eyes, a huge arse and spectacularly hard nipples.
How to become the sexiest woman in the world
Depressing though it is to read FHM, it does help you to understand the tedium that comes with consensus. Yes, most of the women in the top 100 were similar – they all had jobs in the public eye, so were presumably quite outgoing, they were all slim and feminine, with lovely tits. Most of them had long hair and almost all of them were wearing clothes even my mother wouldn’t let me leave the house in.
But that’s just what happens when you get thousands of people to choose sexiness based on pictures of women they’ve seen in magazines. Their sample is limited, for a start, and there are so many people voting that things will eventually work their way towards a democratic middle-ground – the breadth and variety of human sexual preference won’t get a look in. You’ll inevitably end up with 100 beautiful yet very similar singers/models/actresses in their pants.
When you ask people a question – an open one – about what they find attractive, ‘sexiness’ becomes far more inclusive. Suddenly to become the sexiest woman in the world you no longer have to choose from a limited range of careers, associate yourself with someone famous or freeze your arse off in cheap lingerie.
If you can be confident, intelligent, make someone laugh or melt at your smile, you’re onto a winner. If you have a twinkle in your eye or a penchant for filth or even just a special something that makes you different then someone – somewhere – will probably want to fuck you.
Well, someone on Twitter at any rate.
Methodology: Let it not be said that I am not a rigorous motherfucker. What was my methodology? I logged things that were mentioned in tweets, using what I believe is technically described as a ‘tally chart on the back of an envelope.’ I then logged things from the descriptions and accompanying photos that appeared in FHM’s ‘100 sexiest women’ supplement. If it wasn’t mentioned, it wasn’t logged. For example, I know that at least three of the people in the supplement have had a sex tape/sexy pictures leaked, but it was only mentioned on one occasion, so was only counted once.