New app lets you surgically birth "Frozen" Anna's baby

Remember that bizarre "Plastic Surgery Barbie" App that came out last year? Well, here's another opportunity for girls to learn about the magical worlds of surgery and copyright violation.

Buzzfeed's Daniel Kibblesmith talks readers through the game, which shows Frozen's 18-year-old  Princess Anna ready to give birth to Kristoff's baby (after they get married, of course!)

The app guides the user through a sanitized Caesarian birth, apparently not clarifying whether Anna is suffering from a complication that prevents vaginal delivery, or whether she's just "too posh to push." (It also implies that a woman is put under a general anaesthetic for the procedure, which is not typical.)

I'll leave the WTFing to Jezebel's Rebecca Rose:

Sure, maybe games or apps that talk about pregnancy can be a good teaching tool for parents who want to get their kids familiar with various aspects of childbirth. But unless you are a being on the planet Mikloap Alpha 7, there is no purple glowing orb that magically emerges from your womb because someone waves a special sparkle wand over it. No. Despite what they are trying to teach in Texas high school's sex education classes, this is not what happens during childbirth. 

After the baby is born, you have to use the scalpel to cut the umbilical cord (SO MUCH GODDAMN NOPE HERE) and weigh the baby.

Not exactly a welcome addition to the world of childbirth apps.

Toronto printer "quotes" Jian Ghomeshi on mailer

Jezebel 

Using, or parodying, a famous quote is one of the laziest creative tricks in the book. But Toronto's Corktown Printing Co. decided to take it in an extra-creepy direction by doing a word-for-word sendup of Jian Ghomeshi. 

The ex-CBC radio host was fired over accusations that he hit, choked, and otherwise abused women on dates going back years. 

When he was first fired, Ghomeshi wrote a Facebook rant outing himself as a BDSM enthusiast, and painting himself as a victim of corporate prudery. Part of it read:

Let me be the first to say that my tastes in the bedroom may not be palatable to some folks. They may be strange, enticing, weird, normal, or outright offensive to others. We all have our secret life. But that is my private life. That is my personal life. And no one, and certainly no employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their private life.

Here's the inside of the Mailer:

Jezebel 

Ghomeshi's attempt at rallying sympathy was quickly overtaken by an expose of his non-consensual abuse of women on dates and sexual harassment of colleagues. Since then, several women have come forward to media with creepily similar stories about his violence, including Trailer Park Boys actress (and RCAF Captain) Lucy DeCoutere and author Reva Seth.

Jezebel reports that a spokesperson for Corktown didn't see any problem with the mailer. "It's a little satire," she told them. "There's no intention for it to be offensive."

The mailer was created by Toronto's Agency Next Door, and has been featured on their Facebook Page for more than two weeks.

There was just an intention to make light of a high-profile case of violence against women. Nothing offensive in that, is there?

Dove tests a beauty placebo. So what?

I'm with Jezebel on this one. Dove's new ad idea is pretty bad:



Not only that, but it's patronizing. With Oprah-esque music and hushed tones of concern, it has a "Psychologist and Body Image Expert" tell a bunch of women that they will be testing a patch that improves their own perceptions of their beauty. They are asked to document their feelings and experiences.

Big surprise! They report feeling better about themselves. Then they are told they've been had, in childish fairy-tale fashion, that the real beauty was within them the whole time!

And this proves what? That people are easy to manipulate? That Dove really wants all women to feel beautiful? You can achieve a placebo effect with all kinds of things. But the real challenge isn't to trick women into having a more positive body image; it's to do something about the negative image they had in the first place.

Interestingly, Unilever (maker of Dove) has been selling men an empty placebo to make them feel attractive for years. It's called Axe, and let's see how it celebrates female body image:



Perhaps it's time for Dove marketing to dismount its high horse. "Evolution" was a great campaign. This one, however, is unconvincing and kind of insulting.

How to go viral without making a cent

It's been almost five years since I started this blog. I don't do it for money, as I already have a full-time job as a Creative Director. So there are no ads, and I don't get paid for clicks. I just write these posts as part of my ongoing professional development, reviewing the fruits of my industry and thinking out loud about the ethics and social issues involved.

I've managed to generate a bit of a following. The numbers aren't huge, but they include some people who themselves have huge followings on advertising, culture, and social science blogs. As a result, every once in a while, the content in one of my posts goes viral. That happened again this week.

Here I was, just not minding my own business as usual, and I saw some really shitty photoshop from Target show up in a Facebook post by Photoshop Disasters. Since sex, sexism and body image in advertising are some of my regular topics, I whipped up a quick "Ethical Adman" post about it, then promptly returned to my day job.

Then this happened:

That mountain range is an analytic spike that hit on Tuesday. It turned out that Jezebel picked up the story and linked me as the source, but not Photoshop Disasters. That gave me about 6,000 extra views. Then Buzzfeed picked up the story from Jezebel, and didn't credit me. I got no direct traffic from Buzzfeed, but may have gained some secondary hits via Jezebel.

Even more traffic came when Kim Komando, "America's Digital Goddess®" teased the Target story and very kindly added, "Click here to see the full story and more photos from The Ethical Adman." Woo-hoo! That was worth almost 10,000 extra hits.

Next thing I knew, I was linked as "an observant blogger" on the Today Show's blog. The frigging Today Show! But surprisingly, that only racked up another 6500-or-so hits. (I guess they'd better stick with mainstream media.)

With all this attention, I was bound to get some of the negative kind. Several people, claiming to be graphic designers, accused me of overreacting and seeing hurtful "thinning" in what they saw as just sloppy Photoshop. But the real surprise came when fanatical followers of the fitness blog, Blogilates, started an organized campaign to accuse me of "stealing" content.

For the record, the Blogilates post went up after 11 pm, Pacific Time. By that point, the Photoshop Disasters/Ethical Adman/Jezebel/Buzzfeed posts were already hours old. Blogilates author Cassey Ho did, however, manage to become the credited source for a post on CNN's HLN blog.

Since CNN, Blogilates, The Today Show, Kim Komando, Buzzfeed, Jezebel, and Photoshop Disasters are all commercial blogs, they all made money off of Target's bad Photoshopping. I didn't make a penny. How stupid am I?

Oh well, like I said at the top, I already have a job. If anything, this whole affair helps me with my online brand as a "concerned advertising guy" and adds to my credibility when I give clients advice on social media and content marketing strategies. This whole thing also helped my all-time pageviews top the two million mark.

So in the spirit of karma, I'd like to give a big shout-out to the person who apparently first caught the Target fiasco and submitted it to PSD, and also made no money from it:

Major Photoshop Fail @Target! http://t.co/EcGtk46SSl @photoshopfail
— Adam Z Lein (@adamzea) March 9, 2014

If you don't already, I suggest you follow Adam Z Lein on Twitter. You'd be amazed how ahead of the curve you can be when you know the right people.

Girls: Who needs math when you can shop?

Consumerist shared this Facebook photo of a shirt sold at The Children's Place. In the 21st Century.

A customer named Erin Shipp wrote on the company's FB wall:

I dropped by one of your stores over the weekend and was really disgusted by the sexist approach to girls' clothing. It's bad enough that so much of it is pink and purple, but the "best subjects" t-shirt is pretty terrible so is the "this princess is no drama queen" one. What, boys get to have aspirations to do things and girls are supposed to be materialistic wannabe princesses angling to catch a man before third grade? I have a son and haven't paid much attention to your girl clothes before this, but I was hoping to purchase a gift. Not only did I leave empty-handed, but I won't be returning.

Jezebel's Laura Beck adds some context:

By contrast, their boys t-shirts are all about surfing and playing drums and being a superhero. They're by no means perfect, but they paint the picture of a pro-active kid putting himself out there and making things happen. If the company doesn't want to mix all the shirts together —boys and girls basically have the same bodies at those ages, why can't they choose for themselves?

Sexist t-shirt controversy seems to pop up with regularity these days. But the ones furthering anti-academic female stereotypes are among the worst.

In their 2000 paper “Gender Differences in Academic Attitudes among Gifted Elementary School Students”, researchers at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Talented Elementary Students, suggested to parents:

"...expose both boys and girls to activities involving all kinds of skills. They can guard against assuming that boys will like math/science and girls will prefer verbal activities. They can try to ensure that their children’s teachers don’t make these assumptions or treat children differently based on gender.” 

That was 13 years ago. More recently, it has been observed that girls are outpacing boys in later academic achievement, as well as representing more than half of post-secondary enrolment. So these shirts are not just sexist, they're out-of-touch.

I have a young son, and I have shopped at The Children's Place. (It's a little expensive, but they turn over and liquidate stock quickly.) I'll be watching when, or if, the company responds.

Finally! A tablet dumbed down for the ladies!

Via Il Corriere

Last Christmas, I surprised my significant other with a new-generation iPad. Silly me, I should have bought her a tablet that was dumbed down for women.

According to Ars Technica, the device was introduced in the Middle East last fall, by Eurostar of Dubai.

Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Eurostar associate vice president of marketing Mani Nair said that the tablet comes with the preloaded womanly applications so the user can “just turn it on and log in to cooking recipes or yoga.” He went on to state that the ePad Femme “makes a perfect gadget for a woman who might find difficulties in terms of downloading these applications and it is a quick reference.” 

The tablet has a 1.5GHz processor, 16GB of internal storage, and an SD card slot, but how a woman will ever work out either of those last two things are or what to do with them, one can’t be sure. She shouldn’t even need to—that clothing size converter app she was going to download? Already installed. Pregnancy app? Look no further. 

Nair maintains that the intent of the ePad Femme tablet was not sexist. He compared it to another tablet the company offers, ePad Gamer, but those gamers are targeted by their interest, not their biological makeup. That seems like a pretty substantial difference.

Here's a look at the apps that come preloaded:

Shopping, yoga, yoga, weight loss, perfume, menstruation, shopping,
shopping, cooking, cooking, cooking.

Jezebel summed it up nicely: ‘Tablet for Women’ Is Like a Regular Tablet, But More Fucking Bullshitty

British homophobes offended by pictures of women kissing... themselves

All images via Daily Mail

So here's a thing. The Daily Mail reports that these images, used on-site to promote the Harvey Nichols department store in the UK, provoked 17 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.

From the ASA site:

1. Nine complainants challenged whether the ads were offensive, irresponsible and unsuitable for untargeted display where they might be viewed by children, because they appeared to portray a lesbian kiss;
2. Ten complainants challenged whether the ads were offensive, irresponsible and unsuitable for untargeted display where they might be viewed by children, because they were sexually explicit;
3. Two complainants challenged whether the phrase "LOVE THYSELF", combined with the images in the ads, was offensive on religious grounds.

Here's their ruling. It's actually kind of entertaining reading:

Assessment 

1. Not upheld 

The ASA noted that each of the three ads showed an image of a woman leaning in to kiss her mirror image, rather than another woman. We considered that, particularly because of the identical styling of the model in each ad and the text "LOVE THYSELF", the content was sufficiently clear and was unlikely to be widely misunderstood. 

We acknowledged that some complainants had interpreted the posters differently and had understood them to depict a lesbian kiss. One person also mentioned a young child who had not identified that the kiss was between one woman and her mirror image. Although we recognised that some people might have found what they perceived to be a portrayal of a lesbian kiss distasteful, we considered that a reference to homosexuality in an ad would be unlikely in itself to cause widespread or serious offence or constitute irresponsible advertising. 

Because we considered that it was sufficiently clear that the posters showed one woman about to kiss her mirror image, and because we also considered that they were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence even if interpreted differently, we concluded that the ads were not offensive, irresponsible or unsuitable for untargeted display because they appeared to portray a lesbian kiss. 

On that point, we investigated the ads under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Responsible advertising) and 4.1 (Harm and offence) but did not find them in breach. 

2. Not upheld 

We noted that close-up images of models' faces were common methods of advertising beauty products, and that the emphasis in each of the ads was on the styling of the model. In addition, the text "LOVE THYSELF" was prominent because of its size and position on the posters. We therefore considered that the aim of the ad, to promote the beauty department of a well-known department store, was clear and that the images used were consistent with that message. 

The posters showed close-up shots of the face of a woman leaning in to kiss her mirror image; in each instance her lips were slightly parted but the faces were not touching. We noted that no nudity was shown and the poses were not provocative. We therefore concluded that the ads were not sexually explicit and were consequently not offensive, irresponsible or unsuitable for untargeted display. 

On that point, we investigated the ads under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Responsible advertising) and 4.1 (Harm and offence) but did not find them in breach. 

3. Not upheld 

We noted that the words "LOVE THYSELF" bore some similarity to the bible verse "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" and understood that, if that association was made, the ads could be seen to distort a religious message for commercial means. However, in our view the text "LOVE THYSELF" was not so strongly linked to the most central tenets of the Christian faith as to be widely interpreted as mocking the sacred elements of that religion. We also noted that "LOVE THYSELF" was not a direct biblical quote, and for that reason considered that it was not exclusively associated with Christianity. Given the absence of any other imagery or references which could carry religious meaning in the ads, we concluded that, in the context of an ad promoting a store's beauty department, the phrase "LOVE THYSELF", combined with the images of a woman about to kiss her mirror image, was not offensive on religious grounds. 

On that point, we investigated the ads under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Responsible advertising) and 4.1 (Harm and offence) but did not find them in breach. 

Action 

No further action necessary.

Love the Bible reference.

Sexualized? Yes. Exploitative? Yes. But officially not gay. That's a relief.

Tip via Jezebel

Oxfam exposes unethical chocolate in a rather messy manner

Jezebel shared this Oxfam video that parodies the way chocolate is marketed to women as sex. The reveal is kind of... shitty:



The message is there, that unethical chocolate is an urgent women's issue. But the video leaves something to be desired in concept and execution. Nonetheless, the cause is important and you can get all the sad details in their media release.

Chocolate as sex: Not just for women anymore

Jezebel recently ran this picture, an image from the back of this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, with the headline "The Back Cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Tells You to Fuck a Piece of Chocolate."

The M&M custom ads for SI's annual spankbank bait is actually a tradition that goes back a few years.

Here's one from 2011:

Via Social Media Trend

Here's 2009:

Via Sociological Images

In fact, the "sexy green M&M" has been part of Mars Inc.'s strategy for several years:

It's intended as a parody. This year's candy pinup is a send-up on the Antarctic cover shot for which Kate Upton almost literally froze her ass off.

At this point, though, I'm not sure the humour is even there anymore. It's the other side of the food-as-sex trope that crosses the streams of primal urges in increasingly weird ways.

Was this ad with an affectionate old couple banned from the Super Bowl because it was for Pornhub?

[video yanked by YouTube, but you can still view it here]

That's what Pornhub claims, anyway. But then again, getting a Super Bowl ad rejected is much better publicity than actually paying $4 million for a 30-second spot. On the YouTube link, Pornhub writes: This was the Super Bowl commercial that was rejected by CBS. What do you think - should it have been rejected? Visit this page to vote Yes or No (link is Safe For Work): http://www.pornhub.com/event/superbowl The page is, in fact, "SFW," but that won't help you explain what you were doing at the pornhub.com domain. My wife knows I have to walk through bad internet neighbourhoods in the name of adblogging, so I'll take one for the team. This is what you get when you click:

As Jezebel's Lindy West writes:

This isn't a particularly interesting ad and I don't really give a care about PornHub (and, yes, obv I know I'm dumping free advertising on them exactly according to their plan), BUT. I love crap like this. Rigging the system! It's like strapping a Game Genie on SOCIETY! Now do it again, only make a commercial that actually entertains me. GO.

Yup.

MAC hires woman body builder to model "Strength"

Jezebel loves this. I think it's powerful advertising, in that it's eye-catching and on-message.

The woman in the ad is Jelena Abbou. And yes, "they" are real. Jezebel's Jenna Sauers points out that this ad is going against common perceptions of heavily-muscled women as seeming less feminine. I think that's a good point. But on the other hand, if the nearly-impossibly thin model ideal were to be replaced with a nearly-impossibly fit one, will the average woman be any happier?

Nevertheless, they have my attention.

Jewel on sale at Walmart

Remember her? Jewel Kilcher was big stuff in the mid-90s, when her debut release became one of the best-selling debut albums of all time, going 15 times platinum.

And this year? Shilling for Walmart:



The retail behemoth explains,

Jewel visited recently and performed a song from her new album of children's songs titled "The Merry Goes Round". It's called the "Supermarket Song", but she sang a special version for us.

Best YouTube comment by far, "It's difficult to rhyme 'mechanically separated chicken'."

Jewel's new album of children's songs was released under the Fisher-Price label. Interestingly, it shares two traditional cover songs ("She'll Be Comin Round The Mountain" and "Oh Susannah") with fellow folkie Neil Young's latest Crazy Horse album. (Fun fact: She recorded her debut album in a studio on Neil Young's ranch, produced and backed by members of another of his classic bands, The Stray Gators.) But I'm guessing from the video above that her "Oh Susannah!" is a little less hardcore.

The video was posted back in March, but I just caught it on Jezebel last week.

It's not the fact that she has picked up a sponsor that's sad. It's not even that that sponsor is a symbol of the big boxification of America. It's that her sellout is so low budget that it went relatively unnoticed.

Salon offers 15-year-olds independence from body hair #FdAdFridays

Freedom and independence from all those icky signs of puberty!

Jezebel shared this special July 4th offer from the Uni K Wax Center, offering 50% body waxing to girls 15 and under.

Because it's never too early to start a lifetime of salon-dependent body anxiety.

Kids for making more kids (within marriage)

Jezebel shared the news about a pro-abstinence/anti-birth-control group called 1flesh. Styling itself as a grassroots organization, it uses youth-friendly graphics and messaging to celebrate the joys of procreative marital sex:

\

At the same time, it preaches some potentially misleading arguments about the efficacy of contraceptives in preventing unplanned pregnancy and disease:

What is going on here? It's almost like they're trying to run a white, christian, breeding program. Which is a pretty smart strategy from a political point of view. Get those horny kids to keep their pants on until marriage, then turn the young woman's reproductive parts into a baby factory — a clown car, if you will — of Duggar proportions.

"But what about overpopulation?", you might ask.

The whole “Save the World: Don’t Have Kids” idea is, in retrospect, just plain silly. The worldwide fertility rate fell throughout the same period... Even if we were to pretend that the world was in a desperate state of looming overpopulation, artificial contraception on its own wouldn’t be of much use. It does not reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies. We’ve been duped into demanding a bad solution to a non-existent problem. It’s time to move on.

Move on. Get married. Have babies.

But a full reading of the site does show that it promotes one method of family planning: the Creighton Model Fertiltycare™ System. It's an initiative of the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction. And it's basically a modern version of the rhythm method (with cervical mucus observation instead of guesswork).

According to Wikipedia:

The effectiveness of the CrMS, as of most forms of birth control, can be assessed two ways. Perfect use or method effectiveness rates only include people who follow all observational rules, correctly identify the fertile phase, and refrain from unprotected intercourse on days identified as fertile. Actual use, or typical use effectiveness rates are of all women intending to avoid pregnancy by using CrMS, including those who fail to meet the "perfect use" criteria. 

The Pope Paul VI Institute reports a perfect-use effectiveness rate of 99.5% in the first year.In clinical studies of the CrMS conducted at the Pope Paul VI Institute, researchers excluded most pregnancies from the typical-use rate calculation, on the grounds that they believed the affected couples had used the method to deliberately attempt pregnancy. The Institute reports a typical-use effectiveness of 96.8% in the first year. Most studies of similar systems do not exclude such pregnancies from the typical-use failure rate.

Remember how 1flesh said that condoms don't work?

The condom’s use-effectiveness rate is 85%.  This means that, under real-world conditions, a woman whose sexual partners use condoms for every act of sexual intercourse has a 15% chance of becoming pregnant in a year. And while oral contraceptives are more effective, studies have shown that after three years of use, the failure rates of oral contraceptives was 4.7% for 24-day regimen pills and 6.7% for 21-day regimen pills. The FDA’s conclusion is that the use-effectiveness of oral contraceptives is 95%. A 2011 study, Contraceptive failure in the United States, found the Pill’s actual failure rate to be 9%. 

Though the numbers shift in various studies, in every case, natural methods of family planning — specifically the Creighton Model FertilityCare System — are more effective at preventing unintended pregnancies, with a use-effectiveness of 96.8-98%. The idea that the widespread use of artificial contraception will help end the stressful incidence of unintended pregnancy — while hopeful — has been debunked. The answer is not pill or a rubber. It’s having a true understanding of a woman’s body and cooperating with it. 

This is from the source they cited at About.comhttp://contraception.about.com/od/overthecounterchoices/p/OTC.htm:

Condom (Male)Typical use: 85% effectivePerfect use: 98% effectiveOf every 100 women whose partners use condoms, 15 will become pregnant (with typical use) and 2 will become pregnant with perfect use

The PillTypical use: 92% effectivePerfect use: 99.7% effectiveOf every 100 women who use The Pill, 8 will become pregnant (with typical use) within the first year and less than one will become pregnant with perfect use

Waitaminute. Did they just compare perfect use of their "natural" birth control with "typical use" of condoms and the pill? Yes, yes they did.

When you get to the bottom of it, 1flesh's "grassroots" movement is anything but. It's a highly organized campaign of reproductive misinformation designed to recruit a new generation of social conservative, anti-reproductive choice, voters, using generational mouthpieces like Patheos blogger Marc Barnes to make being quiverfull more palatable to Millennials. 

Mall's "under construction" sign insults everyone #FdAdFriday

Via Jezebel

New Jersey's MarketFair Mall pulled the sign down after people petitioned it at change.org.

I think it's as insulting to the hardhats as it is to the women of the community. I don't see nearly as many of them committing street harassment as I did years ago. But then again, I'm not exactly a target.

Femfresh's euphemisms are... not so fresh #FdAdFriday

Jezebel posted this creative from Femfresh, yesterday, with the headline ‘Intimate Hygiene’ Product Ad is Scared of the Word ‘Vagina’.


As I pointed out earlier this week, the proper anatomical term for women's internal sexuality has become something of a shibboleth for feminists in 2012. And what do progressive women hate more than ads telling them they need to deodorize their most intimate parts? Republican legislators, maybe. Human traffickers, definitely. But not much else.

The Wall has documented the social media fallout for the brand, which managed to offend on two fronts:

Women’s hygiene brand Femfresh has suffered a backlash on its Facebook page as “fans” took umbrage with its euphemistic terms for the word vagina. 

Femfresh refers to it in several different ways on Facebook calling it “your kitty, nooni, lala…and froo froo”. 

In a post about the Isle of Wight festival, with two women pictured, Femfresh asked “WOOHOO…Isle of Wight festival kicks off tomorrow. What do we think wellies or flip flops or both?” The comments in response are all entirely negative. 

One response with 22 likes said: ” I can’t go to any festivals! I’ll be too busy sitting at home crying about the embarrassing smell of my shame-shame.” 

While another with 34 likes wrote: ” I dunno, which do you think would go best with the bacterial vaginosis I would get from washing my vulva with anything other than water?”

As of this moment, the Femfresh Facebook Page appears to be deleted. But here are some caps:

Curl up in the fetal position inside this womb chair #FdAdFriday

Artist Freja Sewell works in both 2- and 3-dimensional space. Of this, she says, "Open plan offices and public buildings, CCTV, online profile sharing, cameras built into our laptops; never has it been easier for humans to connect, but what about when we want to withdraw? The ‘womb’ shape inspires very different feelings in different people; to me it is a warm, cosy space, for contemplation and rest."

Looks comfortable. But I think I'd need psychoanalysis after napping in that.

Imaged copyright Freja Sewell. Tip via Jezebel.

Are t-shirts protected speech?

The shirt in question is pretty hardcore. Too hardcore for American Airlines, who booted an unnamed passenger off a connecting flight for wearing it, according to Think Progress.

Interestingly, the post points out, the phrase was coined by an actual Senator, Oklahoma District 11 State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre, who Jezebel says showed up with it at an Oklahoma rally against the (since-struck down) "Personhood bill".

Via Jez

And that raises interesting questions about the evolution of everyday language. On its own, I'm not surprised a shirt that said "fuck" in big letters rattled the staff at American Airlines. They're scared of fretful parents causing a fuckstorm of bad press.

But when a democratically elected Senator has used the same words in a political statement, does the "fuck" become part of a protected right to free expression? If the dreaded F-bomb is now so commonplace in the conversation of educated and mature people, can we really claim a right to protect our children from it?

Things are getting passionate down there, while the election heats up. I expect to see and hear many more fucks to come.

You can read the original (second-hand) story at RH Reality Check.

Unhappy marriage? Have you tried vulva bleaching?

There's no more... umm.. delicate way to say it.

This appalling ad from India takes the old-school fear mongering of women over vaginal odour and adds India's bizarre obsession with skin-whitening products to create a veritable symphony of wrong:



From the YouTube link:

"Designed to address the problems women face in their private parts, Clean and Dry Intimate Wash offers protection, fairness and freshness. To be used while showering, its special pH-balanced formula cleans and protects the affected area, and even makes the skin fairer. Life for women will now be fresher, cleaner, fairer!"

"Do you ever feel, you know, not so bleached?"

 Jezebel sums up the international reaction to this appalling product and ad quite nicely:

"...this product—which, in addition to just being fucking insane, brings up painful issues about the hierarchy of skin tone within the Indian community. As if it isn't bad enough that darker-skinned people are encouraged to stay out of the sun and invest in skin-bleaching products like Fair & Lovely, and that white actresses are being imported to play Indian people in Bollywood movies, now everyone has to be insecure about the fact that their vaginas happen to be the color that vaginas are??? Splendid! God, I was just saying the other day that my misogyny didn't have enough racism in it."

You tell 'em, sister!

Pornterest

Today, Buzzfeed published an amusing post about how the word "porn" is used on Pinterest (a social scrapbooking site where people gather favourite online images) to describe anything they like looking at.

And not just the trendy term "food porn" either:

"Fishing Gear Porn"

"Word Porn"

"Real Estate Porn"

What I found particularly amusing about this (besides the fact that someone innocently called their board "dog porn") is that this morning Jezebel had a post about the actual Pinterest of Porn, called "Snatchly". (The link is safe — it goes to a signup page.)

Worlds are colliding. Or, rather, "words".

But let's just hope this overuse of the p-word doesn't end in tragedy, when an innocent sweet tooth in need of some delicious Pudding Porn ends up instead conjuring up two girls and a cup over on the wrong network.