When will the rest of the world get a cool genital jingle?

When I was a teen, I stumbled upon an old book about sex education in Sweden in a used book store. To be honest, I probably bought it for the boobies. But I was also impressed by what I saw as an attempt to give kids and teens positive messages about their bodies, their physical autonomy, and their right to choose what was right for them.

I was reminded of this when the "Snoppen och snippan" video appeared in my newsfeeds.



Catchy, isn't it? With dancing penises and vulvas.

According to Metro, as made for Swedish children’s programme Bacillakuten, using childish words for the organs, ‘snipp’ and ‘snopp’

Some of the lyrics translate as: ‘Here comes the penis at full pace’, and: ‘the vagina is cool, you better believe it, even on an old lady. It just sits there so elegantly’. (They reportedly sound much less weird in Swedish).

I don't think it's weird, and I'm not even Swedish.

The admin of the DosFamily Facebook community explains further:

This is the trailer song from a children's Tv show currently showing in Sweden at the moment. The show is about the body and things that happens with it. Different doctors explains about what happens when you get ill or how do the food system works or colds or what happen when you break a leg... Every episode get an own song for the things they talk about and apparently soon it will be about Snoppen & snippan.

You can see the original post and discussion (in Swedish) at the SVT Barnkanalen page.

Now I just wish they had something like this for English-speaking kids.

(Thanks to Bé for sharing additional info)

This ad for "feminine wash" gets attention, but not the good kind

Via Ads Of The World

From Indonesia. The English translation provided is "Hygiene on the go." (Google gives a literal translation of "wherever hygienic.")

I don't really know what to say, except that Betadine (povidone-iodine) is an antiseptic douche used for serious vaginal bacterial infections, and probably isn't something women want to be using for regular "hygiene".

Bad message, creepy execution.

"Vaginal" advertising doesn't get much sleazier than this

More than 20 years ago, before I got my first agency job, I recall having a decidedly non-sober discussion with my friends about sex in advertising: "If things keep getting more explicit," I joked, "some day you'll see an ad that just shows a beer coming out of a great big [crude euphemism for a vulva]."

Guess what? It's (sort of) finally happened:

Okay, it's a bar logo rather than an actual beer. But it's just as wrong.

This new low is brought to you by an Australian bar called Mordialloc Supper Club. The obvious plan to get free exposure through bad PR worked without even having to buy any media, as the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation used its licencing authority to ban the image from Mordialloc's web site and Facebook page.

The VCGLR's ruling states, "the promotion is not in the public interest as it objectifies the female body and the commission considers it is likely to offend the ordinary reasonable person" and threatened the bar with a $17,323.20 fine if it didn't remove the image from its digital assets. (It's still archived on their blog, however.)

Yeah, I know. I'm compounding the problem. But I'd rather call out what I see as the worst offences of my industry than just let them fester. This one isn't just conceptually and executionally lazy, it's also pretty offensive to women and the whole idea of childbirth.

Is American Apparel's most explicit thing yet... feminist art?

American Apparel, apparently concerned that its ability to shock people with its sexualized advertising is starting to wane, has once again engaged the world of earned media with an "outrage":

"The Ardorous X American Apparel Period Power Washed Tee" features an explicit illustration of a woman masturbating while menstruating.

Here's the product description:

The Ardorous is an all-female online art platform curated by Petra Collins, a Toronto-born artist. Petra began her infatuation with photography at age 15 and became an American Apparel retail employee around the same time. She creates portraits exploring female sexuality and teen girl culture. Now 20, Petra has worked with Vice, Vogue Italia, Purple, Rookie, and is a contributing photographer for American Apparel.

Compared to American Apparel's sleazily objectifying ads, however, this one seems to have an authentically feminist purpose — at least to the woman who drew it.

Ms. Collins, who is based in Toronto, told Vice that she was trying to challenge taboos about women's bodies:

Menstruation—and also pubic hair—really freaks people out. There’s pubic hair in the drawing, which I guess is super shocking to people, even though I cannot get over that. I feel like I’m so sheltered in a way. I always forget that people are so close-minded. 

Grown women are taught to repress their postpubescent body or hide it. When you start puberty and you start growing hair you’re taught to shave it, because no one’s supposed to see it. With your period, it’s something that you conceal—no one’s supposed to know. It’s almost pedophilic—and I don’t want to throw that word around. But this feminine ideology we have, of the woman being a prepubescent girl, is how we’re taught to change our bodies. 

That's actually pretty cool. It's not the first time AA has done something constructive in their marketing assault on "decency".  So, while I won't be wearing this unisex V-shirt to work anytime soon, I have to give them points for art. Even if they do stand to make a few bucks from it.

UPDATE: The shirt is no longer available at the AA e-store.

Censor your shame with the pixellated bath towel

Funny. Plus, it gets us into all kinds of interesting discussions about why we censor women's chests and not men's, or why we even consider nudity to be unseeable.

Via Brands of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: PETA is against human fur, too

I think this partnership must have been the idea of a horny male Art Director who spends too much time dreaming up euphemisms for vulvas and submitting them to Urban Dictionary.

Or he's a big fan of Etsy.

Pic via Copyranter