Tampon Ads Can't Tackle What TV's Been Doing For Decades

by POPSUGAR Sex & Culture 26

Tampon ads are filled with euphemisms, and feature women in varying shades of white frolicking outdoors. Nobody knows their secret, and really that's all anyone's ever asked of a tampon. But now Kotex is stirring things up with a new campaign called Break the Cycle. It parodies typical feminine-product commercials by talking openly and frankly about periods. Too frankly for TV. The New York Times reports three networks rejected the ad, and only one of those networks accepted it after the word "vagina" was switched out for "down there."

Now that a company is finally trying to challenge the status quo, and maybe peddle what it believes are the finest applicators around, television won't have it. Yet TV shows have been doing a better job talking about periods for years. Here are clips from three shows — Blossom, 7th Heaven, and The Cosby Show — that, despite overuse of the word "woman," do a remarkable job of talking about menstruation.

Watch them after the jump.

The episode "Blossom Blossoms" does in 1991 pretty much exactly what Kotex is attempting in 2010. Blossom's best friend, Six, cheers her up with sarcasm and pointing out the tampon box says everything she needs to know, like now she can even go hiking.

With the dramatic music and sad faces, 7th Heaven at first seems to be the type of programming that makes bad tampon commercials possible. But after "became a woman" is said about five times, the father asks "why are we using the euphemism 'became a woman?'"

Leave it to Clair Huxtable to know how to handle a period. Though it's dotted with dramatic talk of womanhood, it still accurately challenges myths around menses.

Then again nobody ever does say vagina!