by Coleen Singer.
Forgive me, gentle readers, if I include a video on this site which is “more or less SFW“, but has kids in it. This video just jumped out at me as the Ultimate Sex Education Movie EVER!
It’s all about “what I needed to see when I was a kid” in a nice, funny and compact format (sort of like the new TSA videos you see while standing in line at the airport with Star Trek cast showing you what you can’t take on the plane. (Shortly after the TSA airport film the IRS produced its own Star Trek PSA at the cost of $68,000, but it was less critically acclaimed, and pissed the taxpayers off. A lot.)
Read on…
But, back to the video at hand. Take a look, and then scroll down for some commentary…….
Elizabeth Plank at PolicyMic.com says, in describing this video, “It’s been hailed “the best tampon ad in the history of the world” and praised as some of the best menstrual marketing ever. This ad from HelloFlo, a company that sends care packages to girls on their first period is all of that and much more. It features a sassy 12-year-old who goes through a radical transformation after she gets the “red badge of courage.” The ad is revolutionary, witty and overall amazing.
“It’s like Santa, for your vagina!”
This video kicked every other tampon commercial right in the butt. Take that years of white spandex onesies, somersaults on the beach and useless blue liquid! This commercial has raised the bar for all tampon ads everywhere. Can the next sanitary product advertisement bring Gloria Steinem’s “If Men Could Menstruate” alive with dudes getting their periods and bragging about “about how long and how much?” I would definitely dig that.” – Original Article at PolicyMic.com
I actually still have nightmares about my first cycle, which ironically DID happen at summer camp (I was a clarinet player at Interlochen that summer). Just after a grueling band shell rehearsal of Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Suite from On The Waterfront” (do click that link, btw. It’s lovely music to read by), keeping time in 7/8 under the hot sun for 3 hours probably just jarred something loose in me and, behind a shrub, I quickly discovered I had begun my very first period!
Still being “modest” and a little too embarrassed to go to the camp nurse for assistance, I managed to get a collect call out to my mom in Chicago on the Interlochen pay phone (yes, I and dating my age here with both of those references).
Mom was great and said just “hang on sweetie! Help is on the way!”
In about an hour, a delivery guy pulled into the camp with a pizza for my cabin mates, and the driver discreetly handed me a white pharmacy bag, whispering, “this is from your mom“. Inside was a package of tampons, a little instruction booklet on how to use them, and a box of panty liners. I do admit that combining the “Pizza Boy Fantasy” with Feminine Hygiene products, at the behest of my mother calling in a favor to the pharmacist in the itty bitty town of Interlochen, Michigan is a somewhat macabre addition to having my first period behind a bush in the woods after playing the clarinet, but it all fell into place and peace was restored to the realm.
I still play the clarinet in the town band when I’m not writing about or producing porn, but have very fond memories of that “Red Badge Of Courage” experience of my youth. I also, since that day, always remember my first cycle at “band camp” and feel lucky that all of my periods since then have been devoid of PMS (my husband might disagree with that), and that my mensural moments always make me feel a little “special” and part of the greater sisterhood that shares this experience since the dawn of time.
And, I leave you with this to mull on your own history of “Red Badge Of Courage Experience” as this soundtrack that brought on my first period plays. To either comfort or annoy you…..
More of Coleen Singer’s Commentaries may be found at Sssh.com