{"id":57357,"date":"2013-09-27T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T17:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=57357"},"modified":"2013-10-31T03:44:50","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T08:44:50","slug":"the-secret-of-vintage-lysol-douche-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/09\/27\/the-secret-of-vintage-lysol-douche-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Life of Vintage Lysol Douche Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while the internet is abuzz being horrified by vintage ads for Lysol brand douche. \u00a0The ads seem to suggest that women are repulsing their husbands with odorous vaginas caused by neglected\u00a0feminine hygiene. \u00a0In fact, it only looks like this to us today because we don’t know the secret code<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot_3\"<\/a> \"Screenshot_4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These ads aren’t frightening women into thinking their genitals smell badly. \u00a0According to\u00a0historian Andrea Tone<\/a>, “feminine hygiene” was a euphemism.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Birth control was illegal in the U.S. until\u00a01965 (for married couples<\/a>) and 1972 (for single people<\/a>). \u00a0These Lysol ads are actually for contraception. \u00a0\u00a0 The campaign made Lysol the best-selling method of contraception during the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

Of course, we’re not wrong to be horrified today. \u00a0Lysol was incredibly corrosive to the vagina; in fact, it’s recipe was significantly more dangerous than the one used today. \u00a0Hundreds of people died from exposure to Lysol, including women who were using it to kill sperm. \u00a0It was also, to add insult to injury,\u00a0wholly ineffective as a contraceptive.<\/p>\n

Here’s to safe, legal, effective contraception for all.<\/p>\n

Via Buzzfeed<\/a> and @CreativeTweets<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while the internet is abuzz being horrified by vintage ads for Lysol brand douche. \u00a0The ads seem to suggest that women are repulsing their husbands with odorous vaginas caused by neglected\u00a0feminine hygiene. \u00a0In fact, it only looks like this to us today because we don’t know the secret code. These ads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":57395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2083,218,257,23384,2091,2102,252,253,120,23705],"class_list":["post-57357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortionreproduction","tag-bodies","tag-hygiene","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-gender-healthmedicine","tag-gender-history","tag-healthmedicine","tag-history","tag-sex","tag-vintage-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/09\/Screenshot_133.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57357"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57982,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57357\/revisions\/57982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}