Another day; another assault upon the way in which a woman's vagina generally looks, smells, tastes and exists. Even though it's 2019 - it seems companies still aren't over marketing us products that are designed to do weird things to our nether regions. First it was contouring and highlighting your vagina (so it can look as on-fleek as Kylie Jenner on Instagram?). Then came along glitter dust that you can put inside you (spoiler alert - gynecologists say it's a bad idea).
If you've been on Instagram recently and follow the meme accounts that have started marketing things like CBD oil and dating apps - you might have noticed another weird thing popping up in this category: chewy edibles that are designed to make your vagina taste 'sweeter'. Yes. Really.
@MysweetV_ is a brand of '100% natural' sweet on Instagram designed to 'Give you a semi fruity taste, sensual smell, optimal performance, sensation' and perhaps most egregiously, claims to increase 'desire in the bedroom' (disclaimer: if your sexual partner ever suggests you need to taste, look or smell differently now is the time to swiftly get rid of them). It goes without saying: but the female anatomy has been stigmatized enough without the inference that we should be popping £30 chewy sweets to taste like a Haribo Starmix.
It seems Twitter users feel similarly. Activist Nicola Thorp tweeted today 'Now they’re ‘influencing’ us to take pills to make us taste ‘sweeter’ You should always taste better than the next chick’?!?!? FACK OFF' and followed up with posts of other 'meme' accounts who are running similar adverts geared at women which present the product in the same format as an internet meme.
Captioning one advert which ran with the messaging 'If they're not obsessed with tasting U, Maybe U should try out MySweetV' she wrote 'if they're not obsessed with tasting you, then maybe you should try out someone who is'.
Other Twitter users have also come forward with concerns (unsurprisingly) about the insidious way that the product is being advertised and the kind of messaging it's promoting. Below the original Twitter thread, one commenter weighed in 'If the person you're sleeping with prefers you to taste like sweets and not like a woman you need to find yourself better sexual partners.' while another wrote "Better than the next chick"? That alone would be depressing if the whole concept hadn't already plunged those depths.' and others have called the product 'horrendous' 'lunacy' and 'the worst product ever'
Influencer-marketed chewables for skin, hair and nails we can just about get our heads around (though disclaimer: we're pretty sure they're about as effective as eating a packet of gummy bears) but how can Instagram-marketed sweets claiming to change the taste of your vagina ever be given the green light as responsible advertising?
We have enough of a problem with 'feminine hygiene' products designed to make you smell like a 'summers eve' and 7-step regimes to give you a 'Perfect V' without another product designed to insidiously shame the female anatomy and cash in on damaging stigma's. Enough is enough.