Old Advertisements

San-Nap-Pak Menstrual Pad Ad, July 1945

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This is one of a series of cartoon ads for a tampon aimed at the teen market, Pursettes.
Note the white pants, and also that Fred, in the second-to-last panel, is looking right at the area where something better not happen! You can hear it now: "Hey Kathy, did you cut yourself or somethin'? You're bleedin' on your hiney!" Fred didn't get to see that film they showed girls in the sixth grade. Actually, it's hard to believe the ad is so direct about this, but this was the 1970s.
Most viewers will also hope that Cathy does not use her lipstick for a tampon, or vice versa!
From August 1974.

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This Saba napkin ad, from a Danish magazine, about 1975, is more open than American ads from the time, but relies on the same girl-to-girl advice and concern about boys.

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Lysol, which today scours toilets and bathroom floors, scoured vaginas (and helped kill sperm) in an earlier era, when, I guess, women were hardier. (Andrea Tone, in Devices & Desires [2001, Hill & Wang], reports on the vaginal scalding Lysol caused). Note the powerful, horrible word "disinfectant." This is a black-and-white ad from McCall's Magazine, July 1928.