Saturday, March 31, 2012

Adam & Eve fail - Tweeting Misleading Info on Vaginas

It makes me angry when someone who is supposed to be an expert in something intentionally misleads their followers. Today, I saw a well known sex toy company post about a controversial topic with a link to a dubious article. Here is the post and the website link.

For me, Adam & Eve are an expert in the sex toy industry. They've been in business for over 40 years and have sold products to more than 7.4 million customers. On twitter, when this tweet was made, they had over 26,000 followers. Obviously, they have a respected following among the sex toy industry, helping their customers achieve sexual satisfaction.

That's what makes this tweet so offensive to me. The tweet read: "How To Tighten Loose Vagina For Sexual Gratification" then followed with the link.  I have an issue that a loose vagina is necessary for sexual gratification, as can be implied from the way this is worded. A vagina does not have to be "tight" to be sexually satisfying! What exactly is "tight" or "loose" anyway? It depends on the vagina and the penis and each person's preference.

If your vagina is loose, does it mean your partner is unhappy with you? Can't get satisfied from you? Wishes it were someone else's vagina? No, it doesn't. If your partner mentions that you're loose, the next thing that needs to happen is a conversation. Is this just an in-the-moment observation compared to normal? If there's anything I've noticed from my vagina, is that some days its tighter and other days its looser. It depends on my mood, my hormones, how horny I am, what toys I've been using. If its consistent, let's consider two possibilities: A) The guy has a tiny dick or B) you're vagina is/has changed.

As the article mentions, the most major change a vagina goes through is childbirth. The great expansion and stress from childbirth does stretch out the vagina. The muscles are weakened. It does feel loose. It is different after childbirth. How does that affect you? That's a conversation only you two can have together. You need to discuss what it means for you both - is this a big deal, or no issue? No one can tell you whether your vagina is good or bad -- and no one should.  Just because you or your partner has goes through vaginal delivery, it doesn't mean sex is over or you'll never experience sexual satisfaction ever again.

However, the author of this article could be a bit more gentle with his language when it says that a vagina that has gone through childbirth becomes "wide pot-hole like." Wow, what a way to make your female readers feel good about being new mothers! Or your male readers look forward to sex post-baby. What kind of baby am I giving birth to, anyway? A 5 year old? Could you be more negative? How about a few sentences later, when the author states, "But if the vagina turns loose, this does not happen and so the partners do not get the desired pleasure out of the sexual act. Continuous dissatisfaction in love-making may deteriorate the emotional bond between couples, putting their relationship at stake."

So... if I go through childbirth or my vagina loosens with age (or whatever reason), I'm at a risk of losing the emotional bond and my relationship may fail -- did I get that right, Mr. Article Author? And Adam & Eve, is this the message you really want to tell your fan/customer base?  Well, let's follow the same logic: one night my partner can't get it up, or it takes him longer to get hard. Well! there goes the relationship! Childbirth = relationship killer! No wonder the divorce rate is so high... right?

NO. This is such a terrible message to spread to any sexually active or to-be-one-day-sexually active person. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. It sets the wrong expectations and the wrong focus on how sexual gratification is received. Sexual satisfaction is so much more than penis-in-vagina friction. That is really only a small part of it -- what about the intimate kissing, touching, talking, feeling? The sharing of your body and mind with your partner? If a slight change in penis-in-vagina feeling is ALL that your relationship depends on, you shouldn't be in that relationship!

Let's get to the article's real sketchy advice on "fixing" this problem. The first solution is actually reliable - kegel exercises. These are real, medically backed exercises that do improve vagina muscles and increase sexual satisfaction for women. The stronger your vagina, the stronger your orgasms! You can do these on your own, or buy some specific exercise toys from your preferred sex store retailer to help you focus and build those muscles.  Now the article states that you should "Assume that a tampon has been inserted in to your vagina. Now contract your vagina to check the falling off of the tampon."  Erm, excuse me? When has a tampon ever "fallen off" or "fallen out"? That's not how the body works! This author has no idea how the female body works.

On to the remaining 5 suggestions - each one being dangerous and not recognized at all in the medical community. Vagina tightening pills and creams? Are you kidding me? I'll bottle some lube, add some food coloring, dangerous perfume, and call it a "tightening cream"! What, does that sound dangerous and irresponsible and something that I would only sell to make a fast buck? Bingo! And yet the author links to several sites suggesting them to be effective... These pills are made of astringents and the cream has glycerin. The website for this cream states that a tight vagina will prevent your man from cheating on you! (Head-desk.... FAIL). Seriously, Adam & Eve, did you even read this article and the links before you told your 26,000+ twitter followers?

And then one suggestion that I really hated - surgery to re-tighten your vagina. Any medically optional surgery should be avoided, in my opinion. These surgeries to "fix" or "rejuvenate" or "re-virginize" put a terrible expectation on women. There is nothing wrong with you -- stop "fixing" a problem that exists in the narrow-minded sexist person in your life! Surgery for "love" (or worse, "obligation") is the last thing a woman who is confident and self-respecting will do.

The last suggestion has me shaking my head. Weighted tampons? I've never heard of such a thing, so I googled it. Nada. So I'm guess the author is suggesting using a tampon as resistance to squeeze against? (Again - if he's suggesting we women have to hold onto a tampon, he's clueless about the female body.)  Tampons are actually kind of dangerous. You're never supposed to use one when you're not on your period and even then you could end up really sick. Your body was not meant to have a dry item in it for hours on end. I can't think of a more painful thing than inserting one when I'm not on my period... ladies, please don't ever do it!

And finally - a little info on this article. Oh Adam & Eve, did you even look at who the author was? This article is someone on blogger -- not my first idea of an "expert" by any means. The website is "MediMiss" and run by a guy who is a professional blogger/webmaster. So, no expert there. But he's not the article author - in fact, the author is the Jhon Napier, the guy selling those dubious (and dangerous) pills and creams that the article links to! He's just a guy selling herbal supplements that haven't been reviewed or medically tested by anyone... His website only claims that their products are manufactured in a safe environment. Well, thank goodness... now let's get them tested and deem them safe before we fucking insert them into one of the most sensitive areas of our bodies, shall we? Fuck you Jhon Napier!

I asked a couple of guy friends who have had babies with their partners and - shocker! - are still in a relationship after the fact. Was it different feeling? At first, yes. The vagina is still healing, just like any other normal body part will after trauma. Did it take longer to get off? Sure, at first it was more work. But you know what? As one guy pointed out, SEX IS WORK. Sex is a calorie burning activity - so new moms and dads, you'll be burning more calories post-baby. That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me!

3 comments:

  1. Yes, I retweeted this almost immediately, before even reading it. Because I barely glanced at that "article" and was shocked. How terrible that Adam & Eve thought that it should be shared at all!!! It's barely even literate and utterly ridiculous! I totally share your outrage!

    You make excellent points throughout. I fully endorse Kegel exercises if the woman wants them for her own pleasure or because she and her partner have discussed it to improve things. She should never feel that she MUST do them for anyone! Nor should she ever be ashamed of her vagina, be it "loose" or tight.

    I should also mention that I have been Kegeling since I started reading. :)

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  2. You're right. This is kind of offensive. Is this destined to become a thing among sex-positives? Like, the tight-vagina people look down on the loose-vagina crowd or something? Tightness is relative; as you say, it depends on the size of the penis, amongst other factors. And the notion that sexual satisfaction depends on tightness is ridiculous. It seems like further evidence that we focus way too much on penis-vagina sex. It's great and all, but if two people just aren't physically suited toward intercourse, there are other ways of getting off. In other words, if a guy feels that his wife or girlfriend's vagina is too loose for his penis, he can always get himself off by hand, i.e. after she leaves him.

    Good job mentioning childbirth as well. I honestly don't remember whether Jill's vagina became noticeably looser after childbirth, but it certainly doesn't seem so two years later. Right around the time my daughter was born, I was talking to a couple friends about post-baby sex and one of them said - not really complaining, more of an observation - that his wife's vagina became looser when their child as born. We all made fun of him for basically admitting to having a small penis. We're such children.

    I, too, would question the author's choice of words, but I would also question the website's decision to assign to a man - one with no filter, at that - an article about women's issues that require some delicacy and earnestness. I guess John Napier is telling us everything we need to know about his own marriage, and his feelings about his wife. He's an idiot. His writing style sounds like a spam emailer, he makes far too many grammatical errors for me to take him seriously, and the line spacing in the article goes from single to double halfway down the page.

    I note with some amusement that the website hosting the article is MediMiss. That's for sure. Total miss.

    -Jack

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    Replies
    1. Admittedly, I clicked the link, read the article, and commented before actually reading the rest of your post. Now I see that it's basically a commercial website. But that still doesn't explain why Adam & Eve would link to them in anything but a "this is total bullshit" context.

      -Jack

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