It’s like SANTA for your VAG!

Right now Im imagining 29% of you wondering what the heck Im talking about, 70% of you laughing & immediately knowing to what I refer, and 1% of you NOT opening the post after spying VAG in its title.

For the twenty-nine percent of you who have a life/spend time OFFLINE here’s to what Im VAG-refering.

Please to take take 107 seconds and watch. I promise—GUARANTEE if you possess said VAG—you will not be disappointed.

Now that we’re caught up—let’s break it down.

The majority of women I chatted with this weekend adored Camp Gyno. 

Words were bandied about like FINALLY, GROUNDBREAKING and, yes, the oft repeated RED BADGE OF COURAGE PHRASING ROCKS! 

I agree with these sentiments.  I also agree it was high time for a new approach to tampon advertising.

What surprised me is how few women were bothered by concepts I struggled with in both the ad and the HELLO FLO product.

And, because apparently I cannot struggle and keep it to myself, I offer you my thoughts and demand seek yours.

What do I like about Camp Gyno & the Hello Flo monthly subscription box?

I love period boxes!  I know the subscription box model is currently overdone–yet for me this brings back happy childhood memories.  I recall getting my Your First Period! box and immediately ripping into it.  I messed with maxi-pads.  I tampered with tampons.  I explored the hell out of that package long before my first period.  Nostalgic-me adores the notion of getting the same sort of box for my daughter.  Which leads me to…It’s precisely where I am right now.  Girls are getting their periods earlier.  Even girls who dont consume much in the way of hormones or crap (<— technical term) in food.  As a result, period-specifics are high on my to-talk list this year with my daughter.  Many criticized the ad for using too young girls—I disagree.  If periods are starting at 9 we *need* to launch the discussion when they’re eight.Camp Gyno is a conversation starter…with girls and husbands.  It transforms something potentially scary to girls (I remember the first time my daughter spied blood in the toilet. She panicked I had a “bad bad boo-boo!”)  into funny/familiar with its iCarly’esque approach.  Id venture to say it does same with husbands.   Periods, tampons etc arent topics most men know much about. That, coupled with a daughter’s nascent sexuality, makes menstruation an avoided topic.  Camp Gyno breaks those barriers beautifully.

What do I dislike about Camp Gyno & the Hello Flo monthly subscription box?

Camp Gyno had a distinct lack of color.  Dora (aided by ketchup) gets her period as does one other brownISH girl.  The lack of diversity in the ad leaped out at me.  Im aware it was filmed at a Jewish camp (go TRIBE!), but still…  For me this big ‘miss’ caused the ad to lose some of its luster.Hello Flo touts DISCREET as selling point.  I loved the unapologetically yourself! nature of Camp Gyno. I adored the thought of my daughter’s generation owning their VAGs (vages?) and cycles loud & proud.  I wanted this sentiment to extend to Hello Flo —-or at least not *discreet packaging* as selling point.  It felt, to me, like a step backward (&, in my opinion, contributes to sites like Mashable referring to the ad as CUTE.  ick.)O.M.G. THE CANDY.  (I fully anticipate Kenyon will seize my English Lit. degree after that sentence.) Really?!  Of all the tired stereotypes of menstruating women the candy-eating (binging?), in my opinion, is one of the worst. Tuck in a trashy mag.  Send a monthly hot compress.  Ship a scented candle/meditation music–but tasty treats as a pick-me-up? Please.

Still, overall the ad worked for me.  

I watched Camp Gyno with my daughter and, while much of it went over her head, the concepts which stuck sparked fantastic conversation.

That said, Id never buy Hello Flo box for her.

In our feminist, egalitarian, healthy living, mindful eating domicile I simply dont see a place for a monthly period box offering tampons and ‘tasty treats as a pick -me-up.’

(climbs down off the overturned maxi-pad box from which she’d been shouting)

And you?

What was your response to Camp Gyno? The Hello Flo box?Would you purchase the box for yourself/a young woman in your life?
Did you wish Hello Flo included other options like Diva Cups?

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