Headline above ad:
"Tamponphobia:
Why don't Swedish women have it?"
I don't know how many American women
bought (or buy) the Swedish implied
argument in the second line in the ad,
Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia
being the pit of sin for many
Americans (you can also throw
northwestern Europe into that pit) in
spite of the fact that Sweden is the fourth
happiest country in the world
(2013). (Scandinavian fellows Norway
and Denmark are numbers 1 and 6. The
American Way's bastion of rectitude
and free enterprise is, lessee, 7, 8,
9, 10 - Oh, here it is, number
11.)
H.L. Mencken has been quoted as
saying this in reference to
puritanical Americans,
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy."
Doesn't the fact that Swedes say Suck! instead
of its English translation Sigh! just
reinforce your revulsion for the
country that at least one author has
said houses the most beautiful women
in the world? (The Danes say Suk, hardly
an improvement.)
Um, now where was I?
Oh, yeah, tampons.
Well, Swedes probably accepted
tampons faster than Americans because
in general they accept
naughty things faster (and in an
ad).
Tampax famously had early trouble getting Americans to buy tampons
and still does, and more so in even
more conservative countries (read a
Wall Street Journal article, Dec. 8,
2000, "Seeking New Markets For
Tampons, Procter & Gamble Tries
'Bonding Sessions' And School Slide
Shows To Win Sales in Mexico").
See
the Carefree tampon and read more
about it. It's like o.b.
in disguise; the same company later
sold that tampon.
Oh, yes, the strange colors I
used to tint the woman's face at
the top of this page are the colors of the
Swedish flag.
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