Most people know that Lysol started life as a douche. Fortunately, this was before my time, I just had to live the constant assault of Summer’s Eve and ‘feminine spray’ ads. I always thought it was a shame that no one at Lysol had the thought to market it as an all around marriage aid: “Men, use Lysol’s Intimate Soak for Men! Keep that rod of marriage clean and sweet smelling!” But no, as with a majority of products at that time, most all of them were pointing out the constant and glaring imperfections and defects of women, and you best pay attention, else you’ll lose that man, oh my. The text in the above ad reads:
Why Does He Avoid Her Embrace?
A. Because he is no longer happy in their marriage, constantly makes excuses to avoid the romantic intimacy of their honeymoon.
Q. What has she done? Is it really all her fault?
A. It is not so much what she has done as what she has neglected…and that is proper feminine hygiene.
Q. Can neglect of proper feminine hygiene really spoil a happy marriage?
A. Yes, and the pity of it is, every wife can hold her lovable charm by simply using “Lysol” disinfectant as an effective douche.
Q. Can this purpose be accomplished by homemade douching solutions?
A. No…salt, soda, and similar makeshifts do not have proved germicidal and antiseptic properties of “Lysol” which not only destroys odor but is effective in the presence of organic matter.
Q. Why does this husband not tell his wife why he avoids her?
A. Because he feels that a woman should know these important facts…and use every means in her power to remain glamourous, dainty, and lovely to love. He resents her neglect of such fundamentals as correct feminine hygiene which is achieved so easily by regular douching with “Lysol” brand disinfectant.
(That ‘organic matter’ eluded to was a way of saying “effective spermicidal”. You can see more Lysol ads below the fold.
You can peruse a number of other ads here, detailing all the horrors of womanhood, like the dreaded gap-osis, and awful women who didn’t care about maintaining their SA (stocking appeal), along with the standards: dishpan hands, and being too skinny and too fat.
Seriously fucked up.
Oh yes. And all that was heavily marketed, ultimately, for the (benefit of) Manly Masculine Men™. Gimme those zeta types any day.
I, yet again for one, did not know that foofin’ quartenary ammonium salts were first used as douching solution!! Grrr. Leave it alone girls!! It’s self cleaning, just like your new oven!!
The dreaded gap-osis sounds nearly as terrible as VPL. I swoon, truly I do. Dictionary.com places it’s first recorded usage between 1950-55. Prior to WW2, the majority of the country was clinically underweight. Post-war prosperity made food much less dear to obtain and far more bountiful. So we started on the jolly march to the obesity epidemic. The women in the gaposis ads look to be underweight or at ideal body-weight to me. But, heh, why not start the fat-shaming as soon as you can, amirite?
And most of the men those days smoked like chimneys and couldn’t smell anything weaker than concentrated bleach anyway.
Manly Masculine Men™? Hrrmm. I still belong to the He-Man Women Haters Club™, maybe I should get with the times.
Raucous Indignation:
But men are so easily irritated! ;)
As per here: The Zeta Male.
I know, I know, but all that standing around to pee just makes me so very irritated!
I’m not sure how it’s the fault of all women, but I’ll unravel that conspiracy if it’s the last thing I do!
I have always hated marketing people; this sort of thing makes me feel completely justified.
Oh please, cousin, hate away. They are as immoral and vile as a roomful of Catholic bishops.
Aside from smoking, which Lofty mentioned, most people back then would’ve been generally smelly and unwashed by modern standards.
How’d any substantial number of women have known this? That is, unless women back then were constantly discussing contraceptive options at workplace coffee rooms, school recess or wherever women and teen girls met each other.
If that was the case, I’d wonder why similar informal sex education today doesn’t seem very effective at spreading information about effective contraception methods.
Lumipuna:
There is zero reason to say that, it was the 1940s, and people were quite clean, rather fanatical about it, really. They probably took more care with grooming and cleanliness than people do today.
Of course women discussed it! FFS, sex, contraception, periods, and abortion were as commonplace then as throughout all of history. Women may not have felt free to discuss such things in mixed company, but these things have always been discussed. Douches were used more often as a contraceptive aid than any desire to please men with being “sweet smelling”. That switched around later, in the 1960s and 70s, when effective contraception hit the market, and douches stayed popular because the myth of “ooh smelly swamp down there” endured a bit longer. For what it’s worth, women also used douches to prevent a husband from finding out they were indulging in sex elsewhere.
lumipuna @ 12, Caine @ 13
As far as I understand, USA and Finland could have been quite different in this matter. The ads are American ads so USA is relevant. Here people may just have washed their face, armpits and hands daily and gone to sauna on Saturdays. Americans in the 1940s probably had a more widespread access running water than Finns at the time, especially rural or working-class Finns.
Thanks, Ice Swimmer, I didn’t know that. People here were quite fanatical about cleanliness in the 1940s.
Caine
All that makes perfect sense. I was just wondering how well exactly informal sex education works in practice -- obviously not enough for public health and sexual wellbeing purposes, even if technology is available.
Ice Swimmer
Ok, my bad. Plus douches were probably used mostly by middle/upper class women?
Lumipuna:
That was probably true when it came to ready-made douches. Homemade douches were always used as a contraceptive aid, in truth, this was usually “I hope this works” contraception. I vaguely remember vinegar being the main ingredient in homemade douches.
Cocacola and/or pepsi were used in my neck of the woods.
huh
As I recall now, it was only the colas that were supposed to be spermicidal.
Not ginger ale or 7up or anything else.
Yeah, I remember the Cocacola stuff. I remember thinking that was nuts, too.
Sperm is also something that makes vaginas smell not quite as nice (three cheers for condoms)
—
1940s, 50s, 60s in Germany (at least working class Germany): a tin tub in tge kitchen on Saturdays, filled from the kettle. Dirtiest one got in last.
My friend’s grandparents built a house in the early 50s and the neighbours declared them to have become “posh” thinking beyond their station for putting the loo inside.
Husband’s family place out-country only got an indoor water closet last 15 years, and it’s not even heated. Even in the late 90s, a grand tradition of long-distance bus rides was the Green Stop -- any random unpopulated roadside will do, men to the left, women to the right, what do you mean wash your hands, and what even is toilet paper? Big differences in hygiene -- though I think I’m glad this place skipped the Lysol-for-wimmensbitz era, it would probably still be on the market.
I apparently completely missed lysol being used for a douche. It was a hoof soak and disinfectant for barns, and I can’t stand it’s strong odor. I wouln’t even use it indoors much less apply it to sensitive mucous membranes.
Thank deity that we still have Chlorox and toilet brushes.