Women's products advertisements are for privileged women only.

I've been sick lately, which means I've been watching a lot of stuff on Hulu. And since my gender on Hulu is still set to "female," I get a lot of ads for products geared toward women. Products like KY Intense, menstrual pads (y'know, if you don't want to think about your pad you might consider a cup), yadda.

And what I've noticed is that all of these ads are geared toward straight women.

Take the KY Intense commercials, for instance. It's being marketed as "specially formulated to create female satisfaction" (whatever that means). Yet in every commercial I've seen, it shows a man and a woman (clearly married) discussing how much better it has made their sex lives.

I'm all for women's sexuality being shown in a positive light, really. The general message of these ads - that women deserve to be satisfied in bed - is a good one. However, while the sexualities of straight, cisgender, thin, white, married women are being encouraged, the sexualities of virtually every other kind of women are being erased.

For instance, all of the couples are cis and hetero. Despite the fact that the marketing of this product has, ostensibly, nothing to do with testosterone-fueled penis bearers, you can find one in every single commercial. Two women having sex using KY Intense and having a great time? Unheard of. A het couple wherein both members have estrogen-fueled bodies and vulvae? Unheard of. (Not that I'd expect to see that in this day and age, but erasure is erasure.) I am left uncertain, as well, as to the usefulness of this product for trans women of varying body types. Since the product is "clinically proven to enhance female satisfaction," I assume that it was specifically formulated to work on womb-generated vulvae and left at that. Given that we are at a point where trans women are visible and being recognized as women, it would be great of KY to try to include them in this shallow quest to make a buck.

All of the couples have been white, as well. The sexual satisfaction of black women, Asian women, etc.? Doesn't matter. Well, it matters inasmuch as "they'll see the ads and buy this product too, so we're good" but that's it. There's no real interest in promoting the idea that there are happily married non-white couples out there, having gratingly traditional hetero sex and using KY Intense to make things more pleasurable. I don't know that I have the depth of information necessary to explain why this is so harmful, but it has to do with stereotypes regarding black people never getting married, and Asian men being emasculate/feminine. Basically, they're not considered physically capable of engaging in a "normal" relationship.

And, of course, they are all thin, young, and able-bodied. Heaven forbid we hear about fat, old, and/or disabled people having any kind of sex life - much less talking about it on television. Sex is gross if the people involved aren't perfect.

(And they're all couples. Despite the fact that a woman might want to get some "female satisfaction" without a partner. I guess solo sex is still too nasty for TV.)

For other ads, this becomes even more grating as there are even fewer reasons to put the woman in a relationship, yet she somehow manages to hook up with Mr. Wealthy McCisgender every time. An ad for menstrual pads, for instance, includes a woman saying good-night to her lantern-jawed white date at the end of the night, while fantasizing about giving him smoochies. Ads for other products show our thin, frequently white heroine preparing dinner for her family, roughhousing with her children, and arguing with her husband - all expressions of privilege in some way or another. Not every family is white - for better or worse, black folks have garnered a position as the other "American" race and appear infrequently. Yet we never see a man of Asian descent playing the dim-witted, meat-chomping foil who fails to detect his wife's yogurt. We never see a mother in a wheelchair sharing a special moment with her child. Never an old woman preparing dinner. God forbid we have some combination of these.

Even as young, white, thin, able-bodied, straight, married, cisgender women are being oppressed by many of these ads, every other kind of woman is being erased.

There's one exception that I know of - the Hamburger Helper commercial, which is a completely disgusting and exploitative piece showing why poor single moms should stop eating fast food, which is making them fat, and buy someone else's unnecessary product instead. Good times, yo.

Gym Leaders: Single Parents Need Not Apply

Doing research for the last post led me to The Pokémon Wiki, a site that purports to be an accurate account of Pokémon game information. So accurate that, although Lenora is listed under her United States name, the owners of the site refuse to use her updated title and call her "Natural-Born Mama" instead. Yeah, that gives me a good idea of what kind of people are editing the site (read: Privilege Denying Dude.)

The fail doesn't end there, though. See, at the bottom of her page Lenora is listed as one of FIVE Gym Leaders who are confirmed to be married. Let's look at the other four.

Chuck: Chuck's wife stands outside the Cianwood City Gym in Gold/Silver/Crystal/HeartGold/SoulSilver and gives you the HM Fly after you defeat Chuck.
Norman: Norman and his wife are the main character's parents in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald.
Byron: Byron is the father of the first Gym Leader in Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. A spouse is never mentioned.
Drayden: Drayden is the father of Iris. A spouse is never mentioned.

So two of these "confirmed married" characters are, in fact, ASSUMED to be married (because they have children). So apparently single parents don't exist in the Pokémon world.

One can hope that this is just the expression of one person's privilege denial and not reflective of the wiki as a whole. To find out, I'm going to change the page so that it's properly up-to-date and remove Byron and Drayden from the "confirmed married" list. Let's see how long it takes to change back.