The World and its Wonders

A small southern California company which produces “earth-friendly” feminine hygiene products has released the first tampon for post-op transgender women.

Yes, I too was puzzled at first. 

“Our product is designed to give post-op transgender women the full-spectrum experience of menstruation. You don’t have to be deprived of the beautiful and womanly occurrence of menstruation merely because you were born without a uterus. The Fem-Flo’s cotton core contains a small, vegetable-based capsule which upon reaching body temperature releases the ‘menses’ contained within.”

Still waiting on those lunar bases and flying cars, though. 

Comments

[wtp]

Wow! What a breakthrough this also will be for post-menopausal women! The market for this is enormous! Can't wait to see the reaction when I send this to the in-laws!

[Joan]

the beautiful and womanly occurrence of menstruation

Yeah, right. What's the number for Advertising Standards...?

[sH2]

Next: a pill to give you swollen ankles and a craving for pickles.

[David]

I think it’s quite ingenious. I mean, I wouldn’t have thought of it.

[the wolf]

Wait a minute...for years we've been hearing how unfair it is for women to have to go through menstruation (and I'm sure it's now considered a sort of male oppression). Now they're selling the experience?

[The Sage]

You do realise that unitedmediapublishing is another satirical site like The Onion, I trust. Though these days, it's hard to tell satire from reality.

[NielsR]

@the wolf - sure, what's the point of oppression if you can't make a buck off it?

[JuliaM]

Well, I know where they can shove THAT!

[Jon Powers]

Will it attract Wolves and Bears, just like the real thing?

[David]

Though these days, it’s hard to tell satire from reality.

Couldn’t resist.

[Megaera]

I wonder, are there package warnings about the risks of the product, er, left in place? Because nothing speaks to the joys of authenticity quite like a bout of Toxic Shock Syndrome, you know ... real or imagined.

[David]

I fear I’ve opened Pandora’s, um, box.

[Dom]

It wouldn't be very surprising if something like this really did hit the market. Satire, reality, as was already mentioned. It's been done before. On South Park, Mr. / Mrs. Garrison believes he / she is pregnant because she missed her period.

[David]

It wouldn’t be very surprising if something like this really did hit the market.

That’s the thing. It would, I grant you, be a niche product and, yes, a tad peculiar; but at the same time it seems so oddly plausible.

[ac1]

" diminish body dysmorphia triggers altogether"
Bit late for that! Thinking your a woman with a man's body is probably the worst one. Cutting the bits off is like "treating" anorexia by prescribing diet shakes.

[Dom]

Is this a parody? I don't think so.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/advocacy-group-distributes-sexual-consent-contracts-to-college-students/article/2567726

[Hal]

Couldn’t resist.

BREAKING: Yellowstone Evacuated Amid Fears Of Super Volcano Eruption

and

BREAKING – Charles Manson Found Dead In His Prison Cell . . . .

[Darleen]

How can one tell the satire from the real when stuff like this goes on?

A student group at Mount Holyoke College has decided to cancel its annual performance of The Vagina Monologues, saying the play excludes the experiences of transgender women who don’t have a vagina.

[mojo]

Those capsules could prove useful. I must buy several boxes.

[Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK]

Hey, some professor said her menstrual cramps were caused by white microaggression, so, you know. Really, if any transwoman wanted to experience the beauty of menses, she'd need to also have the stomach flu at the same time, to undergo cramps and nausea.

I just want my flying car, why can't I have it?

[Spiny Norman]

Today, satire. Tomorrow, reality.

Just watch.

[David]

Meanwhile, in the real world, where real science is done:

Chinese psychologists found that men were more likely to accept an unfair offer if it came from a beautiful woman, according to the paper published in Frontiers of Neuroscience.

The nations of Earth will be stunned by this discovery.

[David]

Also in the real world, where only the really clever people go to Harvard and get hired as professional journalists, Laurie Penny offers her thoughtful, nuanced view on the latest budget.

Apparently, “It’s a clear signal that policymakers seek to punish women for having sexual and reproductive agency.”

[David Gillies]

I think the soundness of a policy could be fairly accurately gauged by the amount of angst it caused Penny Dreadful. In fact if you could somehow build her into a sort of portable meter you could go round pointing it at things and assess their worth by the pitch, frequency and volume of the right-on squeaking emanating from the device. It could be like Peter Simple's racism meter, which was calibrated in prejudons, the international unit of racial prejudice.

[David]

I think the soundness of a policy could be fairly accurately gauged by the amount of angst it caused Penny Dreadful.

What’s extraordinary, even by her standards, is that she’s raging about the fact the policy makes provision for situations involving rape and other “exceptional circumstances.” In her mind, that’s bad. And of course we’re supposed to think it’s an outrage that there should be a limit, any limit at all, on how much of other people’s earnings a persistently feckless person can claim. The idea that wherever possible one should only have the number of children that one can afford to support is, says Laurie, “vile.” It’s an attempt “to punish women for having sexual and reproductive agency.”

[Jen]

Apparently, “It’s a clear signal that policymakers seek to punish women for having sexual and reproductive agency.”

"Literally the budget 2015"... Thank God for that Harvard education.

[David]

Thank God for that Harvard education.

And yet despite being described by Harvard as an up-and-coming “leader in journalism,” Laurie doesn’t operate on anything as humdrum as logic, facts or being consistent. In order to appear angry and radical, which is ultimately what matters, she has to be oppositional. And so there has to be a display of outrage, however slim or absurd the pretext. I don’t recall Laurie ever offering a practical alternative to whatever it is she’s seething about on any given day. There’s no attempt to sketch an alternative course of action that takes into account finite resources and finite public goodwill. In her mind, remember, businesses don’t have to be competitive and an infinite amount of money can be extracted from those she deems “the rich.”

And so it’s hard to imagine any policy that even a centrist, rather woolly Conservative government might ever devise that Laurie wouldn’t denounce as spiteful, or misogynist, or driven by some imagined hatred of the poor.

[Lancastrian Oik]

Says Laurie "I'm critiquing the government's vile policy on rape and benefit cuts".

That reminds me of the time when Viz ran a spoof ad for "Jimmy Hill's Big Book Of Cricket And Motorbikes".

[Theophrastus]

"Couldn’t resist."

Just trying to keep us on our toes, Tricksy?

[Jonathan]

Hmmm. Anyone fancy joining me in marketing a birth control pill for transgender women?

[Jonathan]

policymakers seek to punish women make women accountable for having sexual and reproductive agency.

Fixed that for her.

[mojo]

Balance your checkbook lately, Miss Dreadful?

[rabbit]

I notice there is a patent (US5782779 A) for vibrating tampons, although it only has two more years to run. Perhaps these two ideas could hook up.

[Flynpigranch]

What would happen if several of the pads was missing the "mense" capsule? Wouldn't MS POTW think she was pregnant?

[Andrew Duffin]

The yuck factor is off the scale.