Don't forget to sand your vagina, ladies

[MagicMix]

Horror show (Link to Facebook company page)

I always thought the various companies that try to encourage woman to put soap up their vagina were bad enough, but I have to believe this is peak misogynist capitalism. It is a dildo-shaped pumice stone with which you are supposed to exfoliate your vagina.

Any takers?

Also see the "Secret Ceres", an identical item to the jamu stick only about 10 x the price and marketed at new age women with an interest in the "tantric" scene.

Also see "yoni detox pearls" little bundles of herbs wrapped in gauze targeted at women of the African diaspora via various enthusiastic youtube influencers.

Both of these items have received critical reviews from users who have experienced injuries and infections resulting from their use.

The yoni detox pearl video endorsements often feature footage of the pearls post removal after a 3 day (yes you read that right 72 hours) stay inside a vagina. The messy appearance of said pearls is offered as evidence that there were nasty, dirty, foul things inside the vagina that needed detoxing with herbs. Rather that the vary obvious fact that sticking a small bag of herbs up your vagina for 3 days is likely to actually produce the very symptoms that the pearls are meant to prevent.

Anyone remember the "18 Again vaginal rejuvenation & tightening gel" advert targeted at Asian women? Seems relevant.

Also see Namyaa skin lightening serum to be used on intimate areas because "if you have dark or pigmented skin on your private or intimate areas it can cause worry to you". Apparently

Of course all of these narratives are old school.

Lysol vaginal douches had tapped the market for claiming that vaginas were so foul and smelly that they had to be decontaminated with dangerous chemicals way before the above products were a twinkle in the eye of the various marketing execs that created them.

I’ve got a morning off so I’m mumsnetting my socks of. This takes the biscuit.
I propose an venture to create market and sell, ball cleaner, tightener and sander, something to make penisis (peni?) less veiny, a contraption to stop them twitching about (you know what I mean) and all manner of things to scent the end.
These products are bonkers and I would like to get in on making up bonkers products for body parts I don’t have. Clearly the market is unregulated, I assumed if you sold something people put inside their bodies you would need certificates.
I want to be light hearted about this but I think I’m going to ha e to talk to all the women in my life to make sure that they know not to scrub out their vaginas and stuff them full of herbs! Fun weekend for me. I already had a long conversation with dm about he colleration between her near permanent thrush and all the fem fresh products in her bathroom. She called in her sister to help her point, it was a weird ‘saying fanny in front of your mother’ day.

I’m not sure scarring is the kind of tightening that most women (deluded enough to care) are hoping to achieve. I don’t know how many time I’ve has to say it really. The vagina is stretchy. Babies literally pass through it and it goes back to normal. It tightens naturally. Anything that tightens it further than its natural state is doing damage.

It claims to tighten your cervix.

It might result in a tighter vagina. I hear scar tissue does tend to be less flexible

Clearly the market is unregulated, I assumed if you sold something people put inside their bodies you would need certificates.

In the UK there are very strict regulations involving unlicensed medical devices. If you see a UK based company or website selling these kinds of products you can report them here

www.gov.uk/guidance/contact-mhra

Many territories have similar regulations and reporting these dangerous items is a good thing to do.

Part of the problem is that we need to learn about and understand the use of youtube and facebook influencers and MLM in promoting and selling these items.

There are also cultural factors. For example the idea that peer reviewed evidence and western medicine is somehow evil and part of the patriarchy and that sticking "natural herbs" in vaginas is somehow feminist and empowering. This narrative needs to be challenged. Men do not have a monopoly on science and quackery is not empowering to women.

Ethnic minorities are also more vulnerable to these kinds of quackery because of white privilege and racism. Entrepreneurial, predatory quacks will recruit young women of colour to "empower" their sisters in the ancient wisdom ways of sticking herbs inside your vagina as if it is empowering, whereas the underlying narrative that your vagina needs to be whitened is clearly oppressive and racist.

I am saying that astroturfing is at play here with narratives of "empowerment" of women and of oppressed minority groups being appropriated by ruthless scammers who care nothing for women's vaginal and reproductive health and care a lot about their bank balance.

one of the amazon links:

" because the medicinal herbs will reduce excessive liquid discharge substance in the vagina and provide maximum sexual pleasure for both participants

so there's a dry sex angle with that one

fucking men

NAMALT

Interesting article archived here

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090929061709/www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/02/26/some-it-dry.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20090929061709/www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/02/26/some-it-dry.html

What. The. Everloving. Fuck.

...Because if there's anything a vagina loves, it's extremely abrasive friction and foreign particulate.

Let's hear it for developing scads of friable scar tissue in an organ whose every function depends in part upon flexibility.

I don't know about you guys, but personally, I'm looking forward to the hugely increased risk of disease and dysfunction incurred by a chronically impared skin barrier - I need some variety and excitement in my life.

@Phlewf:
"...I propose an venture to create market and sell, ball cleaner, tightener and sander, something to make penisis (peni?) less veiny, a contraption to stop them twitching about (you know what I mean) and all manner of things to scent the end..."

Scrotal wrinkle cream comes to mind.

Some kind of remote-operated tiny tazer for when they're being inconvenient?

Perhaps a bra, with minimiser and push-up options? For the less- and overly- endowed, you know.

Step one though, is to make all men feel deeply ashamed of and disgusted by their bits and how they function.

Men are also being targeted
ballwash.com

However I've not yet seen exfoliating mitts for scrotums!

WTAF I thought sanding your vagina was a practice restricted to cultures where FGM was prevalent? Drying the vagina was supposed to simulate virginity, but it increased the spread of HIV?

WTF has this horrific practice been imported to the western world

In the UK there are very strict regulations involving unlicensed medical devices. If you see a UK based company or website selling these kinds of products you can report them here

They won't count as medical devices. Do dildos? Cucumbers? Most of us would let the right penis in our vagina and they are definitely not medical devices.

I work in biopharmaceuticals (drugs that are generally injected like insulin). There are different regulations for injected into your blood stream, things that are injected into your eye, things that are swallowed. Food grade is (from my viewpoint) the lowest grade. Injectables (and medical devices) are used in such a way that they bypass most of the immune system and so the regulations are tight whereas because the vagina can cope with a penis (not self cleaning ) the regulations will be much less stringent.

Not that I'd recommend sticking a pumice stone up it of course.

Oh, the link isn’t working for me. Has the website gone down?

I thought sand in your vagina was a joke insult meant to mean you were cranky, haha

You silly women, thinking vaginas are self-lubricating.

Frontholes are self-lubricating, vaginas are not. If vaginas need regular sanding and exfoliating, who are we to stand in their way, with our old-fashioned ignorance and bigotted beliefs that vaginas are female body parts?

They won't count as medical devices. Do dildos? Cucumbers? Most of us would let the right penis in our vagina and they are definitely not medical devices.

They do count as unlicensed medical devices if they are being marketed as having properties that cure medical conditions, e.g. thrush, BV, STIs or claim to teat prolapses / vaginal injuries.

Dildos are marketed as sex toys, not medical devices and cucumbers have a variety of uses, food / sex toy / eye face pack thingies / weapon in an emergency.

I have reported jamu sticks and secret ceres where online retailers were claiming that they cured STIs. The authorities came down on the sellers like a ton of proverbial bricks and rightly so.