You Douche with What???

I ran across these vintage Lysol douche advertisements today.  Think I'm joking?  Click the link and see a few for yourself.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lysol&w=41894183508%40N01&ss=2&z=m

My first response to douching your vagina with Lysol was a hearty, "Say WHAT??"  I realize that previous generations weren't as fond of bathing as we are today, but just how bad was personal hygiene in the old days?  It must have been pretty bad if women were cleaning their vaginas with a product that I use to clean my toilet.  That wasn't a crude euphemism, folks, I actually do mean the commode.

Those ads are pretty hilarious though.  I can't help but wonder why bad vaginal odor would make you too tired to party with friends? Just what kind of party are they attending anyway??  I guess swinging is older than I thought!

I feel bad for those poor, poor husbands.  Their dirty and smelly wives just ruin everything.  I wonder if there was a penis/ballsack/taint cleanser & disinfectant (kills 99.9% of germs, right?) on the market around the same time?  Oh, who am I kidding?  Men never stink because men are perfect.  Am I doing this right?

What is with the clueless damsels depicted in these ads?  I mean, if your vadge smells so bad that your husband locks himself in another room to escape the stank emanating from your lady parts, you don't need Lysol, Pine-Sol, Clorox, or any other household cleaning item.  You need a doctor right NOW because something is way the heck wrong downstairs. 

I'm not a fan of douching and I've only done it a handful of times in my entire life.  As long as I bathe regularly, things just don't get funky down there.  Considering the proliferation of cleansing items in the feminine hygiene aisle at the drugstore, I think I must be in the minority.  Maybe I'm supposed to be douching, but my mother skipped that conversation while I was growing up?  While picking flowers in a meadow together, she could have advised me that I should be ashamed of my body and it's natural scent.  Hm, I'm kinda glad we skipped all that glorious female bonding.

Since I've revealed that I'm not a doucher, I might not be the best person to weigh in on such topics.  But in my admittedly non-medical opinion, it is not normal to smell like the shore at low-tide.  It's also not normal to smell like a Mountain Breeze, Gentle Rain, Barbecue, Jalapeno-Cheddar, or whatever these stupid douche-scents are called.  And it sure as heck isn't normal for your vagina to smell like freaking LYSOL!

I came up with my own "vintage" Lysol douche ad verbiage:  "Gee, all the cats in the neighborhood follow me constantly. . .I'll take a Lysol douche and all will be well in my world. Well, except that I'll probably suffer chemical burns from irrigating my love canal with a disinfectant.  Thanks Lysol - you've saved my marriage!"



I know that advertising played by a slightly different set of rules in those days and I know that modern medicine was still pretty primitive, but I figured that there had to be more to the story than women had really rank hoo-haws in the old days.  And there was.  What could possibly bring women to douche with Lysol?  Why would a woman inject such a potentially dangerous chemical in her nether regions?  Well, to prevent pregnancy, of course.  Sounds like I have a post to work on for tomorrow!

 Have a great night.  And don't douche with Lysol!