Warning: If you shake your head and hear strange noises, just skip this.
One evening my then boyfriend, my sister and I were lounging around watching TV together. An ad came on for tampons or pads or something, and he got quite awkward, but then said, “Well that’s pointless, it’s the wrong time of the month for that.” or words to that effect, the implications of which became clear to us girls almost immediately. We probed carefully, but yes, he actually thought that there was one time a month when ALL WOMEN menstruated, and that showing the ad some other time was not the most effective advertising strategy.
We were flabbergasted, and called him on it, and yes, it’s something he had never until then really thought about. His parents and any formal education had never even mentioned it. He had, before I met him, lived in a house with three female roommates, who, as can happen, all tended to menstruate around the same time of the month, since cycles can synchonise when living together, so this is where he came up with that idea! clearly not thinking through the extended logic that would have the world’s entire female population menstruating at the same time! and wouldn’t that be exciting, a world in which half its members are experiencing PMS at the same time. I still chuckle when I see the TV ads now, reliving what we decribed as a Far Side moment.
One evening my then boyfriend, my sister and I were lounging around watching TV together. An ad came on for tampons or pads or something, and he got quite awkward, but then said, “Well that’s pointless, it’s the wrong time of the month for that.” or words to that effect, the implications of which became clear to us girls almost immediately. We probed carefully, but yes, he actually thought that there was one time a month when ALL WOMEN menstruated, and that showing the ad some other time was not the most effective advertising strategy.
We were flabbergasted, and called him on it, and yes, it’s something he had never until then really thought about. His parents and any formal education had never even mentioned it. He had, before I met him, lived in a house with three female roommates, who, as can happen, all tended to menstruate around the same time of the month, since cycles can synchonise when living together, so this is where he came up with that idea! clearly not thinking through the extended logic that would have the world’s entire female population menstruating at the same time! and wouldn’t that be exciting, a world in which half its members are experiencing PMS at the same time. I still chuckle when I see the TV ads now, reliving what we decribed as a Far Side moment.
