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Loading...Ladies: Is a Tight Vagina Really Empowering? (VIDEO)
Forget education and throw out access to birth control — one Indian company says it has found the answer to female empowerment: a vagina tightening gel.
The product, called 18 Again, launched on August 7. The makers, Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company Ultratech, have drawn significant criticism for boasting that 18 Again is a “femininity restoring” and “empowerment” product. With each jar selling at Rs. 2,439, or around $43, the company has invested serious money in its marketing campaign and is looking for serious returns. There’s even a Bollywood-style commercial to go with it. Take a look:
So what exactly is the idea behind 18 Again? Over to the product’s FAQ:
18 Again is a result of years of research and development done by our scientists. 18 Again addresses intimate feminine concerns of women. It helps in the rejuvenation of the vagina by tightening it in a natural way. It is a product that provides true women empowerment.
There have been a number of eyebrows raised firstly about the true effectiveness of any such creams and gels because, beyond a local vasodilating effect, it is unlikely that the gel would be able to act on the vaginal muscles at all. However, it isn’t actually the product itself that women’s rights commentators and medical professionals are most concerned over. Indeed there are already several products like this on the market in Europe and the USA.
Rather it is the “female empowerment” angle the company has used which, critics say, capitalizes on the prevalent notion that women should aspire to be and remain virginal until marriage, a cultural taboo that is still present in the slowly socially modernizing India.
“This kind of cream is utter nonsense, and could give some women an inferiority complex,” argues Annie Raja from the National Federation of Indian Women, which fights for women’s rights in the country.
Ms Raja says that rather than empower women, the cream will do the opposite, by reaffirming a patriarchal view that is held by many here — the notion that men want all women to be virgins until their wedding night.
“Being a virgin is still prized, and I don’t think attitudes will change in this century,” says Dr Mahinda Watsa, a gynaecologist who writes a popular sexual advice column in the Mumbai Mirror and Bangalore Mirror newspaper.
There’s yet another reason to be cautious about the way 18 Again has been marketed.
Critics have pointed out that it is one of several products to come on the market recently that are actually more about pleasing men — or more specifically, upholding age-old and errant ideas about what should be pleasing to men — even though they have been dressed up as women’s cosmetics and health care.
Indeed, a recent and aggressive upsurge in skin lightening creams, where women are told they will be more successful and more prosperous in love and life if they have a lighter complexion, have taken hold in India’s stores. There has even been a vaginal whitening product put on the market, though since an outcry, that particular product has apparently been moved to ship primarily for medical retailers.
The product’s makers are standing by their claim that 18 Again is about women feeling their best, however, with the company’s owner Rishi Bhatia telling the Guardian: “Men have so many products they can buy to enhance their sexual pleasure, this is just putting sexual enhancement in the hands of women.”
This “sexual enhancement” angle seems unlikely to dissuade critics though, who charge that the product is a cynical ploy to bottle an old patriarchal idea and try to sell it to women as a means to better themselves.
Related Reading:
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Read more: beauty industry, cosmetics, india, patriarchy, sex before marriage, sexism, Women's rights, womens rights sexism advertising
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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236 comments
+ add your ownyeah right!!!
maybe. if it is strong and powerful enough to be tightend up at will, and crack nuts. that sounds empowering.
The woman in the advertisement is what, 25? Crazy!
When is the next planet habitable??? Sign me up,PLEASE.
Thought this was a mean trick on Women in India & any other region that its played out in. the first time i read it I thought it was ill informed, insulting to Women and may have a possible side effect. Dr Hook has been selling this kind of snake oil for as long as i can remember & the product is testimony to the indifference of IDIOTS to the care of our sisters world wide.India really must do more to take care of its women as from recent news its apparent that women come in the lower class and this must never be accepted as the norm.
There are many definitions for "evil" ( according to Wikipedia ) but I think the best is "ignorance and poverty". This article is about cynical opportunism - because the product has an audience of millions of poorly informed people living in a patriarchial society easily exploited by greedy and ruthless con artists!
@ Laurie G. – “another product geared toward making our bodies smell or feel more sexy”, That’s nothing new. A medieval rabbi requested the women of his flock to wear makeup as an aid to increase their husbands’ interest in pleasureable sex . Advertising gets blamed for what is often an existing interest. Of course women who consider themselves more than good enough despite obesity, saggy breasts, unimpressive features and hostile personalities are free to continue thinking that way.
What world do we live in???
Yeah, right.
Wear a corset, bind your feet, wear neck rings.
All of those things and the latest product have nothing to do with women empowerment.
Instead they're desperate tricks women use to conform to (real or perceived) men's images of how women should be.
They're rooted in a deep insecurity that if a woman is not close to that ideal, men will seek other women. This insecurity is in turn rooted in the fact that women abandoned by their spouses faced (and still do in some cultures) impossible challenges.
Where women are financially independent, these trends tend to subside.
Yet they're by no means gone, not even in the west. Notice how many women undergo cosmetic surgery to conform to such standards.
How can anyone can be so ridiculous!
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