Oh, Summer's Eve. You're the ones who always make me feel justified in calling someone a bona fide douche. Normally, appropriating genitalia-related words for the purpose of insult sits a little weird on my feminist shoulders. Calling somebody a "pussy" like it's a bad thing has always baffled me. Men call each other this all the time like it's something despicable, but aren't they often the ones who desire it the most? I don't understand how you can cut someone down by throwing a word for something you love at them. People are strange. 

But "douche"? I can get behind that. It means exactly what I intend it to. In both senses, a douche is a smelly, chemical, irritating contraption that I don't want anywhere near my nethers.

See, somewhere along the line, someone decided to tamper with the world's most perfect self-cleaning device: the ladyparts. They decided to make women feel as though their natural secretions were somehow inherently dirty. They tried to make us think that we really should smell like sunshine and roses down there, and if we didn't, we had some kind of hygiene issue. Think about that for a second: corporatism argued that the genitals of an entire gender were filth-spouts that needed cleaning. Granted, corporate America loves selling both genders all kinds of solutions to problems that aren't real. You know, like not smelling enough like a man. I enjoy the Old Spice ads as much as the next guy, but I prefer my men to smell like real honest-to-God pheromones and sweat, not zinc and perfumes. Don't even get me started on cologne. 

But it's stuff like this that tilts my rage back over to those ads directed at us ladies. Summer's Eve just released a one-minute "epic" of a commercial that argues that the vagina is the most powerful driving force in the world. The "cradle of civilization", they call it. Like there's only one; like we're all somehow connected to The Great Primordial Labia which drives the will of all mankind. Gross. Men have fought over it for centuries, the ad states, showing two ambiguously Asian warriors battling in a stereotypical fashion. We see two knights jousting over some poon as well. Then we're told that because men make such a fuss over their vagina access, we might as well freshen it up for them when they do come to plunder. Buy some snatch-wash!

Seriously, ad execs? You're trying to sell me nasty, unnecessary genital cleaning chemicals by reminding me that people of my gender have been used as trophies, even currency, in the past? Gosh, I feel special. Some man could come barging in at any second demanding access to my cradle of civilization. Better make sure it smells like Febreze.

You can watch the full video below if you'd like to take a gander at its message. It's apparently playing before the Harry Potter movie in some theaters. You know, start them early with good, old-fashioned patriarchal values. Ladies, never forget that you're only worth the sum of your ladyparts. So keep them squeaky-clean.