Selling Shame: Feminine Hygiene Advertising and the Boundaries of Permissiveness in 1970s Britain

Abstract

This article uses a 1972 television advertising campaign for Femfresh vaginal deodorants and the backlash against it to explore how women grappled with the permissive society in their bathrooms and living rooms. It uses women's magazines and the business archives of Femfresh to trace the popularity of vaginal deodorants in the early 1970s and show how advertising for the product played on women's fears of undesirability and shame about their bodies during a period of changing sexual mores. It details how feminist campaigners Women in Media (WiM) constructed a campaign against vaginal deodorants and how adverts for the product became linked in press coverage to trial television adverts for Lil-lets tampons, before analysing complaints made about both product categories collected by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. The contested terrain of feminine hygiene advertising adds nuance to historical understandings of debates around 'permissiveness', suggesting that, for some women, frank discussions of bodily functions were not inherently 'indecent', but rather had a correct time and place. WiM's campaign and the complaints collected illustrate how women of varying political leanings utilised conceptions of shame to exert limited control over the extent to which feminine bodies were up for public consumption in 1970s Britain.We used to go round the pharmacists and have a good laugh at the huge lines of shelves filled with these strange things which we had never heard of … foot sprays, vaginal sprays, body sprays and even throat sprays … -we couldn't believe it. Gradually they have crept all over the place but I wonder if they are all good. 1 Shortly after this woman's trip, vaginal sprays, vaginal deodorants, or intimate deodorants as they were also known, emerged on the market in the UK, hitting shelves in 1963. Brands like Femfresh, Bidex and FDS (Feminine Deodorant Spray) soon developed a range of products, from dry sprays and talcum powders to washes and tissue wipes, of which the latter could be kept in a handbag for a midday freshen up of the vulva. As the market grew and vaginal deodorants were advertised more frequently