Sunday, September 25, 2011

Morality in protection!

I am amused to note the advertisement by a condom-manufacturing company. The television advertisement shows a young girl wearing the skimpy clothes you obviously need if you like having sex (apparently people who dress in the usual stuff do not really think about sex) who is talking about how the flavoured condoms will make your sex life so much more satisfying and exciting and, wait for it.... make it as brilliant as the wedding night.

Now here is the interesting bit- the creators have very deliberately highlighted the name they have created for the character and pointedly add a "Mrs." to it. So it is Mrs. X talking about condoms and how they are oh such a pleasure!

Got me thinking about the stringent morality-levels among condom manufacturers! Impressive! But there is nothing wrong with that. It did however also remind me an episode from several years before when I had visited a gynaecologist to have some hormonal imbalances checked (sheesh, am I not supposed to talk about these things and visits to the "lady doctor"??) and after I had a chat with the dcotor, the nurse walked in to ask about the tests that had to be run. The names of the tests were ticked off and then the nurse asked if there was a need for tests that required, well lets just say some probing. Immediately, the Doctor smiled and said "no no, we dont do THOSE checks for unmarried girls".

Now I quit studying biology when I reached class 9 and maybe I am way off the line here and maybe what I went to see the doctor for did not have absolutely any connection with the check up that the nurse had asked about. But what bothered me was the comment about the doctor not doing such checks for unmarried girls, which reeked of moral-policing and the assumption that unmarried girls do not have sex and if they do, well then good luck to them for dealing with ensuing problems that may arise.

We have often seen and heard of cases where police personnel harass couples. The responsibility of a policeman or policewoman is to ensure that no laws are being broken and that the masses are safe, no matter what ideologies anybody has. The same goes for doctors.

And for everybody else.

2 comments:

  1. Couldn't agree with you more. The ad appears in bad taste, anyway. A woman can show herself going mad with desire because of these condoms and its okay for her to act like that and still be acceptable because...wait for it...she's married (as denoted by the Mrs prefix). How convenient, isn't it? If you have noticed, recently all ads about condoms and contraceptives feature (and quite deliberately) married women (sindoor, chudi, kids and all that...) And of course, the i-pill ad about the unmarried girl crying outside an abortion clinic. These ads are laced with moralistic messages that : 1. Talk only about the sexual freedom of the married woman and the married or unmarried man (how does it matter- he's THE MAN).

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  2. 2. If you (the unmarried woman) try to exercise the "forbidden", you "Deserve" to stand outside the abortion clinic...crying.

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