The “pink tax” is a discriminatory pricing system wherein products targeted at women are more expensive than products for men. It’s an insidious component of patriarchal consumerism. However, if I am going to be paying the so-called “pink tax” on tampons, then at the very least they should ribbed for my pleasure!
Do better, tampons!
It’s already an abomination that tampons and pads aren’t free when such a significant percent of the population needs them. But to add insult to injury, tampons are actually taxed as a luxury good! So if you’re going to treat tampons as a luxury, then please make the experience a little more luxurious for me by ribbing or studding the applicators so I can engage more of the nerve endings in my vagina while I slide that thing up there.
And maybe throw in a vibrator or something because I’m pissed off.
Of course, the pink tax applies to many more items than just tamps. Even functionally unisex items like pens, razors, or deodorant are pricier in the forms that are marketed toward women and girls. One option is to buy things targeted toward men if they’re cheaper and do the same exact thing, but the other probably more feasible option is for these items to also be ribbed for my pleasure! Put a lube sample in my expensive women’s shaving cream; make my lady office supplies pulse. What’s in it for me?!
The women have spoken, and this is what we want!
Now, a lot of people express skepticism when I share my view that tampons should be ribbed for my pleasure. They say things like “most women don’t even like ribbed condoms — they’re just something straight men buy to feel less guilty for making no effort to make their sexual partners cum” or “why do you want for the basic and necessary act of inserting a tampon to be sexually gratifying?” Um, hello. Why do you not? No offense, but you’re sounding a little sexually unliberated.
Naturally, I want for the “pink tax” to no longer exist in our society, but as long as we live in a consumerist world, that’s not gonna happen. That’s why I focus my intentions on more achievable and practical goals: getting tampons so textured they look like a goddamn mountain range! Till then, we will never be free.
So to marketers and product designers out there, I have just five works: Economic oppression, meet vaginal friction! I think we’re all going to get along just fine.
