See a prototype of
                        the first Kotex ad.
                      See more Kotex items: Ad 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog)
                        - Marjorie May's Twelfth
                          Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928,
                        Australian edition; there are many links here to
                        Kotex items) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing
                        disposal method -
                        box from about 1969 -
                        Preparing
                          for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls)
                        - "Are you in the know?"
                        ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See
                        more ads on the Ads for
                          Teenagers main page
                      
                      
                      
                      
                          
                          
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                        The Museum of Menstruation and Women's
                          health
                             
                        
                      
                        
                          
                            
                              
                                Kotex
                                    Lightdays PantiLiners ad, U.S.A.,
                                    1982 
                                    Featuring a named person
                                Part of the meaning of "fresh" in
                                  this and many ads for menstrual
                                  products is lack of genital and
                                  especially menstrual odor, odor in
                                  general being a social crime in many
                                  Western cultures and certainly in
                                  America. Menstrual odor is
                                  unforgivable (see a great Kotex ad
                                  showing this), even though 99.99
                                  percent of your fellow citizens don't
                                  know what causes it; you
                                    now do and it's a shocker.
                                The lady in the ad is not concerned
                                  about blood - I hope not! - but
                                  secretions from the vagina during
                                  pregnancy. Nevertheless any public
                                  hint of anything but flowers (which refer
                                  ambiguously to menstruation) would
                                  send her into the social shadows.
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