New York City has rules for what’s adorned on the cityscape’s walls, including what ads get to go up on the subway billboard. But they’re a bit inconsistent.

A new set of ads by Thinx offended Outfront Media (the ad outfit that handles the MTA – Metropolitan Transport Authority). The ads are selling panties for women who’d like to not have to wear pads and tampons during menstruation. But the problem? They used the word “period”. Whoops, grown men gonna be like ‘EWWWW’.

Other versions of the ad feature an image of a peeled, halved grapefruit and a runny egg alongside women in midriff tops and panties. Outfront was not impressed:

… the MTA prohibits ads that depict “sexual or excretory activities” or materials that promote a “sexually oriented business” — which Thinx, as a company that sells alternative menstrual products, is not. The ads “seem to have a bit too much skin,” and the egg and grapefruit imagery, “regardless of the context, seems inappropriate.”

But this is almost a small victory for a greater cause. Thinx, who is trying to break down the controversial stigma around menstruation, has got people talking and the greatest subject seems to be that female sexuality is all fun and games unless it’s actually through the female gaze.

Yet there are many accounts of underwear and plastic surgery ads on the subway right now that display large amounts of sexual content.

While Agrawal and Thinx is keeping up the fight, Outfront says they aren’t interested in the campaign as is, despite their obvious double standard.

[source: jezebel]