If you’re a lady who menstruates, there is one but one purpose for the hidden zippered compartments inside your purse and bag: to hide tampons and other “feminine protection” items. For some godforsaken reason, if an innocent tampon happened to fall out of our pocket onto the floor, most women would throw our bodies on it like it was a live grenade. But why? It’s certainly not a secret that most women spend 25% of their childbearing years having their period, so a tampon should be as innocuous as a pack of Kleenex. But, as all women know, it is not.
In an unfortunately cut-for-time sketch on the most recent Saturday Night Live, guest host Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the SNL cast explore this strange (and unnecessary) stigma. A filmed ad promotes Tampax “Secrets” line, which hides tampons in things ostensibly less offensive to the general public than a tampon: like a piece of dog poop, a dead mouse, a box containing a VHS copy of The Cosby Show, and a real bomb.
Like so many cut-for-time sketches, it’s better than most of the stuff that actually made the show. We much prefer this to that Love Island parody.