Bloody hell. I’ve just seen a pussy the size of a double-decker bus. No, seriously, I have. See, it was on a billboard as part of the ad campaign for a new energy drink called Pussy. And I bet when you read that second line of mine neither a drink nor a cat were the first thoughts to come to your mind, were they? No, of course they weren’t and that’s exactly the big bloody problem that I have this drink it too.
The drink, about to be mass marketed in Selfridge’s, Tesco and on the Ocado website, has been given an ad campaign which includes splashing the ‘P’ word across billboards. ‘Pussy’ is there in enormous letters, under which is the strapline “The drink’s pure, it’s your mind that’s the problem”. Yeah? Well, Pussy, you’re right that I have a problem although it’s not with my mind, it’s with the connotations of making an offensive word like this one the name of a fucking foodstuff.
See, the word ‘pussy’ is hardly an innocent one. In fact it’s a word that offends millions of women, because it is a derogatory term for their vaginas, and it’s a word that is used to offend men when they’re not giving into peer pressure or trying to rip doors from their frames by their teeth alone. Taking that lot into account you’d think that it’s the last word any lucid human would use to brand their energy drink.
And, yeah, there’ll be some clever bastards out there who say that it’s just term for ‘cat’ but that doesn’t wash. ‘Pussy’ hasn’t meant ‘cat’ since Honor Blackman got James Bond all excitable in Goldfinger. To insist that its inferences are strictly feline is also to believe that men are ‘cads’ and that Jimmy Savile wasn’t such a bad guy.
Worse, it’s not just the name that makes my skin crawl, it’s how the word will be used by the gang of ball-fiddling, sniggery men who’ll nudge each other before presenting the female shop assistant or bar maid with the question, “Can I have some Pussy please?”, “Your Pussy tastes lovely,” or “Have you got any Pussy?”. And you know for a fact that when they do splutter these questions they won’t just be trying to get a drink, they’ll be trying to cause humiliation, embarrassment and a laugh at the expense of the woman who went to work to sell booze only to have her genitalia laughed at instead.
If you think I’m making a fuss over fuck all then look at it this way. Imagine nipping into the Tesco drinks aisle to find yourself face to face with a product called Tiny Cock. And imagine women asking male shop assistants and bar men, “Do you have a Tiny Cock?” or “Your Tiny Cock tastes lovely”. Then tell me that this wouldn’t cause equal offence.
Apart from which, by my reckoning the manufacturers of Pussy are immediately taking an enormous shit on half of their audience. The guy who came up with the name claims that he was thinking along the lines of the name Virgin as inspiration but the difference between Virgin and Pussy is that Pussy immediately offends fifty per cent of the population. I seriously do no know a single woman who would walk into a shop and ask for Pussy. Not one. And, you know what? I don’t know a single man who would do it either.
The drink has already been flogged in an exclusive club frequented by the royals but that’s hardly market research. These people spend their private-school days wanking onto digestive biscuits with their chums for God’s sake. Believe me, the word Pussy won’t bother them in the least.
All of which makes me hope against hope that this drink rapidly loses its fizz. Regardless of whether the word needs more energy drinks it as sure as shit does not need any more reasons to humiliate women. And while it remains on the shelves Pussy will be yet another humiliation that women have to swallow.
What do you think? Am I being a humourless women who needs sense shagged into her? Or do I have a point? You know where to go to let me know…
I am reminded of the horribly failed Reebok shoe called Incubus. http://lubbockonline.com/news/022097/reebok.htm
Yes, let’s name a woman’s shoe after something that rapes women.
And I just had to explain to all my male children (4 of them) how horribly offensive it was to use “pussy” for anything, especially as an insult. I still get high blood pressure thinking about it.
“Hey! Guess what! it’s totally acceptable to imply that 1/2 the people in the world, many of who YOU MIGHT WANT TO MARRY ONE DAY, are an insult to manhood! And that we, many of whom carried you for 9 months and endured pain of the likes you’ll never comprehend, squeezed you out through that body part you just insulted! Oh! And now apparently there’s a surgery or two to make that same body part all pretty again, because apparently squeezing you out…”ok I am going to stop now.
I am pretty forgiving/understanding of most of the male lexicon stuff, but “pussy” I do NOT tolerate.
Bloody right Rootie!You are spot on, as ever. And what also bothers me is that any woman who complains about this will be told that she hasn’t got a sense of humour. But like I said in an earlier tweet, would men be happy to see a drink called Tiny Cock in Tesco? I doubt it. I’m just fucking livid about the whole thing.
Well, to the credit of Southern American Womanhood, we do call great big pickup trucks (the like of which are everywhere around here) Compensators. Also big handguns.
http://www.motortopia.com/cars/1979-chevrolet-pickup-10502
http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product4_750001_750051_764947_-1_757771_757767_757751_ProductDisplayErrorView_Y
Because there’s only ONE reason anyone would own either of those.
Bloody hell. And there’s me with a wheelbarrow and a catapult.
I heard about this a few years ago but I had always assumed it would die a death as a really bad idea. Even if we take the giant leap to imagine that going into a bar and ordering a ‘vodka & pussy’ is amusing, how long can anyone laugh about this? Once? twice if you are really dim? Maybe three times if you are George Osbourne. This can’t be a sustainable product. Surely.
That’s what I think. I can’t see how this is going to sell outside of sniggering boys nipping into the Spar on their way home from school.
I seriously cannot believe they can get away with naming anything pussy concidering the mad pc rules these days. To be quite honest they may as well just call it C**T and have done with it. It will more adequately reflect the people producing and drinking the stuff, I would think. Offensive?! No shit sherlock! Bloody disgusting is what it is!!
Thank you lovely Kat. Clearly the name Pussy is to create controversy and publicity yet then this is contradicted with the strapline about connotations being all in the head of the audience. I remain enraged.
Apparently someone has got there before you: http://www.tinycock.co.uk/ (Facebook’s “targeted” adverts just sent me this beauty. WHAT?)
Whoa! I am utterly astounded. is that real?
I’m really not sure. There’s definitely a ‘shop’ with tiny pants for excessive prices but who knows what might happen if you try to buy them…
The lady in the ad looks so…smug.
For fucks sake!! Which jumped-up smarm-bucket thought that one up? It is totally offensive and the whole thing of the consumer having a dirty mind is a complete crock of shit!! Who in the world of marketing has allowed this to happen? What next spunk-bag cakes? Arsehole floor cleaner? What the fucking fuck?! Like women don’t have enough to put up with, we’re now to be insulted with this walking around the supermarket, just fucking depressingly awful, A massive backward step
Beautifully said, darling. Thank you.
Man walks into a bar, orders a packet of ‘foreskin’ pork scratchings. We’re only talking about the skin of a pig – it’s your dirty mind that took you elsewhere.
See how offensive it is boys?