Pink Pepper Spray: Form and Function and Really Fucked Up

Couldn't help but notice this tweet from the awesome @Kiskolee yesterday and just HAD to investigate...


She's got a point, you know..

So here I went onto the trusty ol' Google image search to see what I could find for the terms "pink pepper spray"..

Holy burning balls, Batman! That's a lot shitload of pink non-lethal self-defense items!

I thought maybe there would be a few pink-colored pepper sprays out there, but damn. As you can see (if you clicked on the link), there's an enormous variety of personal protection devices that all look like accessories for Barbie's Dream House (and Dream Car, and Dream Purse, and Dream Backpack, and Dream Laptop Case and Dream Office Desk, and Dream Hiding Place in the Dream Kitchen Cabinet, etc..).

Let's start with your basic pepper spray, which of course, comes in HOT PINK..


heh.. HOT pink. You got it, right? Cause it's PEPPER spray and its HOT...

I'm posting links directly to the places where you can buy these items, just in case you thought I was totally kidding.

Pink just got hotter with Hot Pink Mace Defense Spray!

From the website:

"Even when it comes to personal protection, girls want to look good and be in fashion. Now, you don't have to settle for a bland color that doesn't match anything. Spice it up!

Hot Pink Pepper Spray 

Fashionable 10% Mace Brand pink pepper spray"

You know us girls. Always wanting to look good and be fashionable. That's probably why we get raped so damn often, huh? I don't know about YOU bitches, but when I spray my attacker in the face, I want him to notice that I ACCESSORIZED before his eyes slam shut from the capsaicinoids assaulting his mucous membranes. That'll show him!

You don't want the cops to find your lifeless body and wonder why your nails and ineffective protection device DON'T MATCH! While they're busy wondering just what in the hell your silly ninny ass was doing out after dark by yourself, they might miss a doughnut or two because of your nausea-inducing lack of post-mortem fashion sense.


If that particular model will maybe make your ass look fat (HORRORS) in its slender design, perhaps you need something that offsets your greater-than-size-eight ham-hockedness! You know, like the control-top panties of pepper spraying accessories. ONE MUST ACCESSORIZE, GODDAMNIT!

Mace Pepper Gun Distance Defense Spray with LED, Hot Pink

..and who says that companies aren't catering to plus-sizes?

Ye gods..

If something a little less blatant appeals to you, try this FASHIONABLE little number..

Covert Pink Heart Lipstick Pepper Spray


For the lady who understands that its best that people believe you carry heart-shaped lipstick cases (as opposed to personal protection) wherever you go. It's much more feminine and lady-like to be maniacally-obssessed with one's appearance than to concern your pretty little head with defending yourself.

As much as I appreciate that the companies that make these things consider us girls so vain, vapid, and attracted to shiny, brightly colored things that even our last-ditch effort emergency life saving devices have to be "cute"... Well.. if you can make it PINK to appeal to my delicate sensibilities, why can't you bling it up a little bit to appeal to my stereotypical gold-digging whore sensibilities as well? DAMMIT, I'M A PRINCESS!

Oh shit.. I shouldn't have asked..


There's a whole lot of shit going on here, but we're gonna start with what the website says.

Guardian Girls "Winged Edition: Black with Pink Crystals"

"Guardian Girls Winged Edition pepper sprays are individually hand crafted and adorned with Swarovski crystals. The Winged Edition pepper spray features a custom re-usable design allowing you to insert a water cartridge for practice or a pepper spray cartridge for when you are on the go.

Available in a variety of color combinations, this beautifully decorated safety device is designed to provide dependable and effective self-defense allowing you to be safe & sexy."

Before I go any further, I DO want to recognize the Guardian Girls, their foundation and their blog, and specifically its founder, Yvonne Anderson. Ms. Anderson is a single mother who has firsthand experience dealing with a stalker. She chose to take the terror of that experience, turn it around and do something positive for other women. Guardian Girls' foundation helps to support a variety of charity organizations that improve the lives of women and their families and should be commended. Guardian Girls are able to support their good works for women via the sale of items like these, so I'm happy to give a link and shout-out to them. The thing is, its not Ms. Anderson or her organization that I take issue with.. its the market in which they have to compete and the social climate that breeds the market.

Personally, I find it horrific that we're literally trying "doll-up" these things we really shouldn't HAVE to be carrying just because we're women and we are expected to be ornamental at all times, apparently even in moments of extreme peril. We are so very conditioned to being adorned, accessorized, and fashionable that we're even seeking to make a WEAPON "girly" and "fun". With all due respect to Guardian Girls, the practice of Barbie-fying literally every product aimed at female consumers isn't merely sexist, but it contributes to the overall infantilization of women in society.

Just in case you think I'm overreaching here, THIS is what Google gave me as a definition for the word "infantilize".

Little GIRLS have pink, fluffy, sparkly shit marketed to them constantly. As for me, that's a whole different rant for a whole 'nother day on how that affects children insofar as shoving them face first into sexual/gender roles that aren't right for them. "Princess" overload can negatively impact girls, giving them messed up ideas on what it is to be female. One might say that the ripple effect of Princess indoctrination can be easily seen in adult women who endured it as girls, manifesting as a lack of confidence in self and capabilities. For now, I'll pass that one over to Jessica Bennett from The Daily Beast, with her article "Disney Princesses and the Battle for your Daughter's Soul".

I'll put it to you this way..

what good is that blinged up pepper spray if it doesn't match your iPad??

Oh.

Mah.

GAWD..



Girl! How dare you spritz your fancy "liquid-haul-ass" into that assailants' eyeballs when it doesn't even match....

YOUR GODAWFUL BARBIE PINK SHOES!!!!!!!!

You know!

The ones that are literally destroying your feet, your legs, and your back BUT DAMN YOU LOOK GOOD!









Now if you're just sick of fussing about with your personal attackers, trying to aim just right, stop fucking around and get this bad boy, all GIRLED up just for you AND your girlyparts!

Taser C2 Fashion Pink w Laser


"The TASER C2 is our newest product designed for personal protection. Utilizing the same technology as our proven law enforcement models, the C2 has incredible take down power."

I will AT LEAST hand it to this company that while they felt compelled to stick the term "fashion" on it (cause you know, the ladies will look at anything as long as it has "fashion" glued on there somewhere), at least they don't fuck around with the "sexy" and "cute" shit ad-nauseum. Plus, no one is ever going to willingly fuck with you again if you taze them.

More Questionable And Hilarious Products As Reviewed By TFC

For the most part, I really don't like to go shopping. To hell with crowds and overhead lighting. Most of my problem with shopping is that paying a store's label price really eats away at some portion of my penny-pinching, price-comparing soul. Besides, shopping offline limits one to a PG-rated experience, bland and devoid of the rich (and often ridiculous) wide-open internet marketplace. Only that kind of "free market" could allow for products like this..

The Baggy Winecoat

It's Sex and the City, bitches! Now, available everywhere you can take a purse and a morally-casual attitude towards your increasing alcohol dependency, which would be.. well, everywhere with THIS handy and stylish bag. We all know that closet alcoholism is coming back in style (also mirrored here at OpenSalon), especially among the suburban soccer mom set. Go all Martha Stewart on this swag by taking the label off one of your fancy purses and affixing it to this lovely wine-in-a-box tote, adding class and sophistication to your new wine-swilling accessory! For extra points, make sure the purse that you rip the label off of is one of those that costs the equivalent of the average American's monthly housing payment. If it's not EXCESS, it's not SUCCESS! Sure, one of those heifers from the PTA is bound to point out that it's not Prada, but after a refill or two into those seemingly innocuous Dixie-cups, she won't give a damn anymore and neither will you.

PS: Some of my gay male and drag queen friends are looking at this item right now thinking "OMG, this is WONDERFUL" and despite my heavily-laden sarcasm, are ordering one right this very minute. One in particular has probably got three or four variations of something like this bag AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, MISTER. For you, I've found something entirely more fabulous. See below.

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Arm-Shapers

Okay, so everyone has a few baggy places they'd like to tighten up, after all.. everyone has this idea that they want to be lean and slim and .. what the holy hell ?

Padded Butt Enhancing Panties

... and the winner for best product to ensure lifelong emotional scarring when found in mom's laundry.. ASS-PILLOW PANTIES! Remember all of those helpful, hurtful, degrading dieting and fitness tips, ladies? The ones mom shared out of maternal concern, sharp and cutting, letting you know that the source of life's happiness is found only in the reduction of your derriere? ALL LIES!!! LIES, I TELL YOU! The old broad was coveting your bountifulness the entire time!!! She was trying to bring you down! Down to her assless level! Apparently, curves actually ARE where it's at! Unless you have them in the wrong places, I suppose. Too much curvature in those places requires management and a barrier method, such as..

SmoothGrooves

You know how you avoid unwanted toe? It's not in buying a prosthetic "Barbie Crotch" (as xojane.com so lovingly put it). It's really simple. Quit trying to shove your size 16 ass into those size 6 pants. Remember, your bubble-butt is obviously a desirable physical characteristic if there are actually "shapewear" products ugly as sin that are designed to try and mimic it. I'd say to embrace your big ass, except people's spines don't actually twist in such a way that its physiologically possible. It occurs to me, that the combined effort of all of this "shapewear" (arm shapers, butt/hip pads, and vulva-flattening devices of your choice) could easily result in a new female form that looks something like this:

Sexy, huh?



There are plenty of unnatural and disturbing ways to alter your body, and some of them are pretty interesting..

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Betty Beauty Pubic Hair Dye

Jesus H. Christ... Rome is burning and we're worried about how well the carpet matches the drapes?



The best part is the actual product description:

Betty products are specially formulated to color the hair down there.
(I suppose this is the "consumer-friendly" way of telling you that it won't burn your pubes off)

Natural looking.
(Note: This is the product description for a bottle of ULTRA-VIOLET colored pubic hair dye)

Covers gray.
(Just about as well as those other purple and blue shades that Gramma uses on her HEAD)

Lasts about four-five weeks.
(Which is about four to four and a half weeks longer than it takes for the average person to come off of a bender and wonder what the fuck possessed them to dye their pubes freakin' purple)

No drip - no mess formula.
(God, if only vaginas came with that sort of user assurance..)

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Now, for something completely harmless and adorable.. take a look at THIS cute little guy!

Aww!!!!! So sweet and cuddly, but.. um.. what IS it? Kinda looks like a little gray soccer ball..

But it's not. It's a stuffed toy made in the likeness of a molecular view of HPV. It comes with a tag that bears an actual molecular image of the virus, and a brief description. It's marketed as an educational toy. The one below is a plush-toy representation of chlamydia.

Who knew chlamydia had such cute little buggy eyes?? Immediately following Chlamydia is HIV, a serious looking little microbe who's donning a sporty and socially-conscious red awareness ribbon.



I know I'm a sick bitch and all, but somehow I kind of like the plushie microbes. Huzzah for internet shopping and the assurance that I don't have to stand in line at a register while people judge me by my bizarre purchases. haha.

The Feminine Context