See
more Tampax items: American ad from
August 1965 -
nudity in an ad: May
1992 (United Kingdom) - a sign advertising
Tampax during World War II - the original patent - an instruction sheet
from the 1930s
See a Modess True
or False? ad in The American Girl
magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley in
"How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad
(1955) - Modess . . .
. because ads (many dates).

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"Are you
sure I'll still be a virgin?"
(Tampax ad, 1990, U.S.A.)
Right from the beginning, in
1936, the Tampax tampon producers
worried about the reluctance of
unmarried women - at that date
most unmarried women were thought
to be virgins - to use tampons,
which, of course, penetrated the
vagina, possibly opening the hymen
wider than was decent. Did that
make them no longer a virgin? Were
they fallen women? No company
wanted to be responsible for the
mass deflowering of American
women!
Religious authorities and
doctors chimed in with similar
concerns.
In 1945, the Dickinson
Report gave a boost to the
tampon industry, which by then had
expanded to many companies besides
Tampax. (See more early
tampons from the U.S.A.)
The ad below is one of the
latest to discuss this concern,
which I'm sure is still on the
minds of many girls, especially in
America and
Latin countries, where
unmarried women still prefer
menstrual pads.
The ad dates from February 1990,
magazine unknown.
See a letter
a mother wrote to her daughter's
doctor about tampons and hymens.
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See a second ad in this series, "Are they hard to put
in?" - American ad from August 1965 -
nudity in an ad: May
1992 (United Kingdom) -
a sign
advertising Tampax
during World War II - the original patent - an instruction sheet
from the 1930s
© 1998 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute any of the work on
this Web site in any manner or medium
without written permission of the author.
Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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