If Boys Had Girl Parts

Generally, I try to avoid advertiser-created viral videos like the plague. Created by corporations, they tend to make me feel duped into watching them, whether they're any good or not. But I found a new series of viral videos by Tampax to be unusually amusing and surprisingly endearing.

At Zack16.com [1], 16-year-old Zack Johnson wakes up to find his penis has disappeared and been replaced by a vagina. Quelle horror! I'm sure some PhD candidate would have a fine time unpacking the constellation of Freudian issues therein—oh, the anxieties of being a man in the 21st century!—but as entertainment, it's amusing, even adorable to watch Zack struggle with the mysteries of his new genitalia, find out how boys act through his new eyes as a sort-of-girl, and struggle through the surprise of getting his period for the first time.

Some of the gender issues Zack encounters reminded me of a documentary I once saw on women who were transitioning into men. They inhabited this unique double-consciousness: Am I man? Or a woman? Or something in between? Sometimes, puberty is like that, too.

Sure, I guess this makes me one more sucker for Tampax's latest stealth campaign [2], but watching a teen boy do the oh-my-god-I-got-my-period-in-class shuffle made me laugh.