Why you can't stop seeing the crooked carrot commercial
That Peyronie ad has me craving hummus
Hey horny readers! This newsletter is about a viral commercial no one can unsee and why you’re not going to see ads like that geared towards women.
As always, thank you so much for reading the Adult Sex Ed newsletter. If you’re enjoying it, please share with friends, so they can be hilariously informed.
Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
Ready to plug the holes in your education? Okay, let’s go!
I’m watching a lot of political news recently. I’m watching so much political news that my algorithm must think I’m a boomer, or at least a middle aged man. Everywhere I look, I see the crooked carrot commercial. If you’ve watched a baseball or football game since 2022, you’ve probably seen it. It went viral when it first launched, got a lot of hate on reddit, and still gets a lot of air play.
The ad campaign actually has a title—it’s The Bent Carrot, but I’ll stick with crooked because I love alliteration—and the goal is to introduce the audience to a penis health issue. It’s also an ad for a drug called Xiaflex, which is prescribed for a non-vegetable related condition called Peyronie’s Disease. According to the commercial (and medical sources like Johns Hopkins), Peyronie’s Disease (PD) involves a buildup of fibrous scar tissue (plaque) that causes a curvature of the penis. Lot of penises are curved, but this condition is more specific. It’s quite common, affecting as many as one in 11 men, although cases vary from mild cases that resolve on their own to more severe. The side effects of the drug, like penile fracture, sound crazy! But that’s the case in every drug ad, right?
The thing is, the bent carrot is a really effective visual that can lead to a really important diagnosis for people who maybe felt too embarrassed to visit a doctor and say, “hey, does my dick suddenly look crooked?” It gives a condition that’s very common, but not well-known a name. The fact that it takes place in a kitchen makes me crave hummus, which is my favorite accompaniment to raw carrots, so that’s a plus.
Normalizing conditions that affect millions of people is so important, especially when it’s one that can feel shameful to discuss. Researching the commercial left me wondering about the equivalent for women. Will we ever see a juicy grapefruit with cherry puree spilling out to discuss heavy periods? Will we see a fruit with its lining growing on the outside and taking over fellow fruit to mimic endometriosis? Probably not.
First of all, images that depict periods are still censored, and a juicy grapefruit even by itself would probably cause a lot of pearl clutching. Blue dye has traditionally been used to represent periods in ads to make people comfortable. Menstrual product ads were banned in the United States until 1972. A phallic carrot isn’t threatening—it’s not a girthy eggplant, which wouldn’t have been as good of a visual representation of PD.
If it seems like there are so many ads related to penises, whether the bent carrot or erectile dysfunction, and not many ads for conditions that affect women, there’s a reason for that. There is an enormous gender gap in the amount of research money spent on issues that affect primarily women versus issues that affect men. Here’s some background:
As of 2020, only 10.8% of NIH funding was allocated towards women’s health, according to McKinsey. The same year, only one percent of healthcare research and innovation was invested in female-specific conditions. 11 start-ups addressing erectile dysfunction, among other men’s health concerns, secured $1.24 billion in 2019–23, while eight start-ups addressing endometriosis received $44 million.
Research for conditions that specifically affect women, like endometriosis and menopause (Happy World Menopause Day, by the way), receives a tiny fraction of funding compared to male-specific conditions like erectile dysfunction.
The gender gap we see in health research and its funding is historical. Many of the drugs available today have never been tested on women or minorities. In 1977, the FDA issued a guideline banning most women of “childbearing potential” from participating in clinical research studies. It was believed that hormones might affect studies, so even female mice weren’t included. It wasn’t until 1993 that Congress codified the NIH Revitalization Act, which required inclusion of women and minorities, who had also been left out of studies. This disparity has led to a lack of information about how diseases manifest in women, as well as ineffective treatments.
Not only is the disparity troubling in a moral sense (I mean, if you care about someone with female organs, you should care about this), but according to McKinsey, evening out this research gap and improving women’s health is a smart economic move.
Until this gap is fixed, we’re going to see more carrots than grapefruits during presidential debates. More eggplants than peaches during Mets games. It’s 2024—time for equal produce on MSNBC (or Fox Sports).
Don’t miss a newsletter!
Subscribers can access all issues here. Here are some recent newsletters you shouldn’t miss:
In addition to this being a damn shame, know that spreading this level of intelligence will get you branded as a progressive feminist: As of 2020, only 10.8% of NIH funding was allocated towards women’s health, according to McKinsey. The same year, only one percent of healthcare research and innovation was invested in female-specific conditions.