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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Emily Shugerman

Vaginas in Times Square: birth control has been rebranded, but are women the ones benefiting?

person walks past adverts for julie and wisp
Direct-to-consumer women’s health companies like Julie and Wisp offer emergency contraceptives and birth control on demand with the same glossy branding found in a Sephora aisle. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images/Wisp/Julie

Karley Sciortino, a sex influencer, former Vice columnist and the founder of the blog Slutever, is known for her unfiltered writing on kink and dating (a sample advice column is titled “Should I Be Double-Teamed by a Couple Twice My Age?”) . On Instagram, she occasionally posts sponsored content promoting personal lubricants and vibrators: short, confessional clips shot against her bright pink bedspread.

Last month, a company called Wisp approached her about promoting its emergency contraception product, which can be ordered online and delivered straight to patients’ doors. The ad she wound up producing for it is almost indistinguishable from her vibrator content, featuring Sciortino sprawled on her bed in hot-pink lipstick, recalling her visits to judgmental doctors to get Plan B as a teen. “Sometimes they’d be like: ‘Why do you need it?’ And it’s like: ‘Take a wild guess, bro,’” she jokes.

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