Smear and loathing: fear of flooding is no big deal. Don't let the corporates tell us otherwise

Women in tight white trousers, horse riding, running along the beach in their bikinis, salsa-ing down the street, leaping into the back of a convertible, even jumping out of a plane. All so familiar a part of the lexicon of sanitary towel advertising, they became clichés long ago.

In fact, these days they're a national joke. Even Chris Morris was moved to spoof the genre on The Day Today back in 1994, with an impersonation of Kurt Cobain singing the lyrics to a fictitious TV campaign for a made-up brand of sanitary products.

Containing lines like, “Once a month you become a slave to a tidal wave...” Morris' Panty Smile song was refreshing in its honesty, a welcome antidote to the unsettling word-play techniques deployed by advertising companies.

What's more, the sight of grunge god Kurt Cobain with his greasy hair, bad skin and baggy, smeggy clothing was a far more realistic depiction of the menstrual experience. Ironically, he looked more like he was on the rag than the women in the real adverts did. With their exotic landscapes and glossy, polished perfection, the only thing ever remotely realistic about the latter was the shrieking woman belting out the theme tune.

Nevertheless, these adverts achieved a cult status I tolerated with a wry smile. Until, that was, a couple of years ago. No names will be mentioned but there was one sanitary towel advert that almost had me throwing my knickerbocker glory at the screen.

To the sound of Joan Baez's “Ain't going to let nobody turn me around” it showed a sea of women oozing through the streets of a European city. Women were abandoning their jobs and chores to join the crowds marching for improved sanitary protection. It ended with the slogan “Vote for Change”.

This was the last straw. If this was supposed to be the voice of protest then I wished to protest about this advert. Apparently we women need men to deliver everything for us, even sanitary towels, for which we have to vote. Have we not moved on since 1918? We can't sort it out for ourselves as we're too busy vacuuming, gossiping on the phone, shopping for shoes or eating cakes. The only job we can do is secretary, according to the ad. Yes, the advert really was that patronising.

Apart from a chocolate cake oozing and glistening with gooey sauce – a positively uterine signifier infinitely preferable to inoffensive blue dye – it made the other adverts look Shakespearean in their sophistication. It was almost as bad as that advert for a heartburn remedy where little firemen squirt white liquid down the woman's throat. You didn't have to be an old perv' to figure out what was going on there.

All adverts are ridiculous exaggerations to be approached with a healthy scepticism, we know this. Yet we still take them seriously. There's nothing wrong with women playing tennis, cycling, shopping or eating cakes, of course, but it's hideous to suggest that they can only do these things if they're wearing the right sanitary towel. Yet that's what the adverts do. They maintain we have a choice, as long as it's their choice.

Adverts don't make us do anything, and yet clearly they work. How? The propaganda they peddle weaves a web of doubt and fear, playing on our secret weaknesses and insecurities, our desire to conform, not to lose face. Language is manipulated subtly and cleverly to achieve particular effects. Techniques used include alliteration, euphemism and heavy repetition. The words “soft”, “thin”, “discreet”, “reliable”, “invisible” could almost be describing the perfect woman.

Not just to the Victorians. Such pompous, patriarchal, primitive thinking is being used to sell products to women here and now. Mostly it's stuff we don't need and so a sense of fear is maintained by not mentioning the root of it. It's covered up and couched in a lexicon of non-words and meta-language designed to sound impressive and meaningful, but in fact means nothing.

Prefixes and suffixes – “ultra”, “plus”, “mini”, “maxi” – are sprinkled liberally and randomly like confetti, along with words like “secure” and “confident” planting the subliminal message that we're the opposite. We're told we should choose a towel with an “advanced micro-groove system” – which sounds more like a state-of-the-art hi-fi (Wait! A sanitary towel with its own music system? Now that I would be interested in. Has Apple patented the iPod-sani yet? Coming to a store near you).

All of it is a smokescreen designed to detract attention from the real source of fear, that of the vagina itself, perhaps one of man's most primal fears – the vagina dentata. The implication is that our vaginas are dirty, smelly and dangerous, that they need sanitising and sterilising, and that we are outcasts, backward and unclean if we don't use the right products.

"Frightening females is fun," wrote Germaine Greer in her book The Change. "Women are frightened by dire predictions if they let nature take its course." She argues that scaring women is "big business and hugely profitable." It is fear, she says, that "makes women comply with schemes and policies that work against their interest".

I've always bled heavily. A lover at university was bemused by what he called my 'Kevlar knickers': sometimes I'd use up to five, six sanitary towels at once and I'd still flood. The war imagery was appropriate. A bloody battle was being fought, one that I'd never win until I found an alternative solution.

Clearly I needed something. And no one's saying women should go without. It's good to have a choice.

Yet by buying into the lies pushed by the adverts, we are colluding with their manipulation of our fears, anxieties, feelings of shame and embarrassment, their psychological pressurisation. Surely our self-esteem cannot be so fragile that it needs bolstering by corporate giants?

If we bow to advertising pressure, they will always make us complicit in their tactics, saying they're just giving us what we want.

I prefer not to let them do that. I prefer to take responsibility for the waste my body produces, rather than handing it over to a second party who claims to have my best interests at heart, when really nothing could be further from the truth.

I am due to start my period any day now. I'm noticeably swollen, and feel like the apple of Hespirides in Neil Gaiman's story Chivalry: "It was soft to the touch – deceptively so. Her fingers bruised it and ruby-coloured juice ran down her hand." One touch and I'll start oozing and leaking too.

Yet my towels boast none of the revolutionary technological gimmicks sported by their shop-bought counterparts (“Securefit”, anybody?). While the term “sanitary protection” should be despised – protection from what? – I make my own reusable armour plating, my own Kevlar.

While the environment is a factor and I like to feel I'm doing my bit, I like the fact that the companies aren't getting one over on me even more.

And guess what: I've still been on holidays, cruising, flying, cycling, swimming, skating, clubbing. And I've not flooded once.

Periods are an easy, lazy target, something we can all laugh at with impunity. Like the vagina dentata with a wry Panty Smile, the companies are laughing at us. Don't let them.

They like to make us think we need them, but we don't. There is nothing to fear.