There’s a lot going on right now: We’re nearing a year into the covid-19 lockdown, former President Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial is underway, and “Gorilla Glue Girl” finally got the glue out of her hair. And yet, I can’t stop thinking about this one dude on TikTok who calls himself the “CEO of Tampons.”
Meet Chris Petrone, a man who is getting clowned on Twitter and gassed up on TikTok after posting a video of himself explaining why he keeps menstrual products in his bathroom.
“As a 25-year-old male who lives on his own, I decided to start keeping pads, tampons, Midol, and other things that you might need when you’re on your period in my home,” Petrone said in a recent TikTok video that has since gone viral and has garnered nearly four million likes. “I started doing this because I wanted to make sure that anybody who’s a guest in my apartment—whether it be a friend, family member, or a hookup—feels taken care of and comfortable.”
He continued: “I think, in general, there’s a lot of dudes out there who don’t really give a crap about going the extra mile, and I’m trying to change that. And I know for a fact that many of you have been to a guy’s place and he doesn’t even have hand soap by his sink.”
This begged the question: Is it sweet or weird as hell for a straight cis-gender dude to pride himself in carrying an inventory of menstrual products in his home?
Overall, this is mostly harmless. Yes, it screams Matt McGorry: The Redux. But sometimes you don’t have a tampon buried at the bottom of your purse, and sticking a wad of toilet paper in your underwear and waddling to the nearest drugstore is less than ideal, so having a partner who has a stock of tampons and a wastebasket in their bathroom is convenient. And his hygiene tips are, unfortunately, necessary for far too many men who need to be reminded to clean their ass crack, to wipe their dicks after they pee, and to have conditioner in their shower. (I even agree with his take that worrying about responding to texts too quickly is middle school bullshit).
But building an entire TikTok brand on being fuckable because you keep tampons and chocolate in the house? Wow, we’re down bad, huh?
At first, I couldn’t quite decide if straight women’s standards are too low or if this Petrone dude is letting his superstock of tampons and micellar water go to his head. Then I saw that a woman replied to Petrone’s video with “the organic tampons made me realize this man truly deserves the sloppy top w/ the twisty top combo and the deep depths special.” Naturally, Petrone was flattered. So the answer is: “¿Por qué no los dos?”
In response to a TikTok in which a woman acts out the horror of changing a tampon in your boyfriend’s trashcan-free bathroom, we have Petrone flexing with about his (lidded!) wastebasket.
But that pales in comparison to his video offering some quick hygiene/sex/dating tips and ends with, “last and not least make sure you respect the FUCK out of women, or else I’ll come find you and respect the fuck out of your butthole.” This was fine before the rape joke!
And I don’t know what to say about this video in which he mimes good sex with a slice of bread, mustard, and a breakfast sausage. But when I dropped the video into Slack, my colleagues said “you are terrorizing me” and “this is like the last straw” and “arrest this man.”
Jezebel has reached out to Petrone and asked what his deal is. We’ll update this piece if he responds.
In a video Petrone uploaded a few months back, he insisted that his supply of menstrual products isn’t weird. And after his recent videos made the rounds on Twitter, he adamantly denied having a menstruation fetish. In a tweet posted Thursday morning, Petrone said he’s “trying to make this shit normal.”
Of course, I’m probably being a little too cynical here. Maybe I’m spoiled because my boyfriend lived with women when we first started dating, so the bathroom was always stocked with face wash and nice body wash. But as a wizened 30-year-old who has definitely changed a tampon in the passenger seat of our car while my boyfriend was flying down the freeway, it just seems so easy to be chill about menstruation without siphoning clout (and some affiliate link coin) from it.
Or perhaps I need to be a teenage girl to see the appeal. But if I could give Patrone one piece of advice, it would be this: Don’t be surprised if a future hookup steals all of your tampons and face wipes on her way out. This is what happens when you turn your bathroom into a Target!
(Updated 3/2/22 with new details)