 If you've lived in or visited New York, you've likely seen ad campaigns for male sexual health products. No big deal, right? So why all the fuss when it comes to ad campaigns for female sexual health? Let's take a step back. Before any ad can run in the New York City public transportation system, it has to be approved by the MTA. But before your ad is presented to the MTA, it has to go to Outfront Media, the company that manages most of the MTA's advertising and enforces its guidelines. To be specific, the MTA's guidelines prohibit advertisements that describe in a patently offensive manner sexual or excretory activities or promotes sexually oriented business. You would think getting any type of suggestive ad on one of New York City's subways, buses or phone booths would be a herculean task. But that wasn't the case for men's wellness company, Roman. We were very intentional to not use any phallic imagery, but to exclusively use medical language. And we worked with both the MTA, Outfront and our medical advisory team, which includes heads of departments at Cornell, Columbia, NYU, U.S. Surgeon Generals to make sure that we were speaking about it in an intelligent way. Paired with some humor to sort of break down that stigma as well. Having said that, I think it's important to recognize brands that have been able to advertise and sort of lay the groundwork for us in a lot of ways. So I think we would not have been able to advertise if things didn't advertise beforehand. So I think they actually broke down a lot of barriers for us. And so I don't want their hard work to be diminished in that sense by saying it was super easy for us. I think it was easier for us because of what they were able to do. Let's rewind a bit and give some context. Back in 2015, a thanks campaign for period underwear was on the verge of being rejected by the MTA for being too racy by depicting women in their underwear and using the word period. The ads were eventually approved after the MTA faced backlash on social media. Because of thanks, Roman was able to get its ads approved by the MTA. So unbound, a female sexual wellness company should have an easier time going through the approvals process, right? Well, we were actually pretty hopeful because it had just so happened that the Viagra patent expired around the same time we were initially working on the artwork. And when we actually submitted the artwork, there were a bunch of the Viagra startups that also were taking on advertising, specifically Hems and Roman. We felt pretty bullish that it would get approved because we were like, well, if they're approving Viagra ads, they'll approve ours, which don't even have anything sexually explicit on them. With the MTA specifically, when they came back and said they'd work with us, we had to remove all phallic imagery, and yet Hems has all these incredibly phallic cactuses in all of their brand imagery for their campaign. We just were confused as to how Viagra could be okay, but what were we doing was not. So why the double standard? Why do brands like thanks and unbound have to jump through hoops and use social media to get their ads approved? When ads for men's products are essentially given a free ride. Why is this deemed more appropriate than this? I think Zach, Zachariah at Roman is a really good human, and I think he has definitely highlighted that they don't agree with the policies and that they don't think that they should be that way. I'm a fan of Roman and everything that they're doing. I just think that it's hypocrisy that they can take out ads and reach the people that need their products, but we can't. It was frankly very upsetting to me that she had the experience that she did. I think the artists put together some pretty beautiful and amazing pieces of work that definitely touched on their mission as well as their products, which is I think something that we were able to do as well. We have a long way to go as a society as well. I think Viagra has been advertised on TV for 20 years. Unfortunately, people are far more comfortable seeing advertisements for men's health products. As of now, Unbound hasn't had its ads approved by the MTA or by OutFront, but there's currently an ad from the rejected campaign hanging as a billboard in Williamsburg. So it seems that this rigorous approval process hasn't stopped Unbound from trying to get their message or their ads out there.