The Houseman Daughters' Use of Sanitary Napkins

In the July 1986 script, in the opening scene inside the Houseman family's car, Lisa is using "a Kotex sanitary napkin" to control her hair.

LISA HOUSEMAN, a pretty nineteen year old girl, is peering in a hand mirror, curling her eyelashes. Around her head is a Kotex sanitary napkin with her bangs smoothed over it, held in place by setting lotion.

She's humming along happily to the bouncy rhythm. The back seat is strewn with her cosmetic equipment -- hair rollers, lipsticks, hair brushes, blusher, setting lotion, a garter belt, several mirrors to see front and back.

Page 2 of the July 1986 Script
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Later in that car scene, Lisa and Baby throw the sanitary napkin around.

Lisa is carefully lifting her fluffed bang off the sanitary pad and singing along with the radio. ....

Baby stares at Lisa thoughtfully. The sanitary pad lands in Baby's lap.

Page 4 of the July 1986 Script
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This opening scene was filmed thus with a sanitary napkin, but was replaced by a scene without the sanitary napkin. Lisa does not wear a sanitary napkin in her hair, but she throws it at Baby, who throws it back at Lisa.

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I did not find a good picture of a sanitary pad manufactured by the Kotex company in the early 1960s, but I did find the below picture of a pad manufactured by the Modess company.

Sanitary napkin, manufactured by Modess in the early 1960s
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The script mentions "a garter belt", and that object might have been a garter belt that went around the woman's waist and held up the sanitary napkin inside her panties.

Garter belt for sanitary napkin

Garter belt for sanitary napkin

Garter belt for sanitary napkin

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Tampons were available in 1963, but the insertion tube was relatively wide. Many virgins felt that inserting such a wide tube into the vaginas spoiled their vaginal virginity.

Kotam tampon insertion tube, 1955

Such virgins therefore continued to use sanitary napkins; they did not switch to tampons.

That was basically the situation in 1963 and was the reason why the Houseman daughters continued to use sanitary napkins.

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In 1966 -- three years after the Dirty Dancing story -- the Kotams company introduced a new tampon that was inserted by means of a stick. This inserted contraption was significantly narrower than the previous tube. The stick tampon was packaged in an envelope that compared favorably the narrower stick inserter to the wider tube inserter.

Stick inserter pictured on the envelope's left side.
Tube inserter pictured on the envelope's right side.
(Click on the image to enlarge it.)

The narrower stick surely persuaded many virgins to switch from sanitary napkins to tampons.

Advertisement illustrating
the narrow insertion stick

However, this Kotams product was rather complicated, and the sticks bent easily when women carried spare tampons of this type around in their purses.

Instructions for the Kotams stick-insertion tampon
(Click on the image to enlarge it.)

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Screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's original intention to show sanitary napkins (and a garter belt?) in the opening scene was an interesting prop for the movie's period setting. However, I think this sanitary napkin indeed should have been removed from the movie. Most of the movie's audience in 1987 and afterwards would not have recognized the sanitary napkin or understood its connotations.

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