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On April 22, the Food and Drug Administration finally deemed U.S. citizens spongeworthy. Although the re-emergence of the Today Sponge, a barrier contraceptive with spermicide, will be a welcome option for women who don't wish to use hormonal birth control, perhaps no one is happier about its revival than Gene Detroyer. A marketer who owns the Today Sponge name, Detroyer has almost singlehandedly campaigned to have the Sponge returned to the U.S. market, and is responsible for its reintroduction in Canada. (It's under consideration in the UK.)
Just before the big resurrection, Detroyer sat down with Hooksexup and discussed the Today Sponge of yesterday (which was not taken off the market for causing Toxic Shock Syndrome); the Today Sponge of the future (SpongeBob may be offered an endorsement deal) and vitamins that go you-know-where. — Kate Sullivan
How much did the invention of the term "spongeworthy" on Seinfeld do for your cause?
It's probably worth more than we paid for the whole company.
What kinds of messages are you receiving from the 9,000 people on your "Friends of the Sponge" mailing list?
They've been everything from humorous, "I used it way back when and sex hasn't been the same since," to very serious, women who have cancer, or who have a family history of breast cancer, can't use hormonals, are looking for something else and don't want to use condoms. I probably get three to five emails a day just off this list.
That's remarkable for a product that's not even on the market.
Yeah. I'm not a pharmaceuticals guy, I'm a marketing guy, and I've been involved in products like plastic bags and paper plates — very competitive products, very commoditized products, even though they have brand names. So this thing is a marketing person's dream. There's a tremendous demand from people who used the product ten years ago, and from women who have never used it, young women.
Much of the demand is from women who don't want to use hormones.
And the hormone issue didn't even exist the first time the sponge was out there. They started selling the Sponge in the early '80s, when the Pill was the thing: it was very, very, very effective, but women didn't sense some of the side effects. Now we're starting to see some concerns about the long-term effects of hormonal birth control. I think young women today seem to be much more concerned with taking a holistic approach to their health, not putting so many pharmaceutical products into their bodies.
Have you received any backlash from people who've had bad Today Sponge experiences?
We've been selling the Sponge in Canada for almost two years now, over half a million of them. There are always problems. Some women have problems getting it out the first time. That's probably the biggest complaint. Also, maybe one to two percent of the women who use it have some sensitivity to the [spermicide] nonoxynol-9. But beyond that, we've had no major adverse events. I'm not going to say we haven't had any pregnancies — I'm sure we have — but nobody's complained about a pregnancy.
Gene Detroyer
Has the use of nonoxynol-9 in condoms decreased fear of the sponge?
Well, I think you have to be careful with nonoxynol-9. Five or six years ago, it was believed to be a solution for everything. Now we know it's not. Ultimately, it's a detergent, and there's some harshness to it if used in excess. In clinical trials with sex workers who used it in abnormal amounts, in effect it deteriorated the vaginal wall. But the World Health Organization, Planned Parenthood and CDC have all indicated that dosing once a day with nonoxynol-9, like with the Sponge, is perfectly safe.
Why was the Today Sponge was taken off the market originally, and why has it been on the review table of the FDA for so long?
It came off the market in January 1995 because the company stopped making them. They closed the plant that made the Sponge and a lot of other products, and moved most of the other products to Richmond, Virginia. But the Sponge wasn't a big enough business, only $20 million. The other products they were making were $100 million products. It wasn't an FDA issue. If you go to the FDA website today, they still have a paper on there explaining their position on the Sponge. But one of the difficulties that we faced in bringing the sponge back to market with the FDA, is that it's considered a drug in the United States. In Canada it's considered a device. The rules are different. And when you change a manufacturing location, you have to prove to the FDA that it's the very same product that was made before. And the rigor of going through any FDA review is greater today than it was ten years ago, no matter if it's a device or a drug.
Unless it's a freaky diet product, in which case stores can hand it out like Halloween candy.
Yeah, those don't go through review at all. The second thing is, most drugs are tablets, liquids, injectables, transdermal patches, things the people at the FDA know about. The Sponge doesn't fit the standard mold, so they have to ask a lot of questions. Every time something goes back and forth you lose six months here, and nine months there, and pretty soon it adds up to five or six years.
I thought there were some concerns with the Today Sponge and Toxic Shock Syndrome.
One of the problems was that the Toxic Shock problem came out about the time the Sponge did, in the early '80s. It was generally associated with tampons and menstruation, and in fact, only particular tampons. But in our research, we discovered that many consumers actually thought the Sponge came off the market because of health reasons related to Toxic Shock.
I did, until I looked it up a few days ago.
In 2000 or 2001, we had a big advisory meeting with the FDA. The FDA presented their data, and we presented our data on Toxic Shock and the Sponge. They determined that Toxic Shock is at a very, very low level today, even though we've seen some articles in the last two weeks that it's coming back. If it triples, it's going from three incidents a year to ten incidents a year. It's very, very low. But they said there's no more than a twenty-five percent chance of getting Toxic Shock from a Sponge versus a tampon. A tampon is four times greater a risk.
The instructions for Today Sponge removal recommend performing "suggested exercises" if your vaginal walls tighten around the sponge. What does the exercise entail?
Relaxing. What happens is, particularly with new users, the woman tries to get it out, and maybe doesn't get ahold of it — it's got a little loop on it, maybe the loop went around — and she gets tense, uncomfortable. The muscles in the vaginal walls will grab it. But once the woman relaxes, she'll be able to get it out. Even if she has to call our 800 number, they'll get her through it.
What do they say if she calls them?
They'll tell her to relax, take a bath. But again, that generally shows up with newer users rather than women who use it regularly.
I read that it can break like a contact can break. What's the texture like exactly?
Oh! I should have brought one. It's similar to a make-up sponge but softer. And sometimes when a woman opens the package, she'll actually rip the sponge. [Note: Detroyer later did bring us a sponge. It was squishy, and its smell was debated at the office. He said it would deteriorate if left in the open air, and days later it did; it looked like a tiny sponge-skeleton.]
What do you say to people who associate sponges with bacteria and thus prefer Lysol Sanitizing Wipes®?
One of the very important processes we go through in terms of getting approval from the FDA, and before we release a batch of sponges to the public, is making sure that the pouch is well-sealed and there's no transmission of anything in or out of the pouch. And while the sponge isn't sterile, neither is the vagina, and it's very clean. The sponge should only be used once, and when it comes out of the pouch it goes under tap water, and it will only be as clean as the tap water is, and it's inserted into a less than sterile, but generally pretty healthy bacterial environment.
Would you recommend people use Brita® filtered water to wet their sponge?
No. As I said, the vagina has a very high concentration of all kinds of bacteria. Tap water will be fine. I've heard some stories, particularly from nurses at college clinics, where they have recommended that if one of their girls is in a situation and can't get water, to use beer or Coca-Cola. So if they're not concerned about it, I'm not concerned about it.
What would you be prepared to offer SpongeBob SquarePants for an endorsement? Actually my partner's name is Bob. Everybody calls him SpongeBob, and behind his desk he has a SpongeBob Squarepants cereal box and some toys.
What other products are you working on? We should be introducing four personal lubricants up in Canada very shortly. They're a little different from what's on the market here. We'll introduce a sensitive-tissue lubricant, a menopausal lubricant, an aromatherapy lubricant and a clitoral-stimulating lubricant. And then, probably in about six months, we'll be importing a very interesting product from Switzerland. It's a vaginal vitamin. A Vitamin C tablet a woman uses vaginally to keep her pH–
What? It's used in about four countries in Europe, and it's been sold for up to three years. Some countries are just introducing it now, but it's very effective. A woman's vagina should be at a 3.8 to a 4.2 pH, that's very acidic. At that pH level, the flora are active, and a woman can be protected from a lot of disease.
Do you think the current administration has been a particular barrier to the Sponge? Only sometimes, when I'm feeling a little paranoid. I don't think so. Although the Sponge has a high profile, it definitely doesn't have as high a profile as, say, Plan B. And certainly, if the real concern of the administration is reducing abortions, it's another tool to significantly reduce abortions.
But of course this administration is also a fan of abstinence-only programs. But I think even the most conservative of politicians may be concerned about abstinence education and what teenagers do. But a woman's reproductive life goes from about fifteen to forty-five — that's thirty years.
She can't be on an abstinence-only program for thirty years. It's not going to work. We believe there are right reasons for using the sponge at various times during the reproductive life cycle. Seventy-seven percent of women thirty-five and older are looking for non-hormonal contraception.
And they are also the ones most likely to have heard of the product before. Yes, and you know, if you asked me, and I'm not a scientific expert — but if you asked me: "I'm twenty-two years old, I'm sexually active. What do you recommend?" I would say if you don't know your partner, condoms. If you know your partner and you're comfortable with your partner, hormonal. Hormonal birth control is very, very, very effective. But you get to be thirty-five; you're not having as much intercourse as when you were twenty-five. You say, "I don't want something in my body every day for thirty days for having intercourse with my husband or my significant other six times a month." I think that's the value of a product like ours. n°
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
