CLAIM
An American chiropractor is developing a labial glue as a menstrual alternative to tampons and sanitary napkins. See Example(s)
EXAMPLES
Collected via e-mail, February 2017
There was recently a chiropractor in Kansas that came up with the product mensez. The product glues women’s labias shut while on their period and the glue dissolves with urine.
Is this a real thing?
RATING
ORIGIN
In February 2017, news outlets reported on a new product called “Mensez” and its promise to solve menstrual inconveniences and serve as an alternative to tampons and pads by gluing women’s labia together, along with the inventor’s claim that it would revolutionize the menstruation industry.
A Wichita chiropractor named Dan Dopps was awarded a patent for Mensez on 10 January 2017. Local news outlet The Wichita Eagle tracked Dopps down for a 21 February 2017 profile, which was quickly picked up across the United States:
“I don’t want to offend anyone in any of this,” Dan Dopps, CEO and president at Wichita-based Mensez Technologies, said in a phone interview. “It’s a good option that if women will actually consider, they will see it will improve their lives.”
Dopps also owns Dopps Chiropractic Clinic at 8114 W. Central, according to his brother Brad Dopps. The clinic is independent of the other Dopps Chiropractic clinics in Wichita, and family members have disavowed the product … Thea Butler, 26, shared screenshots of the “feminine lip-stick” after seeing screenshots of the post and realizing Dopps worked only a few minutes from her mother’s house.
“I thought it was satire at first, and then I started looking at it, and I was like, ‘no, this guy has got to be serious,’ ” Butler said over the phone.
Butler was one of many who responded with incredulity. Comments ranged from calling for Dopps to glue his mouth shut to asking whether he understood basic female anatomy.
The Mensez account shot back.
“Yes, I am a man and you as a woman, should have come up with a better solution then diapers and plugs, but you didn’t,” read a comment from the now-unavailable Mensez Facebook account. “Reason being women are focused on and distracted by your period 25% of the time, making them far less productive then they could be.”
Dopps’ brothers answered questions about the Mensez controversy, distancing themselves and their businesses from their sibling’s foray into inventing:
“None of us agree with what he’s doing or trying to do,” Brad Dopps said over the phone. “We have tried to control his concept and marketing, and we have been unable to prevent his freedom of thought, expression and speech.”
Fred Dopps, another brother who owns a clinic at 2243 S. Meridian, said his brother’s idea has been “an embarrassment.”
“Dan’s a great chiropractor, and he’s helped many people, but this has nothing to do with chiropractic, and I personally told him it was a bad idea to associate his name with the product,” Fred Dopps said over the phone. “I didn’t think it was in his best interest or the family name, which we’ve tried hard to build in this community.”
Among myriad news reports about Mensez were some that pointed out the product had neither been developed, nor did it appear to exist even as a prototype. Much of the information about Mensez came from Dopps’ since-deleted Facebook page, where he purportedly made a number of inflammatory comments about women, vaginas, and menstruation:
Anyone with basic knowledge of human anatomy knows that the vagina is a muscular, tube-shaped structure, with its opening located behind the urethra, where the urine is expelled. Several women have suggested that Dopps is a misogynist, and that a man shouldn’t make products for women without firsthand knowledge of female anatomy.
He easily corroborated this charge in a response to one visitor’s comment on the Mensez Facebook page, in which he explained that “[Y]ou as a woman should have come up with a better solution than diapers and plugs, but you didn’t. Reason being women are focused on and distracted by your period 25% of the time, making them far less productive than they could be. Women tend to be far more creative than men, but their periods that [sic] stifle them and play with their heads.” Dopps added over the phone that “a lot of the LGBT community, lesbians in particular, are furious at me because I’m a white straight man.”
Although it is true Dopps was issued a patent for Mensez in January 2017, patents do not have to work, or even be feasible concepts, in order to be granted. We were unable to locate any evidence that it exists, even in prototype form. It is possible that Mensez is the legitimate brainchild of a person not entirely familiar with female anatomy, but also within the realm of possibility the concept is a media hoax.
We have reached out to Dopps for comment, and will update with any reply.