One of the easier things to understand about men’s intimate care is why so much of it has been built around humor.
It’s not mysterious.
If you’re trying to sell products in a category most people are not exactly eager to discuss over dinner, a joke is a useful shortcut. Humor lowers the temperature. It helps people past the initial awkwardness. It can make something personal feel less loaded. And from a pure marketing standpoint, it gets attention.
I understand all of that.
In some ways, it was probably inevitable.
If a category starts in discomfort, embarrassment, or avoidance, humor is often the first tool people reach for. It says, “Relax, this isn’t that serious.” It gives the customer a way in without asking him to feel too exposed. For a while, that probably helped.
The problem is that what helps open a category is not always what helps mature it.
That, to me, is where men’s intimate care is now.
For a long time, the market has acted as if the only way to speak to men about intimate care is to make it funny, a little crude, or just self-consciously bro-y. The tone says a lot without meaning to. It says men can handle the topic, as long as nobody treats it too seriously. It says the safest route is to wrap the issue in a joke before anyone has to admit it’s real.
That may work for getting a first look. I’m not convinced it works as well for building trust.
And in this category, trust matters more than cleverness.
That is the part I keep coming back to.
When products are being used on the body’s most sensitive areas, the consumer is making a different calculation than he is in a lot of other categories. He is not just looking for a laugh, a gimmick, or a shelf-grabbing name. He wants to know whether the product feels safe. Whether it feels considered. Whether the people behind it actually understand the problem they are claiming to solve.
Humor can get you noticed. It does not automatically get you believed.
That distinction matters.
I also think humor in this category has become a kind of default setting. Not because every brand is making a strategic masterpiece of it, but because once one part of the market starts talking that way, everybody else begins to sound like a variation on the same conversation. The tone turns into shorthand. The shorthand turns into convention. And before long, a whole category starts to feel trapped in the same adolescent register.
That is where men’s intimate care has felt stuck to me.
Not completely. But enough.
And to be clear, I’m not arguing that everything needs to become clinical, humorless, or stiff. That would be its own mistake. Personal care should still feel human. It should still feel approachable. It should still feel like it belongs in the real world, not in some sterile medical brochure.
But there is a big difference between being approachable and being unserious.
That difference is where a lot of the opportunity is.
The more I’ve looked at this space, the more I think the category has outgrown the tone that helped get it off the ground. Men are more open than they used to be about grooming, wellness, and personal care. They are more willing to buy products that are specific, problem-solving, and purpose-built. The old assumption that men have to be tricked into self-care with a wink and a punchline feels dated.
Or at least increasingly dated.
What men need here is not a lecture. It’s not a ten-step regimen. And it’s definitely not more forced locker-room energy. What they need is a brand and a category experience that feels normal, credible, and intelligently made.
That starts with tone.
Because tone tells the customer what kind of relationship a brand wants to have with him. A joke-heavy tone says, “We know this is awkward, so let’s not take it too seriously.” A more thoughtful tone says, “We understand this is personal, and we respect the fact that you want a real solution.”
That second message is harder to execute well. But it is also more durable.
It leaves more room for trust.
And if the category is going to evolve, trust has to win eventually.
That doesn’t mean humor disappears completely. It just means it stops being the whole strategy. It becomes seasoning, not the meal. A light human touch can help. Self-awareness can help. Even a little wit can help. But if humor is doing all the heavy lifting, the brand may be getting attention at the expense of authority.
That trade-off might have made sense when the category was trying to break through. It makes less sense if the goal is to build something lasting.
The truth is, intimate care is not a novelty. It is part of comfort. Part of hygiene. Part of confidence. Part of feeling at ease in your own body. Those are not especially funny things. They are normal things. Which is exactly why the category should grow up enough to treat them that way.
I say that as someone who has spent years in personal care and knows full well that humor has a place. Sometimes it’s useful. Sometimes it’s smart. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets people to pay attention in the first place.
But eventually, the question changes.
It stops being, “How do we get them to look?”
And becomes, “How do we get them to trust us?”
That, to me, is where men’s intimate care is headed next.
Humor may have opened the door. I just don’t think it should own the room forever.
Related reading: Read Why Trust Matters More in Sensitive Areas.
Further reading: For a deeper medical perspective, read The Science of Sensitive Male Genital and Perineal Skin by Janice Blumer, DO.