The founder of the “period-proof underwear” company Thinx has already spent the month fending off allegations of sexual harassment, sexism and insensitivity toward transgender people.
Now the self-proclaimed “She-EO” is blogging about her sexed-up Burning Man experience, according to a Quartz article.
The September post, in which top executive Miki Agrawal described her visit to the Burning Man “orgy dome,” was specifically linked to her business strategy, Quartz said: “Detailing her intimate life, would, presumably, attract attention and sell more Thinx. It would also affirm [Agrawal’s] reputation as an entrepreneur who boldly questions the status quo.”
Earlier this month, former employees complained that supposedly feminist company had engaged in sexism, offering skimpy paid-leave policies and meager wages to its largely female staff. Meanwhile, a transgender activist detailed how an interaction with the company gave the impression that “I’m being used so that Thinx can say that they are ‘cool’ & ‘intersectional’ & ‘feminist’ & ‘inclusive.’”
And last week, New York Magazine broke news of a complaint filed with the New York City Commission on Human Rights alleging that longtime Thinx CEO Agrawal had sexually harassed her staffers.
The complaint claims that Agrawal groped staffers’ breasts, appeared nude or in various states of undress around the office and on videoconferences, and spoke frequently and explicitly about sex. Thinx had no human-resources department.
Agrawal, who stepped down from her executive role earlier this month, recently wrote that Thinx had commissioned a third-party employment law firm to look into the allegations, “and they all came back false and without any merit.”
But Agrawal’s Medium blog about her Burning Man experience is as embarrassing as it is explicit. She bounces around from topics including her ovulation, her life coach (“happy to connect you, she’s ah-mazing”) and how she has learned to “truly embrace my petiteness.”
Agrawal then proceeds to describes how at Burning Man, she and her fiancé “laid a towel down (‘cause Orgy Dome) and then Andrew blessed my chakras and then had a beautiful experience. … There were other couples around us, all making their own unique sounds and enjoying their own ‘favorite positions.’”
Agrawal seems to have violated her own supposedly feminist standards. She boasts that her company has been at “the forefront of the period feminism movement”—but even at less “progressive” companies, employees expect to work without being subjected to an icky low-down on superiors’ sex lives. The sexual-harassment allegations, if true, highlight even more egregious hypocrisy.