Interviews

So we had to do interviews for a paper for class (it's due tomorrow) and i thought i would share some of the answers to questions about alternative menstrual products:

E, 51

What has your experience with menstrual products been?

-       I could never wear a tampon because I was too small. They just really irritated me a lot. And I hated those wing things that were plastic. So I just always wore a regular pad. I remember in the summer time when we would go diving and there would be sharks around and we had to be careful that we wouldn’t get our periods cause we didn’t want sharks to get us.

Have you ever used alternative menstrual products?

-What are those?

Like the diva cup or cloth pads.

-like women on the rag really is women on the rag? No that is to archaic for me.  If I used that I wouldn’t get a Brazilian bikini wax and I wouldn’t shave my under arms. I would just braid my underarms and let the monkey be the monkey. 

N, 21

What kind of products do you use?

-I don’t use pads anymore because I finally got comfortable with tampons. Sleep in them use them all the time whatever.  I used to use the cardboard ones but now I use the plastic ones because they are more comfortable.

Have you ever considered or learned about alternative menstrual products?

-no

J, 43

What has your experience with menstrual products been?

-I have to take Tylenol and anti-depressants because of my period. I get really moody and cranky and depressed.

What about products? Like alternative menstrual products?

-No, I use the PMS symptom pills and Tylenol and Advil.

No, like tampons or pads, things like that..

-I use pads and tampons.

Have you ever considered using alternative menstrual products?

-Well I heard the cup doesn’t work. actually I think I tried the cup like 15 years ago. Maybe its changed. I’m not really aware of it but I would like to learn more about it. I would love to hear about it. I have a really heavy flow and sometimes I really hate having the tampon in me. I know nothing about it so I would really like to know more about it.

M, 13

How do you feel about menstrual products? Have you eve heard of alternative menstrual products?

-       -No.

How do you feel about getting your period?

-Really bad. It’s a horrible wretched thing. 

V, 44

What is your experience with menstrual product? Have you ever considered using alternative menstrual products?

-       -I believe in gravity. I have big diapers. I don’t believe in corking the stuff. It has to come out. I wear the biggest diapers I have ever seen. They are very useful if you have a spill or an emergency, they are very absorbent. I like pads they work very well.

Have you ever considered using a cloth pad?

-God no, that’s disgusting!

D, 47

What has your experience been with menstrual products? Would you ever consider using alternative menstrual products or have you ever used them, like the cloth pad, cup or sponge?

- I remember Granny always telling me about how she used a rag and I think one of my sisters had to use one when she stayed at Granny’s once and I thought that was the grossest thing. I would never use them. I need like thick, I use two and then the tampon. I did once consider using the one that is like a cup but I don’t remember why I didn’t. If it just sounded too weird or if I tried it and I don’t know. I remember hearing about it. But now I just bleed too much and I don’t have the energy to try it. 

It's interesting how E, who is a risk taker, be so against trying alternative menstrual products. She doesnt get her period anymore but the imagery she brings up about the cloth pad is very primitive.

 And D, who is very conservative and reserved, was so open to sharing and was, at one point, thinking about using the cup. she also said that one of her friends says that getting her period is  “your monthly reminder that you are capable of baring children.” This rings true for N, she talked about how she was so excited about getting her period because it was a symbol that she was now a woman and that she could get pregnant. 

all of these woman are family members and it makes me sad that only one of them is open to using alternative menstrual products. i find them fascinating and i tell everyone who will listen about them. 

VyNL

p.s. i get my period this week that means i am starting the sponge!

Day 5 Pads

I didn’t really get time to update today. I’m so behind and barely got through classes. Left rehearsal early to pass out – I laugh thinking I could still have that same rag sopping up blood from whatever day it was…oh thank goodness for the cup. I probably end my period tomorrow, but alas, this is goodbye as I won’t have time to update. That’s all folks. Don’t take my word for the pad/rag/cloth…I’m sure they’re great…really.

Schwinn

Day 4 Pad

When I finally got home last night, I couldn’t take it। Really, I’m sure the rag wasn’t that gross – and would be fine if I just washed it. But I was a mess and couldn’t take it anymore. I took a shower and gave up on the rag. I just don’t have time to put up with anything that conceivably gets in my way or makes me feel gross. I stamped an eco footprint by throwing the rag out and happily loaded the diva cup. At least one thing made me feel better. Perhaps one day I will try the pads again…give them a fighting chance. But for now, I am proud to use the diva cup and thankful for clean periods.

Schwinn

Day 3 Pad

Ok now I feel somewhat gross. I arrived around 2:00 am…maybe 3:00 am and was staying at my boss’s since we were going to work together the next day. I didn’t want to wake anyone to go to the bathroom and I didn’t have a new rag or time to do anything about it. Therefore, I ragged along another day on the same bloody cloth after 8 long hours of driving. Now I was not only bloody and congested and exhausted, but I was also chilly then sweating then chilly and getting covered in sawdust and the dirt I fondly know as barn scum. (I was building sets for LVP all day). I just wanted to strip naked, shower in the hottest water I could tolerate, inhale the steam to clear my nose and head and dive into bed.

Schwinn

Day 2 Pad

Today was not much different from yesterday except that I could feel myself starting to get sick. We had to run errands, so I was roaming around in public on the rag and it was no different than using a pad or tampon. Today, however, I refrained from cutting the newest rag-so it was noticeable in my jeans…Comparing the thickness of this rag to pads…ladies, your pads are invisible. But I was wearing a long coat anyway and was unfazed. I basically gave up caring about it except for the notion that it was a white rag that would ultimately be stained for good because I only had time to soak it (not fully wash it until I reached home). Since I had to be at work Saturday morning, I rushed home to pack and leave in the evening. I had planned on changing the rag for the trip, but realized I had used the last of them. Fortunately it was thick and wrapped many times…perhaps it wouldn’t be a big deal. Regardless, I wasn’t giving in and buying a box of tampons or pads. Do you know how many I have now? For once, too many.

I set out for NY from Cleveland (an 8 hour journey) and developed a steady lead footed pace. The weather was much better this time around (I had crawled 20mph in a white out for several treacherous miles only a few days earlier). I was getting sicker and had been exhausted over the last couple days. I knew I was returning home only to work at my job and rush my interviews in (which you will hear about later) since my family did not get together and I lost my voice (and the internet!) and could not talk to anyone. I had a paper to write and the regular load of studying for my exams. My head hurt thinking about it and I pushed the pedal to 80mph, slowing when my extrasensory bells and whistles went off to alert me to a cop’s presence.

Idiot me received a phone call at one point and desperately tried to navigate through it –both of us had laryngitis-he had a Pakistani accent to go along with it. So I concentrated a little harder on the phone and a little less on the cops and suddenly had sped right past one. I know this is now well off topic of my period, however, it is here and now when the officer asked me why I was going 86 mph that I wished I was a bit more worked up to tears…I had the perfect opportunity to attempt the menstrual card.

Officer, I am leaking through my rag and need to get to the nearest bathroom AND store to buy tampons.

Officer, if you are going to pull me over, then you are going to have to let me run into the woods and put in a tampon or something!

Officer, there isn’t an open store for MILES at 11:00pm the day after Thanksgiving in the middle of Pennsylvania!!! I started bleeding through my rag and it’s going to get all over my jeans and car…please!!!!

But I didn’t pull the card. I knew I had been speeding. I didn’t think he’d care…I know doctors who haven’t been pardoned when truthfully rushing to emergencies. No one gives two shits about the bathroom card…so my only hope was that this man was the most close-minded conservative Pennsylvanian cop this side of the Poconos…and I didn’t think he’d buy it. Besides, I had no tears. I was so ill and dehydrated and congested that I couldn’t cry anything out. But could you imagine? I am thinking of writing to the clerk with a note that says “please only let a female clerk/officer read this”-and then confiding “embarrassingly” to them:

I am writing to apologize for speeding –the officer asked me and I didn’t know what to say-he was a man –how am I supposed to explain THIS to him? I had been using the same rag since early that morning. He would have been MORTIFIED! I’m so sorry, I just don’t know what to do. I felt so gross and wanted to just get it over with and get on so I could find a store before I practically bled out.

I imagine a male reading it anyway-and laughing or being grossed out. He will either buy it or not, but maybe I can save $167.00 that I don’t have. Think of it as a “get out of jail free card”- every game of Monopoly gets two right?

Day 1 Pads

Yes, my plan was to make cloth pads from a pattern on a website discussed in class. No, my plan was not to forget my diva cup in NY. Yes, my plan was to have the pad(s) ready and waiting for me. No, I’m not one for going according to plan…no, I did not think I would get my period on Thanksgiving, although recounting- that’s 34 days, and that has been my cycle for the last year, give or take the month where I tend to skip forward or backward an entire week. So here we are, Thanksgiving…what are YOU thankful for, honey? Well, I am thankful for my menstrual cycle, that it has come to visit me for Thanksgiving and spend the week…and I have nothing at the moment save for mom’s cheap (read: $.99/roll, not plush and comfy) toilet paper to catch it.

My next instinct was to connect to my surrogate brain, the internet, which is a wealth of knowledge, random facts and a lot of useless information that I like to keep close to me in the event my own knowledge falls short and hits a brick wall. Alas, my mother has no internet, but she does know best and handed me several of her rags. By this point, I didn’t really want to deal so much with it, so I sat on the toilet and began playing origami games with the rags.

I settled upon an S-folded formation that was eventually wrapped around several times and tucked. That way, if one portion became soiled, I could stick it into the middle of the folds and rewrap to a clean spot. Aren’t you going to cut that? –my mom asked- Please. I’m so over this. (Did I mention, I don’t really like pads?) For once, I appreciated my mom’s lonely Thanksgiving. Over the years, as my siblings married and moved out and my mom became more of a social avoider, holidays gradually quieted beyond my liking. Once my dad passed away, the sparkle of holidays diminished beyond my sense of understanding that it isn’t the glitter and gold that makes the holiday, it’s the company you keep and the traditions you share. For me, the glitter and gold was my family…but everyone’s in their own world. This year, I tried to prepare myself to enjoy sitting at home over a meal with just my mom as she had already provided plenty of reasons to my aunt and brother why we wouldn’t be celebrating with them. But now as I was sitting there, on the rag- literally-and not quite comfortable with it, I was glad I didn’t have to go anywhere.

Having rapidly grown accustomed to toileting without seeing an accumulation of old blood thanks to the cup, I was once again annoyed with going to the bathroom and seeing a bloody rag। Though, the rag was surprisingly absorbent. Unlike a pad, which can only lay against you, the rag had also somewhat conformed to my figure. With less space between the rag and me, I didn’t feel myself bleeding. Another thing I hate about pads is that I will sit a certain way or get up after sitting and feel blood pass through me. I know it’s such a minute amount, but it feels like I have just peed a little or have reached the threshold of my pad and am now bleeding into my pants. I was convinced that it would smell, but it really didn’t until later in the evening when it began to smell like wet rag. (You may disagree with me on this, but I think all cloth items get an odor to them when they’ve been wet for more than an hour). I changed to a new rag over night and soaked the other.

Schwinn

What a cycle!

The downside to ending this cycle is that next month I have endeavored to try making my own cloth pads. I hate pads and only envision this piece of juvenile pink and valentine red fleece with cheesy hearts on it- a jam sandwich between vulva and hipster or string bikini (black to hide blood stains) – smeared with remnants of lining clotted atop the weave, unable to seep into super absorbency; a reminder of why periods can be annoying.

At the same time, VyNL is on her own adventure – to try the jam sponge- which is just a bit too alternative for me। A cloth pad seems tame compared to the spongy unknown. I can’t see it being promising. Though for her sake, I imagine it being less painful?

Schwinn