I’ve been tinkering this week with the layout of the blog. Let me know if this is an improvement or not.
I spent an hour and fifteen minutes in Tuesday’s Women’s Studies class lecturing on masturbation, menstruation, and tampons. (If that don’t got your attention, don’t know what will!)
As I’ve written before, much of my Women’s History course focuses on shifting attitudes towards American women’s bodies. Tuesday, we spent a fair amount of time reviewing the 19th century panic about women’s sexuality (spurred by the medical "discovery" of the clitoris by the medical profession). I blogged a year ago about some of the unhappy consequences of this panic over young women’s masturbation.
We then connected to this to the history of, of all things, the tampon. The modern tampon was patented in 1931 by a Dr. Earle Haas, who later sold the patent to what would become the Tampax company. The first commercially marketed tampons appeared on the market five years later.
What does this have to do with women’s sexuality? One thing is at least anecdotally evident: cultural background and openness about sexuality seems to play a critical role in whether or not young women begin to use tampons soon after menarche. My Asian and Latina students (who comprise two-thirds of my female students) are extremely unlikely to have been encouraged to use tampons when they began to menstruate. Most tell stories of mothers who insisted on pads, often claiming that the tampon was only to be used by women who had lost their virginity. One gal shared that she began to use tampons when she was on the her high school dance team where the uniforms made them essential; she told of the horrified and amazed reactions of her friends, who were entirely Hispanic. At the same time, "white girls" seemed much more likely to use tampons in early to mid-adolescence. Many of these students are stunned when they hear the myths that their classmates from more culturally conservative backgrounds were raised with.
This jives with the info in this 2000 Wall Street Journal article. According to company figures:
While about 70% of women in the U.S., Canada and much of Western Europe use tampons, usage falls to the single digits in a handful of countries such as Japan and Spain, and it’s not even measurable in much of the world. Just 2% of women in Mexico, as throughout most of Latin America, use tampons.
Those figures seem to match the ethnic disparity I see in my classroom.
Religious and cultural taboos are a hurdle: There is a persistent myth in many countries, for example, that if a girl uses a tampon, she might lose her virginity. "Everywhere we go, women say `this is not for senoritas,’ " says Silvia Davila, P&G’s marketing director for Tampax Latin America. They’re using the Spanish word for unmarried women as a modest expression for young virgins.
This concern crops up in countries that are predominantly Catholic, executives say. In Italy, for instance, just 4% of women use tampons. The Roman Catholic Church says it has no official position on tampons. Nonetheless, some priests have spoken out against the product, associating it with birth control and sexual activities that are forbidden by the Church. Indeed, Tampax faced objections from priests in the U.S. when it introduced tampons in 1936.
In many countries, women aren’t accustomed to spending on themselves, particularly for something they’ll throw out — and that costs a bit more than pads. Women must also understand their bodies to use a tampon. P&G is finding that in countries where school health education is limited, that understanding is hard won. P&G marketers say they often find open boxes of tampons in stores — a sign, P&G says, that women were curious about the product but unsure as to how it worked. (Bold emphasis is mine).
What I argue in my course is that tampon acceptance is linked to broader issues of acceptance of women’s bodies. The real threat of the tampon is not that it will take a girl’s virginity! Rather, it’s that a woman who learns how to use it must of necessity gain some knowledge of how she works "down there." Denying young girls access to tampons is a small but tangible way of keeping them ignorant of their own bodies. In that sense, I argue, cultural hostility to tampons can be linked to cultural hostility to female masturbation. When a woman uses a tampon, she rejects the idea that her body is something of whose processes she ought to be unaware; when she masturbates, she discovers not only pleasure, she discovers that her body truly belongs to her.
I’m always careful to check in on the comfort level my students have when we talk about these things. Discussion of masturbation and menstruation, clitorises and tampons can be overwhelming in any setting, even more so with a male college professor leading the class. But by God, it’s necessary! One young woman wrote in her journal this week: "It was a very interesting discussion. I didn’t know we had a clitoris, or knew it was a word. I think it’s a good thing to talk about." (Emphasis mine.) She’s not the first to write something like that. Remember, these are college students, but they come from many different backgrounds and many parts of the world.
I try and choose my words carefully. I don’t make assumptions or give direction to my students as to what they ought to do. What kind of sanitary products to use, and whether to masturbate or not, are, of course highly personal decisions that should be made without professorial suggestion. Choosing a tampon over a pad is not an inherently feminist act. One could also be a feminist and choose not to masturbate for spiritual reasons, a point I acknowledge. But ignorance and shame are never, ever congruent with the spirit of feminism. They are the twin evils that we are struggling against.
But whatever our spiritual orientations, it’s vital in gender studies that we teach the history of the body. It’s equally vital that we challenge our students’ cultural and sexual assumptions, even if, on occasion, we need to acknowledge some embarrassment when we do so. (I always say it’s okay to laugh and it’s okay to blush.) Above all, I want my students to continue the conversations that we begin in class with their friends and with their family members. On topics so sensitive (pun intended), the best discussions will happen in more intimate settings than the classroom. It’s my fervent hope that what we do in the class will stimulate many good cross-generational, cross-ethnic talks among women — and men.
It always was explained to me by girls who didn’t use them that the vagina belongs to your future husband and tampons, therefore, are essentially using your body for your own purposes. Which is wrong. So it’s a virginity thing and an ignorance thing, but mostly it’s a proprietary thing.
the text size font before seemed more manageable to the eyes (as weird as they might sound) and also the paragraph set up/layout was smaller and also seemed more accessible. granted it did make each lost seem like a long scroll, but personally that was more prefered. in the end it doesnt really matter, whichever change you deem you like the best, although it is nice to think of the reader since that is what blogs are tailored to in some ways.
content>layout.
*granted it did make each WEBLOG ENTRY
Amanda, are you serious?! There are really girls and young women who believe that?! Do you think they teach that in those religious Abstinence-Only classes? More than likely it goes back to the whole “keeping your hymen unbroken for your future husband” as well. Even though you could break your hymen by other means or simply not be born with one.
“I don’t make assumptions or give direction to my students as to what they ought to do.”
That’s very good. Because if you do tell them what they “ought to do” then your students will also assume in turn that you don’t believe they are capable of making choices for themselves. They’ll get the impression that you think they’re ‘not intelligent enough’ to make their own choices. Nothing will make young adults shut themselves off to you more than belittling their intelligence. But I’m sure you already know that. Besides you were young ‘once-upon-a-time’, so you probably know. Just present them with the options, educate them about the options, and let them decide.
Oh, much much better. The font for posts is a bit large, but…whatever. You’ve successfully reclaimed a lot of lost screen real estate!
I like this better, Hugo. Definitely.
I congratulate you on your decision to cover such delicate topics. After all, these are things that are advertised on TV, and shouldn’t be left a mystery such as what Allegra is for and many more things that have you writing a list to “ask your doctor about.” While one would hope that these are covered at home or by the eighth grade, it is obviously a situation where more cultural diversity is tackled in a college atmosphere and at a more mature level. Private decisions can then be made on factual information.
I still don’t understand how using a tampon could ever be described as something that steals someone’s virginity. I mean…I wash my scrotum in the shower, and I’m still a virgin. How do people come UP with this stuff?
I was raised Catholic. Knew nothing about the clit. Let’s just say it was a big SURPRISE when I, um… found out. Like a had-to-be-scraped-off-the-ceiling surprise.
you know, the really funny thing is that there is a distrust of science(which tells us, reasonably, that virginity has to do with sex only) and professors in the people who distrust tampons. I mean, just exactly what are the tampon’s intentions anyway? Sorry, I know that was. . .well absurd, but so was the moment my mom told me that if I used tampons she would TELL MY DAD. BTW, I am mexican-american, but not catholic. reared evangelical, but I had enough sense of my own person that I told her I didn’t care, he couldn’t stop me either. It was gratifying to defy her, but I was more frustrated at the idea that she thought she owned my body, or worse that my father did. ewww.
Erica and Redneck, in two very different ways, you’ve both just encapsulated why this subject matters so much, and why it belongs in a women’s history lecture.
Believe it or not but I didn’t know I had a vagina (much less a clit) until I was like 8 or 9 I think. And that was only because my mother felt she should explain periods to me since she herself got her period when she was 9. The “down there” parts were not something ever discussed. It was pretty much a yucky place that functioned for peeing and pooping.
Hugo,
Great picture! The new colors are definitely an attention graber. The new layout is nice too. It’s like moving the furniture around and putting a new coat of paint on the wall. It breaks the monotony and makes such a difference.
My mother not only bought pads for me in preparation for my menstruation, but they were the old-fashioned pads that you had to have the belt for too! She never told me I couldn’t use tampons, but she did discourage it. She never gave me any line about “losing my virginity” (I seriously doubt she reduced virginity to a broken hymen), but she did tell me that I would find tampons uncomfortable.
I hated the pads. Seriously. Back in the seventies, pads were GIGANTIC! There wasn’t any of this “super-thin, extra absorbtion” stuff like now. If you’re not old enough to remember, imagine the thickest diaper you’ve ever seen, double the thickness, and you’ll have an idea of how thick those damn things were. Every month, I felt like the whole damn school knew I was on my period by the outline that had to be showing through my pants. Eventually, I ignored my mother and tried the tampons, and found out she was right (because they didn’t make junior-size tampons then, either).
I don’t know about tampons being more liberating though, or that you necessarily have to know more about your body to use them. I remember when the “o.b.” brand came out; the one’s without an applicator. I knew girls at school who said, “eeewww!” because you *gasp* had to insert your finger in your vagina to use them, not because of the blood. I found tampons to be liberating at first, when I was young, but only because I was unliberated about the idea that people knew I was on my period. In other words, I felt a certain shame about that, even though I would have vehemently denied it at the time. I’ve since reverted to pads, and feel like I know more about my body now, because I’m getting a better look at my flow and how it changes during the course of my period.
I’m glad we have a better choice of products out there to choose from, including things like the Keeper. But I still hope that my daughter doesn’t end up feeling embarrassed about her period when she gets it.
And…..are men getting less embarrassed about periods? At work, sometimes the guys will ask to borrow tools (especially on large jobsites, where it could be a significant walk to one’s own.). I got in the habit of putting tampons in my “Wiggy” (voltage meter) case. When the older guys would open the case to use the meter, they would yell when the tampons fell out…like a mouse jumped out at them or something. The young guys though, they always ask me for Tylenol, because they know there’ll be some in my lunchbox! And they don’t freak about the pads that are in there next to it.
My mom insisted that I couldn’t use tampons because they would steal my virginity. I began using them anyway when I wanted to go to the pool in summertime, but tried to shove it up my urethra the first few times I tried. Yee-ouch.
Do you ever mention things like Instead or the Keeper? Because there’s quite a bit of interesting discussion over the tampon/cup division, too.
I took an entire box of tampons to get them in my first time (14, though my mother had bought them for me — she had medical issues so no longer menstruates — from shortly after my getting my period. One summer of trying to wear a pad at the beach was more than enough). Those instructions? Useless. Plus, of course, I was very tense.
Hopefully, teenage girls will receive important facts about their own bodies. Next, maybe we can see male bodies also treated with respect and solemnity, rather than thousands of images of men being hurt in the groin — making any such advertiser or program go onto my boycott list — and Lorena Bobbitt “jokes.”
Hugo, great post! If there’s anyone man enough to tackle menstruation and tampons on his blog, it’s surely you.
In my senior year of high school I worked at a drugstore, and one of my co-workers was a Hispanic teenaged girl who used to shoplift pregnancy tests (and used them, so she obviously had sex and was obviously worried about pregnancy), but once remarked “Eww! I can’t believe girls use those!” when we were straightening up the “feminine products aisle.”
I think it’s kind of a given that girls who first get their periods are directed towards pads as protection because they’re easier to use. My mom never mentioned tampons and thus I never asked. I tried using them myself a couple of times and couldn’t get the hang of it, so I basically swore off of them and didn’t start using them regularly until—yep, you guessed it—after I lost my virginity. Had I had someone take the time to help me figure tampons out (not hands on, but you know what I mean), I think I would have felt more comfortable with menstruation and would have been less likely to see it as something to hide at all costs.
New format makes for a much faster read. Well done!
You’re not kidding about tampons and educatiion. I worked in the post office at college when Rely free samples were given out. Word quickly spread that “They’re so comfortable, you can leave them in forever!”. Women students were tortureing me for more free samples and ’stocking up’. I don’t know of anyone there who got TSS from not reading/folowing the directions.
My wife prefers pads over tampons, and gets really pissed off by the tampon = liberation / pad = repression people (not that I would put Hugo in that category). “I was masturbating at age 11!” she says.
I would think that the annoying politicizers are more into pushing sea sponges or all-cotton pads, myself. I’ve never heard anyone say “tampons = liberation.”
I’ve never heard anyone say “tampons=liberation.”
No, but they sure were advertised that way! Remember all those ads that showed active women jogging, horseback riding, swimming, with the tag line about how much they loved their tampons? Swimming was always included, because it went without saying that pads and swimsuits didn’t mix. And most of the advertising centered around the freedom of tampons, part of which was related to the fact that no one would know if you were on your period. It reinforced the pre-existing notion that periods are bad, and something to be embarrassed about.
They also emphasized the “less messy” aspect in tampon-marketing….the “look ma! no blood!” routine (when in fact, bleed-throughs were every bit the problem with tampons that they were with pads). Not much body-positivity there. But the advertisers knew what they were up against; there were and are strong cultural messages not to use tampons. They emphasized “freedom”, because they knew that would be exactly the message to entice young women away from “tradition”.
Hugo, just curious—do you include readings from Inga Muscio on this subject?
I am familiar with Muscio’s “C*nt” book, if that is what you mean. I’ve read excerpts — and I think her problem with tampons (as I remember, it’s been a while) is the way in which they were advertised rather than their existence themselves. Advertising that tries to make women insecure about their odor or appearance is problematic, but that’s not inherent in the product design, but rather in the way it is sold.
Tampons sure were the same as liberation when pads had to be attached to those awful belts. The metal clips that secured the pads to the belt had this tendency to dig into the skin, sometimes even cutting it. I”m pretty sure I still have faint scars from that.
Regarding the new layout: I like the wider main column. The typeface seems too big to me. And I think the new sidebar color tends to blend into the lovely persimmons behind your head. At least as long as you are using that photo, it might be nice to use a sidebar color that highlights the fruit rather than downplaying it.
I remember Muscio also taking issue with bleached cotton, something something dioxin something - but it’s been a while for me as well. The product design itself invites critique from an environmentalist/ecofeminist perspective.
Interesting discussion re tampons etc. I wasn’t aware that there was a political element:)
A point of caution though. A tampon after a few hours is a rather wonderful breeding ground for any kind of bacterial nasty you can think of and situated very close to the cervix.
They’re wonderful for being able to go swimming on a hot day, but they need changeing often - and - if you use an IUD as a contraceptive - don’t use them at all - that is asking for trouble of the infectious kind.
Nice layout and easy font even for one who has to use reading glasses.
Cheers
Al
part of which was related to the fact that no one would know if you were on your period
Because the reason people know you’re having your period is that you leak through your clothes or smell like overripe meat. Sorry, I can’t get too worked up that advertisers suggested women might want to avoid that.
The whole springtime flowers ads thing is pretty sad, though.
anon:
I didn’t realized I was married!
Seriously though, I use pads and yes, I’ve been masturbating since I was about 11, but I’d never heard the whole tampon = liberation argument before.
It makes a lot of sense though; I can see how a culture that discourages women from using tampons would be a culture that encourages them to think of their bodies as shameful.
And Stephanie, you aren’t alone. Ok, so I was younger than 9 (I think), but do I remember asking my grandmother once when I was very young how babies ever fit when they came out. She, of course, had no idea that I was thinking of that other hole that things come out of.
I’ve been glancing at your blog for the past few weeks, and I’m responding now. I first found it when I was looking for information on Christian liberals. I lean towards that categorization, although I consider myself somewhat of a moderate. Great topics you cover, and great discussions generated.
Regarding the tampon question, I also grew up in the 70s, and I remember the belts and the pads. My mom, a very conservative Afro-Caribbean Catholic woman, showed me how to use them, and that was what I first began using when I had my menarche in Feb. of 1979, the year I turned 12.
Tampon use was frowned on, because she believed it would tear the hymen. Beyond that, only sexually active women have gyno exams. Thus, when we were chatting one day while I was in college and I mentioned I had had an exam, her presumption was that I had to have been sexually active. She was scandalized! No virgin need worry about her gyn health…
When I first started menstruating at 9, I thought I was bleeding to death. My mom handed me some pads through the bathroom door, told me to quit being hysterical, and kind of inferred there were tampons too…but I needed to be older to use them. I never understood that statement, until reading this post and comments. My sons, when they were small and still playing make believe, found my stash of tampons, ripped one open, and decided they made great dynamite! Fake light the string, throw the dynamite, wait for the pretend explosion. I kept wondering why I would find tampons everywhere….and why I was always out of them. Finally, I caught them one day…we had a dynamite/tampon war and then we had a great conversation about periods, and girls, and tampons and pads, and that they needed to quit wasting them. We still call them dynamite.
Very interesting post and comments. I was shocked as a young woman, to find that some of my peers and their parents equated the use of tampons with ‘loss of virginity’. Once I’d stopped laughing at them and realised they were serious, I still didn’t quite get it. How on earth can you have sex with a tampon? Speaking as someone who has now ’slept’ with so many tampons I can’t even begin to count them and never stopped to ask their names, I have to wonder, am I ‘easy’?
Well, MM, given the title you’ve employed here, this sounds like an issue you need to address with your husband. At once.
To those who comment regarding the size of the font being difficult to read, it can be increased (and decresed) in most browsers by going to VIEW - TEXT SIZE.
HUGO, I HEARD THAT SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED TO BE A LIVE AND LOVEABLE MAXI PAD THAT LIVED IN A GIANT CLAM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA AND THAT HIS NAME WAS TO BE MAXFIELD MAXPAD, ANY TRUTH TO THIS RUMOR?
And…..are men getting less embarrassed about periods?
I think so and I think it’s because they have sex ed in a lot of junior schools now in co-ed classes. If boys have to sit through the same lecture as girls about periods and find out they aren’t that big a deal, it probably helps. Most guys I know have had their woman shove an empty tampon box in their hands and say, “Please go to the store and get these while I sit in bed with a heating pad and a dose of self-pity.” Generally, I think there’s been quite a bit of progress in de-mystifying women’s bodies for men.
Amanda, I absolutely agree, and think it’s heartening.
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In the UK in about 1989, we 11- and 12-year-old girls were told about menstruation by a woman from the Lillets tampon company. If our parents gave permission, we got sample packs of pads and tampons (both applicator and non-applicator).
I found it strange that a school would delegate such an important lesson to a saleswoman, but she did present all the necessary information clearly, and took care to dispel some myths about menstruation that were common, such as the bizarre idea that you shouldn’t wash your hair during your period, or that bad cramps are your own fault for being too active during previous periods.
I wonder how many of these myths survive. (A twentysomething French guy told me recently that menstruating women can’t make mayonnaise.)
I was never actively discouraged from using tampons, but I wasn’t sure where my vagina was when I first tried to use them and the instructions were thoroughly unhelpful. Actually, my problem was that I thought it would be much closer to my clitoris, which I’d found on my own at age four, which distressed my dad immensely. It didn’t make sense to me that the place where a penis was supposed to go was so far away from the place that actually felt good. (My grandma, a retired nurse, told me about menstruation at age 8 long before I actually got my period at 14, so that part I wasn’t scared about.) Finally I had to ask my stepmother for help, and she looked like she was going to throw up when she did it, but I was determined and didn’t care.