I now feel more acquainted with my womanhood than ever before. Nope, I didn’t buy a push up bra and join the Femme Guild, I got me a menstrual cup. A special cup that’s whipped out once a month to toast the shedding of the uterus lining. Cheers, everybody.
It’s a squishy little thing made of medical grade silicone that goes up your vajayjay to collect the blood that might otherwise be absorbed in a tampon or pad. Every few hours you empty it in the loo, wipe it with dunny roll and poke it right back up there, like a bucket catching the drips from a leaky roof.
To clarify I didn’t actually buy the thing. It was a gift from one of the beautiful hippies in my life. Like you are now, I was majorly grossed out at the thought of a reusable sanitary product. Periods are messy enough, let alone having to collect all that gooey blood and mucus and lumpy stuff in a cup. Bare with me guys.
My enviro-friendly pals had told me about the billions of tampons and pads festering in landfill, and how they’re made of chemicals that aren’t good for a lady’s sacred spot. Not to mention the costliness of so called “feminine hygiene products”. I still wasn’t convinced.
But as they say, don’t knock it ‘til you try it. So I did.
The cup took some getting used to. You need to fold it in half when inserting so it pops out inside you and forms a tight seal. I had leakage from my first botched attempt, but once I got the hang of it I felt more protected than I do with tampons and barely noticed it was there.
The trickiest part is getting the bloody thing out. At the bottom of the cup is a silicone stem that you pull on when it’s time to empty. But because it’s slippery down there you need to reach inside more than you would a tampon. This is particularly tricky when drunk. I spent 10 minutes in a pub toilet fingering myself in the most unromantic ways. The experience resembled a scene from True Blood.
Menstrual cups are fiddlier than tampons but really effective once you know what you’re doing. They’re not convenient all the time but make up for that in karma points. Plus, there’s no harm in getting to know yourself a little more intimately.
INFO: You can follow Monique Schafter on Twitter @MoniqueSchafter
