#09. I’ve Stopped Using Pads And Tampons, And This Is Why You Should Too

Hi.

A few months ago, I bought my first menstrual cup. Yes, a cup you put up your hooha to catch all the menstrual blood that you’ll need for all your virginal Satanic sacrifices.

Lol, who am I kidding. I’ll probably end up summoning a demon instead or something. I just recently watched Jennifer’s Body again, hence the references.

Disclaimer: This is a fairly long post with no pictures, because for everyone’s sake, I will not be showing pictures of something that has previously been inside my lady bits.

So let’s start with the basics. A menstrual cup is a tiny goblet or wine glass-shaped cup that you shove it up your cooch to catch the metaphorical ashes from the monthly death of your uterus. Unlike a sanitary pad or a tampon, it keeps all the blood in you hermetically sealed, rather than absorbing it or having you just sit in it, which eliminates any mess or potential odours.

To use a cup, you make sure your hands are washed and your cup is clean. You sit on a toilet as you normally would, fold the cup in one of the many different types of folds (the one that works best for me is the 7-fold), gently shove it up your cooter, slide your finger in to make sure that the cup has fully opened up from the fold, feel weird about the slight suction cupping sensation, twist the cup around 360 degrees to make sure that it has formed a complete seal, and voila! You can now forget about the cup for up to 12 hours!

When the time comes to “change”, you sit on a toilet again as per usual, just pinch the stem until you can grab the base of the cup, gently wriggle it out, then pour it out in the toilet. Just give it a rinse to remove any blood or residue, and you can thrust it back in your grandest canyon.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “OMG, I’m just gonna have to keep reusing this blood-soaked thing?! That’s so gross”, but it’s really not. As long as you wash the cup properly with every use and sanitize it between every cycle, it’s perfectly safe and sanitary to reuse for up to 10 years.

Most menstrual cups are made of medical-grade silicone, which is fairly easy to clean and does not harbour any bacteria, which makes it safe to use internally. There might be some staining from multiple years of use, but this does not affect the functionality of the cup.

Being able to keep reusing it for up to 10 years makes it a great investment! You can easily spend up to $15 a month on menstrual supplies, and that’s not counting all the money you spend on laundry when you end up with leaks on your clothes or on your bedsheets. Menstrual cups may sound expensive at first, but you essentially don’t need to purchase any more supplies for at least a few years!

Being able to leave it in for up to 12 hours is great too, especially if you’re travelling or working long hours. Having a soaked pad just doesn’t feel comfortable against your sensitive areas, and there’s always a risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) if you leave a tampon in for too long. Because of the material, there’s no risk of TSS and you don’t even really feel the cup inside you when you’ve inserted it correctly.

Now I know what you’re thinking again, “That sounds amazing! Why haven’t I heard that much about it?!”. Well, because as vagina-owners, we’ve just been socially conditioned to think that we should not be talking about our lady business.

Menstrual cups have been around for awhile, but it’s still fairly uncommon, especially in Asia, where talking about doing anything with our beautiful little cunt is frowned upon. Tampons are barely considered as a valid way to live through your cycle, because it’s believed to ruin one’s virginity. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t! Virginity is a social concept that is not defined by a tear in your hymen! If it does, then most vagina-owning humans probably had their virginities taken while horse-riding or riding a bike, I mean that shit’s intense.

It gained popularity when the whole eco-friendly/vegan movement came around, which totally makes sense because it is extremely eco-friendly and cruelty-free. There’s virtually no waste in using these menstrual cups, unlike the hundreds of pads and tampons you could possibly go through in a year.

The one that I use is from freedomcups.org, which is a local company that works on a “buy 1 give 1” scheme, similar to Toms. For each menstrual cup purchased, they are able to provide a cup to woman in an underprivileged community. I bought mine for only SG$30 including delivery. It already pays for itself in just 2 to 3 cycles!

I also just have to add that contrary to one’s first instinct, using one of these menstrual cups does not stretch out your snaketrap (I’m sorry, is that too gender-normative?), and it actually does the opposite. First of all, your meat taco is actually an elastic muscle and not just a piece of flesh, so your body sort of instinctively does Kegels to “hold the cup in place”, which just makes that muscle stronger, and some would say, tighter. The actual vaginal opening just gets more relaxed as you get used to the sensation of insertion and removal, and does not actually stretch out over time.

This has been a very extensive vajayjay talk, but I just think menstrual cups are amazing and vagina-owners should definitely try it out. I mean, just imagine all the money and panties you’ll save! And you’ll never have to panic about blood-stained sheets again!