Pardon the title, but...Fundies and tampons?

[masagoroll]

But then again, when I started my mother (not a fundie, then or now) told me that only married ladies could use what she called "tampoons." I wish I had known different. It would have saved me all sorts of horror. But the advent of the adhesive strip kind really was the best thing to happen in the history of feminine protection, IMO. Tampons aren't for everyone, but those fucking belted/pinned pads were the worst ever.

LMAO, "tampoons"! Is that like a harpoon? :-P

My personal experiences--my family is fundie-lite, or maybe just conservative evangelical Christian, and they had no problem with us using tampons. I couldn't figure out how to get them in until I was older, though. I don't know what my problem was!

[gardenvarietycitizen]

My grandmother tried to force me to wear one of these when I started at her house;She would not believe me when i told her nobody wore those any more and had not for 30 years-she still had an old one gathering dust in drawer

http://www.mum.org/belnumod.jpg

HA!!! As a life-long pad wearer myself (for physical reasons) all I have to say is - forget the "good old days," I am VERY thankful to have been born in the age of quality strong adhesives!! :shock:

[snarkykitty]

My Catholic mother flipped when my older sister tried giving me a tampon when I was 17. Thankfully, out of her oppressive eyesight and at college, my suitemates locked me in the bathroom stall until I figured out how to use one. As a virgin and never been taught more than those menstruation pamphlets provided, I honestly didn't know where to put it.

Aside from after I had endometrial ablation and D&C surgery, when I had to wear maternity pads, I never used a pad again. As a teenager, I found pads so uncomfortable that I had problems sleeping. I can't stand anything on me, even bandaids. I hated the crinkle sound they made (I was watching a movie with my boyfriend and when I sat down, he HEARD it crinkle!), that they made me sweat, that they smelled awful, they were so bulky. They were so uncomfortable that I had problems sleeping whenever I had to use them.

[Hane]

Wow, I guess some of you have never read "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" before. I'm 29, but remember reading that book when I was young and being confused as hell as to why Margaret and her friends were picking out belts for their periods. Don't know if Judy Blume or her publishers have updated the book since the 90s (when I read it)...

A funny: After reading that book at age 9 or so, a young friend of mine (she's 35 now) got the impression that women menstruated through their navel--why else would they need a pad attached to a belt?

In the late '80s, my daughter, who was 8 or 9, got a set of Judy Blume books for Christmas, and I hadn't read them yet. One night, she was reading "Margaret" before going to bed and I asked her what it was about. She said, "It's about a bunch of girls, and they're all in the sixth grade and best friends, and they're waiting to get menstruation." I asked her whether she knew what that was, and she said, "I'm not sure, but I know you have to wear a maxi pad once a month." Perfect entree for a discussion of Girl Stuff.

At age two or so, even though I really tried to hide menstrual matters from her, she managed to figure things out. She started folding sheets of tissue into rectangles and putting them in the crotch of her dolls' clothing. She also informed my mother, "When my mommy's buh-gina hurts, she puts a maxi pad on."

[oolong]

I don't know what the difference is, having little experience with pads (only after childbirth ever) and none with cloth pads. I do know that the early disposable pads were really bulky, as the thin-but-highly-absorbent material used today was not available yet. Just like disposable diapers used to be huge, and now even the ultra-absorbent ones are thin and lay nearly flat. Perhaps the bulkiness made it more of an issue.

ETA: another factor may be that elastic has improved over time so panties fit our bodies better and the leg openings do not gap as much as before good elastic/lycra came onto the scene, etc. Panties were looser when I was growing up, and I know in my momma's time, panties often did not have elastic around the leg openings at all. More like what we would call "boy shorts" underwear, only not containing lycra like we have now.

I was going to say the same thing about underwear today, Austin. Our panties are trimmer now and almost certainly made of more stretchable fabric. I also don't think cloth pads can be compared to these old-fashioned pads. I was not alive when they were in use, but I have seen one and they are more like a roll of gauze in a tube than like today's disposable pads or a cloth pad. It seems they wouldn't really stay flat once you put one on; they'd get all bunched up and move around.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I also don't think cloth pads can be compared to these old-fashioned pads. I was not alive when they were in use, but I have seen one and they are more like a roll of gauze in a tube than like today's disposable pads or a cloth pad. It seems they wouldn't really stay flat once you put one on; they'd get all bunched up and move around.

Probably one of the closest examples you will find are those HORRIBLE, horrible cheap single pads in a box that you will find (if you are lucky!) in the emergency pad vending machine found in some women's bathrooms. "A roll of gauze in a tube" pretty much sums it up. But hey, it's only a quarter! As long as it lasts long enough for the wearer to go out to the street and get some real goods at the drugstore, it serves the purpose I suppose.

But far better to keep a stash of the real thing in one's desk...

[bananacat]

Oh hell. I used one of those belts with pads when I first started. Then I learned from some of my friends that they used safety pins to pin the pads to their panties, and that was at least less conspicuous, but my mother disapproved of that. Natch. She used to fuss because the stress on the safety pins would tear little holes in my underwear. Sheesh. But then again, when I started my mother (not a fundie, then or now) told me that only married ladies could use what she called "tampoons." I wish I had known different. It would have saved me all sorts of horror. But the advent of the adhesive strip kind really was the best thing to happen in the history of feminine protection, IMO. Tampons aren't for everyone, but those fucking belted/pinned pads were the worst ever.

I don't know when all of this happened, but I know that the original tampons didn't come in such a variety of sizes and applicators. She might have just meant that it would be physically difficult to get one in there before things got a little loosened up by "marriage". Not knowing your mom, I have no idea what she meant by that comment, but maybe it wasn't so much about preserving virginity.

My mom grew up in the 50s and got to wear a belted pad. She would use safety pins during the end when the flow was light, but sometimes safety pins come open and that's a really bad area to risk that. She would sometimes just let the pad go free and she told me hilarious stories of it shifting all over the place. I rarely use tampons because my period is so light, but even the technology for pads is so much better than it used to be. I can mostly get away with those tiny thin liners after about 1.5 days, and they feel like nothing is there.

[xDreamerx]

This might be a silly question, but how did women of the past manage to have any confidence during their periods? Was it a very worrisome time? Now, it's much better but accidents can still be concern so I wonder how they managed to do anything in the age of the belt (or God forbid before the manufactured belt, can't imagine), especially women who were very busy or in the public eye. It seems like it must have difficult just to go to school or daily life. Was it acceptable to make excuses? Did you just say you had a headache? lol.

[Not That Kind of Dr]

I was mortified at the time, but am thankful in retrospect, that before I started my period, my mother threw a box of Tampax slender regulars into the cart at Wal-mart and said, "You'll need these soon. You don't want to use pads." This was in 1989. You know what? She was right. The only time I've used pads (aside from panty liners) since was after childbirth, and they were awful.

[O Latin]

I don't remember ever being confused by "Are You There God It's Me Margaret," but I'd probably heard about the belts at some point because my mom is slightly obsessed with the history of feminine hygiene. Whenever we watched those "House" shows on PBS (Colonial House, Frontier House, etc) she would always say to the TV, "but what do they do when they have their periods?" and I would be like, "Mom! That's gross. Stop."

I never got on the "tampons are so awesome and liberating" bandwagon. I will only use one if I just absolutely HAVE to go swimming and there is nothing I can do to get out of it, or something. I just hate them.

[Witsec6]

Edit on account of the fact that I'm an idiot who doesn't read before posting.

[moreorlessnu]

Anyway, I got a box of "Tampax" (where there any other brands at first? I don't know.) and I was determined to figure it out.

I've known people who referred to tampons as 'Tampax', as though that was the universal name. Since I thought Tampax was the more poorly designed out of all the ones available, I found this odd.

They've improved, but in the past their smooth cardboard applicators were difficult/slippery to hold, ahem, especially when fluids were present, making them impossible to grip properly. While other tampons expanded in circumference, Tampax elongated, and flattened almost into a pad, making them uncomfortable and liable to leak.

[library_youth]

Wow, I guess some of you have never read "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" before. I'm 29, but remember reading that book when I was young and being confused as hell as to why Margaret and her friends were picking out belts for their periods. Don't know if Judy Blume or her publishers have updated the book since the 90s (when I read it)...

I'm also 29, and I read that book many times as a girl in the 90s! :) I do remember being confused by the belt thing, too, so I asked my mom about it and she explained it. She also told me how much it sucked to have to wear those belts!

And they have indeed updated the book. I've seen the newer version and the part about them picking out belts is edited out. When Margaret gets her period at the end of the book, she describes peeling the paper off the sticky strip on the pad and sticking it to her underwear.

[Kaylee]

We were allowed to use tampons at home, probably because I get really heavy periods where I have to use both just in case, and my mom had the same type of problem as a teen.

I did know several girls, some religious some not, who were not allowed to use tampons and I remember one (non-religious) friend in particular telling me her mom said you couldn't used them if you were a virgin.

None of the girl's homes I was in allowed tampons, and you could only get or change pads at certain times (then again, 2 of them also rationed how many squares of toilet paper you got to use). I'm not sure if that is because it was the norm for most of them, or just another control/punishment thing though. I stopped menstruating for most of the time I was in those places, but I can imagine it would have been really horrible to try to deal with that on top of having a period. I do remember a few girls who had "leaks" on their clothes or bedsheets being punished for it and humiliated in front of the rest of us over it.

Oh, as far as cloth pads then versus now, part of it probably is the difference in underwear. I wear some of the old style long-legged type underwear under skirts & dresses so I don't have "chub rub", and have to wear a pair or regular modern cut ones underneath to wear a cloth pad with. Also, I think the "wings" were actually invented by disposable/stick-on pad manufacturers, and then the cloth pads that we have today copied that design and added a snap instead of the adhesive.

[yetanothermeg]

The first time I used a tampon I was 12 and wanted to go swimming at my CCD class's end of the year party. My mom offered to put it in for me. I said no thanks. Yeah, she's got some boundary issues.

And on the the whole batting in a tube thing, I got my period at a Hungarian spa 11 years ago. I didn't speak Hungarian, nobody spoke English, but I was able to pantomime and finally a woman in the locker room realized what I needed. She generously gave me a giagantic, and I mean GIGANTIC pad that looked like batting or gauze in a tube. I have no idea how you could even carry one of these things around in a normal sized purse. It was probably twice as big as what the hospital gives you after childbirth. And no adhesive, so I just shoved it in my underpants. I thanked her of course, then waddled out of there in search of tampons, which on a Sunday afternoon in Budapest proved very difficult to find.

[bananacat]

This might be a silly question, but how did women of the past manage to have any confidence during their periods? Was it a very worrisome time? Now, it's much better but accidents can still be concern so I wonder how they managed to do anything in the age of the belt (or God forbid before the manufactured belt, can't imagine), especially women who were very busy or in the public eye. It seems like it must have difficult just to go to school or daily life. Was it acceptable to make excuses? Did you just say you had a headache? lol.

I think that it was actually less of a worry back then because leaks were a part of life so people who noticed it didn't make such a big deal of it. As prudish as people were back then, I think they were more accepting of bodily functions because it was just harder to hide them. I'm sure that women still tried to be discreet about it and take care of any leaks as soon as they noticed them, but most people probably knew about menstruation from childhood so it wasn't quite so horrifying if someone else saw it.

And I also don't think that women necessarily hid behind the scenes during their periods. Especially on farms or in factory jobs, there was just too much work to be done so women did it regardless.

[Olivia]

I grew up fundie-lite and there was no stigma against tampons. But then, no one actually cared about the hymen itself and blood on its sheets or whatnot; the concept of purity always seemed more on the emotional side than purely the physical, if that makes any sense (i.e. it wasn't good enough to come to the marital bed with hymen intact, you were supposed to have your heart intact and keeping yourself physically distant from men before marriage was symbolic of that, more than the other way around).

I do have a Muslim friend who's mom threw a hissy fit about tampon use, and my friend seriously considered hymen reconstruction for a while.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I wonder if the fashions of the day helped in some part, too. If you have a dark dress on with another layer underneath, probably the worry of a stain going all the way through is less?

[raineymott]

My parents were OK with tampons and menstrual cups. My mom just didn't tell me about tampons (I found out later because I got one of those samples in the mail) because SHE didn't like them. lol

[darareaksmey]

I don't know when all of this happened, but I know that the original tampons didn't come in such a variety of sizes and applicators. She might have just meant that it would be physically difficult to get one in there before things got a little loosened up by "marriage". Not knowing your mom, I have no idea what she meant by that comment, but maybe it wasn't so much about preserving virginity.

Oh, I know exactly what she meant. What she meant was, there's no way in hell I'm going to have more of this conversation than I have to with my daughter. When I started my period, she pretty much just handed me a pad and a belt and said, here. Never having seen them before, I just figured it out by myself. It was the same with tampons. I am now 51, and my mom is nearly 87, and she has still never had the facts-of-life conversation with me. Good thing I had lots of friends whose moms told them what they needed to know; they were more than happy to share info with me.

[eye_browz]

I wanted to sign up just to comment. I was reading through this post, and I realized that I've never heard of the belt. I'm 21, and I started out with pads, but I HATED them. I hated sitting in a pool of blood.

At 16, I tried tampons, and I've never looked back. I remember the first time I used one, I felt like doing backflips! To me, it was like clogging a leaking faucet; the tampon stopped the blood completely. I was dry all day long. I was amazed at the time. I haven't worn a pad ever since.

[MerryHappy]

Nope. No tampons for us. I was told they would make me impure before marriage.

That would be the Gothardite flavor of fundie, btw. And it was the same for every other Gothardite girl I knew.

[Austin]

This might be a silly question, but how did women of the past manage to have any confidence during their periods? Was it a very worrisome time? Now, it's much better but accidents can still be concern so I wonder how they managed to do anything in the age of the belt (or God forbid before the manufactured belt, can't imagine), especially women who were very busy or in the public eye. It seems like it must have difficult just to go to school or daily life. Was it acceptable to make excuses? Did you just say you had a headache? lol.

My perspective (and memory) is that girls of my age did not have confidence! That was rather the whole problem. When feminine hygiene products started to get better and ramp up their advertising, that was the biggest selling tool ever. Commercials would declare things along the line of "You, too, can be worry-free. . ." and showed a well-known gymnast, for instance, doing an uneven parallel bars routine presumably while wearing her new, improved "Maxi" or whatever the names were.

At my high school, at that time anyway, girls and boys had phys ed separately, and there were always four or five girls sitting in the bleachers, having been "excused" from participating. All a girl had to do is say, "Miss Sprock, I won't be doing gym today" and she would nod and the girls would go sit and talk and watch the rest of us. I was never one of those girls b/c I was allowed to wear tampons (and I had a rather late menarche, so not as many years in high school dealing with it), but as a girl who liked gym, I always felt sorry for them. But then again, a lot of girls hated gym and would have their periods, it seemed, for two weeks a month and stuff like that.

It was easy to get out of class by telling a male teacher that you "didn't feel well", because no way were they touching that with a ten foot pole, so I guess it had its upside :D

But no, in my opinion, "confidence" is not a word I would use.

ETA: Also, I don't know what other girls said in different regions, but in my day, if your girlfriend had developed a leak that she was not aware of and we were around other people, you said, "I see a bird" and then all the girls present would check their crotches to make sure it wasn't them. LOL

[alphaeta08]

This topic led to a hilarious conversation a few minutes ago, in which my mom described the belt/pad combo. They had to wear these nasty, zip-up jumpsuits for gym, and apparently, you could always tell who was wearing belts. :shock:

I've been using tampons literally since day one when I was 11. My mom sat in the bathroom with me for like thirty minutes until I got it right, so unfortunately, I never got out of swim practice. :x

[Austin]

This topic led to a hilarious conversation a few minutes ago, in which my mom described the belt/pad combo. They had to wear these nasty, zip-up jumpsuits for gym, and apparently, you could always tell who was wearing belts. :shock:

OMG, I had forgotten about the gym jumpsuits. My school colors were black and orange and so of course, those were the jumpsuit colors. They were hideous!