Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
Andy Kurovets, the designer who brought us those lovely maxi-pad shelves is displaying a new item: The G-spot computer mouse. When you find the secret spot, the computer automatically goes to your favorite thing online, whether it’s your email application or your favorite feminist blog (that would be us, right?).
No. Just no. As Melissa at Geek Feminism says, this could reinforce some wrong ideas.
[via Geek Feminism]
Word on the street is that Apple is introducing their first tablet computer today. With their usual flourish, they’ve named it . . . wait for it . . . the iPad.
ETA: The ladies at Jezebel have published more than one compilation of period-related iPad jokes. A sample:
Are you there, God? It’s me, Marketing.
Don’t make fun. The iPad is the technology of the future. Period.
Can I get a scented iPad for when my data feels not-so-fresh?
Edited again to add: The Week has an interesting comparison of historical femcare slogans and Apple slogans – more similar than one might expect.
[Video via Lunapads]
We’re sad to learn that brilliant funnywoman Sarah Haskins is leaving Target: Women (and especially sad that she’s leaving before creating a TW about femcare products). But we still have her fine piece about how birth control is sold to us as period control.
Fortunately, the rest of her archive lives on, on the internet.
Since I am both far too old to follow Katy Perry on Twitter and too completely uninterested in celebrities’ personal lives to read The Huffington Post (WTF? Didn’t HP used to be a political blog?), a friend had to tip me off to the big news that Katy Perry is menstruating and presumably not pregnant.
The image at right is of one of Ms. Perry’s Twitter messages from Wednesday, which reads, “ur gonna make me cry, maybe that’s my period tho. THAT’S RIGHT I’M BLEEDING. Face. Better luck next month peepz”.
As far as I’m concerned, Katy Perry can tweet about her period until the cows come home – hell, that’s what Twitter is for. And in general, the more open acknowledgment that Menstruation Exists, the better for all menstruators. But the comments on the Huffington Post article provide another fascinating study in communication about menstruation. I don’t have enough Sanity Watchers points to read all six pages (and still accumulating) of comments, but I did scan a couple of pages. Most of the comments are along the lines of “TMI” and “It’s gross to discuss that kind of stuff.” One Perry fan posted this remark: “Katy, get pregnant fast so that you can talk about that instead of this.”
Apparently it’s acceptable to talk about the contents of one’s uterus only when it’s full.
[via my buddy genehack]
There are a number of web sites and mobile applications for tracking one’s cycle (such as MyMonthlyCycles.com) and for tracking PMS – either one’s own or someone else’s, as frequent guest contributor David Linton pointed out a few months ago. Is anyone surprised that there is also an app to remind you to take your birth control pill every day?
Of course, if you’re going to take oral contraceptives, taking it consistently is important. With a short half-life and low dosage in many of today’s pills, ideally they should be taken at the same time each day for maximum effectiveness. (This also may reduce breakthrough bleeding.) Research indicates that the average birth control pill user misses three pills each month, which changes the failure rate from 0.3% to 8%.
The commonly used Dialpak® dispenser, introduced in 1965, was designed to make it easy to remember to take the pill every day, long before iPhones or internet access. Legend has it that it was invented by a fellow who frequently argued with his wife over whether or not she had taken her pill. The Dialpak® is iconic in American culture; it has made the birth control pill the only prescription drug identifiable at a distance simply by its container. It is even evoked in the perfectly circular swimming pool and costumed synchronized swimmers of the NuvaRing® advertisement frequently seen on American television.
Ariel of Cephaloblog is giving away five copies of Cathy Leamy’s “totally cute, funny and informative comic on eco-friendly solutions for that time of the month“. To win, you just need to add a comment to her blog post (first link above) explaining why you’re making the switch (or have already switched) to reusable menstrual products. She’ll select and post the winners on January 24.
You’ll also be helping with science: Ariel intends to post the top ten reasons given by age range, so we can see why women of all ages support reusable options during their periods.
I don’t want to horn in on re:Cycling readers’ chance to win, so I just zipped over to Metrokitty’s site and shelled out $2 for a copy.
Some ecards, creators of absolutely genius electronic postcards, have introduced a special series of HPV WTF cards to commemorate National Cervical Health Month. (I’ll bet you didn’t even know it was National Cervical Health Month!)
Send them to people you care about who have a cervix.
[via Feminist Campus]
*(I really did type “cosmetetical”. Readers under the age of 40 and/or outside the U.S. can find the origin of the term here.)
Here’s where exploitation and menstrual activism crash into each other. While activists have been diligently working to reduce the “Ewww” factor so that women are not treated with disgust when (and because!) they menstruate, commercial interests have been just as diligently striving to find new ways to cash in on the period.
One of the newest gambits is found at an online beauty products site called M.S. Apothecary promoting a service that been around for a few years, C’ELLE®. C’ELLE® offers to cryogenically freeze the stem cells found in menstrual blood for future use. Originally the pitch for C’ELLE® focused mostly on the potential of stem cells to yield material that can be used to treat diseases, once medical science discovers a way to use them. Meanwhile, the material is judiciously stored away in one’s “portfolio.” The initial cost is described as a “special introductory rate for new clients” of $499, although the price hasn’t changed in more than a year. Following the first year there is a yearly storage charge of $99 that is subject to later increases.
So I heard there are a couple of big holidays this month that involve elaborate (or not-so-elaborate) decoration of one’s home. Perhaps you’re the crafty sort, and would like to make your own holiday decorations; Tampon Crafts is the web site you’ve been looking for!
My personal favorite is the tampon lights pictured at right, but the site also offers instructions to make a tampon menorah, angels, snowflakes, and more. There are seasonal tampon crafts for the entire year.
What a great way to recycle all those extra tampons lying around after you’ve switched to cloth pads and/or menstrual cups!
As anyone with a blog or website can tell you, the referrer logs are fascinating reading.
When we started re:Cycling, I knew that people looking for menstrual porn would find us. (No, we don’t have any.) But I did not predict the interest in celebrities and their periods. Pictures of Dakota Fanning have been download 58 times from this post. The next most popular download is the ad we mocked in this post.
In addition variations on menstruating celebrities and pR0n, here’s a small sample of creative search words and phrases that have brought people to this site:
ETA: I should note that with the exception of the creative spelling and “shelf life of maxi pads” (I’m pretty sure they last forever), we’ve written about all of these topics!
I’m guessing many re:Cycling readers are familiar with Frank Warren’s Post Secret project. Every Sunday, Frank publishes online a collection of confessional postcards he’s received. He’s also curated several larger collections into best-selling books. The postcards are fascinating, both sociologically and artistically.
If you follow Frank on Twitter, you are privy to additional secrets posted mid-week via his Twitter stream. That’s how I came across the secret posted at right: “I sign men who I don’t like up for every single pad and tampon sample I can find.”
Apparently menstruation is so disgusting, so shameful, so dirty, that the writer of this secret believes that receipt of new, clean menstrual products is a good way to humiliate a man.
Note, however, that this revenge strategy works only on men; perhaps women are in a state of perpetual humiliation from dealing with femcare products on a regular basis. This message reinforces the core feature of hegemonic masculinity: the worst insult to a man’s masculinity is to suggest that he is female.
SKIDS: Masculine Hygiene, 2007, Chella Quint
I don’t know how it happened, but somehow, I missed the viral web-based marketing campaign “Men with Cramps” launched in 2006 by Dandelion for P&G’s ThermaCare. (Dandelion, by the way, calls themselves a “brand-sponsored storytelling company”. I. Am. Not. Making.This.Up) The campaign generated 1.3 million views and over 15K mentions in blogs and chats and critical acclaim with a 2008 Bronze Effie Award. Nothing like a good story, I guess.
Full disclosure:
I find the campaign hilarious. This is very witty satire. The parodies of “doing science,” of Ken Burns-style documentaries and especially of MASCULINITY are beautifully executed. As I watched the series of short videos, I laughed so hard my partner had to take his work to another room (and I had the audio on headphones). But it was the kind of laughter that felt naughty, betraying, even forbidden (and alert readers already know we at re:Cycling are consistently suspicious of “the forbidden”).
Why the guilty pleasure, then? Why not JUST pleasure?
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