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.
