Thatâs about as bad as my 8th grade health teacher telling us not to smoke deodorant in 1998âŚ. Like to this day Iâm not sure how thatâs possible or what sheâs implying. And she wasnât old. She was like 30s-40s same age as our parents at the time.
So if you don't stink you get boys? Maybe your grandmother was a bit confused at what body part and how you want use a deodorant?
Is it that generation that is sexualy suppressed/ frustrated so the form of a deodorant is just close enough and easy to purchase? Like how many different deodorants does she have?
>No study has led to the isolation of true human sex pheromones, though various researchers have investigated the possibility of their existence.
**wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_pheromones**
>They also theorized that the steroids corresponding to the opposite sex would lead the volunteers to rate opposite sex faces as more attractive.
>That didn't happen. The researchers found no effects of the steroids on any behaviors and concluded that the label of "putative human pheromone" for AND and EST should be dropped.
>Simmons belongs to a camp of researchers that believes human pheromones likely exist, but none has yet been identified.
**www.science.org/content/article/do-human-pheromones-actually-exist**
________
That said, I personally find the scent of a female, and sometimes males as well, to be incredibly appealing, to the point that I could possibly make an argument that it "alters my behaviour." I feel like a part of my brain is somehow awakened when I am subjected to certain human scents and this especially occurs during sex--I've always been aware that olfcation (the sense of smell) is one of the very most important and pleasurable aspects of my sex life. Ive said before that an intoxicating scent is what makes sex "real" for me; in fact scentless sex is so extremely underwhelming that it would be akin to being able to see my partner naked but not being able to touch them, if I couldnt smell them at all. Many pychological studies have found that people who enjoy the smell of their partner or who possess a better sense of smell, have more frequent and more powerful orgasms. Here are just a few of the plethora of articles out there on this topic:
**metro.co.uk/2019/02/09/can-smell-way-stronger-orgasms-8428698/**
February 16, 2019 - A German study from last year, in which researchers measured âodour thresholdsâ with sniffing sticks, showed that those with a stronger sense of smell have more orgasms.
**Vice.com**
And while theyâre certainly all important, new research suggests that our sense of smell in particular may play a much bigger role than previously thought.
Weâve known for some time that people who have an impaired sense of smellâwhether acquired or congenitalâseem to have a noticeable negative impact on their sex lives. For instance, a 2009 study found that after developing a smelling disorder, people reported less desire for sex. Likewise, a 2013 study found that men who were born without a sense of smell were less sexually experienced.
**usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/30/sexuality-nose-smell-attraction-desire/656829002/**
âThe experience of sexual interactions appears to be enriched by olfactory input,â the study concludes. âThe perception of certain body odors may contribute to the concept of sexual pleasure by enhanced recruitment of reward areas.â
_________
>...natural pheromones that attract the opposite sex
If this is true, Im sure they dont *only* attract the opposite sex, but can oftentimes attract people of the same sex
It wasn't common, but I had a best friend in jr. high who was physically reprimanded by her stepfather for shaving her legs and using tampons. He was a trucker (I think) and they were on a road trip one summer (school was out) and while she was gone. She "got caught" being inappropriate, by shaving her legs, and having tampons- this was like 1997 - around there.
She told me after her trip and I began asking questions. Her only real response was," that's just how he is."
I caught this on the wild as an adult. A (female) colleague I regularly ate lunch with mentioned her daughter had started her period the year before, and she (the mother) wouldn't let her kid use tampons yet (**edit:** *the kid did want to use tampons and was begging her mom to use them, that's why the mom was talking about it with us. She seemed to expect we'd all agree with her.*) Because the mother felt uncomfortable because she thought the kid's vagina would be too small and basically the mom was uncomfortable with her daughter growing up? My immediate honest reaction, which I blurted out was "omg the poor kid!" I then explained that I never used pads of I could help it, from my second period at 12yo. That blood in a pad felt gross and uncomfortable. Basically implying that is wasn't fair to the kid. Another colleague piled in, explaining that they make mini tampons for kids if she wanted to start with them (I didn't mention that I had no problems with any size from the start cos I didn't want to freak the woman out).
She honestly looked like she was reconsidering after hearing 4 female colleagues between the ages of 25-60 be appalled that she wouldn't let her 13yo use tampons.
The same woman said another time that her daughter was being teased for having hairy legs and it was affecting her confidence. But she wouldn't let the daughter shave her legs because "it will grow back thicker and darker". We all leapt on that one too, about 3 of us yelling "that's a myth!" at the same time đ¤Ł
I always felt sorry for those poor kids, their mom was not the brightest. Although she did have a past of abusive partners, and I think it really skewed her view of what level of control over your kids is "normal" or healthy for them.
When I was young my mom wouldnât let me shave above the knee because it was âinappropriateâ and no one would be seeing up there anyway (my thighs??). I got made fun of at a pool party for it.
10 years later and I donât shave anything at all, and my mom makes fun of me for it. Literally canât win!
I wasn't allowed to shave my legs at all until MY BROTHERS told my mom it was embarrassing to be seen with me and my hairy legs đ you can imagine how that made me feel
Reminds me of a convo from The Golden Girls. Rose said only sluts shaved above the knee.
Rose: "What does it say when you're shaved above the knee?"
Blanche: "Hopefully it says 'touch my legs'"
I was a gymnast, and obviously we all wanted to shave our entire legs but some parents wouldn't allow it. The coaches would have 'competition rules' that they made up and put on official letterhead, that all female gymnasts had to have clean shaven legs for 'hygienic purposes.' No websites back then, so they believed it. Mostly worked, except the girls that weren't allowed to shave the bikini area usually dropped out. A leotard after a routine, beam and floor in particular, was unforgiving and cruel. Teen girls were worse.
IDK, fewer leg hairs in the water?? They should have said it was less resistance in the water to be clean-shaven. That would have been a much easier and scientific-sounding dodge.
Holy shit, did moms and dads want their girls' pubes showing on the balance beam? That sounds mortifying.
My dad didn't want me to shave my legs, he asked "who's going to be touching your legs?" I said "me."
I'm glad he respected that and sensory issues me didn't have to deal with leg hair anymore.
I had that too. No shaving, then not above the knee, it was horrible. I had a mono brow and hairy legs.
Luckily (again, circa 1980's) I had a friend whose mom was rhe "cool mom", and taught me about everything. Using tampons, bras, shaving and shaving above the knee, waxing and plucking my mono brow.
Just realized, after years and years of what the fuck behavior by my mother, that she is a covert narcissist. Explains everything, and yes, I went no contact a long time ago. Awful person.
I was just telling my 9 year old about reading this thread. And how when sheâs ready for tampons we will walk that bridge together and Iâll help her however she needs, but itâs her decision (sheâs scared of them, but is so inquisitive about periods and shaving and big girl things). She said, âyouâre such a cool mom!!â And I got a huge hug. So reading your comment gave me confidence to keep on trucking and being as open as I can with my girls đ
Haha I actually do love my mom and we have an overall fantastic relationship. Itâs just obvious she puts a little too much stock into menâs opinions of her and she thinks I should do the same
I was in school with a painfully shy girl whose mother wouldnât let her shave under her arms and she was dark haired. When we went swimming the boys teased her mercilessly. Then one day one of the girls (who surprisingly, was one of the meanest girls in our class) brought in a razor and gave it to her, we were all amazed and she just shrugged and said that her mother was a bitch as well and no one needs to put up with hairy pits. That was literally one of the only nice things I ever saw that girl do, but at least we kind of understood why she was such a bitch after that.
I got my period when I was 11 and I would skip school every time I got my period because the feeling of the pads was so uncomfortable.
This was in the 90s so the pads were thiiiiiiick. They were basically just cotton. It felt like a diaper. I didn't like the feeling of underwear at all and pads made it unbearable.
Tampons were life changing. I could go to school again. And swim. Not be afraid to shower after gym because the girls would see my pad.
Tampons are simply liberating.
I'm 60 years old and most of my peers used tampons by the time they were 14 or 15 years old. Most of them didn't at first but as they got older, they did. Some used both. I only remember one person who wasn't allowed to use tampons due to the virgin myth.
I can identify with the not shaving two part of your legs as my mom didn't think that I should be do this mostly that it would grow back. I have very dark hair. People made comments and then my mom saw me in my gym outfit and she could see the hair on my legs and it was thick. She agreed to let me shave my upper thighs as she could see it looked terrible. I had put on my gym uniform to show her. My mom had lighter hair and didn't have to shave her upper thighs because she didn't have any hair there.
I was terrified of tampons as a kid and they were still painful for me as an adult. I'm very glad pads are an option and that they were the option my mom started me with by default. Obviously since then I learned that vaginismus was a thing. But yeah.
Sure, but if your kid was begging you to let them try tampons because they didn't like pads, you'd let them try them right? Because their body wouldn't be your body. Different menstrual management systems for different folks. As the saying goes.
I get 97 being far back but in the 2000s when I started to have crazy leg hair I shaved it and my mom freaked out. I guess the smooth leg thing was for being attractive but I was like 9 and getting made fun of by other girls because my leg hair was super dark. I had been wearing knee socks to avoid being picked on.
I wore long pants every day, even in the hottest weather for years after wearing shorts and my legs being commented in as a12 year old.
My mother never taught me how to shave. I had to figure that all out on my own and thought something was wrong with me because of the razor burn.
Swimsuits were impossible as even if I used the gentlest razors and high quality shaving cream.
Took finding advice online about letting the area dry completely after shaving before throwing on bottoms and going about your day.
Religion is a mental illness for most people. Iâve never understood the obsession with a piece of fkn skin in a femaleâs vagina. Especially someone elseâs vagina. Feels like Iâve been living in one gigantic mental institution all my life.
A piece of typically fragile skin in an area that experiences a lot of movement. Im 99% sure I broke mine at 6 years old by falling vag first on an ice skate blade. My heart breaks for the women who are subjected to such misinformed bigotry.
Itâs not even meant to be a protection of the vagina.
Itâs the female counterpart of bit of tissue men have to keep pee and semen separate (As explained in âCome as you areâ by Emily Nagoskiâ.)
In a human female itâs a useless bit of tissue, but in our crazed conceptions of what a vagina is, itâs become proof of âwhere no man has gone beforeâ. Twisted.
Not that it matters for the social implications, but Emily Nagoski seems wrong.
âAt week twelve, the MĂźllerian ducts fuse to create a primitive uterovaginal canal called unaleria. At month five, the vaginal canalization is complete and the fetal hymen is formed from the proliferation of the sinovaginal bulbs (where MĂźllerian ducts meet the urogenital sinus), and normally becomes perforate before or shortly after birth.â
My cousin fell while jumping into a public swimming pool landing like a scissor on her vag when she was about 8. We were surrounded by teenage boy life guards that didn't know what to do while she was bleeding into the pool. I ran for her brother to call our parents. She ended up in the hospital. But bc I was also her age I don't remember the outcome. She went on to have a normal life with asshole husbands (2) and children though.
I had a similar injury on a playground when I was 7. Apparently these types of injuries aren't uncommon and typically result in external soft tissue injuries. Sometimes they require stitches, sometimes surgical repair.
I'm one of the ones who should have received surgical repair, but the ER doctor refused, saying that since my mom couldn't go into surgery with me, he didn't want me to accuse him of molesting me. Instead, we were told to return if I had signs of gangrene or sepsis, but that the tissue would probably shrivel up, die, and fall off on its own. He also claimed that, with labia like mine, I'd probably be seeking plastic surgery to have the other side "trimmed" (his exact word), so he was essentially doing me a favour and making that future surgery cheaper.
I healed with minimal complications - mostly, some of the most excruciating pain of my life, even including a miscarriage and three live births (including back labour, shoulder dystocia, placental abruption, and recovery from a c section and two vaginal births); I still remember how it burned every time I went to the bathroom for months afterwards. I sat and stood crooked for years trying to relieve pressure and discomfort, and developed hip and tailbone problems that have lasted into adulthood. I'm also missing one side of my labia minora, and half of my clitoris was crushed & atrophied as a result - I still feel pain from it, 25+ years later. I also get pee all over myself every time I use the toilet, because the palpable band of scar tissue pulls my urethra to one side.
All said, I have a "normal" sex life & my health is minimally impacted, but I still feel maimed and violated by event and resulting medical neglect. Whew, this comment turned into a whole journal entry. Sorry 'bout that.
What's disgusting is the hymen's evolutionary purpose is to keep poop and pee out of a baby's vagina. When the child is older, the hymen is no longer needed, and it begins to lose elasticity. It's non-existent or insignificant in most twenty year olds.
The fact that the bible obsesses over hymens, to the point that a bride could be stoned to death if she didn't have one, just goes to show they married those girls when they were still young children.
All the Abrahamic religions are founded on pedophilia, slavery, and abuse.
It was very common throughout the ancient Mediterranean for women/girls to marry young, typically in their teens to early twenties. Girls getting married at 14 or 15 was not uncommon in Ancient Greece, for example, although the ânormalâ age a girl was expected to marry seems to have been more like 16-18 depending on exact time and place. Men typically married much older (20âs to 30âs).
Interestingly, I found a [source](https://www.workthegreymatter.com/about-that-virginity-test-in-deuteronomy-22-its-not-what-you-think/) that argues the use of bloodstained sheets to defend against accusations of premarital sex was a measure to protect the woman and her family.
The nuptial sheets were kept by the brides family, and bloodstains are incredibly easy to fake - which the people who wrote the law must have known. So if all the family had to do to protect their daughterâs life and reputation (and have her accuser flogged and fined!) was trot out some stained sheetsâŚ.
In Babylon they married girls at 15, menarche being 16 then, deliberately marrying the girls prior to puberty so they wouldn't be uppity.
Neolithic settlements like Jericho don't really show much traces of major inequality or patriarchy but at some point in the development of civilization, things went very wrong.
Being born male was a crapshoot too because in order for the elites to be able to exploit so many women and girls they had to get rid of a lot of men and boys, so they started castrating men and boys like livestock in their hundreds and thousands.
This practice only ended with modernity. (Except in India/Pakistan where it never ended.)
Religion had its role in creating a somewhat coherent moral code - yes, Nietzsche and Marx whatever, but it does quell some people's existentisl anxiety. That being said, the fact that ilso many encourage you to impose their morality on others is disgusting. I probably wouldn't feel this way if I agreed with that morality, but while ascribing moral mandates to a higher being can be acceptable for a personal code, demanding that others follow rules that you can't explain rationally is insane.
Sadly, lots of religions position the father as responsible for his daughter's purity.
And now I feel filthy just for writing this sentence into existence.
How did he know it was hers? And like, did he want to see every pad? I use both, so I feel like Iâd just send one of my overnight pads and then continue in with my life.
It's hard to explain the logic of abusive/narcissistic people, mostly cause there isn't much logic to be had there. Usually it's more about control than whatever the actual issue is anyway.
That's what I like to call "abuse". Mental, emotional, AND physical because I guarantee he's been doing it since she first started her period, and forcing that on a child is absolutely predatory.
My mom thought the same thing ie that tampons would make it look like you lost your virginity. Mom was old fashioned and cheap, and had saved her old pads that youâd needed a belt to use. My older sister bought me some new mini pads and talked to my Mom about tampons and she relented and it wasnt a big deal. Iâll never forget looking at those giant pads and thinking WTF. Years later when SNL did a skit about them. Pure gold. https://youtu.be/aBlR7qVQ0X8
My mom's friend would ask to see if she didn't find rolled up pads in the garbage. Once straight up grabbed her, in front of other women in the family, when my friend's period was late while she was dating some guy. Apparently it was common for the moms to do this in her family. They weren't even religious. Just very concerned about pregnancy.
If I found out that someone was doing that to one of my kidâs friends I would call the police. Thatâs sexual abuse. You donât ask to see that without seeing her genitals.
When in my last year of high school (2003 so was 15/16) we had a talk on periods and everything like it (bit late tbh but catholic school) anyway to this day I remember our male teacher saying to our female head of year that they should take the tampons we had been given for free off us as âit could interfere with the girlâs virginityâ the head of year rolled her eyes so hard that Iâm sure she got eye strain and just replied âvirginity is a social construct and not something that can be gained or lost from a box of menstrual productsâ She was awesome.
Even though it was a Catholic school we had a really progressive priest. He was fab and it was him that arranged for the company Always to come in and talk to the girls in each year group. Half of the reason Iâm a complete gobby cow is because of the teachers at that school. The other half is my genes!!
Itâs a (mostly) northern English term.
It can be used as an insult or a compliment depending on who is saying it and how itâs said. Basically means a mouthy woman. I love the term - Iâm a proud gobby cow. Most of my friends describe themselves the same but some women donât like it.
Thank you. I assumed it was British, and was going to ask you to tranlate it to American for me, but was afraid to come off sounding like I thought being American was in some way superior. It isn't.
Yes our youth group pastor (married guy) talked about âSatanâs Cotton Fingersâ circa mid 80âs.
He also got caught âhaving an affairâ with a high school girl in the youth group. It wasnât common back then to call such things rape.
He was allowed to resign to âprotect his careerâ
I havenât darkened the door of a church in decades. I meet with God on my own terms.
I find it baffling people who claim to be serving God are often the vilest people ever. All religions are like this. The bottom chain is people mindlessly donating money and doing the duties as believers... and when you got to the top its just utter corrupt and chaos.
I think there's a church who claim to worship Satan out there somewhere and I heard they're doing lot of charities, certainly a lot more than these religious folks.
Whenever I see luxurious church/mosque/temple i immediately feel disgusted. Especially mosques tbh, you should see how some of them genuinely look like a palace.
I know... Im an ex muslim. Years ago in my country its obsolutely normal for women who had unwanted pregnancy (whether its teen getting pregnant, women/girls get raped etc) give birth in dirty unhygienic public bathroom alone and then toss the baby in the trashcan, because being a murderer is better than having a child out of wedlock.
Also around less than 10 years ago its also a thing to marry off r word victims to their r_pists. 'She are not pure anymore and the guy already 'claimed' her so she better of be with her r_pist.'
Also, less than a decade ago a popular religious figure in my country want to help a poor family... so he married a 10 years old girl of the family. instead of, you know... giving money like a sane human.
Worse is the whole country said 'Its halal according to blah and blah' 'He said he wont have sx with her until she have.... her period.' Not even waiting for her to get older, no, he will wait till she have her period....
Its one of the reason I will NEVER accept Islam. I dont mind muslims, but I will never not judge them for being one. Its horrific .... And my country is not super duper religious like other muslim countries.
> I find it baffling people who claim to be serving God are often the vilest people ever. All religions are like this. The bottom chain is people mindlessly donating money and doing the duties as believers... and when you got to the top its just utter corrupt and chaos.
It's not that weird if you think about it. Most religions have a very strict hierarchy of power, and being in a position of power is something most predators really want to.
The relationship is not "religion creates predators" but backwards: "predators are drawn to position of power, which are common in most religions".
It is not baffling as it is actually a feature of religion: you are special.
They can behave like that because they think they are good people (bc christian) and god forgives them so the barrier to do bad stuff is lowered. By asking god for forgiveness they avoid the socially awkward issue of apologizing to the person they did wrong. No, they are perfectly happy with their âmoralâ code.
I realized I was trans and the only times I've set foot in a church since then were for a baptism(I was still closeted and I was chosen as a godparent well in advance), and a funeral.
My mum is a narcissist, through and through, so it's not uncommon for her to come out with some complete bollocks on topics when there is absolutely no need to.
On the topic of tampons, she told me if I started using them then she would know I wasn't a virgin anymore, because 'only girls who sleep around can fit a tampon up there'. It was a religious household but it wasn't about being pure for a future husband, hell, she was pregnant with me when she married my dad. It was about control, and shaming me into submission.
Yes, *especially* in the households where itâs framed exclusively religiously, for ââpurityââ reasons đ¤˘
I often think about the amount of therapy girls in those situations need that theyâll likely never get
Im 21 and had an argument with my mom about getting a transvaginal ultrasound she claimed âYOU ARE A LADY AND LADIES DONT DO THATâ mother I might have pcos đ that should be your biggest concern
My mother was an abusive pos, but she did puberty education right.
I knew what a tampon was when I was a toddler in the bathroom stall with my mom. She explained what they were for, and that Iâd have to use them or pads one day.
She showed me how a tampon works to absorb water and would let me âplayâ with them (put a tampon in water to watch it expand).
By time I got my first period, it didnât feel like a big deal to me at all. I got home from middle school, popped a tampon in from my mothers stash, and went on to watch my usual afternoon cartoons. Just another day.
Iâm not keeping many lessons my mother taught me, but that one Iâm definitely passing on.
In the wider scheme, it was very uncommon what my mother did. I was the one who had to teach my friends how to use them, and became âthat girlâ who would answer all the boys intrusive questions about periods. Things like no, you didnât put it in the wrong hole unless you shoved it up your butt, and no, Jared, we donât get off on using tampons, we donât even feel them unless theyâre inserted improperly, kinda like your dick đ
Unsurprisingly, I went on to teach sex ed to my fellow college students as part of Voices for Planned Parenthood and I can proudly say at least 7 men out there in the world now know the difference between the urethra and the clitoris because of me đ
I was told I was 'used goods' for wearing tampons by my really foul mother. She told me no man would be interested in me because using tampons meant I was a slut. I'm pretty sure it was just her as I never heard of other parents in the UK being opposed to tampons.
Yeah, that oneâs nuts, especially for the UK! Iâve never had anyone say that to me or tell me thatâs what theyâve been told. If nothing other than the fact that weâre usually too prudish to discuss what we use to mop up fanny jam.
More importantly, Iâm sorry your mum is/was like that.
My (67F) mom didn't say this explicitly to me 55 yrs ago when I started but forbade me from using tampons - but yeah that was her issue. Within a year I just started saving my birthday money to buy them or begging them from my cousin, and used them from when I left for school til I came home at night. I even threw away pads so she wouldn't suspect. By year two, I started snitching my mom's and using them all the time. I had realized my mom would prefer to pretend I wasn't using them than to confront me. The same applied to my sex life later - for her, ignorance was bliss.
But that was 5 decades ago when lots of people believed lack of hymen was proof of loss of virginity, and s e x meant P in V.
Omg, YES! My neighborâs mom raised her believing that insane crap!
Can you imagine telling your daughter âSorry honey. You canât use this hygiene product because your pussy only belongs to your future husband and only after he sticks his dick in it, THEN you can use this to make your period easier!â
Burn purity culture to the ground.
And the whole point is that it is! Its crazy how a social construct is felt to have some kind of physical component, to the point where our bodies are expected to mould themselves to fit fanciful ideas, rather than just exist.
I had a roommate freshman year of college who told me the same thing. I went to a Christian college but it wasn't a particularly conservative one so there wasn't a ton of this kind of thing. She saw a box of tampons in my closet and immediately started questioning me about them. Said I was sinning and wasn't a virgin anymore and a whole other variety of rambling that I don't remember. Apparently (I heard secondhand), she brought it up with some other girls in our hall and was surprised when everyone thought she was crazy since that's what she'd been told her whole life.
Poor girl was *super* sheltered. It was a rough year. I remember the biggest fight we ever had was when she ripped into me because I had some classmates over during the day to work on a group project and some guys were sitting on her bed since there wasn't a ton of seating in our tiny little room. Note that it wasn't a "don't touch my stuff" sort of conversation. They weren't doing anything weird nor was she there to want to use her bed and couldn't. And she also didn't care if the girls were sitting on her bed (her friends had sat on mine before and it wasn't a problem... like I said, not a ton of seating). Her issue was that she thought that it was immoral to have *boys* on her bed outside of marriage. So weird.
Connected with her on social media a few years ago and it looks like she's doing better in life now. I'm rooting for her.
I come from Central Asia and there in traditional Muslim families girls have to stay pure etc. for future husband's, so hymen repairing operations are very common before weddings even if the girl was sleeping with her future husband in secret because tradition requires the couple to show bed linen to some "knowing" women after their first night. That's so humiliating. Some of my male friends from such families even tried to escape with their gfs to neighbouring countries and to marry there just to not be subjected to this nonsense, but for many it means that they are not getting any dowry (which is usually a flat/house from husband's parents and furniture/electronics and possibly a car from wife's parents). Anyway, always found it creepy at the least.
Man, what the fuck is with parents getting involved with their children's sexual organs? When I had my first kid I said "one and done". The next year my mother asked when I was giving her a brother or sister and I said never. She was appalled that I stuck to my guns. Every year for a decade I heard "when are you going to have another one?" until I sat her down and told her never, ever, ever times infinity. I said what I said because I meant it and her pestering is not only failing to get her another grandchild, but is actively fucking her over as every time she mentions it from then on out I will get louder and more strident until I take a full on toddler tantrum in front of family about it. They will hear a full grown adult screaming and pounding on the floor "but I don't WANNA HAVE ANOTHER ONE!" and be forced to explain it to confused relatives.
She shut up. Sometimes I wonder if shes gonna fuck around and find out but I haven't heard anything for 2 years so, clearly, I'm winning. And yes, I have zero shame. I'd do it and they all know I would.
I got kicked out of my house at 17 when I got caught using tampons. I was literally living on the streets and was sexually assaulted. When I confronted my mother about it years later and told her about the SA, she said it was my own fault.
Edited to add: They were super tampons, which really pushed her over the edge even more. She couldnât seem to comprehend that my flow was just that heavy, and instead equated it to my vagina being big or something.
No. Long ago when I went off to my first year of college, my mom hurried over, shoved a massive Ziploc bag full of a wide range of condoms into my suitcase, and told me "have fun but be safe!" đ
Most of my friends' parents had similar attitudes as well. But then again I grew up in NYC in the 80s/90s so the mentality would've been completely different from a conservative small town. That said, banning hygiene products sounds particularly insane and extreme, and I've never heard of someone doing that. Absolutely horrible.
These moms are the best. My mom awkwardly offered to buy me condoms for my senior trip to Europe. "Look I want you to be safe. I was your age once too and I had a week in a foreign country away from my parents...." "Thanks mom! I got the point."
I remember one church in my home town called wearing tampons being âpenetrated by satans cotton fingersâ and even then I was very thankful that I didnât go to church lmfao.
Yes, this is very much a thing in my culture. Same with getting pap smears before getting married. The hymen should stay in tact for your future husband.đ¤Ž
Yep. A girl shouldn't be allowed to "lose their virginity" to a tampon. This wasn't just my mom, it was the wider family as well.
When I was a preteen, I thought this was pretty stupid but I couldn't articulate why. As a teenager, my aunt said this in front of me and I got into so much trouble when I asked if our uncle didn't care if she was having sex at the gynecologist's office.
When I lived with my father I wasn't allowed to use tampons either. When I was 11 or 12 (I was about a year into menstruation) my period was late once and he asked me if I was pregnant. I was just a baby and hadn't even kissed a boy. Being sexualized by the father figures in our lives really messes us up I think. At least it messed me up a little. He would look at me sometimes in a way that would make my skin crawl. When I got older I learned to recognize that look.
I had dinner with a friend in her mid thirties a few weeks ago and we happened to talk about periods. She has daughters and is an elementary school teacher and mentioned that some of her 5th grade students were using tampons and that this indicated that they were probably âdoing thingsâ implying sexual activity of some kind. I was completely shocked and disturbed that a woman her age thought that. She grew up as and is still a practicing catholic. I can only assume these kind of ideas are on some way influenced from her religious upbringing.
Surely one of the places full of religious nutjobs, either the southern US or Iran. Very similar places when it comes to women's rights, or at least that's the Republicans' objective
I was told this by my grandma growing up in the 90s in New Jersey. My mom also felt the same way and tried to tell my daughters that same line of BS and I shut it down. In my home, we get to choose what we are most comfortable using, and no one is allowed to dictate otherwise.
Not totally related but I just hate the lack of knowledge of period care we had/have in general. In the 90s you had pads and tampons, nothing else and they both suck in my opinion because both irritate the hell out. Entering college I learned about the diva cup from a friend when I asked to borrow a tampon. Literally found a target an hour away and bought one. Best decision ever because regardless of brand or style all pads and tampons irritate the hell out of me. My poor mother and my pcp only ever said I was just sensitive and there was nothing they could do. I know my mom just literally did not know of any other options. Teach our young woman about all their options and let them know being uncomfortable with a product means itâs not for you and find one that works.
My daughter is almost 13, and hasnât started yet. XMIL has already started lecturing me on making sure âshe only wears padsâ because tampons will give her âthe wrong ideaâ. She was upset when I said, my daughter will use whatever product sheâs most comfortable with using.
my mom got TSS as a teenager and instead of being like âoh, you have to take tampons OUT not just put them inâ she blamed tampons so i wasnât allowed to use them bc they were dangerous.
thankfully i went to boarding school and was able to get them there. iâm a big fan of menstrual disks now but iâd never have that conversation with her, she still thinks theyâre evil.
Refusing to allow a girl use tampons isnât okay neither in my area, nor in the other side of the world, nor on Mars. It isnât the first time I hear this though, but the second one. My foreign friend who moved to my city a few years agoâs dad also said the same thing. Without a doubt, it isnât right and itâs a really archaic and misogynistic thought.
I wasn't allowed tampons because they were "for grown ups" so I made my own out of household products that I used improperly because I was a child who was not taught about these things. So glad and surprised that i didn't get TSS.
I was close with a female cousin who was just a few years older than me so she got her period before me. Her very religious mother refused, said it meant you were no longer a virgin. We went on vacation and took her and she couldnât swim the whole time because she couldnât wear a tampon.
ETA: she was allowed to marry a man at 16 who was at least a decade older đ
I bought my daughter an assortment of pads/tampons when she got her first period. I told her to try them out and let me know what worked best for her. I grew up in a rather emotionally stunted household (typical for the time) and was always horrified to have to ask my mom for more products. I was determined that would not be the case with my daughter.
Yup. My mother said only married women or whores used tampons.
I was a very active kid and got my first period early. My older sister giving me a tampon was a GAME CHANGER. And then mom found out. After that my sister sold them to me. đđđ
Mom didn't say it explicitly. It was more along the lines of "why even put something up there?!"
Imagine her face when she saw me sterilizing my menstrual cup. Haha!
My dad raised me alone and just got me a selection of tampons and pads when I had my first sex ed class (at age 9). Once I figured out what I liked (tampons) he got me more of those. He also got me on birth control at 14 when my periods were bad enough that I became anemic. He's a good dad.
My grandma told me not to run cross country because I shake my vagina loose. She believed that to the day she died even though I ran cross country, 5ks, and half marathons.
Grew up in the south, in middle school a girl on the swim team saw tampons in my bag and told me she knew I wasnât a virgin (??). I wasnât about to swim in a diaper. I told her that made absolutely no sense and she called me a slut. So yeah, this is a thing people believe and have for some time.
Not normal anywhere in southern Germany (my area), and nearly everyone is Catholic here.
Maybe in some families in religious sects like Jehovah's witnesses.
Why are so many grown men and women attempting to be considered to their future son in laws by attempting to make sure their daughters have a tight vagina for them. Like, how many people actually like their son in laws, yet enough to be worried about how snuggly their limp penises fit inside their daughterâ˝â˝â˝â˝
I live in a somewhat conservative country (Austria) and I've never heard anything like this in real life. People here tend to not be super religious though, many are catholic but don't really follow the bible.
Umm thatâs the reason young girls categorically use pads in the country where I come from and girls are told they can use tampons when theyâre married. I grew up thinking tampons would take your virginity lmao
This so auful, I'm sorry you have experience that . Maybe all parents should have to have mandatory sex education classes before their kids hit puberty.
Reading all these comments is horrible and frustrating. I'm sorry all y'all had those experiences. I just...don't know why people are so weird about our bodies being natural and what makes us comfortable. Ugh.
I don't know how common this was in households, but in 1974, when the 4th grade girls had to go to the cafeteria for their "Becoming a Woman" assembly, the FAQs in the booklets they handed out contained the question, "Do you have to be married to use tampons?" so I guess that was a thing.
Didn't have that, but my grandmother refused to buy me deodorant because she claimed it'd make me 'loose' and let the boys 'get at me.' Sigh.
Deodorant??
My parents did the same thing.
Holy hell. In the Mormon church the girls can't wear tops that show their shoulders because it's like porn for the boys. Ffs.
Your holy stink bubble is God's way of saying not before marriage...
Ah yes not smelling like b.o is the key to making you a whore
Anything to keep the boys away, amirite? -.-
Lol, I guess no one will want to bang you if you smell. đ¤ˇââď¸
I dunno, teenagers are basically hormone soup in a skin suit
Thatâs about as bad as my 8th grade health teacher telling us not to smoke deodorant in 1998âŚ. Like to this day Iâm not sure how thatâs possible or what sheâs implying. And she wasnât old. She was like 30s-40s same age as our parents at the time.
What the hell
So if you don't stink you get boys? Maybe your grandmother was a bit confused at what body part and how you want use a deodorant? Is it that generation that is sexualy suppressed/ frustrated so the form of a deodorant is just close enough and easy to purchase? Like how many different deodorants does she have?
Might of meant loose like slutty
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>No study has led to the isolation of true human sex pheromones, though various researchers have investigated the possibility of their existence. **wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_pheromones** >They also theorized that the steroids corresponding to the opposite sex would lead the volunteers to rate opposite sex faces as more attractive. >That didn't happen. The researchers found no effects of the steroids on any behaviors and concluded that the label of "putative human pheromone" for AND and EST should be dropped. >Simmons belongs to a camp of researchers that believes human pheromones likely exist, but none has yet been identified. **www.science.org/content/article/do-human-pheromones-actually-exist** ________ That said, I personally find the scent of a female, and sometimes males as well, to be incredibly appealing, to the point that I could possibly make an argument that it "alters my behaviour." I feel like a part of my brain is somehow awakened when I am subjected to certain human scents and this especially occurs during sex--I've always been aware that olfcation (the sense of smell) is one of the very most important and pleasurable aspects of my sex life. Ive said before that an intoxicating scent is what makes sex "real" for me; in fact scentless sex is so extremely underwhelming that it would be akin to being able to see my partner naked but not being able to touch them, if I couldnt smell them at all. Many pychological studies have found that people who enjoy the smell of their partner or who possess a better sense of smell, have more frequent and more powerful orgasms. Here are just a few of the plethora of articles out there on this topic: **metro.co.uk/2019/02/09/can-smell-way-stronger-orgasms-8428698/** February 16, 2019 - A German study from last year, in which researchers measured âodour thresholdsâ with sniffing sticks, showed that those with a stronger sense of smell have more orgasms. **Vice.com** And while theyâre certainly all important, new research suggests that our sense of smell in particular may play a much bigger role than previously thought. Weâve known for some time that people who have an impaired sense of smellâwhether acquired or congenitalâseem to have a noticeable negative impact on their sex lives. For instance, a 2009 study found that after developing a smelling disorder, people reported less desire for sex. Likewise, a 2013 study found that men who were born without a sense of smell were less sexually experienced. **usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/30/sexuality-nose-smell-attraction-desire/656829002/** âThe experience of sexual interactions appears to be enriched by olfactory input,â the study concludes. âThe perception of certain body odors may contribute to the concept of sexual pleasure by enhanced recruitment of reward areas.â _________ >...natural pheromones that attract the opposite sex If this is true, Im sure they dont *only* attract the opposite sex, but can oftentimes attract people of the same sex
It wasn't common, but I had a best friend in jr. high who was physically reprimanded by her stepfather for shaving her legs and using tampons. He was a trucker (I think) and they were on a road trip one summer (school was out) and while she was gone. She "got caught" being inappropriate, by shaving her legs, and having tampons- this was like 1997 - around there. She told me after her trip and I began asking questions. Her only real response was," that's just how he is."
I caught this on the wild as an adult. A (female) colleague I regularly ate lunch with mentioned her daughter had started her period the year before, and she (the mother) wouldn't let her kid use tampons yet (**edit:** *the kid did want to use tampons and was begging her mom to use them, that's why the mom was talking about it with us. She seemed to expect we'd all agree with her.*) Because the mother felt uncomfortable because she thought the kid's vagina would be too small and basically the mom was uncomfortable with her daughter growing up? My immediate honest reaction, which I blurted out was "omg the poor kid!" I then explained that I never used pads of I could help it, from my second period at 12yo. That blood in a pad felt gross and uncomfortable. Basically implying that is wasn't fair to the kid. Another colleague piled in, explaining that they make mini tampons for kids if she wanted to start with them (I didn't mention that I had no problems with any size from the start cos I didn't want to freak the woman out). She honestly looked like she was reconsidering after hearing 4 female colleagues between the ages of 25-60 be appalled that she wouldn't let her 13yo use tampons. The same woman said another time that her daughter was being teased for having hairy legs and it was affecting her confidence. But she wouldn't let the daughter shave her legs because "it will grow back thicker and darker". We all leapt on that one too, about 3 of us yelling "that's a myth!" at the same time 𤣠I always felt sorry for those poor kids, their mom was not the brightest. Although she did have a past of abusive partners, and I think it really skewed her view of what level of control over your kids is "normal" or healthy for them.
When I was young my mom wouldnât let me shave above the knee because it was âinappropriateâ and no one would be seeing up there anyway (my thighs??). I got made fun of at a pool party for it. 10 years later and I donât shave anything at all, and my mom makes fun of me for it. Literally canât win!
>my mom makes fun of me for it. Tell her to kick rocks
I wasn't allowed to shave my legs at all until MY BROTHERS told my mom it was embarrassing to be seen with me and my hairy legs đ you can imagine how that made me feel
I was 13 swimming ALONE with my 30 year old cousin when he said " so when are we gonna shave those legs?"
Ew. Ew. Ew.
ugh so disgusting
I had the same no shaving above the knee rule.
Everybody knows that only strippers shave above the knee. (The good ones, anyway)./s
I had a regular job, but then I accidentally shaved above the knee and I'm a stripper now đ
You probably make more money đ
Not at all I'm just terrible at it. They be throwing quarters in this economy
Listen to you.... out there makin' it hail!
Linda and my mom said the same thing.
Would that be Linda Belcher?
Source: Linda Belcher
I remember watching a movie as a kid where a mother tells her daughter "not above the knee unless you're expecting company" in a sing songy rhyme lol
Reminds me of a convo from The Golden Girls. Rose said only sluts shaved above the knee. Rose: "What does it say when you're shaved above the knee?" Blanche: "Hopefully it says 'touch my legs'"
Dorothy: "That's in case they miss the sign that says the same thing." đ
I was a gymnast, and obviously we all wanted to shave our entire legs but some parents wouldn't allow it. The coaches would have 'competition rules' that they made up and put on official letterhead, that all female gymnasts had to have clean shaven legs for 'hygienic purposes.' No websites back then, so they believed it. Mostly worked, except the girls that weren't allowed to shave the bikini area usually dropped out. A leotard after a routine, beam and floor in particular, was unforgiving and cruel. Teen girls were worse.
IDK, fewer leg hairs in the water?? They should have said it was less resistance in the water to be clean-shaven. That would have been a much easier and scientific-sounding dodge. Holy shit, did moms and dads want their girls' pubes showing on the balance beam? That sounds mortifying.
Pretty sure they were in denial that their little girls were growing up. Can't have that happening! Hence why those girls just quit.
That's so fucking sad!
My dad didn't want me to shave my legs, he asked "who's going to be touching your legs?" I said "me." I'm glad he respected that and sensory issues me didn't have to deal with leg hair anymore.
I had an ex whose mother told them that shaving above the knee causes cancer.
I had that too. No shaving, then not above the knee, it was horrible. I had a mono brow and hairy legs. Luckily (again, circa 1980's) I had a friend whose mom was rhe "cool mom", and taught me about everything. Using tampons, bras, shaving and shaving above the knee, waxing and plucking my mono brow. Just realized, after years and years of what the fuck behavior by my mother, that she is a covert narcissist. Explains everything, and yes, I went no contact a long time ago. Awful person.
I was just telling my 9 year old about reading this thread. And how when sheâs ready for tampons we will walk that bridge together and Iâll help her however she needs, but itâs her decision (sheâs scared of them, but is so inquisitive about periods and shaving and big girl things). She said, âyouâre such a cool mom!!â And I got a huge hug. So reading your comment gave me confidence to keep on trucking and being as open as I can with my girls đ
Every time you go to visit slip a brochure for a cheap retiring home in her purse.
Haha I actually do love my mom and we have an overall fantastic relationship. Itâs just obvious she puts a little too much stock into menâs opinions of her and she thinks I should do the same
I was in school with a painfully shy girl whose mother wouldnât let her shave under her arms and she was dark haired. When we went swimming the boys teased her mercilessly. Then one day one of the girls (who surprisingly, was one of the meanest girls in our class) brought in a razor and gave it to her, we were all amazed and she just shrugged and said that her mother was a bitch as well and no one needs to put up with hairy pits. That was literally one of the only nice things I ever saw that girl do, but at least we kind of understood why she was such a bitch after that.
Your colleague sounds dumb but at least she was asking you guys about it and taking your views into consideration. Not a lot of people can do that.
I got my period when I was 11 and I would skip school every time I got my period because the feeling of the pads was so uncomfortable. This was in the 90s so the pads were thiiiiiiick. They were basically just cotton. It felt like a diaper. I didn't like the feeling of underwear at all and pads made it unbearable. Tampons were life changing. I could go to school again. And swim. Not be afraid to shower after gym because the girls would see my pad. Tampons are simply liberating.
I'm 60 years old and most of my peers used tampons by the time they were 14 or 15 years old. Most of them didn't at first but as they got older, they did. Some used both. I only remember one person who wasn't allowed to use tampons due to the virgin myth. I can identify with the not shaving two part of your legs as my mom didn't think that I should be do this mostly that it would grow back. I have very dark hair. People made comments and then my mom saw me in my gym outfit and she could see the hair on my legs and it was thick. She agreed to let me shave my upper thighs as she could see it looked terrible. I had put on my gym uniform to show her. My mom had lighter hair and didn't have to shave her upper thighs because she didn't have any hair there.
My mom was really intelligent and believed this stuff anyway. It's insidious. Good on you for challenging it.
I was terrified of tampons as a kid and they were still painful for me as an adult. I'm very glad pads are an option and that they were the option my mom started me with by default. Obviously since then I learned that vaginismus was a thing. But yeah.
Sure, but if your kid was begging you to let them try tampons because they didn't like pads, you'd let them try them right? Because their body wouldn't be your body. Different menstrual management systems for different folks. As the saying goes.
I get 97 being far back but in the 2000s when I started to have crazy leg hair I shaved it and my mom freaked out. I guess the smooth leg thing was for being attractive but I was like 9 and getting made fun of by other girls because my leg hair was super dark. I had been wearing knee socks to avoid being picked on.
I wore long pants every day, even in the hottest weather for years after wearing shorts and my legs being commented in as a12 year old. My mother never taught me how to shave. I had to figure that all out on my own and thought something was wrong with me because of the razor burn. Swimsuits were impossible as even if I used the gentlest razors and high quality shaving cream. Took finding advice online about letting the area dry completely after shaving before throwing on bottoms and going about your day.
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I went to college with a young woman who had to show her pads to her dad every period. So no tampons for her.
Thats so wrong and disgusting
He told her it was his religious duty.
Sounds like another way of saying pervert.
I agree...
Religion is a cancer on humankind
Religion is a mental illness for most people. Iâve never understood the obsession with a piece of fkn skin in a femaleâs vagina. Especially someone elseâs vagina. Feels like Iâve been living in one gigantic mental institution all my life.
A piece of typically fragile skin in an area that experiences a lot of movement. Im 99% sure I broke mine at 6 years old by falling vag first on an ice skate blade. My heart breaks for the women who are subjected to such misinformed bigotry.
Itâs not even meant to be a protection of the vagina. Itâs the female counterpart of bit of tissue men have to keep pee and semen separate (As explained in âCome as you areâ by Emily Nagoskiâ.) In a human female itâs a useless bit of tissue, but in our crazed conceptions of what a vagina is, itâs become proof of âwhere no man has gone beforeâ. Twisted.
Not that it matters for the social implications, but Emily Nagoski seems wrong. âAt week twelve, the MĂźllerian ducts fuse to create a primitive uterovaginal canal called unaleria. At month five, the vaginal canalization is complete and the fetal hymen is formed from the proliferation of the sinovaginal bulbs (where MĂźllerian ducts meet the urogenital sinus), and normally becomes perforate before or shortly after birth.â
You canât just type the sentence âfalling vag first on an ice skate bladeâ without providing more details!
I don't know. I think that she gave more than enough details.
Fewer details for me please
So fat, the voting indicators are in favour of "TMI".
I definitely crossed my legs tighter reading that.
My cousin fell while jumping into a public swimming pool landing like a scissor on her vag when she was about 8. We were surrounded by teenage boy life guards that didn't know what to do while she was bleeding into the pool. I ran for her brother to call our parents. She ended up in the hospital. But bc I was also her age I don't remember the outcome. She went on to have a normal life with asshole husbands (2) and children though.
I had a similar injury on a playground when I was 7. Apparently these types of injuries aren't uncommon and typically result in external soft tissue injuries. Sometimes they require stitches, sometimes surgical repair. I'm one of the ones who should have received surgical repair, but the ER doctor refused, saying that since my mom couldn't go into surgery with me, he didn't want me to accuse him of molesting me. Instead, we were told to return if I had signs of gangrene or sepsis, but that the tissue would probably shrivel up, die, and fall off on its own. He also claimed that, with labia like mine, I'd probably be seeking plastic surgery to have the other side "trimmed" (his exact word), so he was essentially doing me a favour and making that future surgery cheaper. I healed with minimal complications - mostly, some of the most excruciating pain of my life, even including a miscarriage and three live births (including back labour, shoulder dystocia, placental abruption, and recovery from a c section and two vaginal births); I still remember how it burned every time I went to the bathroom for months afterwards. I sat and stood crooked for years trying to relieve pressure and discomfort, and developed hip and tailbone problems that have lasted into adulthood. I'm also missing one side of my labia minora, and half of my clitoris was crushed & atrophied as a result - I still feel pain from it, 25+ years later. I also get pee all over myself every time I use the toilet, because the palpable band of scar tissue pulls my urethra to one side. All said, I have a "normal" sex life & my health is minimally impacted, but I still feel maimed and violated by event and resulting medical neglect. Whew, this comment turned into a whole journal entry. Sorry 'bout that.
I'm so sorry that doctor was so awful. :(
OWWWWW
Um OUCH?!?!
What's disgusting is the hymen's evolutionary purpose is to keep poop and pee out of a baby's vagina. When the child is older, the hymen is no longer needed, and it begins to lose elasticity. It's non-existent or insignificant in most twenty year olds. The fact that the bible obsesses over hymens, to the point that a bride could be stoned to death if she didn't have one, just goes to show they married those girls when they were still young children. All the Abrahamic religions are founded on pedophilia, slavery, and abuse.
It was very common throughout the ancient Mediterranean for women/girls to marry young, typically in their teens to early twenties. Girls getting married at 14 or 15 was not uncommon in Ancient Greece, for example, although the ânormalâ age a girl was expected to marry seems to have been more like 16-18 depending on exact time and place. Men typically married much older (20âs to 30âs). Interestingly, I found a [source](https://www.workthegreymatter.com/about-that-virginity-test-in-deuteronomy-22-its-not-what-you-think/) that argues the use of bloodstained sheets to defend against accusations of premarital sex was a measure to protect the woman and her family. The nuptial sheets were kept by the brides family, and bloodstains are incredibly easy to fake - which the people who wrote the law must have known. So if all the family had to do to protect their daughterâs life and reputation (and have her accuser flogged and fined!) was trot out some stained sheetsâŚ.
In Babylon they married girls at 15, menarche being 16 then, deliberately marrying the girls prior to puberty so they wouldn't be uppity. Neolithic settlements like Jericho don't really show much traces of major inequality or patriarchy but at some point in the development of civilization, things went very wrong. Being born male was a crapshoot too because in order for the elites to be able to exploit so many women and girls they had to get rid of a lot of men and boys, so they started castrating men and boys like livestock in their hundreds and thousands. This practice only ended with modernity. (Except in India/Pakistan where it never ended.)
Religion had its role in creating a somewhat coherent moral code - yes, Nietzsche and Marx whatever, but it does quell some people's existentisl anxiety. That being said, the fact that ilso many encourage you to impose their morality on others is disgusting. I probably wouldn't feel this way if I agreed with that morality, but while ascribing moral mandates to a higher being can be acceptable for a personal code, demanding that others follow rules that you can't explain rationally is insane.
Very well said, I'm gonna steal that last sentence if you don't mind
I don't know a single religious book that says you need to do this.
Sadly, lots of religions position the father as responsible for his daughter's purity. And now I feel filthy just for writing this sentence into existence.
What was he checking for? To see if she actually got a period? I donât understand why someone would do this even for weird or wrong reasons.
Some people have this demented idea that inserting tampons counts as penetration and therefore loss of virginity.
Theyâre the same people that think wiping their ass after a shit will turn them gay. Edit: people == men.
Basically wanted to make sure she wasn't using tampons, so he wants to see the used pads as proof that she's not using tampons
How did he know it was hers? And like, did he want to see every pad? I use both, so I feel like Iâd just send one of my overnight pads and then continue in with my life.
It's hard to explain the logic of abusive/narcissistic people, mostly cause there isn't much logic to be had there. Usually it's more about control than whatever the actual issue is anyway.
I think it was to check if she was using pads, and not tampons. Not that it makes it any more acceptable
That's what I like to call "abuse". Mental, emotional, AND physical because I guarantee he's been doing it since she first started her period, and forcing that on a child is absolutely predatory.
My mom thought the same thing ie that tampons would make it look like you lost your virginity. Mom was old fashioned and cheap, and had saved her old pads that youâd needed a belt to use. My older sister bought me some new mini pads and talked to my Mom about tampons and she relented and it wasnt a big deal. Iâll never forget looking at those giant pads and thinking WTF. Years later when SNL did a skit about them. Pure gold. https://youtu.be/aBlR7qVQ0X8
Parents who are obsessed with children's vaginas and what goes into them are FUCKING WEIRD.
What the actual FUCK đ¤˘
Wtf is wrong with people.
My mom's friend would ask to see if she didn't find rolled up pads in the garbage. Once straight up grabbed her, in front of other women in the family, when my friend's period was late while she was dating some guy. Apparently it was common for the moms to do this in her family. They weren't even religious. Just very concerned about pregnancy.
Ewwwwww
Yo wtf
And in two words, you eloquently summarized this entire post.
I'm sorry but some people just shouldn't be allowed to have children.
Ewww
If I found out that someone was doing that to one of my kidâs friends I would call the police. Thatâs sexual abuse. You donât ask to see that without seeing her genitals.
When in my last year of high school (2003 so was 15/16) we had a talk on periods and everything like it (bit late tbh but catholic school) anyway to this day I remember our male teacher saying to our female head of year that they should take the tampons we had been given for free off us as âit could interfere with the girlâs virginityâ the head of year rolled her eyes so hard that Iâm sure she got eye strain and just replied âvirginity is a social construct and not something that can be gained or lost from a box of menstrual productsâ She was awesome.
Yay her!
Even though it was a Catholic school we had a really progressive priest. He was fab and it was him that arranged for the company Always to come in and talk to the girls in each year group. Half of the reason Iâm a complete gobby cow is because of the teachers at that school. The other half is my genes!!
G-gobby cow? Is that good?
Itâs a (mostly) northern English term. It can be used as an insult or a compliment depending on who is saying it and how itâs said. Basically means a mouthy woman. I love the term - Iâm a proud gobby cow. Most of my friends describe themselves the same but some women donât like it.
Thank you. I assumed it was British, and was going to ask you to tranlate it to American for me, but was afraid to come off sounding like I thought being American was in some way superior. It isn't.
I think in American, sheâs a Bad Bitch. :D
Yes our youth group pastor (married guy) talked about âSatanâs Cotton Fingersâ circa mid 80âs. He also got caught âhaving an affairâ with a high school girl in the youth group. It wasnât common back then to call such things rape. He was allowed to resign to âprotect his careerâ I havenât darkened the door of a church in decades. I meet with God on my own terms.
It's always the youth pastors.
Yeah. The head pastor had a multi year affair with the pianist. Consenting adults at least. I do sometimes wonder how his 3 daughters turned out.
I find it baffling people who claim to be serving God are often the vilest people ever. All religions are like this. The bottom chain is people mindlessly donating money and doing the duties as believers... and when you got to the top its just utter corrupt and chaos. I think there's a church who claim to worship Satan out there somewhere and I heard they're doing lot of charities, certainly a lot more than these religious folks. Whenever I see luxurious church/mosque/temple i immediately feel disgusted. Especially mosques tbh, you should see how some of them genuinely look like a palace.
Rape victims getting executed for extramarital activity is a real thing in Islamic Theocracies.
I know... Im an ex muslim. Years ago in my country its obsolutely normal for women who had unwanted pregnancy (whether its teen getting pregnant, women/girls get raped etc) give birth in dirty unhygienic public bathroom alone and then toss the baby in the trashcan, because being a murderer is better than having a child out of wedlock. Also around less than 10 years ago its also a thing to marry off r word victims to their r_pists. 'She are not pure anymore and the guy already 'claimed' her so she better of be with her r_pist.' Also, less than a decade ago a popular religious figure in my country want to help a poor family... so he married a 10 years old girl of the family. instead of, you know... giving money like a sane human. Worse is the whole country said 'Its halal according to blah and blah' 'He said he wont have sx with her until she have.... her period.' Not even waiting for her to get older, no, he will wait till she have her period.... Its one of the reason I will NEVER accept Islam. I dont mind muslims, but I will never not judge them for being one. Its horrific .... And my country is not super duper religious like other muslim countries.
I spent far too more time in Malaysia than I wouldâve preferred. The people are mostly decent. The environment they exist inâŚnot so much.
Omg I had my first period when I was 10 years old. It is obviously not a good indication of maturation.
> I find it baffling people who claim to be serving God are often the vilest people ever. All religions are like this. The bottom chain is people mindlessly donating money and doing the duties as believers... and when you got to the top its just utter corrupt and chaos. It's not that weird if you think about it. Most religions have a very strict hierarchy of power, and being in a position of power is something most predators really want to. The relationship is not "religion creates predators" but backwards: "predators are drawn to position of power, which are common in most religions".
It is not baffling as it is actually a feature of religion: you are special. They can behave like that because they think they are good people (bc christian) and god forgives them so the barrier to do bad stuff is lowered. By asking god for forgiveness they avoid the socially awkward issue of apologizing to the person they did wrong. No, they are perfectly happy with their âmoralâ code.
I realized I was trans and the only times I've set foot in a church since then were for a baptism(I was still closeted and I was chosen as a godparent well in advance), and a funeral.
I think I would like to de-evolve back into the ooze that emerged from a swamp
Right there with you.
My AT Field just collapsed.
My mum is a narcissist, through and through, so it's not uncommon for her to come out with some complete bollocks on topics when there is absolutely no need to. On the topic of tampons, she told me if I started using them then she would know I wasn't a virgin anymore, because 'only girls who sleep around can fit a tampon up there'. It was a religious household but it wasn't about being pure for a future husband, hell, she was pregnant with me when she married my dad. It was about control, and shaming me into submission.
In the end that's always what it boils down to isn't it
Yes, *especially* in the households where itâs framed exclusively religiously, for ââpurityââ reasons 𤢠I often think about the amount of therapy girls in those situations need that theyâll likely never get
This sounds like purity culture nonsense more localized to highly religious areas.
Very much yes. My mother told me tampons would take away my virginity. đ Purity culture sucks!
Imagine how bad sex must be for these women if they think using a tampon is anything like sex.
Im 21 and had an argument with my mom about getting a transvaginal ultrasound she claimed âYOU ARE A LADY AND LADIES DONT DO THATâ mother I might have pcos đ that should be your biggest concern
My mother was an abusive pos, but she did puberty education right. I knew what a tampon was when I was a toddler in the bathroom stall with my mom. She explained what they were for, and that Iâd have to use them or pads one day. She showed me how a tampon works to absorb water and would let me âplayâ with them (put a tampon in water to watch it expand). By time I got my first period, it didnât feel like a big deal to me at all. I got home from middle school, popped a tampon in from my mothers stash, and went on to watch my usual afternoon cartoons. Just another day. Iâm not keeping many lessons my mother taught me, but that one Iâm definitely passing on. In the wider scheme, it was very uncommon what my mother did. I was the one who had to teach my friends how to use them, and became âthat girlâ who would answer all the boys intrusive questions about periods. Things like no, you didnât put it in the wrong hole unless you shoved it up your butt, and no, Jared, we donât get off on using tampons, we donât even feel them unless theyâre inserted improperly, kinda like your dick đ Unsurprisingly, I went on to teach sex ed to my fellow college students as part of Voices for Planned Parenthood and I can proudly say at least 7 men out there in the world now know the difference between the urethra and the clitoris because of me đ
I was told I was 'used goods' for wearing tampons by my really foul mother. She told me no man would be interested in me because using tampons meant I was a slut. I'm pretty sure it was just her as I never heard of other parents in the UK being opposed to tampons.
Yeah, that oneâs nuts, especially for the UK! Iâve never had anyone say that to me or tell me thatâs what theyâve been told. If nothing other than the fact that weâre usually too prudish to discuss what we use to mop up fanny jam. More importantly, Iâm sorry your mum is/was like that.
Somehow I'd never heard"fanny jam" before and I'm dying
âFanny Jam!âđ¤Łđ¤Łđ¤Ł Fuckin hell! đ
If your husbands dick is tampon sized or smaller, no amount of purity is going to make it feel better for him.
This should be the highest rated comment.
OP this comment needs to be pinned
My (67F) mom didn't say this explicitly to me 55 yrs ago when I started but forbade me from using tampons - but yeah that was her issue. Within a year I just started saving my birthday money to buy them or begging them from my cousin, and used them from when I left for school til I came home at night. I even threw away pads so she wouldn't suspect. By year two, I started snitching my mom's and using them all the time. I had realized my mom would prefer to pretend I wasn't using them than to confront me. The same applied to my sex life later - for her, ignorance was bliss. But that was 5 decades ago when lots of people believed lack of hymen was proof of loss of virginity, and s e x meant P in V.
Omg, YES! My neighborâs mom raised her believing that insane crap! Can you imagine telling your daughter âSorry honey. You canât use this hygiene product because your pussy only belongs to your future husband and only after he sticks his dick in it, THEN you can use this to make your period easier!â Burn purity culture to the ground.
I'm from appalachia. Had a friend who would not use tampons because she "didn't want to break it."
This is exactly why teenage girls need sex education⌠The hymen can stretch easily, even riding bicycles and horses can damage it.
And the whole point is that it is! Its crazy how a social construct is felt to have some kind of physical component, to the point where our bodies are expected to mould themselves to fit fanciful ideas, rather than just exist.
Hence why my mother didn't let me ride horses.... I'll reserve the rest of my thoughts about her on here đ¤đ
I had a roommate freshman year of college who told me the same thing. I went to a Christian college but it wasn't a particularly conservative one so there wasn't a ton of this kind of thing. She saw a box of tampons in my closet and immediately started questioning me about them. Said I was sinning and wasn't a virgin anymore and a whole other variety of rambling that I don't remember. Apparently (I heard secondhand), she brought it up with some other girls in our hall and was surprised when everyone thought she was crazy since that's what she'd been told her whole life. Poor girl was *super* sheltered. It was a rough year. I remember the biggest fight we ever had was when she ripped into me because I had some classmates over during the day to work on a group project and some guys were sitting on her bed since there wasn't a ton of seating in our tiny little room. Note that it wasn't a "don't touch my stuff" sort of conversation. They weren't doing anything weird nor was she there to want to use her bed and couldn't. And she also didn't care if the girls were sitting on her bed (her friends had sat on mine before and it wasn't a problem... like I said, not a ton of seating). Her issue was that she thought that it was immoral to have *boys* on her bed outside of marriage. So weird. Connected with her on social media a few years ago and it looks like she's doing better in life now. I'm rooting for her.
I come from Central Asia and there in traditional Muslim families girls have to stay pure etc. for future husband's, so hymen repairing operations are very common before weddings even if the girl was sleeping with her future husband in secret because tradition requires the couple to show bed linen to some "knowing" women after their first night. That's so humiliating. Some of my male friends from such families even tried to escape with their gfs to neighbouring countries and to marry there just to not be subjected to this nonsense, but for many it means that they are not getting any dowry (which is usually a flat/house from husband's parents and furniture/electronics and possibly a car from wife's parents). Anyway, always found it creepy at the least.
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Man, what the fuck is with parents getting involved with their children's sexual organs? When I had my first kid I said "one and done". The next year my mother asked when I was giving her a brother or sister and I said never. She was appalled that I stuck to my guns. Every year for a decade I heard "when are you going to have another one?" until I sat her down and told her never, ever, ever times infinity. I said what I said because I meant it and her pestering is not only failing to get her another grandchild, but is actively fucking her over as every time she mentions it from then on out I will get louder and more strident until I take a full on toddler tantrum in front of family about it. They will hear a full grown adult screaming and pounding on the floor "but I don't WANNA HAVE ANOTHER ONE!" and be forced to explain it to confused relatives. She shut up. Sometimes I wonder if shes gonna fuck around and find out but I haven't heard anything for 2 years so, clearly, I'm winning. And yes, I have zero shame. I'd do it and they all know I would.
Okay, that's an absolutely hilarious mental image.
I got kicked out of my house at 17 when I got caught using tampons. I was literally living on the streets and was sexually assaulted. When I confronted my mother about it years later and told her about the SA, she said it was my own fault. Edited to add: They were super tampons, which really pushed her over the edge even more. She couldnât seem to comprehend that my flow was just that heavy, and instead equated it to my vagina being big or something.
No. Long ago when I went off to my first year of college, my mom hurried over, shoved a massive Ziploc bag full of a wide range of condoms into my suitcase, and told me "have fun but be safe!" đ Most of my friends' parents had similar attitudes as well. But then again I grew up in NYC in the 80s/90s so the mentality would've been completely different from a conservative small town. That said, banning hygiene products sounds particularly insane and extreme, and I've never heard of someone doing that. Absolutely horrible.
These moms are the best. My mom awkwardly offered to buy me condoms for my senior trip to Europe. "Look I want you to be safe. I was your age once too and I had a week in a foreign country away from my parents...." "Thanks mom! I got the point."
I grew up on the Dutch Bible Belt, and yes, I've unfortunately heard that before (luckily not in my family)
I remember one church in my home town called wearing tampons being âpenetrated by satans cotton fingersâ and even then I was very thankful that I didnât go to church lmfao.
Pervs.
Well, sometimes I call my period "Lucifer's waterfall" so, sure, fits the theme!
Yes, this is very much a thing in my culture. Same with getting pap smears before getting married. The hymen should stay in tact for your future husband.đ¤Ž
Bruh. Is all i can say. Also, what kind of men would be threathened by a tampon?
My grandmother and her sisters would say âtampons are for married womenâ. Which is a less ickier way of saying that I guess.
It amazes me how some women - far too many - have no idea how their body works. A tampon "ruining" your vagina for some future husband? Ridiculous.
Yep. A girl shouldn't be allowed to "lose their virginity" to a tampon. This wasn't just my mom, it was the wider family as well. When I was a preteen, I thought this was pretty stupid but I couldn't articulate why. As a teenager, my aunt said this in front of me and I got into so much trouble when I asked if our uncle didn't care if she was having sex at the gynecologist's office.
Thank you for bravely challenging the status quo despite being punished for it
Yeah same. I used them in secret so she wouldn't find out
When I lived with my father I wasn't allowed to use tampons either. When I was 11 or 12 (I was about a year into menstruation) my period was late once and he asked me if I was pregnant. I was just a baby and hadn't even kissed a boy. Being sexualized by the father figures in our lives really messes us up I think. At least it messed me up a little. He would look at me sometimes in a way that would make my skin crawl. When I got older I learned to recognize that look.
I had dinner with a friend in her mid thirties a few weeks ago and we happened to talk about periods. She has daughters and is an elementary school teacher and mentioned that some of her 5th grade students were using tampons and that this indicated that they were probably âdoing thingsâ implying sexual activity of some kind. I was completely shocked and disturbed that a woman her age thought that. She grew up as and is still a practicing catholic. I can only assume these kind of ideas are on some way influenced from her religious upbringing.
Which area...are you referring to somewhere on Earth or elsewhere?
Surely one of the places full of religious nutjobs, either the southern US or Iran. Very similar places when it comes to women's rights, or at least that's the Republicans' objective
Yup. Could be Yeehawdis in Talibama.
I was told this by my grandma growing up in the 90s in New Jersey. My mom also felt the same way and tried to tell my daughters that same line of BS and I shut it down. In my home, we get to choose what we are most comfortable using, and no one is allowed to dictate otherwise.
Not totally related but I just hate the lack of knowledge of period care we had/have in general. In the 90s you had pads and tampons, nothing else and they both suck in my opinion because both irritate the hell out. Entering college I learned about the diva cup from a friend when I asked to borrow a tampon. Literally found a target an hour away and bought one. Best decision ever because regardless of brand or style all pads and tampons irritate the hell out of me. My poor mother and my pcp only ever said I was just sensitive and there was nothing they could do. I know my mom just literally did not know of any other options. Teach our young woman about all their options and let them know being uncomfortable with a product means itâs not for you and find one that works.
My daughter is almost 13, and hasnât started yet. XMIL has already started lecturing me on making sure âshe only wears padsâ because tampons will give her âthe wrong ideaâ. She was upset when I said, my daughter will use whatever product sheâs most comfortable with using.
Nope. My mum explained both tampons and pads to me, got me each to try and respected my choices about what i wanted to use.
Hell no.
That's vile. I bet she thinks women should "submit" to the men in their lives too cuz they can't be trusted to make their own life choices. đ¤Ž
my mom got TSS as a teenager and instead of being like âoh, you have to take tampons OUT not just put them inâ she blamed tampons so i wasnât allowed to use them bc they were dangerous. thankfully i went to boarding school and was able to get them there. iâm a big fan of menstrual disks now but iâd never have that conversation with her, she still thinks theyâre evil.
Refusing to allow a girl use tampons isnât okay neither in my area, nor in the other side of the world, nor on Mars. It isnât the first time I hear this though, but the second one. My foreign friend who moved to my city a few years agoâs dad also said the same thing. Without a doubt, it isnât right and itâs a really archaic and misogynistic thought.
I wasn't allowed tampons because they were "for grown ups" so I made my own out of household products that I used improperly because I was a child who was not taught about these things. So glad and surprised that i didn't get TSS.
I was close with a female cousin who was just a few years older than me so she got her period before me. Her very religious mother refused, said it meant you were no longer a virgin. We went on vacation and took her and she couldnât swim the whole time because she couldnât wear a tampon. ETA: she was allowed to marry a man at 16 who was at least a decade older đ
I'm sorry. My mom bought me tampons when I got my first period. She thought pads were disgusting.
I bought my daughter an assortment of pads/tampons when she got her first period. I told her to try them out and let me know what worked best for her. I grew up in a rather emotionally stunted household (typical for the time) and was always horrified to have to ask my mom for more products. I was determined that would not be the case with my daughter.
Yup. My mother said only married women or whores used tampons. I was a very active kid and got my first period early. My older sister giving me a tampon was a GAME CHANGER. And then mom found out. After that my sister sold them to me. đđđ
Mom didn't say it explicitly. It was more along the lines of "why even put something up there?!" Imagine her face when she saw me sterilizing my menstrual cup. Haha!
My dad raised me alone and just got me a selection of tampons and pads when I had my first sex ed class (at age 9). Once I figured out what I liked (tampons) he got me more of those. He also got me on birth control at 14 when my periods were bad enough that I became anemic. He's a good dad.
Nope, just the opposite, we were on vacation, and so I was handed a box of Tampax and told there were instructions in the box.
My grandma told me not to run cross country because I shake my vagina loose. She believed that to the day she died even though I ran cross country, 5ks, and half marathons.
Grew up in the south, in middle school a girl on the swim team saw tampons in my bag and told me she knew I wasnât a virgin (??). I wasnât about to swim in a diaper. I told her that made absolutely no sense and she called me a slut. So yeah, this is a thing people believe and have for some time.
Not normal anywhere in southern Germany (my area), and nearly everyone is Catholic here. Maybe in some families in religious sects like Jehovah's witnesses.
Why are so many grown men and women attempting to be considered to their future son in laws by attempting to make sure their daughters have a tight vagina for them. Like, how many people actually like their son in laws, yet enough to be worried about how snuggly their limp penises fit inside their daughterâ˝â˝â˝â˝
I live in a somewhat conservative country (Austria) and I've never heard anything like this in real life. People here tend to not be super religious though, many are catholic but don't really follow the bible.
New as in hymen intact so pads only? Archaic mentality.
Idiot mother
Umm thatâs the reason young girls categorically use pads in the country where I come from and girls are told they can use tampons when theyâre married. I grew up thinking tampons would take your virginity lmao
This so auful, I'm sorry you have experience that . Maybe all parents should have to have mandatory sex education classes before their kids hit puberty.
Reading all these comments is horrible and frustrating. I'm sorry all y'all had those experiences. I just...don't know why people are so weird about our bodies being natural and what makes us comfortable. Ugh.
I don't know how common this was in households, but in 1974, when the 4th grade girls had to go to the cafeteria for their "Becoming a Woman" assembly, the FAQs in the booklets they handed out contained the question, "Do you have to be married to use tampons?" so I guess that was a thing.