Men and tampons....

[conuly]

I'd completely forgotten this story until I saw this link. Back in high school, during music history, one of the boys came in one morning ranting that somebody had put an opened but unused pad in his bag. OMG HIS VERY BAG! And the girls in the class asked, reasonably, if it had been used. "No, but isn't that so gross? How would YOU feel!?" This went back and forth for a while, with the girls firmly pointing out that an unused pad isn't dirty and him and a few other boys freaking the fuck out.

These were, of course, the same exact boys who, a week earlier, had spent several minutes blowing up condoms and batting them around the room.

Comments

[zhelana]

Once in college we went into my friend's boyfriend's apartment and decorated it with tampons and pads and pink hearts. They were way more freaked out than we expected them to be by it.

[conuly]

LMAO!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well, but condoms go on penises, and penises aren't scary to boys because they're used to them, but menstrual blood is the Original Terrifying Taboo, and anything associated with it alarms them. It's why earning the Red Wings is such a big deal to Hell's Angels: only the bravest and baddest dare attempt it, for the concentrated cootie-mana would melt the balls right off a lesser man.

Of course, a man who's watched his baby being born is immune to cootie-mana ever after, and can openly buy tampons with no loss of manliness, even if the checkout clerk is a teenage girl.

Sheesh, humans are weird.