Latest / Privycast / Ep. 124 Feminine Hygiene (Women's Day 2024)

Transcript

Ep. 124 Feminine Hygiene (Women's Day 2024) · Privycast

0:01
>> Speaker A: Because Gertrude Tendritz took a device
0:04
invented by a man, sold it in a
0:06
way that only a woman could. She hired
0:09
female salespeople, female production
0:12
people, asked female nurses
0:15
to speak about the product to people, because here
0:18
is the gospel truth of sales.
0:21
No one can sell a product quite
0:24
like the people who love it.
0:29
Welcome back to privy. Privy
0:32
is a podcast about bathrooms,
0:35
recorded from my home
0:37
bathroom. I'm your host, hunter Hoover,
0:40
and I love bathrooms. Welcome back, everybody. Thank
0:43
you for being here with us. Um,
0:47
at moments when I get quiet on
0:49
the show today, you might be able to hear
0:52
the absolute winter
0:55
monsoon that is happening here in the Willamette valley,
0:58
Oregon. Uh, just on the other side
1:01
of my bathroom wall here is the
1:04
outside of doors. Uh, and there
1:07
is a rain gutter that runs along
1:09
the edge of my home in the back corner back here.
1:13
And it just sounds like an absolute gushing stream
1:16
of. It sounds like, uh,
1:21
when I have what I like to call a thirsty day,
1:24
when I have a big thirst and I drink way too much
1:27
water, and then that first
1:30
big release, it really just sounds like that. But it
1:33
has been sounding like that. I was listening to it as
1:36
I was setting up for this record, and I'm thinking that's
1:38
definitely going to be audible in the background, so the keen and
1:41
attuned ear might hear, uh, the occasional
1:44
sound of rushing water. Fear not, I am
1:47
not relieving myself mid record. It is just
1:50
the Willamette Valley rains. But I'm glad
1:53
that you're here with us. And this week's
1:56
episode is going to be a little bit out of my wheelhouse, I
1:59
must admit, most things,
2:02
when it comes to most things bathroom,
2:05
I'm pretty well experienced. Not
2:08
to toot my own horn, not to rip my own
2:11
beefer here, but I really am
2:14
pretty experienced in bathroom things. Like, I've been
2:16
there, pooped in that, you know what I'm saying?
2:21
This week, I must admit, I did a lot of
2:24
learning this week. Sometimes
2:26
my, uh, bathroom education comes
2:29
firsthand. This week, it was not firsthand.
2:32
If I tried to make this week's bathrooming
2:35
firsthand, it would be a mess and it would be highly
2:38
uncomfortable. But I want to be the first
2:41
again to acknowledge here that as a guy,
2:45
there is truly a
2:47
whole aspect of the bathroom experience
2:50
that is lost on me.
2:53
For me,
2:56
bathrooming is isolated
2:58
to primarily the yellow stream, the big
3:01
brown logs, or in my case,
3:04
the brown stream, because
3:07
often I am a semi liquid
3:10
situation and God forbid, the
3:12
occasional up chunk. Now
3:15
I'm a guy. Male.
3:19
Hey, howdy hey, it's me, your local
3:21
male. I don't know
3:24
if this is your first time listening to privy. First of
3:27
all, I want to apologize up front.
3:30
Second, um, there's
3:33
some potty humor involved in this podcast
3:36
about bathrooms, I must admit. And if you
3:39
didn't put two and two together, guy in his
3:41
30s has a podcast, and it's about
3:44
bathrooms, and
3:46
you weren't able to suss that out, that
3:49
that's going to be a guy making that, like, a
3:52
man person making that show. Um,
3:57
now, you know, from
4:00
what I can tell, being a guy also
4:03
means that I am more prone to sharing with you
4:06
the things that I do in the bathroom.
4:09
And when the stink
4:12
is a big gnarles Barkley
4:15
stink, uh, there usually is, like, a
4:17
courtesy sniff involved. If
4:20
there's something stanky, you just got to get up on it.
4:23
Um, I've also
4:26
begun making a habit of
4:29
using the turlet, um,
4:31
in the workday. It's kind of a nice
4:34
reprieve. You get, like, five to seven
4:36
minutes, and you just kind of
4:39
go hit it, and it's great. Um,
4:44
but there is, as a guy
4:46
person, there is a bathroom experience
4:49
that I am missing out on.
4:52
And for once, normally, I've got a little
4:55
bit of fomo. Like, I fear that
4:58
I'm not going to get to partake or be
5:01
involved. But I'm here to tell you,
5:04
on this bathroom experience, I am aok
5:07
with it. I am totally good with not being
5:10
involved.
5:15
One of the experiences that I am
5:18
foreign to as a man
5:20
is having that monthly visitor of
5:23
awfulness that is usually met with
5:26
mood swings and hormone changes
5:29
and onset bleeding from
5:32
your nethers. Now, uh, I've got
5:35
to confess, ladies,
5:38
I would love if you hear
5:41
this episode, and I've talked before, I think there are
5:44
few women that listen to this show, and that's fine. I know my
5:47
audience. Guys, if you're coming to
5:50
this episode to learn a thing or two about what goes
5:53
on, hopefully you do. Um, I
5:56
sure did. Ah. Uh, but, ladies, if you
5:58
hear this and you're, like, this misguided fool,
6:02
he but thinks he has begun to
6:05
grasp the inner workings of the lady
6:08
downstairs, please, I
6:11
would love to have you on the show to set me straight.
6:14
Privycast@gmail.com. Uh, but
6:17
one of the experiences foreign to
6:19
me as a man person is
6:22
having that monthly
6:25
period. Now, we are going to
6:27
say, uh, I should family
6:30
warning. At the front of this episode here on privy,
6:33
we try to keep it as family friendly as possible. And
6:36
while I personally do not
6:39
believe that discussions
6:41
of, um,
6:44
the woman's time of month are
6:46
necessarily not family friendly. I can
6:49
totally understand how if you
6:52
have a young listener, you
6:55
may not want them to
6:58
be partaking in this
7:01
episode, and that's totally fine. This is
7:04
one to skip. Uh, if you have a younger
7:07
listener with you, I would refer you back one episode
7:10
to our episode on Skibbity toilet. I'm
7:13
sure that the young folks will love it.
7:15
Uh, but if it needs be
7:18
said, in this episode of
7:20
privy, there will be discussion of the female
7:23
anatomy and the female
7:26
biological process with
7:29
some description of those
7:32
parts and processes. Um,
7:34
so with that said, we
7:37
dive into this flow. Oh, gosh.
7:40
Oh, it's already so awkward. Um,
7:43
the period. And it should be said that the
7:46
period, the term period is a more recent
7:49
term than the technical term
7:52
menstruation. Now, menstruation is
7:55
spelled menstruation, and that's
7:57
just a little spelling remembrance for
8:00
you. Nowadays,
8:03
women have a lot of technology to help deal with this little
8:06
visitor. Uh, and this
8:08
Friday, uh, at the point of this episode's release, just
8:11
three days from this episode's release, it is
8:14
International Women's day. Women. Happy
8:17
International Women's day. Uh,
8:20
I'm sorry that you have to deal with this, I guess, is what I
8:23
would say. And what better way to remember
8:26
and celebrate women than me?
8:29
A guy talking about the history
8:32
of feminine hygiene. Hey. Oh. Let's go. Uh,
8:35
but before we begin,
8:39
it serves to describe our.
8:42
Let's be honest again, primarily male
8:45
audience, we should probably make some
8:48
definitions about what is a period.
8:51
First, it's called a period because it comes from the
8:54
greek terms perry, meaning
8:57
around and hodos.
8:59
Hodor,
9:02
meaning, uh, the way or path
9:05
or around the way or path.
9:07
Eventually, this term
9:09
periodos shifted
9:12
into the latin periods,
9:15
referring to a period or a
9:18
recurring cycle. And the term was first used
9:21
in reference to the lady's menstruation
9:24
cycle in the, ah, 18 hundreds. Now,
9:27
now that it has been named, what is the period?
9:30
Menstruation, or in the Latin, the
9:33
mensies is. Which is interesting because
9:36
I think mensies, now, it refers to when you
9:39
are going through.
9:42
I don't actually know what that is. I'm going to
9:45
shut up for a second. But it is the
9:48
recurring shedding of the
9:51
lining of the uterus in
9:54
a discharge containing blood,
9:56
mucus, and part of the uterine walled
9:59
lining.
10:01
Wow. Blood,
10:04
mucus, and uterine wall lining.
10:10
There's probably someone out there who makes, like,
10:13
uncomfortable throw pillows. And I'm going to tell you
10:16
right now, instead of saying, live,
10:19
laugh, love, it said blood, mucus, and
10:21
uterine wall lining, you're going to have yourself a, uh,
10:25
slam dunk on awkward throw pillows. But this
10:27
shedding occurs when the egg
10:30
attached to the wall of the uterus
10:33
does not become fertilized
10:36
via relations and
10:39
is passed via the
10:41
period. Now, I
10:44
did just mansplain a
10:47
period, and I understand
10:50
how foolhardy this is. And
10:52
I also understand that I am speaking from a place
10:55
of ignorance and limited Internet
10:58
research. I also
11:01
should confess, my Internet search
11:03
history is absolutely wild
11:06
this week. Um, more on
11:09
that in a moment. But that's my understanding of what's
11:12
happening during a period. You're getting rid of
11:15
some portion of this uterine wall
11:17
lighting. My
11:20
understanding is also this. Having
11:23
been married to a person who experiences this
11:26
for almost ten years, she has been experiencing it
11:29
for longer than ten years. I have been married to
11:32
her for almost ten years, and that is this.
11:35
It's not comfortable. Uh,
11:38
and I think that's fair to say. I don't
11:40
think I have to experience a period to
11:43
be able to tell you that it doesn't
11:46
seem comfortable. I'm
11:49
also on record on the show saying, anytime you've got
11:52
blood coming out of your nethers, you
11:55
have some very, very big concerns.
11:58
And I understand women. Um,
12:02
you all are awesome because
12:05
you have this happen frequently to semi
12:08
frequently. And I'm here to tell
12:11
you, anytime a man blasts
12:13
blood, there is deep, deep seated
12:16
concern in their heart. Uh, there is
12:19
something gone terribly, terribly wrong.
12:22
But it goes to reason that as
12:25
long as women have been getting their monthlies,
12:28
they've been trying to figure out with ways
12:31
to deal with the flow. Go with the
12:34
flow, if you will. And to begin our journey
12:36
into the history and development of
12:39
feminine hygiene, we're going to first explore
12:42
some of the options for absorption that have been
12:45
used over the years.
12:51
As is the case with the history of toilet paper
12:54
and other materials, humans often turn
12:57
first to the natural world around them to deal with their
13:00
bodily fluids. The oldest recorded
13:02
writings of tampon use
13:05
are from our good old friend the Ebers
13:08
medical papyrus out of Egypt. And the
13:11
ebers medical papyrus
13:13
details women
13:16
using papyrus tampons, that is,
13:18
tampons made of, like, kind of wadded up paper.
13:22
There are reports of people in
13:25
Greece using bits of cloth wrapped around
13:28
a piece of wood. Oh, my. Oh, dear
13:30
heavens.
13:34
Just, uh, the thought. I don't have this specific
13:37
crevice on my body,
13:41
but I do have a crevice. We don't need to
13:43
discuss my crevices. I'm
13:46
going to stop saying that word now, but I got
13:49
to say, the prospect of
13:52
yoinking a, uh, quote unquote piece
13:55
of wood did sham one
13:58
shay just with
14:00
rags wrapped around it just seems absolutely
14:04
backwards. But they
14:06
seem to, time and time again,
14:10
turn to materials that are both
14:12
absorbent. I would say that's a
14:15
beneficial trait. Um, but also
14:17
readily available and comfortable, soft
14:20
like. You don't want to just yink a
14:23
pine cone. No. Game
14:26
over. Jelly. If you don't
14:28
know. If you did not know this. Modern
14:31
day tampons are absorbent as
14:34
woofie. But early
14:36
women, that is, women of
14:39
old, turned to absorbent things
14:42
such as wool, sponge, and animal fur.
14:45
Native Americans are said to use moss
14:48
wedged inside of a buffalo skin.
14:51
And I need to tell you here,
14:53
not all of these things were being shoved
14:56
up and into the female anatomy.
14:59
Many of them were being used as a pad to
15:02
catch the leakage.
15:05
Leakage? That's a bad word. You know, people
15:08
get mad about the word moist, but the word
15:10
leakage is not great.
15:13
Like, I would argue leakage is worse
15:16
than moist, in my
15:19
opinion, but
15:22
the optics are not great. I have in my brain,
15:25
when I hear animal skins, I have in my
15:28
brain just some freshly shorn
15:30
sheep and this big bag of wool.
15:33
And the wife just, like, takes wool by the
15:36
fistful and just bink, just yanks
15:39
it right in there. And some of these things
15:42
make sense. We can see
15:44
how a sponge, or even animal fur, we
15:47
can see what's going on here. But
15:50
other materials that would regularly be used
15:53
include grass. No, please
15:56
stop it. Leaves. Please stop it.
15:59
Just. You're going to totally sully
16:02
the mitt. Like,
16:05
leaves don't generally stay together. Well,
16:08
in my experience, even if they're wet, and I don't know if
16:11
you would want wet leaves. That seems
16:13
counterintuitive. As
16:16
is noted, they would use papyrus and
16:18
scraps of papyrus. Absolutely
16:21
wild, totally unhinged, in my
16:24
opinion. Ladies, if you hear this, if you're
16:27
listening, if I haven't lost you already, if me
16:30
mansplaining a period to you didn't run you straight out
16:33
of this place, that
16:36
has to be crazy.
16:38
Here in Oregon, as coach Werman shared on his
16:41
episode a few months back, we've begun
16:44
stocking feminine hygiene products in all bathrooms
16:47
at schools. And we're stocking the good stuff.
16:53
They're cardboard applicator, I think. But for all
16:56
intents and purposes, they are
16:59
regular standard issue tampons.
17:02
And I think we could answer this idea
17:05
by swapping out all or just small
17:08
pot, all of these tampons, or at least the men's
17:11
bathroom tampons. Like, listen, I
17:14
ain't getting into it, but let's swap those
17:17
ones out with little piles of grass freshly cut from
17:19
the school's lawn. It'd be fine. It'll all work
17:22
itself out. But there are
17:25
records as early as the 1000s, speaking
17:28
about the 400s, where women would
17:31
throw their menstrual pads at men to get
17:34
them to leave them alone.
17:37
Nothing will chase off a guy you don't want around you
17:39
like skeeting a bloody pad at their head.
17:44
But for a long time, it was truly like trial
17:47
and error to sort out absorbency.
17:50
Um, and as time went
17:53
on towards the medieval period, women
17:56
discovered that this rad stuff called
17:59
moss is going to work real well to absorb and be
18:01
soft. And I imagine it's a fan
18:04
favorite when the other options are cowhides
18:07
and loose grass and leaves. Moss was probably a
18:10
welcomed respite. As you might
18:12
expect, the discovery of
18:15
cotton. Cotton has done a lot for
18:18
us. But before we have gotten to the current
18:21
issues of cotton in these products, we first
18:23
turn to fabrics and other textiles for some
18:26
respite from the grass. In the medieval period,
18:29
as fabrics and textiles continued to develop,
18:32
these would begin to be used as
18:34
rags to both put on
18:37
the zone as kind of a covering and a
18:40
catcher. Uh, but also rags to stuff
18:43
up and into the zone.
18:46
In time, it dawned on some to reduce,
18:49
reuse and recycle. And now, as people
18:52
have turned to reusable forms of
18:55
diapers and the like, I want to tell you,
18:58
there was a time when I,
19:00
uninformed, sparkly eyed and
19:03
bushy tailed, told my wife
19:06
that we were going to use reusable
19:08
diapers because it would, quote, save
19:11
us so much money. Diapers
19:14
are expensive, as any parent knows all too
19:17
well. But here's the deal,
19:20
friends. There are some things
19:23
in life. This is hunter
19:25
Hoover, privy cast
19:28
money. One, uh, hundred and one.
19:31
There are some things in this life
19:34
that are worth spending money on, if
19:37
you have the ability to do so.
19:40
Diapers, good
19:42
coffee, and if it must
19:45
be said, good tampons.
19:51
Once upon a time, women far and wide used
19:54
rags to absorb their flow. And in many cases,
19:57
these rags were reused on a general
20:00
basis. Uh, often
20:03
they would wrap bits of moss or weeds and
20:06
grass inside the
20:09
rag to stuff up in there.
20:12
Again, not all of these were inserted. Many
20:15
of them served more as a pad lined with material
20:18
to be worn under the dress to catch the,
20:22
um, byproduct uh,
20:25
one of the shining developments of the
20:27
victorian era is that of chastity belts and
20:30
other such garments worn by women at the time.
20:33
These made strides in m feminine
20:36
hygiene as well. One of these developments was
20:39
a belt that held the pad and their
20:42
absorbent materials in place so
20:45
the woman could move about more freely while
20:47
on her period.
20:50
While this was a european development, there are writings
20:53
detailing the use of tampon type objects
20:56
held in place by a device called a
20:59
comma. In Japan, that's
21:01
K-A-M-A. These would be
21:04
changed up to twelve times throughout the
21:06
day. In other
21:09
cultures, it seems the path through
21:12
the menstruation was to let it ride,
21:15
baby. It was totally common to see
21:17
period, or, uh, to see women with
21:20
period stads on their
21:23
undergarments, often just letting it
21:26
flow when you're outside and
21:28
working. Let it flow, baby. Like,
21:32
some of them had what were called
21:35
period bowls, uh,
21:39
and they served as kind of like a
21:42
dish that they would sit over to
21:45
catch. Now, dear Lord, help us.
21:48
Here's my only thing with this.
21:52
If you are a person now or forever,
21:55
and if you are a female
21:58
human and your path
22:01
forward is the use of a bowl to catch,
22:04
quote the period material here is
22:07
but one rule. There is but one
22:10
rule here. You have to have two
22:12
bowls. You have to. And I know they
22:15
probably didn't have an abundance of bowls back then.
22:18
We have a flipjillion bowls today. But
22:21
if you're going to be catching,
22:24
uh, I've talked about period blood a
22:27
lot, and we're only 20 some minutes in
22:30
here. But if you're catching period
22:32
blood, like you would catch vomit in a
22:35
bowl, you got to have a designated
22:38
monthly bowl like label that crap. It
22:41
should be said there is little data in
22:43
writing about what women used for
22:46
catching the fluids. As it was considered by
22:48
many a topic not to be discussed. It was
22:51
kind of taboo, let alone written about outside of
22:54
medical research. And medical research
22:56
wasn't really high on our priority
22:59
list for some time.
23:02
Unlike many other historical artifacts, we don't
23:05
find many where specific use can be
23:07
determined, because many were discarded,
23:10
burned, or were thrown
23:13
away after being used.
23:17
These rags and
23:19
the period stained rags
23:23
that would result, especially in the time
23:25
period where women were reusing. These are,
23:28
uh, where we get the term on the rag.
23:33
Finally, there existed in the
23:35
early 19 hundreds instructions
23:39
for how to roll and
23:41
fold a piece of fabric to
23:44
serve as a menstrual pad, which could be attached to the
23:47
waist via cord. And as textiles
23:50
and other industry developed, they're developed with
23:53
them materials to assist women
23:56
month to month,
24:04
no time like the present. We might as well go ahead and get the polar
24:07
seltzer flowing here.
24:10
It burns so good.
24:14
The primary menstrual receptacle
24:17
being developed at the time was menstrual
24:20
pads. Pads, if you will.
24:23
Its development coincides directly with
24:26
wartime technology developed to
24:29
help stop the bleeding of wounded soldiers.
24:32
Now, some people credit this
24:34
technology to Benjamin Franklin. Uh, old
24:37
Wendy Ben from last year's 4 July
24:40
episode, he found his way back home here on privy.
24:44
It is said that Ben Franklin, during the
24:47
Revolutionary War era, there's not a lot of
24:50
evidence of this, but that he began
24:52
using these nursing
24:55
pads and suggested that they could be
24:57
used by women as well in stopping
25:00
and catching blood.
25:03
However, by the end of the 18 hundreds,
25:06
menstruation pads became more
25:08
commercially available. Others believe that
25:11
these nurses had begun to rely on
25:14
their nursing cloths and said, well, it's
25:17
good enough to stop this person's flesh wound. We might as
25:20
well stop their monthly bleeding
25:24
in time. Again, these pads became commercially
25:27
available with the inventions of Thomas and
25:30
William Southall's sanitary napkin.
25:33
Now, here's the deal
25:36
number. Why'd you have to call it a napkin? When
25:39
I think of a napkin, I think of me wiping
25:42
schmutz off my face. Pizza
25:44
leavings, chili leavings,
25:49
corn dog leavings, pretty much.
25:52
Oh, ice cream. I have a beard.
25:55
And the thing about having a beard is
25:58
ice cream cones are just a no fly. Like, you're just going
26:01
to get ice cream all up in your beard. You can't
26:04
not. And if you figure out how not
26:06
to, you looked absolutely ridiculous trying to eat an ice cream
26:09
cone. Um. My
26:12
path forward as a beard wearer
26:15
is you just got to fully commit. You just have to commit to
26:18
the mess. S'mores, campfire, s'mores.
26:21
You fully commit to a marshmallow just. It's
26:24
a marshmallow beard in the summer. That's all there is to it,
26:27
and you just gotta let it ride. But I'm just saying, like
26:30
Thomas and William Southall, they called it a sanitary
26:33
napkin. Please, can you not
26:36
just stop calling it a napkin?
26:39
Napkins wipe crumbs off my face.
26:42
Pads sop up bloody
26:44
downstairs material. It's different, dang it. Words
26:47
mean things.
26:51
And while the southalls held the patent, they
26:54
didn't become readily available until after
26:57
1888, when Johnson Johnson family
26:59
company made disposable listers.
27:02
Towels again, towel. Not the exact phrase I'd go
27:05
for there. These relied on the
27:08
technology, again, from nurses cloths to
27:11
absorb bodily fluids and often were
27:13
found using wood pulp. More on that in a little
27:16
bit. And fabric to catch the material. Wood
27:19
pulp turns out pretty absorbent
27:23
either way. Whether it was a variety
27:27
of medical practicing nurses stopping blood
27:30
in the field, or Ben Franklin creating pads
27:33
to stop bleeding in the Revolutionary War,
27:36
maxi pads have their
27:38
start tied to times of
27:41
war and conflict.
27:45
These pads, often called sanitary
27:47
napkins, took off. And
27:50
Kotex. Yep, there you
27:53
are, right behind me.
27:56
It says, absorbs instantly.
28:00
Kotex released their first advertisement
28:03
for these wood pulp pads in
28:05
1921.
28:09
It should be noted early renditions of
28:12
these maxi pads were more
28:14
like bandaids, which,
28:17
if you really think about it, isn't
28:20
that what a pad is like? Isn't a
28:23
maxi pad just a lady bandage for your hoohah? Uh,
28:26
that's what it is. It
28:29
is. These
28:32
sanitary napkins were often advertised
28:35
with a number of belts to keep them in place prior
28:38
to the use of adhesive. Now,
28:42
I must make a confession to you. In doing
28:45
my research, I made a note in my notes here, I said, I got to
28:48
talk about this. Up
28:50
until this week when I was doing
28:53
research for this episode,
28:55
yes, I had to do
28:58
research. Sorry. Um,
29:04
if you would have given me an opportunity to
29:06
explain to you how a woman
29:09
fixes a pad to their
29:11
situation, I would have said that they
29:14
stick the adhesive on the woman's
29:17
skin. I thought it stuck to their skin. Like a
29:20
bandaid sticks on me. Like I'm
29:23
stuck on bandaid brand baby, because bandaid sticks on
29:25
me. I thought the pad stuck
29:28
on them. But I found
29:31
out that you actually
29:34
adhese it to the undergarment.
29:37
So that's fun. It's kind of like a
29:39
reverse bandage.
29:42
The 1980s brought adhesive
29:45
to these maxi pads. From there,
29:47
progress was made to increase absorbency,
29:50
better fit for different undergarments.
29:53
But this little tangent has only explored
29:56
pads, and as we all well know, there's a lot
29:59
of different options for women these days.
30:04
The next probably most
30:06
primarily feminine hygiene
30:08
product is that of the tampon.
30:12
The term tampon, it seems first to
30:15
have been used in 1860 by R. G.
30:18
Maine, who referred to it as an alternative
30:21
term for a vaginal plug. Dear Jesus,
30:24
help my christian soul. But there was
30:27
a time when they tried to stop the period
30:30
by just plugging it up. Pat that cork
30:33
right up in there. Now, this led
30:36
to a number of complications, and
30:38
if it needs be said, hi, I'm Hunter. I'm not a doctor.
30:41
I cannot stress. I am not a medical professional in any
30:44
sort. I'm barely a professional of
30:47
anything. But I'm here
30:50
to tell you, don't plug any of your holes.
30:54
Butthole, pp hole,
30:58
lady part hole, nostril
31:00
hole, ear hole,
31:04
don't plug them. They are meant
31:07
to be open, both for intake,
31:10
not down there, usually. Well, never
31:13
mind. And output,
31:15
primarily peep poop, and in
31:18
women's case, for our episode this week,
31:21
their period. So, if it
31:24
needs to be said, don't plug
31:27
yourself.
31:30
And that was essentially the
31:32
extent of a tampon for centuries.
31:35
It was a plug with some level of absorbency
31:38
attached to it. As the story
31:41
goes, a
31:44
gentleman named Earl Haas, a
31:47
physician in the early 19 hundreds,
31:49
developed a new and more familiar
31:52
device at, uh, the inspiration of his
31:55
friend, who reported
31:57
to have controlled her period by shoving a
32:00
sponge in her cavity. Now, as the
32:03
story goes, Earl took a trip to California, visited his
32:06
friend. His friend. Apparently, they were on the topic of
32:09
having their period, and they
32:11
said, oh, yeah, I just grab a little
32:14
spongeBob squarePants and just skeet him right on up in
32:17
there. Um,
32:20
but I got to say, this probably worked pretty well. Like, it's a
32:22
sponge. Sponge is fine until
32:25
you move about and it squishes the blood, and it's gonna squish
32:28
the blood out. Like, that's what sponges do.
32:31
But there was a very clear problem.
32:35
Inserting and removing the sponge
32:38
meant touching bloody marys of a whole new
32:41
degree. Haas, at this
32:44
inspiration, decided to develop a device
32:47
to insert the cotton, quote, plug
32:50
into the vagina via, uh, cardboard
32:52
applicators, resulting in no touch
32:55
technology and a much more sanitary
32:57
experience. Remember, when we're dealing with body
33:00
blood, we don't want a lot of sanitation
33:03
contamination situations.
33:06
Haas was granted a patent for his device in
33:09
1933 called the
33:11
catamineial device.
33:14
It would turn out, though, that Earl Haas,
33:17
not that much of a salesman, because he was
33:19
unable to sell the device to companies,
33:23
Johnson and Johnson turned him down.
33:26
It would seem that they were still on the listers towels from
33:29
a couple years back, uh, and that this new
33:31
invention, if they put their money there,
33:34
they would have to split their
33:37
revenue in between two competing products.
33:41
Haas finally sold the patent
33:43
and device and the name
33:46
to Gertrude Tendridge for about
33:49
$35,000. Now, this is a long time ago.
33:52
This has been a stack of cash today, too.
33:55
Gertrude Tendritch was a german
33:57
immigrant who, with the newly purchased patent
34:00
rights and business name, worked
34:03
out of her home to start a company for
34:06
tampons with applicators.
34:08
And in true women's day fashion, we got to talk
34:11
about Gertrude tendritch, because
34:14
Gertrude Tendritch took a device
34:16
invented by a man, sold it in a
34:19
way that only a woman could. She hired
34:22
female salespeople. Female production
34:25
people, asked female nurses
34:28
to speak about the product to people, because here
34:31
is the gospel truth of sales.
34:34
No one can sell a product
34:37
quite like the people who love it.
34:40
The biggest proponents for something are the
34:43
people who directly benefit from it. And
34:46
Gertrude knew that, and she put women to the test
34:48
or to the task. She paid for
34:51
females in advertising to promote the
34:54
product. And as she did
34:56
so, her company,
34:59
Tampax, started to
35:01
grow. Hey,
35:04
look, Tampax is back here with me.
35:07
Hey, Tampax, huh?
35:10
Jumbo.
35:13
But early on, there was pushback
35:16
in the area of tampon use.
35:19
Some believed them to be unsafe,
35:22
often citing the unsafe
35:25
practices of early tampons and the
35:27
hemorrhaging and other complications that they
35:30
caused. In
35:32
1945, Tampax,
35:35
the company, began to do research
35:38
and working with medical agencies to study the
35:41
effects of tampons. Tampax.
35:44
Here's the thing. Tampax doesn't just make
35:46
feminine hygiene products. They do the work
35:49
to figure out how to make their feminine hygiene
35:52
better. And what they found
35:55
over the course of about 20 years
35:58
was there's little to no adverse effects from the
36:01
use of tampons. A, uh,
36:04
competitor entered the market in the
36:06
1940s.
36:09
Judith Esser Mitog, a
36:11
german gynecologist, you
36:14
know, she knows what's going on down there.
36:17
Developed, uh,
36:19
applicatorless tampons in
36:22
1940. She sold this idea to the
36:24
Johnson and Johnson family company in the
36:27
1970s, and again up to this
36:30
time, these tampons, when they are
36:33
produced, they are still
36:35
using some amounts of wood
36:38
pulp. Unfortunately,
36:40
wood pulp isn't the most appealing. And
36:44
I can imagine if you saw wood pulp,
36:46
you would not think, you know what? I think I'm going to
36:49
stuff that up inside of me.
36:53
But they said, we can make it appealing
36:55
by introducing chlorine bleach.
36:59
But even more unfortunately,
37:02
it turns out when you bleach wood pulp, it
37:05
gives off a carcinogen when reacting with
37:08
the wood pulp. While the levels
37:11
that these
37:13
toxic chemicals, they went to
37:16
trial. And while the levels were deemed harmless, it
37:19
was also pointed out that no amount of
37:21
carcinogens should be permitted to
37:24
be stuffed up inside of you.
37:27
Couple this with fear, many companies
37:30
began to switch to non chlorine or bleach
37:33
methods of getting their materials produced
37:42
in these United States.
37:46
This led to
37:49
the Tampon Safety and Research act
37:52
in 1997 in an attempt to
37:55
create greater transparency between tampon
37:58
manufacturers and companies and the consumer
38:01
who will be buying and presumably using this
38:04
product, this bill
38:06
continues to mandate for the support of
38:09
research and the extent to additives in
38:12
female hygiene products and whether those
38:15
new additives pose any risk to the health of
38:18
women or the children of women who
38:21
use those products during and before
38:23
pregnancies. Wild thought there.
38:28
This bill is continually renewed. It
38:31
is yet to be passed, and it was most recently
38:34
introduced in 2019.
38:38
Other than this, tampons have
38:41
also been the center of societal
38:44
justice issues related to free access
38:47
to necessary products.
38:49
These calls to end
38:52
taxes on, uh,
38:54
needed and necessary hygiene
38:57
products are called tampon taxes, and
39:00
they've been called to be put a stopped to. And I believe
39:03
it is of this measure and of this nature
39:06
that has led to us here in the state of Oregon,
39:09
stalking tampons in all bathrooms.
39:13
Much of the fibers in a tampon today are
39:16
a combination of rayon and cotton and are considered
39:19
safe in most cases when changed
39:22
appropriately and at the right time. Turns out if you
39:25
don't change it, you can get, like, blood poisoning. Isn't that
39:28
fun? It should be noted,
39:30
outside of pads and tampons,
39:33
there are other options to feminine hygiene products.
39:36
And I'm going to admit, I have to bat to my
39:39
ignorance here, because you could have asked
39:42
me a bajillion times and I'd have said that's all there is to it.
39:47
Pad, plug, or let it ride. Those are your
39:49
options. But one other option is a
39:52
device called the menstrual cup. Now,
39:56
oh, jeez. This thing,
40:00
first of all, why does it have to be somewhat wiener
40:03
shaped like,
40:06
pray tell, why must it be somewhat wiener
40:08
shaped? But this thing is like a
40:11
little rubber cup that you just yoink up your zone.
40:14
Zone. Not my zone. I don't have a zone for
40:16
yoinking, but that gets
40:19
yanked up the zone to collect the
40:22
blood. Big yuck on that.
40:25
You just get a cup full of period blood.
40:28
And I also feel like this thing's going to
40:30
spill.
40:33
What if you lay down? God
40:36
forbid. How the heck does that
40:39
work? So you install your cup and
40:42
then, oh, whoops, I went prone,
40:44
and now I've got cup
40:47
slosh going all over the place
40:50
down here. No thanks, friend. One wrong
40:53
turn and you're going to dump the whole cup.
40:56
Similar to this, and seemingly to hold
40:59
less fluid, is the menstrual disc. It's
41:02
the same idea. This seems to just, like, catch and
41:05
pool it. And then
41:08
I'm getting, uh, wonky
41:11
feeling. But I think as the
41:14
menstrual disc fills,
41:17
maybe like you find yourself over a
41:20
toilet or maybe one of those sweet period bowls that we talked about
41:23
earlier, and then you pull it
41:26
out. Yuck. And then it just
41:28
like, flow, flow, flow into
41:31
the toilet from there. Um, dear
41:34
God, help us all. Um,
41:37
these seem weird and bad to me.
41:41
I don't know if I want to know
41:44
how widely used these are. Um,
41:48
I think it's like people being circumcised.
41:52
Bear with me, friends. Um,
41:55
there are people that walk around in our world that
41:58
are not circumcised. Full philistines
42:00
downstairs. And
42:03
you just don't know. Like, you don't know what you
42:06
don't know. And they could be walking amongst us right now.
42:10
Same can be said for users of the
42:13
menstrual cup and the menstrual disc. They could just be
42:16
walking amongst us. And I think the way to test this
42:19
is to say, lie down immediately. And if they're afraid to do that, they're
42:22
probably one of these people. Um, but there's a lot going
42:25
on here. And these last two, the cup and
42:28
the disc, seem to have arisen out of
42:31
a desire to reduce waste.
42:34
Tampons create waste. They're
42:37
tough on sewers. The plastics clog things up,
42:40
and they go into landfills, et
42:42
cetera, et cetera. I think that's why we've
42:45
got cardboard applicators. Yeehaw. Huh?
42:49
But one more thing that is foreign
42:52
to me in this world of feminine
42:54
hygiene. And the things that go on
42:57
here is
43:00
the little silly little trash cans next to the
43:03
toilet. Now, for years, I didn't know what this
43:06
was about. I didn't know what was going on here. But
43:08
these are used to dispose
43:11
of tampons and other feminine
43:14
hygiene waste before it is flushed,
43:17
because, friends, you're not supposed to flush
43:20
some of these things. Much of this material
43:23
is not supposed to be flushed.
43:25
Uh, it will swell up and
43:28
clog your pipes. And they have
43:31
created these tiny little trashes in these
43:34
areas to stop
43:36
women from flushing it all down.
43:39
Quit flushing your tampons, ladies. Stop that.
43:42
Don't flush your pads. I'm
43:45
pretty sure you don't flush menstrual cups
43:49
or discs. Just don't flush
43:52
it. Throw it in the trash. It's fine. Take your trash out more often.
43:55
It's fine. Just do
43:57
that.
44:03
We learned a lot today here on privy. We grew as
44:06
people. I grew as a human male
44:08
person. I learned a lot. Ladies, happy
44:11
women's day. Um, international women's day. Uh,
44:14
I'm sorry that you have to deal with these things. It
44:17
seems like a lot of effort and generally an awful experience.
44:20
Uh, so hats off to you for, I guess, putting up with
44:23
it. But this brings us to the end of another episode of
44:26
Privy. Thank you so much for being here. If you stayed
44:29
here and listened to me talk about feminine hygiene
44:32
for the last 45 minutes, you're a real champion.
44:35
We love you, and we would love
44:38
it if now we could shill
44:41
you for a rating and review. Open up
44:43
that Apple podcast and Spotify.
44:46
Or you can go to the podbean app and like the episode too,
44:49
but leave us a rating or review. The five star options are
44:52
preferred. And what that does is, number one,
44:55
primarily, it helps other people find the show. The
44:58
more ratings it gets, the more it'll kind of bump up in
45:00
the categories that this podcast is hooked to.
45:04
Um, so go do that. As
45:06
a thank you for doing that,
45:09
we at privy will be
45:12
donating a dollar to the Wounded warriors
45:15
project and to living water International as
45:18
a way of saying thank you for leaving us a
45:21
rating and review. The five star options are preferred,
45:24
and that's just a reminder that we should keep pooping in the
45:27
free world. But that free world was not always free, and we need
45:30
to work towards some cleaner water for all. Uh,
45:32
so go do that. Thank you for doing so. For those who
45:35
have left ratings and review, leave us a written review
45:38
on Apple Podcasts. We'll read that here. Uh,
45:41
and those written reviews, we'll bump it up. A couple of bucks
45:44
for those are super great. We'd love to hear from you.
45:47
Send us an email,
45:48
privycast@gmail.com. We'd love to read those
45:51
emails here. Um, if you want to be a part
45:54
of this show, hit us up,
45:56
privycast@gmail.com. Let me know. Do you have a story? Do
45:58
you want to set me straight on feminine hygiene, what have you?
46:01
We would love for you to do that. Follow us on
46:04
social media. We're at Privycast. I'm at owlett
46:07
seven on all social media. Go check us out
46:10
there. Thanks to Kevin and Pottington for the use of their
46:13
music this week. Thanks to women for being women and putting up
46:15
with my nonsense as I mansplained, period, kids
46:18
and feminine hygiene. Uh, this has been another
46:21
episode of Privy Pete, pooping in the free world. Breathe
46:24
more, push less. And now, as always,
46:27
don't forget to flush.