Listen to MUM director Harry Finley carry on about men
and menstruation, the MUM museum in his basement, toxic shock, etc., on
the Keeper menstrual cup site. No, they didn't pay me.
ABOUT MUM (MUseum
of Menstruation):
"May God close your horable museum."
From a letter, with original spelling, to
the Museum of Menstruation, from "Shocked, by women," mailed from
Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.A.
"Consider how Surg. Gen. Koop
changed the country! . . . Carry on!" Judge Giles S. Rich (retired),
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Washington, D. C.
(from a letter to me)
Comments from TV,
online and other media about this museum.
Three listeners' comments (more) from my
half-hour interview with Howard Stern (here):
° "Get a life, creep."
° "[I] am quite familiar with the obstacles
to a frank and intelligent discussion of menstruation." (Nancy
Freedman, author of Everything You Must Know About
Tampons, 1981)
° "I was just listening to your interview
with Howard Stern. You handled yourself very well with him. He lambastes
just about anyone with a peculiar interest, but you had him very much in
check. I was amazed!"
"Stick to jock itch products,
buddy." In a commentary about the museum and its creator in
the defunct Sassy, an American magazine
for teenage girls.
"Terrifically diverse" - The Independent on
Sunday (London, England)
"It's fabulous that somebody
out there is willing to . . . pull back the curtain." Mona Miller,
national media relations director of the Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, discussing the museum in The
Prince George's Journal, Maryland, U.S.A.
"One of the best on the Internet"
- Britannica.com
"This gem
of a website is a virtual repository for everything
you ever
wanted to know about women's periods." - New
Scientist magazine (United Kingdom)
"More interesting than you might
think. . . . lively." The V Book: A Doctor's
Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health, by Elizabeth G. Stewart, M.D.,
of Harvard medical school and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.
More media on MUM
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Current articles & news below
From America
Sambo Adams
Mr. Y'know
Mortimer Menses
Menstruos
Ovulatoes
From China
M
Auntie/Mother's eldest sister/Senior Aunt
That thing
Unclean/dirty thing
Is it right to tax menstrual products?
Help this tax payer learn more.
The Art of Menstruation:
Two more pictures by Dr. Nelson Soucasaux
Take THAT, fatness and falling wombs!
Oh, and take Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound.
And read her Home Exercises!
***NOTICE***
I regret I can't let visitors use the actual museum archives; I dismantled
the museum itself
years ago. The vast majority of the museum's 5-6 thousand items are already
packed for shipment to Australia's largest museum (read
more), their destination if I can't find a suitable
display home in the U.S.A., which looks like the case. I must spend most
of my time now on a time-consuming career as a picture-painter in order to eat.
Articles continue below the ad(s)
Current articles & news below
New words and expressions
about menstruation (including from China),
letters, and more in the next update, Sunday,
29 June.
"Care for a slice of spice cake with your douche, Ma'am?"
Read the Lydia Pinkham Come into the Kitchen
recipe 'n' hygiene booklet, about 1930.
"Complex Changes In The Brain's Vascular
System Occur After Menopause
" In a new study, researchers at the University of Missouri have discovered
significant changes in the brain's vascular system when the ovaries stop
producing estrogen. MU scientists predict that currently
used estrogen-based hormone therapies may complicate this process and may
do more harm than good in postmenopausal women." Read
the article.
New words and expressions
about menstruation (U.S.A.):
PYRAMID
"Hello. I have another word that I didn't see on the menstruation list.
My sister and I have started calling it 'pyramid,' which sounds like period,
but guys can't understand it. It actually started on a Mexico trip about
7 years ago, when my friends and i were visiting the pyramids. A few years
later it came back to my memory, and we've been using it ever since. ****
- Tampa, Florida"
"Hormone Disorder May Contribute To Lack Of Menstruation
In Teenage Athletes
"ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) - Researchers from Harvard
University have found a way to predict which teenage female athletes will
stop menstruating, an important risk factor for bone thinning, according
to a preliminary study.
"Amenorrhea, or absence of menstruation, occurs in as
many as 25 percent of female high school athletes, compared with 2 to 5
percent in the general population, . . ." Read
complete article.
Does the moon influence menstruation?
A Harvard medical school professor and MacArthur Award winner writes - it looks that way.
How did women get rid of used pads
and rags in the past? A reader writes.
"Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome Linked
To Irregular Menstrual Cycles, Premenstrual Symptoms In Women" More.
A woman visitor likes this museum
"I think the website is great!
"I think young girls who are SO
EMBARRASSED about getting their periods and talking about it need to
realize that EVERY woman on this earth has to deal with it also, and that
there IS humor in it too.
"They need to see the website."
Next update (Sunday): More Would you stop menstruating if you could?
and
a reader comments about what women used in the past.
Dirty-book alert!
A German TV personality, Charlotte Roche, has just made waves - hurricane-force
waves, actually - with her novel Feuchtgebiete (Moist
Regions), which over-the-top (or along-the-bottom) explores the
nooks and crannies of the heroine's body and what goes on there - or, more
to the point, what doesn't go on. "Peeking out at the audience
[at a reading from her novel] from under dark brown bangs, speaking in a
childish voice that accentuated her transgressions against propriety, Ms.
Roche explained, to howls of laughter, how the lemon-scented products called
out to her in uncensored terms that she was, as the commercials put it,
not so fresh, or at least not fresh enough.
"'It's not feminist in a political sense, [she said,]
but instead feminism of the body, that has to do with anxiety and repression
and the fear that you stink, and this for me is clearly feminist, that one
builds confidence with your own body, . . .'" (New
York Times). The book appears in America next year under the title Wetlands,
I believe.
I've ordered the German original and
might translate small excerpts for you.
Not being "fresh" and
"dainty," of course, is a theme of the
Web site you're now on, a Leidenslied sung by advertising.
Tampax booklet, 1990, translated from Norwegian
into English
Always Changing puberty booklet from - what else,
Always menstrual pads!
Another contribution to
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
"Irregular Menstrual
Cycles In Teens May Be Warning Sign Of Bulimia" Whole
article.
Does estrogen make women want to feel powerful
and have control? Maybe.
Daints tampons (1930s),
"For the Woman of Charm"
Dating the San-Nap-Pak tampon - no, no, I
mean determining the date of the tampon!
"Irregular Menstrual Cycles In Teens May Be
Warning Sign Of Bulimia" Read the article.
Lil-lets mini tampons ad from the U.K.
Nikini menstrual panties ads from England
More words and expressions
about menstruation:
"I am not sure if you are still taking nicknames for periods [yes!], but what me and my friends called it
when we were little was 'The Red Dot of Doom'
or 'The Red Dawn has Arrived.' We called it
the 'Red Dot of Doom' when we were little because we were so terrified of
getting it! As for 'The Red Dawn has Arrived' we used that when talking
about it in school. Sincerely, ****, age 14 Ps. Love the menstrual
cup dress (lol)"
EZO, a Tampax knock-off for Hollywood actresses?
Many new words and expressions
about menstruation:
TNSFF, ragdoll,
What a bloody mess! shark
bait, chumming the waters, dying
the beard red, I'm a ragdoll. (read
the users' thought processes.)
Black & red cans containing contraceptive
& menstrual sponges
(American? First half of the 20th century?)
More Words and expressions
about menstruation:
"Another name a girl friend of mine and her hubby made up was
that it's Blow Job Season. ****"
The Art of Menstruation: Megan Morris
A contraceptive/menstrual sponge in a cardboard
box
Humor
More Words and expressions
about menstruation:
"Hi Harry, First off, I LOVE the MUM site.
I'm just writing to elaborate on the expression the
monkey has a nosebleed as a reference to menstruation. A few years
ago I heard the saying the circus is closed, the monkey
has a nosebleed. Since that day when referring to having my 'monthly
visitor,' I say, 'the circus is closed, the monkey has a nosebleed.' I don't
think it's a very popular saying however it sure does get a good laugh from
whoever hears it. ****"
"Hi,
"I'm an Irish teenager and thought you'd like some more
expressions used in Ireland.
"Most common are euphemisms like 'I've got woman things/the
woman thing', 'I'm not able to swim', 'I've got my flows' or 'I've got my
flowers.' Some men refer to menstruation as 'Munster playing at home' (a
reference to the red colours employed by the Munster rugby team). In the
Irish language menstruation is most commonly referred to as 'ta cursai mna
agam' (I've got woman things- the word 'cursai' is ambiguous but generally
means events). Also heard are 'i got/have my friend', 'I've the visitor'
and 'I'm menstruating/ have my menstruations' is becoming quite popular
when referred to in a kind of playful way. It also has to be pointed out
that verbal flexibility is highly prized and phrases vary hugely from person
to person."
More letters to Would you stop
menstruating if you could?
Letters to your MUM:
Pancake-uterus video, research proposal, PMS & epilepsy, oral contraception
danger, and more.
From a writer in Israel: "The new IUD, Mirena, stops menstruation
while it is in. I'm 30, and still having children, but as soon as I've had
my family, I certainly plan to get Mirena."
Tampax sells its tampons to dealers with
a slick folder, 1964.
Music & curing women, men and hogs:
"The stomach of a hog needs cleaning out once
in a while . . . ." You do too!
Find out how in The 20th Century Song Book (1904)
from the Chattanooga Medicine Company
Red dragon
"I have one that I didn't see. My good friend who's a guy always refers
to it as the 'red dragon.' Red as in blood and dragon as in the girl's temperament
at that time."
Read more
Words and expressions about menstruation
Stress worsens endometriosis
Read
a study.
EEEK! What's a man doing here? Why, this eighty-year-old
is attesting to the effectiveness of Black Draught in
Home Treatment for Women, probably before 1920.
Your WASP grandparents enjoy a Coke 'n' Kotex
in a series of Kotex ads for teenagers from the
1940s-1950s.
Your mega-WASP great grandparents enjoy - Whoops! Your great grandmother drags your great-great-grandmother into the
20th century in a series of Kotex ads from the
1920s.
New contribution to Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Wrapping boxes of Kotex, pregnant in public,
and sending washable pads to African girls
Menstruation has its own radio program in France!
Aurore, the blogmistress of
http://lesangdesfemmes.over-blog.com
invites you to visit and listen to the (French)
Canal Sud 92.2 FM, www.canalsud.net in Toulouse / France
for "Le Sang des Femmes", "The Women's Blood" on this
independant radio
"Why Synthetic Estrogens Wreak Havoc On Reproductive
System
"ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2008) - Researchers at
Yale School of Medicine now have a clearer understanding of why synthetic
estrogens such as those found in many widely-used plastics have a detrimental
effect on a developing fetus, cause fertility problems, as well as vaginal
and breast cancers." More.
Kotex' tampon's Tell
It Like It Is (1981)
warned about the recent toxic shock crisis although not by name.
Russian artist Vladislav Shabalin creates sculpture for this museum - and see his other work
"Modern[e] woman's best friend" -
yours? Did the company that makes Kotex pads make the first commercial tampon?
The menstrual cycle and The Pill (oral contraceptives)
change the performance of a western classical female singer according
to an article in Musica Scientiae, Vol 11, No. 2, Fall 2007. "[T]he
singer reported better voice control during oral contraceptive pill use,"
etc. But . . .
"Certain Oral Contraceptives May
Pose Health Risks, Study Suggests
"ScienceDaily (Mar. 11, 2008) - The widely used
synthetic progestin medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) decreased endothelial
function in premenopausal women in a study done at the University of Oregon.
The finding, researchers said, raises concerns about long-term effects of
MPA and possibly other synthetic hormones on vascular health in young women."
Read the story.
And . . .
"Structure Of Brain Receptor Implicated
In Epilepsy And Pre-Menstrual Tension Determined
"ScienceDaily (Mar. 11, 2008) - Scientists have
identified the structure of a receptor in the brain implicated in conditions
such as epilepsy and pre-menstrual tension. The same receptor has also been
reported to be highly sensitive to alcohol." Read the story.
How shall I tell my daughter? puberty booklet,
1981
Do menstrual cups reduce period pain? Comments
from the boss of Femmecup, a company in the U.K.
Beaver & tampon TV ad in Australia
for Kotex's U products: - no, really!
(for non-Anglos: "beaver" is slang for women's genitals):
And speaking of that wild country:
What's she selling?! Um, beaver? Libra
menstrual pads.
She'd kill for pantyliners?? Libra, 1996
Abortion, coming right up! Ergoapiol (1904)
For many Dutch women, an out-of-reach black dress. Nefa
menstrual pads, 1954.
1936 Sears catalog offered a zoo of menstrual
products.
New menstrual cup (What are cups?)
Hi, I love your site and I am a cup user. I just heard about a new brand
of cups that is one the market (I believe in Finland. [It looks to me to
be the Czech Republic.]) The website is http://www.ladycup.eu/.
They just came out in January.
Thanks for your website.
****
Tampax to you: "Don't take advantage of your
husband [!]"
Understand? OK, now read "it's time you knew .
. . ," 1966
Dutch booklet about menstruation,
with much American English, from Libresse, 2007
The art of menstruation: Spanish woman Isa Sanz
Not quite new, but . . .: Words and expressions about menstruation: On the blob, Blobbing
"My usual term for menstruation is 'on the blob', it might be
a Plymouth (Devon, UK) thing as a school friend used to refer to it as 'blobbing.'"
Interesting article about the invisibility of
menses on reality tv: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/period-pieces
The producers of PBS's "Frontier House" and folks at Plimoth
Plantation, a Massachusetts museum, both mentioned in this article, called
me years ago to ask what women used for menstruation in those times. I suggested
"nothing" - they didn't want to hear
that.
Judith Esser designed the o.b. tampon . . .
. . . and she used it - in a Belgian ad, anyway.
Watch out! She's on her (bi)cycle!
Stayfree folder for teenage girls, 1980
That's a warning! Early American disposable
Southall's ads
"Hi, I am from Assam, India. I grew up in a Muslim
family. But the surrounding was mostly Vaishnavite Hindus.
In my family we used the words 'she is not well,' which means she is having
her periods. And our Hindu friends used to say 'she can not' to mean the
same thing. In my family and in most of the Muslim families it was a hush
hush thing, nobody said it openly in front of others that someone is having
her periods. But the Hindu families were quite open about it. But the women
of their families were exempted from household chores during the days of
menstruation because a menstruating woman was thought to be 'unclean' .
But in Muslim families they could go on with their life as usual. Regards,
****"
Planned Parenthood wrote a clear, short booklet with nothing to sell you:
Having Your Period, 1985.
"Periodically . . . feeling down"?
I can't believe he said that.
The Associated Press reported that Barack Obama
said to reporters, "I understand that Senator
Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as
a way of trying to boost her appeal." Read
the story.
Speaking of which, kinda:
"The group has also shown that the serotonin system in healthy women
differs from that in women with serious premenstrual
mental symptoms. These results suggest that the serotonin system
in such women does not respond as flexibly to the hormone swings of the
menstrual cycle as that in symptom-free women." Read the story.
"Essence of Womanhood": Modess napkin
& tampon tell-all menstruation booklet, 1959
Hillary Rodham Clinton's classmate might have
been wrong!
About whether women who live together have menstrual periods at the same
time, that is. The latest from the New York Times.
Watch rare positive TV treatment of menstruation
On 12 Feb. (9 pm PST, 8 CT, 7 EST) in the U.S.A. the family sitcom
"According to Jim" (ABC) will feature Helynna Brooke's First
Moon Passage to Womanhood Kit (www.celebrategirls.com),
according to one source.
"Hello! I love your website; I've referred
a lot of friends to it. I was just browsing and found this site: http://www.artgoddess.com/purses.htm
. While not directly menstruation related, it still gave me a good laugh
to imagine walking around with such a purse! Thanks!"
"Can a woman's period save her life years
later?" Article
from the New York Times
The tiny pad is back, now a bit different as UniqueMiniform,
and it's looking for dealers (company site)
How years ago Italian women made
and marked their washable menstrual pads: New
info from a Canadian museum staff member
MoonCup menstrual
cup widely available in the U.K.
A student at Oxford U. writes, in part,
"Starting in April, I will be conducting some small-scale research
here in Oxford, where I will interview women at my college about products
they use. I don't know if you're aware, but MoonCups seem to be more widely
available in the U.K. than menstrual cups generally are in the U.S. I've
seen them in your average pharmacy here, whereas you'd never see something
like a Keeper in CVS [an American drugstore]. (Instead is another story
entirely.) Women at my college can even get MoonCups
for free starting this year, paid for by the student union. The emergence
and availability of this product excites my sociological mind, so I will
be interviewing/surveying women to see how they interact with and feel about
the cup. I'm also interesting in the definition of 'alternative' when applied
to menstrual products."
By the way, I have much catching up to do in adding information generous
people have sent to MUM, including the menstrual cup
section, which badly needs undating. Some of you are aware of the murder
of my cats and neighborhood drugdealing, which have caused me to look for
a new place to live. This takes time and a huge amount of energy, which
I hope I have.
See the fabulous "The Art of Lee Miller"
exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (26 January - 27 April) and read
the eye-popping story about her in The New Yorker (21 Jan. issue).
She was a model and photographer who lead a very, um, interesting and productive
life. Picasso painted her and Man Ray photographed her and . . . your Museum
of Menstruation and Women's Health shows her menstruation
ads for Kotex!
These are girls?! Two Kotex ads, 1923,
for a girls' magazine
The Dutch tampon Amira absorbs the famous blue
liquid!
Is the Miniform back?
A tiny pad designed to fit between the lips of
a woman's vulva went off the market several years ago but I'm told it's
for sale again. Several women e-mailed the museum to say they missed it!
Check back for any information I receive.
Hello! A couple of British contributions for your impressive
euphemisms collection:
1. 'On the blob' - at school it was accepted for being on
your period to be described so,
2. and the presence of a tampon(tail, mouse) as noticed
by my boyf[riend], means he refers to me, and my period, as 'mousehouse'.
You have a wonderful website!
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP in SEXUAL & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH at The Kinsey Institute. More
More help for British women! Menstrual pad in a tube (1930s?)
"Can a tampon get lost in the body?" asks a German girl.
"Heck, no!" replies Tampax in an ad, 1989!
Feminine-hygiene-spray language in a reveal-all
book about the travel industry
"'Every description sounded as if it had been lifted from a feminine-hygiene-spray
commercial,' he writes of one of Mr. Steves's Eastern European video tours.
'Seas glistened. Cities sparkled. Hungary was a "goulash" of influences.
And, of course, the Croatian city of Split was the usual fascinating blend
of ancient and modern.'" Read the book
review in the new York Times. And see model Cheryl
Tiegs in a spray ad, and a funny ad for Pristeen.
"Bad
PMS May Mean A Depressed Nervous System"
"However, women suffering from PMS saw results reflecting autonomic
and parasympathetic nerve activity decrease significantly in the late luteal
phase, which precedes menstruation. Those with the most marked symptoms
(known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder) had lower rates of nerve activity
than the other groups during the entire menstrual cycle."
New words and expressions
about menstruation from China:
"Firstly thank you for this wonderful website which I just discovered
today. I'd like to add a couple of phrases to the Chinese section, although
I'm not sure if they are only specific to Taiwan.
"The term that seems to be used professionally is 'MC'
which I assume stands for 'monthly cycle'.
"Many young women call it 'my good friend'
(the contributor gave apparently the actual Chinese for each expression
but they did not appear coreectly in my e-mail) or sometimes simply 'that'.
"We also often say 'I feel a bit uncomfortable.'
When I was at primary school in England a group of my (pre-menstrual) friends
decided to christen it 'Fred' as a convenient
way of checking whether anyone had got their first period 'Have you seen
Fred yet?'
"Are there culturally specific words/phrases for one's first period?
My friend wrote me a letter stating that 'something
had happened to her', and her mother told her 'she
wasn't a little girl anymore'. My mother asked
me if I knew about periods, then sent me to see my sister! Once again,
thank you for the website."
A kind e-mailer translates some
Hebrew on a box of tampons and unwittingly contributes to the intellectual
rigor of the Museum of Menstruation Winter Ball!
Menstrual napkin belts from Boots and Dr. White, U.K.
"I've used Instead [menstrual cup] both
before and after having my children. I found it easier to properly insert
afterward. It does take some practice. I only had a leak once that I can
recall and it wastual to improper insertion. Yes, disposal is different.
Usually they are easy to 'empty' into the toilet and then wrap as you would
any other throw away product. I once found myself in a situation where it
would have been obvious, so I dumped, flushed, rinsed it out, and 'pocketed'
it for discreet disposal elsewhere. I highly recommend them for times where
you want to be confident and clean. Again, once you area able to insert
it properly, you don't feel it. Very similar to a contraceptive diaphragm."
A Menstrual Mystery!
A Tampax knock-off for Israel from Switzerland?
New Words and expressions
about menstruation:
"My family has always called it Easter
Time, both to disguise it from strangers and from the family's children.
I don't know why, if it's some sort of sarcasm. But calling it Easter
naturally leads on to sanitary pads being called Easter
Eggs, which is a convenient thing to write on your shopping list."
New expression: "I have no idea if you're still updating your
collections of euphemisms [of course]--and frankly,
this is the opposite of a euphemism anyway--but I always tell my female
friends that I'm 'bleeding the lining of my uterus
through my sexual organs.' It's a delightfully graphic description
of how I feel at the moment. I'm a 17-year-old San Diegan (very Southern
California)" She later elaborated: "It definitely
captures all the discomforts of menstruation -- cramping,
irritability, the general feel that your body is 'out to get you'
-- and the complete lack of interest in anything involving sex, or pleasing
men. Plus, it sounds like a great justification for copious consumption
of chocolate and general grumpiness; after all, it's graphic enough to
sound like an injury. 'Bleeding the lining of your uterus through your
sexual organs' sounds a lot more serious than being 'on your period'; it
just /sounds/ more painful." More Words and expressions about menstruation.
The Kotex Rosie the Riveter?
World War II ads in America and the Netherlands
Scientists find stem
cells in menstrual blood!
Women View Men's
Faces Differently Depending On The Stage Of Their Menstrual Cycle
The first contured menstrual pad and with disposal
wrapper?
In World of a girl, puberty booklet for Confidets
pads (1965), U.S.A.
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Discover the rich history of menstruation and women's health on this
Web site - MUM for short - devoted to menstruation and selected topics of women's
health!
 
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