I started off like everyone else I knew who's body was headed in the decidedly uncomfortable direction of female puberty (I make no comments on male puberty having not had the first hand experience.) As far as I know I was the first girl in my class to actually need a bra, not to say I was the first one wearing a bra but some people are very into that whole training thing... though I can speak from experience and say that those things don't need to be trained to do a thing. Anyway, I'm almost certain that I was the first in my class to go out and buy one of those horrific contraptions we all know and love, the under-wire bra. In my defense I didn't know there was another option. Why? Because every store out there sells an abundance of under-wire instruments of torture along with sports-bras, and lovely little non-supportive strappy bits that really only fit A or B cups (something I haven't been for a LONG time) and add a little aesthetic touch in the bedroom. It wasn't until I got pregnant that I was introduced to the supportive wireless bra, which is not only for pregnant and nursing women, damnit. My first issue with the under-wire is of course the discomfort factor, totally discounting that lovely feeling when the wire breaks through the side of the bra and starts jabbing you in the armpit, the damn thing certainly assures you that you're supported... by constricting sensitive parts of the body. Second is strictly to do with breastfeeding and it's lovely ability to encourage clogging in the milk ducts, an unpleasant experience as many women can attest. Third are other health reasons. I'm sure alot of us have heard the urban myth about underwires causing breast cancer, super scary, but no proof... What is an issue is pressure points, they're all over the body including under the breast and armpit, not a lovely thing to put constant pressure on, I'm told these include pressure points for the Liver, Gall Bladder and stomach. I knew they couldn't be good for me! Of course now I'm shopping for bras sans nursing flap and wireless bras are like needles in the haystack of plastic-capped metal crescents.
Moving right along, I've ranted about bras now let's shift our attention to the wonders of menstruation, the next in a long line of idiocies. There is a horrible stigma put on the bleeding woman, people joke and laugh kind of nervously. If you're young and just getting used to it you hide it as much as humanly possible, try not to admit it, and if you've run out of pads/tampons in school it's one of the most mortifying experiences to have to approach a female staff member and hope she has something that you can use. We've been taught to look at this mark of an amazing ability with shame, You can create life! Granted it takes more than a fertile woman to create life but you can bear it, you cradle it inside you as it grows... Now, anyone who's talked to me about pregnancy knows that my general opinion is that pregnancy is just a series of unpleasant experiences with moments of grace; but oh, that grace is awe inspiring and the ultimate result is priceless. But I digress, back to the bleeding. In times with less light and chemical polution women were synced up with the moon, their cycles coming just as regularly, how kick-ass is that? OK, it's uncomfortable but there are herbs and tinctures that can help deal with that (Chastetree, for one.) OK, it's messy... here's where we come to the issue. Your average girl/woman is presented with two choices, or rather two choices with about a thousand sub-choices, tampons or pads... Tampons - Large, slim, medium, etc Pads/Sanitary Napkins (Lord and Lady it sounds like you just had a little spill and blood just happens to be flowing from your nethers) - long, slim, wide, with wings, super absorbency, the list goes on and on... and on. All of it synthetic and, in my experience, none of it comfortable. Synthetic, it is non biodegradable! Your average woman goes through something like 5 of any of these products a day, over the course of 4 - 7 days we're talking 35 a month, 220 a year, from the year that it starts until menopause. ummm.. Yikes!
There are other answers! Cloth pads, upside: reusable & way more gentle on your skin, downside: more laundry and cleaning blood out of cloth. Sea Sponge Tampons, upside: reusable & no association with TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome), downside: you have to clean it out to use it again (I have no personal experience there.) Menstrual cups, menstrual cups are something special, the first time I heard about it the only thing that crossed my mind was a great resounding "EWWWWWW!" Menstrual cups are small rubber cups that are inserted kind of like a tampon only instead of absorbing they simply collect, they collect quite a bit actually and get emptied out a few times a day. Once you get past the "ewwww" factor and think of the upshot it's actually a pretty nifty little contraption. No extra laundry, no major cleaning, no big environmental impact, as far as I've heard no risk of TSS, no nasty chemicals rubbing around where nasty chemicals oughtn't be. Of course I'd already been doing the nasty chemicals drill for nine years before I found out that these things existed... Wait? I can be comfortable? during my period?
I mentioned diets at the beginning of this rant. Diets is a hard one, I think that western civilization as a whole needs to relearn how to eat. This is, actually, a fairly wide spread opinion if you're looking for it. Diet pills drive me crazy, they don't teach you anything useful so once you're done you regain what you've lost and then some. Diet fads are just as bad, binge dieting followed by the inevitable binge eating that, again, comes from not having learned how our bodies work. It doesn't help that anyone paying attention at a news stand, grocery store, or in the comfort of their own livingroom with the TV on is being presented with unreasonable goals, a lot of which are airbrushed beyond reason. What happened to being healthy? Honestly! What happened to that being a standard for beauty? There are woman who are naturally as thin as a high fashion supermodel and yes they are beautiful, but mixed in with them are some scary looking women who's over pronounced cheek bones tell a somewhat different story. The female form is beautiful, it's curvy and luscious and tells a story all it's own for whoever has the guts to actually look. If you are broad shouldered and busty, there is no way you will fit our society's ideal beauty line, if you are too short, if your torso isn't long enough, if your legs aren't long enough, if you're too long or lanky, what the hell are we doing to ourselves?! Get comfortable! I'm not advocating getting nice and comfortable sinking into your favorite chair (though at the end of the day that is nice.) Your body knows when it's healthy, if you are wheezing after a flight of stairs, if you can't take a nice afternoon walk, if you are unable to do comfortably the things that you want or need to do to get through the day, then adjustments may need to be made. But somebody please, can we chuck the unrealistic expectations? Can we focus on health and just get comfortable?
OK... uhmmm... Rant ended.
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