Doesn't seem to download right but I heard enough. Scary stuff. Reminds me of my solitary, high-school sex-ed film,(b/w, of course). It showed a microshot of all those little sperm chasing each other in their journey. I was not impressed.
When requests for intimate encounters were later proferred, I was very careful to not get caught swallowing all those little, live and wriggling tadpole things.
That was a prominent decision that I kept to for decades a long time.
There was an interesting article on sex ed on the NYT, and covered extensively on blogrunner.
Nowadays I get my updates from The Village Voice
*jaded leer*
This reminds me of when I first got my period. It was in the gym locker room at high school, and I'd been having such a nice daydream naked in the shower. Then I noticed some blood, and was a little concerned, so I asked my school chums. Well, they were so helpful and nice, they all tossed tampons and maxi pads at me, and we had quite a laugh! Then I went home and mother told me I had sinned and should sit in the prayer closet with Jesus for a little while before dinner. What a special day that was!
Hm, well. The fillum I watched in the early 1950s in jr. high school was a lot more specific than that. But, yeah, they did have separate performances for boys and girls. Not sure if they showed the boys the same thing, though, since we all seemed to be to embarrassed to discuss what we'd seen. (If they'd called it "sex education" at that time, I'd bet that none of us would have seen it. They just kind of sneaked it in.)
But the girls I knew had been given a bit of education a few years before the films were shown. Mothers, who were really too embarrassed to discuss sex with their daughters gave them books, which went into even more detail on the physical side of maturing, sometimes to a confusing point.
And none of them really talked about sex. All we knew was the physical change that led up to having babies, with some kind of weird details on how babies were conceived. I say "weird" because no-one indicated that there was any pleasure involved in conception, or the possiblitly of having the pleasure without conception.
Ah. That day in grade school. Hush-hush, rumors, giggling girls. "Ok kids, go out to the yard. ONLY the kids." Some sneaky (*cough*) brats trying to peep thru the window blinds as to what the heck those two nice women in suits that arrived that morning were telling to the girls that we couldn't hear.
After the two saleswomen from a personal hygienics company ended their infomercial, the girls left the classroom. Giggling and red-cheeked and snottier than usual. A couple pale-faced, red-eyed. A couple small groups looking contemptously to others, sizing up the boys.
We storm into the classroom. The smudged remains of some hastily erased diagrams ("that looks like a tree..."). The only thing remaining was a calendar.
Some of the kids began to copy it on their notebooks. When out teacher came back, she saw this and shouted "No, DON'T copy that!".
It would be another year before we got an explanation, complete with sterile diagrams and lots of gaps in the narrative, in mixed company.
It was quite a letdown.
The rest of that record is on many file sharing networks. Search for sex education.
If you want period instruction that is just plain surreally wrong in soooo many ways, try this. (Probably NSFW or kids or anyone)
You mean your moms didn't just have packages of maxi pads in the bathroom, or yell for you to bring them one if they were out? I knew just about everything except how to insert a tampon (she didn't use them) by the time I was six or so.
It did take me years to realise there were brands other than what she bought. It was so liberating.
And it happens every month, "even before a girl is married", because marriage has nothing to do with reproduction! (Though you'd never know by this tract - it seems to imply that it's the little gold band that makes you fertile. Not exactly the best thing if you want to be sure your kids aren't pregnant before they get to the alter.)
spartacusroosevelt - just watched the film. It was very repeditive, but was pretty informative and very accurate. You should never flush a pad.
I think the reason it was so repeditive is that it may have been made for developmentally disabled girls.
I always wanted to know what film the girls got to see. It seemed to have...changed them somehow. Such a mystery lies within our pants!
So much weirdness ugliness minsunderstanding false-mythologizing paranoia distaste fact-skewing psychological-twisting religio-fantasizing and ostrich-like obfuscation in circumvention of such a beautiful modest spoke in the wheel of time.
What peacay said.
jb may be right about the purpose of that film. I was more curious, after the anxious george thread, with it's viewing potential for predators. When the shot of the girl's application of the pad is isolated the area appears quite dark, perhaps indicating pubic hair.
A possibility. It also would be very appealing for certain types.
With consideration for the throng, who remembers those ghasttly stretch belts with clasps to hold the big, blockey piece of cotton sanitary pads?
I've forever wondered why women would want something strung up their asses, when one of the finer moments in my life was the development of adhesive pads and super-materials.(Which then lead to toxic shock)
There's just no winning.
You got that right, peacay.
How do adhesive pads lead to toxic shock? I thought that was just tampons?
Actually, I've heard that menstruel cups don't lead to TSS (nothing for bacteria to grow on), and they are very convenient.
Best to keep thongs away from throngs, and vicey-versey!
I hate thongs, especially when doing laundry - never know what to grab them by - eeewww!
jb My mother was like your mother. "Bring me one of my lady things" was a commonly heard call from the downstairs bathroom (she kept the pads and tampons upstairs). "No, not one of the big flat lady things, one of the little ones." Hahahahahahahahahaha.
Thanks for the memories.
jb, it was the introduction of the 'super-absorbent' materials in tampons that lead to the problem. Woman were so confident they left them in place for too long.
Meanwhile I'm enjoying the menopausal freedoms.
/all good things come with time.
dxlifer I'm no expert and I didn't go looking this up -- feel free -- but I watched a program in the last 6 months on TSS and the causative factor was said to be a synthetic material that had been added to the usual cotton. True, some were left in longer than others but on my best recall, it was not a linking factor (the show was a scientific outline of an epidemic and how the cause was determined). The manufacturer(s) were trying to cut costs/increase absorption. But bugs liked the new material hence the (apparent) disease epidemic.
That's the history as I recall as well, peacay. It was still, basically a combination of two issues, i.e. the new materials and women not knowing there was a danger from the time perspective. Now there are the warnings to limit the hours to eight. There were women who would put two tampons in place and then go for extended blocks of time with them. When the news of the first cases hit the press, it caused 'product shock' for a lot of women who had to readdress their habits, regardless of the changes in materials.
Best to keep using newspapers. Except for that blasted ink.
There were women who would put two tampons in place and then go for extended blocks of time with them.
*shudders*
It's true, trac. I didn't know about it myself back then, until I read that it was part of the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if it is still in practice.
Sheez. As always, I'm grateful I'm a male monkey.
All that pad, tampons, PMS stuff... sheeez.
In our case, it's just a yearly revision with that pokey thing right to the... eye. Aaurghh.
I'm telling you - menstruel cup. It's amazing, and doesn't cause TSS.
(Yeah, I'm totally going all evangelical - but I haven't run out of tampons since, and I use fewer maxi pads.)
/and I'm still menopausal. It's all moot.
jb, do you use the diva cup or the keeper?
Diva cup - it's Canadian made, and I knew I didn't react to silicon. But the person who recommended cups to me used the Keeper and loved it.
The main difference is the material - silicon (Diva) versus natural rubber (Keeper) - there is a subtle difference in the length of the pull thing, but I find it easier to take out like a diaphram. And it was about $5 cheaper for the Canadian Diva a while back. There may be comparative reviews online, but as far as I can tell, they are both just fine.
I think they are really the same - I wouldn't switch unless you were having a bad reaction to the latex. I think the Diva might be prone to a little staining, I would have preferred for it to be dark like the Keeper. But it was made in Canada, and my nationalism got the best of me :)
One benefit of any type of cup is that it makes it easier to collect blood for painting.
Museum of Menstruation talks about both these things at length - the material that was contributing greatly to TSS in users of Rely Tampons around 1980, and the safety of the Keeper (doesn't talk about the Diva Cup though). At one point the rubber in the Keeper was reformulated; although I'm not sure why it was reformulated, the newer version is far less prone to harbor staph, thus less likely to cause TSS. Still, the doctor who was writing about them said that cotton tampons were technically safer, and also that women with a certain antibody level need not worry much about TSS in any case.
The Rely material was a mixture of polyurethane and a wood-pulp derivative. (for dxlifer and peacay.)
The MUM site is fascinating but sometimes hard to navigate. It seems to be one of those things that has grown organically more than from a plan.
decadesa long time. There was an interesting article on sex ed on the NYT, and covered extensively on blogrunner. Nowadays I get my updates from The Village Voice *jaded leer*