Shark Week!
By Coco Tanaka
When I take those “Which Sex and the City Character Are You?” quizzes, well, I am no Charlotte. No one has ever called me a prude. And yet the prospect of writing publicly about the environmental impacts of a woman’s monthly bloodletting (much less my own, gross) turns me suddenly Amish, all flush and flustered. I come by it naturally – my mother often told me that my body was a temple, referring to the babymaking vestibule of said temple as my “nunu,” and in order to mask my discomfort with the netherlands, I make really awkward cervix jokes during my stirrup exams. Perhaps after more time under the wing of my proud, vagina-having editor, I’ll be at ease discussing the inner workings of my enigmatic ladyflower. Until then, know that writing about one of the true anti-joys of post-pubescence (aside from the monthly reassurance that nothing human has taken root in there) hurts me more than it hurts you. But because I like this planet and want it to last a little longer despite the cycle that makes me all stabby mid-month, consider my dysphoria shelved. Gentlemen, you can read on and learn what you missed out on thanks to Eve’s affinity for serpents with fruit, or you can kindly fuck off, just this once. And to my fellow womyn: Eco-friendly periods! Huzzah!
There are several ways to green your Shark Week, ranging from bare-minimum “shucks, why not?” consciousness to Burning Man aggro hippie. A woman may use as many as 11,000 tampons from the day she leaves girlhood, making the twee tampon applicator one of the biggest environmental offenders. Like everything that is evil – plastic bags, the oil from the Exxon Valdez, mob bosses, beaked monsters – those little kazoos wash up on our beaches, and take about a thousand years to degrade. Even aside from the toxic shock horror stories we heard third-hand at eighth-grade slumber parties, your average tampon or nasty napkin is liable to include chlorine, rayon, wood pulp, and genetically juiced cotton – not the sweetest cocktail for your carnal treasure, unless you work in the Valley and that’s your thing. Far be it from me to come between a girl and her white knight of choice, but if you can stand quitting the Tampax or Playtex so trusted by your teenage self, Seventh Generation’s chlorine-free organic tampons are devoid of rayon and chlorine, and come with a biodegradable applicator. Natracare boasts all the same happy vagina qualities. Changing brands may feel blasphemous, but the light bulbs didn’t mind, and neither will your tampons.
Those wanting to go a step further, and to make me look bad for going nowhere near that step, can invest in a reusable menstrual cup. A cup! Who knew? It’s just what it sounds like: a mini catch-all helmet that saves on money (remember, 11,000 tampons), avoids the toxins in tampons, and stays out of the landfill. And they all have names that sound vaguely like fey Tolkien characters: the Mooncup, the Keeper, Lunapads. The latter goes beyond the standard chalice, proffering washable pads, sponges, and even padded period panties. A little unconventional, but again, it does away with the disposability factor and hypes an all-organic formula. Cheers.
Damming your flow with the same cup month after month seems totally normal when compared to some of the sickeningly enthusiastic gals I found in the back alleys of cyberspace, they who advocated crocheting reusable tampons from organic cotton and unbleached yarn. They look like catnip toys, but who am I to judge? I ran the idea by a few of my ecologically sensitive friends, and the general reaction was “You’re totally disgusting.” My buddy Cameron, who spends paychecks at Whole Foods and can speak intelligently about LEED certification, went straight to mockery before raging against taking DIY way too far, saying she was actually “more of a knit one, purl two Maxi Pad kinda gal.” Smartass went on to describe the googly eyes she affixed to her “bloody buddies,” for whom she threw a tea party before putting them to use. You just can’t talk seriously about reusing uterine-tissue absorption agents with some people. But yeah, you can get rid of the chlorine.
Published: 09/03/2008
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Comments
GREAT ARTICLE!!!! if i was still producing eggs, i'd get one of them cup thangs.
Bloody brilliant.