I have also heard the “buying tampons makes a guy gay” thing and always wondered... how? Wouldn’t gay men be the least likely to need tampons?

In high school, we hid our (unused) tampons in our knee highs.

When I was growing up, my mother made me wrap my pads in tissues and hide them in the kitchen trash. Because the menz in the house couldn’t handle the knowledge that women menstruated. And yet, she would have me soak my blood-stained panties in cold water in the bathroom sink for all to see. Such a strange…

What? It’s GARBAGE. Who goes rooting through other people’s garbage? And who cares what someone else puts in the garbage, come to that?

They couldn’t even handle the wrapper?! Oh, the childishness.

My mom had told my sister and I to “bury” the evidence. To make an effort to hide the wrapper / pad in the garbage can under other garbage, if it is empty, crumple some extra tissues and place them on top, etc. All because it would “disgust” men to see it. I still find myself doing this, even though I know its…

If he’s not mature enough to handle his roommate talking about his sex life, then he’s not mature enough for sex.

Go you. I shaved my head last summer and everyone kept trying to philanthropize it: “Oh, did you do St. Baldrick’s? Or donate it to charity?” “No,I just wanted it gone so I could stop wasting time preening myself.” As if a woman’s appearance/shaved head has to be an act of generosity or sacrifice.

And Michael, too. My college boyfriend reprimanded me for putting pantyliner wrappers in the garbage in his bathroom because his roommate would tease him for it. I was so humiliated. I didn’t occur to me then to be pissed at him and his stupid roommate. I feel sad for my younger self, and I’ll never stop being pissed…