I'm far enough on now, that I can truthfully say that the Myth of tampons are far behind me. Of course everybody has a first time. Consensus will vary, but the general order of it will be like this. You'll have left the house with a purpose, one that you will have made out to be much larger than it really is. You'll enter the high street drug store and have that particular feeling that everybody is looking at you. Nobody is looking at you. The checkout girl glances at you derisively, the forty something woman in the hairdye aisle eyes you speculatively, the well to do lady at the fragrance counter will smile in a way that alerts you to the fact that everybody in a three mile radius knows you're buying your first packet of tampons. You feel this hot flush all the way up your cheeks and down your neck as you detour through hair and nail accessories, deodorants and body sprays, even shampoos and you'll blindly pick a series of things up that you don't need. Finally, finally, you'll hover around the female sanitation aisle. Somehow, staring down a bottle of intimate body wash is less shameful than what is two shelves over. A glance reveals more choice than your young heart can handle - lites, regular, super, super plus. Woah. You'll grab what you can as best you can with your three bottles of nail polish remover, one nail clipper and organic loofah. The last is one of the mistakes that you'll only realise at the counter.
You arrive at the check out desk with a determined smile beaming past your inefficient heat source of a face and the check out girl, somebody you'll envy and hate in equal measures will ask you a series of questions about plastic bags and would you like to buy a top up and, God help us, if you want to go back and get another box because they're "on a threefertwo offer...". You will mumble to the impulse buyer rack of chewing gum that no, you are quite okay. She will pause for a moment at your ridiculous behaviour and you will use that moment to lament ever having been born a girl. A frantic monologue begins in your head concerning fervent wishes to be reborn right at this very moment a boy. Your nails bite into the cheap fabric of your purse. She'll shrug, continue scanning items through. Nail clipper, lip balm, deoderant, deoderant, deoderant, and of course she now sees that it's not this "threefertwo"er that you're scared of, Cosmo girl, shampoo, good lord, your leg is twitching towards the door, towards freedom, and you're wishing you hadn't picked so much stuff up, conditioner, deep conditioner, 28 washes hair dye, loofah -
how much? The black little monitor mocks you with an eye blinking number.
No, you'll say. Sorry, I didn't mean to pick that up. She'll already be well into the make up remover range. And so, because even technology is against you, she'll have to spend the next five minutes, and two extra check out girls figuring out how to cancel that item. Perhaps the organic loofah is worth it. You'll be on the edge of making the mistake of telling them to forget it when thank you God, it's over and she's telling you an amount that you're so prepared to pay to just get out of this shop....
Of course, you're a menial amount of money short. Really menial. The kind of menial that, were you in her position (oh, hope springs eternal), you'd definitely forget about. This girl has no such philanthropic ideas. That's another seven pence. Please. Crooked smile. Panic. Shame. Death. May a thousand firey suns, etc.
The seven pence is elusive, at best. Hidden in the crook of the back pocket of your purse, it evades capture for at least 3 hours before it emerges and transpires to be a 5 pence. The well to do lady standing in the queue behind you, clutching a Givenchy scent, proffers a much-put-upon sigh and throws an extra five pence piece down and so help you God, you high tail it out of there sweating like a blind lesbian in a fish shop.
Sorry, sorry. Tasteful.
First time, you'd do anything for that first time to be a never time.
I'm staring as we speak, at the little paper leaflet that comes in every box, like medicinal instructions. Side effects may include permanent trauma, they forgot to add.
Your first time? This page asks me. No, I reply. Really, no. I begin to feel a lot older than I should do. Tips for beginners, it offers. How a [Brand de choix, no free advertising here!] works. Complete with diagrams. All these years later, I still feel the heat settling over my cheeks. I could almost laugh at the things I'll do without shame, but these clinical pictures are taking me right back to the one legendary state prescribed sex ed lesson. (This lesson turned out to be more about periods and less about tab a and slot b). Oh how I laughed then. What a joke, I thought. Little did I know. Standing in my mother's bathroom, cluthing the cardboard box, willing with all the strength of my mind that nobody would knock on the door, I stared at a different version of this same page, thinking that this was my penance for laughing at the lady who came to the school specially to talk us through Becoming a Woman. She was like a travelling sales woman, and I really wish I was buying what she was selling.
Should have listened, says one of the charming young girls on the page. She's black, which is different, and supposedly in her mid teens, which is sensible I suppose. She's wearing a weave, which is sad, for reasons I'll go into another time. She's shrugging her shoulders, apparently confused but the big grin on her face tells me that she had a much better time of it than I did. Her counterparts on the other side of the page stand casually under a comical cloud full of question marks. I don't remember looking or feeling so happy to be confused about this. Did I miss out on what should have been a joyous right of passage? I don't think so. Limited and somewhat discreet research tells me that it was as excruciating for almost everybody. I don't understand what these multi million pound corporations hope to achieve by lying to the young girls of our Western societies. Staring at a cheeky grin next to the tampons FAQ [ed - oh God - can a tampon get lost in my body?] would not make me feel any better about what I'm about to do to myself in the name of a) sanitation b) social necessity [Don't tell me that anybody who's anybody still uses pads? They're like the training wheels of female sanitation.] and c) the perpetuation of the human race.
Not to mention the afterthought-ish strip dedicated to "TSS Information". What a joke! A string of worrying symptoms finished off by a token "you can also essentially eliminate the risk of menstrual TSS by not using tampons". they then link to the brand website for more information, rather than the not for profit toxicshock.com. Who am I kidding, fatal illnesses don't sell tampons.
I mustn't act so surprised. Every single day, companies make money from hiding/manipulating information that should and could affect our product buying decisions....free will, Free Willy, free me from this consumerist trap.
Who knows the point of this rant. It would be ignoble of me to claim anything so honourable and serious as health issues [ed. - this syndrome kills less than five people a year in the UK and most doctors will never ever see a case at all. Ladies, pay attention.]. It would perhaps be a little more honest to call it a mixpot of issues. Misplaced concern, conformity, our old friend Capitalism, other C words [ed. - hurr, and indeed, hurr]. False advertising is a crime, and its a pity false ideals aren't, too.
