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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask dd to use tampax

164 replies

scruffybird · 01/04/2011 20:15

Weird title I know. Ok dd is 12 next week and started her periods a few months ago. She does synchronised swimming and is having to miss about one or two sessions a month due to her periods, which hasn't been a problem.
But she came on today and has a very important session on sunday, her and her duet partner are competing against some other teams and the team chosen gets to represent our town at a big competiton next month.
So far dd has been against the tampax idea.
AIBU to push the issue just for the sake of sunday?

OP posts:
HerBeX · 02/04/2011 19:20

So many people have referrred to that non-existent piece of female anatomy, the hymen, that I feel I have to post this in order to spread the word.

Women have been misinformed about their own bodies throughout history and they still are. At least everyone on this thread can correct anyone else who talks about the hymen once they've read that link.

MillyR · 02/04/2011 19:33

Right. So according to your link, it isn't mythical. They just changed the name.

catinthehat2 · 02/04/2011 19:33

fascinating read thankyou HBX

MillyR · 02/04/2011 19:39

And also, I don't really care what some Swedish doctors say about its non-existence. I know what my teenage genitals looked like and my hymen was external to my vagina. If anything is misinforming women, this link is.

There are plenty of reputable sites on the internet that say it does exist.

Ephiny · 02/04/2011 19:42

It's just a different name for the same thing, surely?

MillyR · 02/04/2011 19:45

Apparently not. According to that link, there is no external covering of the vagina. The corona is 1-2 cm up inside the vagina.

But I've just done a google image search of hymen, to check that I am not a complete anatomical freak, and there are plenty of external hymens out there.

Ephiny · 02/04/2011 19:48

Maybe I'm an anatomical freak as well but I could easily see mine with a mirror when I was younger, and looking at it before and after I had sex for the first time you could clearly see the effect. Sorry if this is TMI!

MillyR · 02/04/2011 19:49

No, not TMI. Looking back now, I think had I known about it in more detail and what could possibly happen, I would have broken my own before having sex.

PunkPixie · 02/04/2011 20:57

I wish I had you as MY Mum! I've always found towels a bit messy and smelly but as a pre-teen / teen my refused to buy tampons for me. Very embarrassing during PE so I often sat it out when AF came to town.

When I was 14 though, we went on our first holiday to Spain and my second week was ruined by AF (No swimming) so Mum relented and bought tiny tampons for me for the next month. For the first time for me it was VERY sore (Had to break my hymen) and I had to take it out so for this reason I'd advise agaisnt getting DD to use them on Sunday.

The stuff I said about my Mum sums up what I'm going to say to you about DD. I was forced to use a method of dealing with AF taht I was really unhappy with and it was't nice. It really is a thing people should decide for themselves.

Buy her a box of tampins anyway and tell her to read te leaflet and use them whenver she feels she wants to, if she ever does. I think it's got to be up to her.

HerBeX · 02/04/2011 21:09

Well, it is mythical in that it is not one small membrane, it's several folds of flesh. And also the whole point of it was that it was the pointer to virginity - the old myth said that once your hymen was broken, that was it forever etc., whereas we now know that bits of the vaginal corona can grow back and it was more what it meant in terms of patriarchal nonsense about virginity - the idea of a "pure" virgin having an intact hymen, demanding that women bled from having penetrative sex for the first time therefore waving the bridal sheets out the window to prove that a bride had been a virgin etc., when we know that many women don't bleed at all the first time they have penetrative sex ... all those old myths come from the wrong idea of a hymen as being one piece of skin like a curtain which gets broken, never to be "fixed" again. (I remember a friend of mine telling me when she was about 13, that she wasn't a virgin bcause she'd had an accident with a see saw or something when she was younger, in which her hymen had broken. This was in the eighties, when you might have thought such myths would have died out. And yes there was still some discussion even then (among us teenagers I mean, not among professionals), as to whether tampons meant you losing your virginity. All connected I think.)

MillyR · 02/04/2011 21:17

Herbex, yes but that was my experience. You could have hung sheets out of a window and demonstrated my virginity after I had sex. Just because it doesn't happen to all women, that doesn't make it a myth.

And it may well be the case that the OP's daughter can't insert a tampon without breaking her hymen, which may prove difficult.

PunkPixie · 02/04/2011 21:29

milly from personal experience I can say that breaking your hymen with a tampon is indeed very sore. I wouldn't recommend anyone trying out a tammpon for the first time when they have something important to be at for that eaxct reason. Even thinking back to it brings tears to my eyes!!

HerBeX · 02/04/2011 21:30

It does though doesn't it, if the myth says that that is the experience of all women and that that is what women's experience is supposed to be, that's how they're made, and if that's not a woman's experience, then she's either defective or she hasn't taken proper care of her hymen Grin

MillyR · 02/04/2011 21:34

Yes, but then we got booklets at school saying some women broke their hymen riding a bike or whatever, so I assume that most people are aware of this and the myth no longer generally exists.

spiderslegs · 02/04/2011 21:40

Mmmm - OP - I really would not press the issue, 12 is still awfully young & she is probably horribly embarrassed & just wants you to stop talking about it.

I think, in most respects, these things are better left to the peer group - educate her about the choices, let her chat to her friends about it & leave it up to her.

& Herbex, the first time I used tampons, at 15 & a virgin I couldn't get the chuffing thing out. I pulled & pulled to no avail until, in panic I got a mirror between my legs & there was a piece of my nymen stretched across the end of the tampon, it was horrible, I eventually cut it with the nail scissors as that seemed a better option than telling my mother & letting her have a look. I didn't use them again until about two years after I lost my virginity.

Aaaannnd when I did lose my virginity with my first boyfriend my hymen still didn't break and consequently hung down & was painful & swollen until we had had sex a few more times, so maybe it wasn't a membrane at the opening of my vagina but it was certainly present. Other than that I don't understand your point.

As for teenage girls leaving bloodstained knickers around, I used to hide mine in the cupboard in my bedroom. The cleaner would always lay them out in a nice, neat pile. She may have been making a point.....

Pixielovescake · 02/04/2011 22:41

So just to show my lack of understanding , i know i had bleeding after horse riding once , id always thought it was my hymen. does this mean it cant have been ? Slighty confused now.

HerBeX · 02/04/2011 23:09

Spiderslegs my point is that the hymen as we have been taught to regard it, doesn't exist. It is not just one piece of membrane which once broken, never repairs, and your experience would seem to confirm that actually. If it were just one fragile piece of membrane, it would surely be easier to break and your experience wouldn't have been quite as horrible as it sounds. But yes you're right, I shouldn't have said it doesn't exist, I hould have said it doesn't exist as we've been taught to understand it.

I've had another look at the scarleteen link, and it says very clearly:

"Sometimes, albeit very rarely, the mucous tissue folds may cover the entire vaginal opening. In this case, you may need to see a gynecologist and have the vaginal corona opened to release menstrual blood and enable you to insert a tampon or have intercourse or other insertive sex"

So I don't know where the idea came from that it's denying the experience of women with vaginal coronas (or hymens if you prefer) that cover their vaginal opening - it says quite clearly that that is possible, so both your and Milly's experience is perfectly consistent with what they are saying. The organisation which has performed this lingusitic sleight of hand, is the Swedish Association for Sexual Education (at least I think that's what they're translated as) and their website is here:

here. It looks like they first published this in 2009, so pretty recent. I don't see any reason to disbelieve them, they look pretty respectable. Happy to be proved wrong if anyone knows better though. Smile

alistron1 · 02/04/2011 23:22

I have 4 kids - 2 of whom have periods.

I have never used tampax and don't know where my cervix is. It could be anywhere TBH. And the thought of shouting instructions to my DD's (through the bathroom door) as to how to insert tampons is quite mind blowing.

HerBeX · 02/04/2011 23:24

I had to have a chuckle at your cervix being anywhere...

(In your ear? In your foot? Grin)

I could never use a dutch cap because of my troublesome cervix...it would always slip off...

spiderslegs · 02/04/2011 23:26

HerBeX - yes - you are right - I was quite horrified at first as I hought the hymen was, as I was taught, as you said. However, I was a girl of stout heart & mind & much outside reading so I realised what it was.

I did, however, go to a convent school, I would hope girls today are taught something much more sensible.....

spiderslegs · 02/04/2011 23:28

Alistron - your cervix is in the general direction of where your children came fom...

& you really don't need to know where it is in order to use a tampon.

HerBeX · 02/04/2011 23:34

God yes let's hope so. That sort of experience must be quite terrifying if you are expecting your body to do a certain thing and then it does something completely different which makes you think you've got an internal injury or soemthing. (That's certainly what I would have scared myself with if I'd had your experience. Wd prbably have been too scared to go to the doctor about it as well because it would have entailed telling him I'd had sex.)

Olifin · 03/04/2011 00:22

spiderslegs I had almost exactly the same experiences as you re. hymen. Got the tampon in ok but couldn't get it out: had a sort of stringy bit going across the vaginal opening, which the tampon would get stuck behind. I used to have to manoeuvre it to come out of the 'bigger' side of the stringy bit. That bit of membrane or whatever it was then remained there until I lost my virginity: there was quite a lot of bleeding then. This is a charming thread, isn't it?

spiderslegs · 03/04/2011 00:30

A delight - Olifin - glad I wasn't alone - at 15 is was a solitary experience - we should show our daughters this - they'd hate to actually hear it from us.....

Olifin · 03/04/2011 00:41

Ha ha! Well, some googling has revealed that there are different types of 'hymen' (or 'corona' if that's the preferred term) and our experiences would tally up with what is called a 'septate hymen'. There are a lot of worried young ladies out there on forums discussing tampon insertion/removal and possible surgical removal of said septate hymen.

Yes, it is a comfort to know it wasn't just me. I did think there was perhaps something wrong with me at the time!

I am thinking of copying and pasting this entire thread to show DD in 10 years' time :)

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