To be horrified to learn that there are men .. TMI warning

[Doingtheboxerbeat]

This is not a men bashing thread
There are actual adult men that are unaware that periods can't be controlled like other body fluids and that pads and tampons are there in case of leaks. That we can hold it in until we visit the toilet.

At first I thought bullshit, then I realised, actually how would they know unless someone specifically pointed out the difference. I can't remember ever being told this, because I started in primary school before I learned about it at school.

I discovered this from a Reddit post so probably bs that a single parent man who was probably quite poor and thought that his daughter was wasteful/ too lazy to just not wait to visit the toilet.

I have never in my life met any man that thought this, but then again, I have never asked, but then I think about how many millions of people are uneducated about things that don't really affect them.

This is batshit, right ?

Yes I'm sure I was taught that the hymen is a membrane or like thin skin and that it breaks when you have sex, there is a small gap in it to allow menstrual blood out. I have a memory of reading and/or hearing this multiple times, I think it was in the Always/Tampax booklet that we were given. Probably something about how a tampon can break the hymen but not to worry because it might have broken anyway through riding a bike

It honestly sounded to me exactly like a "fleshy barrier seal". We were also taught multiple times that it might hurt and bleed the first time you have sex, it's just the hymen so don't worry.

In hindsight I think this was terrible; I basically expected sex to be some awful ordeal that I had to get used to.

Anyway this is the TED talk with the hula hoop

https://www.ted.com/talks/nina_dolvik_brochmann_and_ellen_stokken_dahl_the_virginity_fraud?language=en

If she was born in the late 1800s, she might have had her babies through twilight sleep?

I’m not sure that was though. Some generations/ upbringings were unbelievably adept at “blocking out” what went on “down there.”

And also the way they sedated them used to make them quite unaware

What makes me laugh is the idea that men think we can, on demand, clamp it so shut that it’s watertight, and yet they’re still willing to put their penis in 😖😂

Rewatching the hymen video made me remember; what we were told specifically targeted the myths talked about in the first 4 minutes. It was explained that you could bleed the first time you have sex and it doesn't mean something is wrong, but that not everyone bleeds and it doesn't prove you are a virgin if you bleed. We also learned that the hymen can be broken during other activities not relating to sex, but I'm sure it was explained as being the seal kind of thing.

@NannyGythaOgg
I was responding to someone who said it wasn’t possible to hold in farts and when others said they could they still came back saying it is not possible. In that context me responding to them saying that people can do it, is just meant as something that’s possible (yes for some). Of course not everyone can do everything.

I'm 68 and this has only happened in the last couple of years. It also 99% only happens when I am alone (mostly at home) AND stops, for days at a time, if I am away from home in the company of others.

Whilst I find it quite amusing to fart as I walk across the lounge (I can hear it but I have no physical awareness) I am so pleased it, totally spontaneously, doesn't happen when I am with other.

But this was in America and I would like to think we are better educated here.

And yet here you are in a thread chock full of British ignorance. Must be a sad day indeed for you to see the evidence 🙄

😂

To be perfectly honest, I'm not so concerned about women not knowing certain things about their intricate parts, because women have been giving birth since time began, but this seems like such a massive oversight.
And it's not just incels and trolls , it loads of them and it's not always their fault.
The amount of times I have said ' I never really thought about it ' springs to mind.

The tampons and NASA thing was more for if they got stuck in space for a bit would it be enough to cover her, I believe.

My husband who at the time was 32, thought one tampon is all you needed for your entire monthly period 😐

To be fair, that may have been her experience.... I sometimes struggle to pee with my menstrual cup in (never had a problem with tampons to be fair though...)

When I had babies in Germany they were extremely horrified when I suggested having a bath while I was still bleeding after birth and couldn't believe it when I said it is offered as standard in the UK. On the maternity ward, they had no baths, only showers. And in the children's ward, they had a separate toilet for bleeding postpartum mums that nobody else was allowed to use and we were not allowed into the bathroom for that ward, only a shower cubicle.

They say that the lochia is full of bacteria and that bacteria will get into the bath water and into your milk through your nipples and give you an infection.

I went on holiday with a friend and she brought her friend. Friend of friend thought she has to take the tampon out to pee and she was 34. Convent education. Highly intelligent woman with her own business.

Moreover, I may have worded it wrong but I literally mentioned this very story in my OP 🤭 the one I started in fact.

After a couple of bottles of wine one night, I gave my dp a pad and asked him to show me how he thought they were used... he demonstrated that the sticky part should stick to the skin 😆

We don't need to ridicule people for not knowing. More important to look at how this can be improved. When I was at school, we had sex education early in primary school and then regularly through secondary school and college. Always boys and girls together. Both genders need to know. It also took away any embarrassment. We had open and good topics to discuss in mixed groups. This particular country has one of the smallest numbers of teenage pregnancies and high levels of gender equality🤷

well, this makes me happy to have grown up in Scandinavia. I am in my 50s and our sex education was for boys and girls jointly and it was made clear that periods were normal and not from the same hole you pee. Id also never had it hidden away how babies were made it was just spoken about in age-appropriate terms. I never thought the stock came with babies unless it was a story made up like Dumbo.

I've raised my son this way too and we spoke of this as a natural part of life as my 4 children grew up, With 4 sisters he knows that periods are not always an issue. he came and asked for pads for his girlfriend this summer and was not at all embarrassed about it.

His sisters all 3 speak comfortably about their period and it's not a subject that's hidden away.

My husband despite being a public school boy who grew up in SE England is aware that we don't pee out of the same hole we have periods from.. Also aware that men are different to women :)

So I think there is hope for the next generation as long as we keep communicating with them and frankly correct insane comments like "it doesn't hurt that bad and they just don't like wearing a nappy"..

I remember that. And the terrible thing was that loads of men agreed with him, and didn’t believe all the women who were saying it isn’t true.

And there are a LOT of people including women, who think we pee from our vaginas. I remember one man (might have been on that same thread) saying really angrily “Well unless you have a third hole down there….” and he was absolutely convinced he was right. It’s absolutely mind-blowing.

Thank goodness the world has changed so much.

I remember at about age 13 (late seventies) scouring health books at the library trying to find out about sex. Everyone was talking about it and nothing made any sense to me and all my parents kept saying was don’t end up pregnant. I knew about periods but didn’t know it why we had them.

i realised in later years we’d had sex education at school when I was about eight but I’d not understood, it was just a slide projector presentation, we were sort of just dumped in front of it and sent out to play after with no further discussion.

what still makes me laugh today was I knew how rabbits mated from natural science lessons. Jeez I was very thick back then. 😂😂😂

I find it really hateful, this idea that women’s normal body functions and body fluids are dirty and disease-ridden.

I don't really care what they know or don't know, BUT they have to believe women when they tell them how it is, instead of being completely arrogant twats for the love of God.

Slightly off topic, but reminded of terrible sex education teachers. My all girl grammar school class was told that cervical cancer was caused by men who didn’t change their underpants. And that truck drivers were a problem because they certainly didn’t change their underwear. I genuinely believed this for too many years.