Period Pieces is upcoming Melbourne Fringe Festival comedian Loani Arman’s hilarious series on menstruation. Be sure to check Lip for new instalments every Wednesday. 1. Flush tampons We all know it’s not the right thing to do environmentally, but we’ve all done it. And we all know that when the work toilet blocks up and the plumber…
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Period Pieces is upcoming Melbourne Fringe Festival comedian Loani Arman’s hilarious series on menstruation. Be sure to check Lip for new instalments every Wednesday. Ask me for a painkiller and I’ve got 100 paracetamol tablets in my bag. I could deal that shit. Need some noodles? I’ve got you covered. There’s a 10 pack of Mie Ayam in…
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Period Pieces is upcoming Melbourne Fringe Festival comedian Loani Arman’s hilarious series on menstruation. Be sure to check Lip for new instalments every Wednesday. I was out to dinner with my partner last weekend at a busy restaurant when I dropped the contents of my handbag all over the floor. As I scrambled to…
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For $29.95, HelloFlo ships period starter kits with supplies they’ve deemed necessary for new menstruators. Marketed to parents as a gift for their girls, the kit includes pads, panty liners, a canvas pouch to carry supplies, guides for parents and girls and a beaded bracelet. The bracelet has left me scratching my head. Is it…
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There was a red mark on my skirt. My friend had told me as soon as I’d risen from my seat and I had no idea what to do. It was my first year of high school. I’d only been there a few weeks and my first month had been fine, but this was a…
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Local supermarket, 8pm. I’m in tracksuit pants and no bra. The checkout operator smirks as he puts my items in a plastic bag. Two blocks of Caramello. Panadol. Tampons. The glint in his eye says: ‘I know about your unwelcome guest’. The answering glint in my eye says: ‘If you don’t wipe that grin off…
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Do you think tampons and pads are luxury items? Well, in Australia, women pay a 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on these items because they are defined as a luxury. Shall I use that in a sentence? ‘Gee whiz, it feels mighty luxurious when I am sitting in a public place and I’m not…
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It’s awkward when people actually come round to paint your house because euphemisms die a hard death. Ditto when your Auntie visits or when you find yourself standing on a rag. Talking about periods sometimes makes me feel weird and makes me feel like I’m making other people feel weird and then everyone feels weird…
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It seems we are up in arms again, after being confronted with two, small clinical words. Carefree’s latest advertisement features an attractive ‘carefree’ brunette, appearing seemingly naked but tastefully hidden behind an array of flowers. She approaches the camera with a formal but quirky, direct approach, reminding us that ‘even that bit of discharge in-between…
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Dear Carefree, Thank you. Thank you for calling my vagina a vagina. Thank you for talking to me like I’m an adult. Thank you for not reducing my menstruation to a pun with a stuffed beaver. Thank you. Growing up, I often wondered why the creators of commercials for pads and tampons thought my blood…
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So it’s that time of the month and you’re feeling crappy. If you were living in any other historical period you may just well find yourself segregated from the rest of your community, you know, just to make you feel good about it. Oh, and you’ll be told that your menses is poisonous. The belief…
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I have been wanting to write this article for some time now. Then, when I noticed the recent lip article ‘healthy bytes: pads vs. tampons’, I felt the time was nigh. In that article, the author notes the importance of learning about the hows, whys and whats of pads and tampons, ‘since we all use…
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