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Women's Health

Women are shocking their boyfriends by showing them how tampons actually work

The viral videos are a great way to educate men on a sensitive topic.

via TikTok

Women shock their boyfriends with tampon tutorials.

Menstrual taboos are as old as time and found across cultures. They've been used to separate women from men physically—menstrual huts are still a thing—and socially, by creating the perception that a natural bodily function is a sign of weakness. Even in today's world, women are deemed unfit for positions of power because some men actually believe they won't be able to handle stressful situations while mensurating.

"Menstruation is an opening for attack: a mark of shame, a sign of weakness, an argument to keep women out of positions of power,' Colin Schultz wrote in Popular Science in 2014. The big problem with menstrual taboos is the way that males are (or are not) educated on the subject leaves them with a patchwork of ideas that don't necessarily add up to the whole picture. First, there's the information they get from growing up with women in the house.

Then, there are the cryptic descriptions of menstruation seen in advertising and the cold, scientific way the topic is taught in sex education.

"Boys' early learning about menstruation is haphazard," a 2011 study published in the Journal of Family Issues reads. "The mysterious nature of what happens to girls contributes to a gap in boys' knowledge about female bodies and to some negative views about girls." Over a decade on from the study, and not much has changed. Men are still woefully undereducated on women's health and periods specifically, and, though there's acknowledgment they deserve more information and education, little progress has been made. In fact, boy's and men's misunderstanding or total lack of understanding surrounding menstruation is often played for laughs.

Unfortunately, the gaps in the average man's understanding of a complex female health issue can put women in a difficult position, whether it's denying them positions of power or a failure to understand their discomfort and their medical, physical, and emotional needs.

That's why it's so important for men to become better educated about menstruation.

A group of women on TikTok are helping the men in their lives better understand the subject by showing them how tampons work on the inside of their bodies. They call it the Boyfriend Challenge. Some of the guys' reactions are clearly over-the-top, but it's also obvious that many of them have no idea how tampons function.

A video by the Demery family has gone viral attracting nearly eight million views. It's fun to watch, but it also shows men how tampons function and what women go through during their monthly cycle.

@thedemeryfamily22

His reaction is priceless😂 #cutecouple #pregnant #prego #viral #InLove #couplegoals #trend #tampon

It's a bit of a facepalm moment that her man think he has to "compete" with a tampon after he's shown how it works, but I digress...

In another video, Rachel's man just uttered the phrase "vagina parachute." Sure, why not.

@mrshillery829

Of course I had to make my husband do this! I will forever call tampons “vagina parachutes”! LMAO!! #tamponchallenge #husbandpranks #funny #fyp


Paulina's man was completely flummoxed by the inner workings of a tampon. "You've been carrying this like, inside of you?" he asks. "The whole day?"

@paulinat

showing him how a tampôn works😭 @fabioguerrrraa

This guy thinks it's "like a butterfly."

@amanialzubi

showing my boyfriend how a tampon works 🤣😳❤️ ( @originalisrael ) #comedy #couple #couplegoals #foryou #trend #tiktok

This guy was in utter shock.

@thekelleyfamily

lmaoooo why 😂😭 #tamponchallenge #trend #hilariouscomedy #couple #married #foryoupage #fyp #xyzbca

Let's hope this challenge gave some men out there a better understanding of what women go through every month and a little more sympathy for the women in their lives. Hopefully it also makes them feel a little more comfortable around period products and inspires them to pick up the correct box of tampons next time they're at the grocery store.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Pop Culture

Mr. Rogers talks about children's sex-ed with kindness in a 1980 TV interview

Once again, Mr. Rogers was ahead of his time.

FunnyMath|Wikicommons

Mr. Rogers had a way of talking about big things with gentleness and compassion.

Mr. Rogers was a kindness icon, and his lessons continue to ripple out in the world around us. People quote Mr. Rogers when they're feeling afraid and not sure what to do during moments of tragedy. Some of his songs are sung in preschools and homes to this day. The man just exuded kindness, empathy and compassion and continually showed it on and off his show.

Looking back on some of his actions, it seems he was pretty consistently ahead of his time, from inviting his Black mailman to put his feet in the baby pool with him as a form of public protest against segregation to him finding a way to model diversity and inclusion after he received a letter from a blind girl who was worried about his fish eating. It's why he started saying out loud, "I'm feeding the fish," in an effort to include blind children.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Mr. Rogers didn't shy away from the talk of sex education for children while on "The Tonight Show" in 1980.

While holding his comments to 2023 standards wouldn't be fair, it's safe to acknowledge that any talk of sex education for children was way ahead of its time in 1980. Of course, there were gender-normative teachings in the song itself—it was 40 years ago after all—but while Johnny Carson and the audience laugh about children thinking they could change genders, Mr. Rogers did not. It was obvious that he took the topic seriously while others may have been a bit uncomfortable.

Red and yellow toy trolley on track

Mister Rogers Trolley

David Pinkerton|Flickr

Rogers explained that while his show is mostly watched by preschoolers, there may be older people that watch the show as well. When Carson asked if preschool was too young for the topic of sex education, everyone's favorite neighbor informed the talk show host that children start noticing the differences between bodies around that age. This is where his song, "Everybody's Fancy" came in as he recited two verses.

The song doesn't go into detail about sex, but it is a way to talk about the differences in bodies and how just because every body is different, that doesn't mean something is wrong. When people think about sex education, they often think about it on adult terms and experiences, so Rogers coming right out and giving an example of what sex education looks like for young kids was extremely progressive for the early 80s. In fact, he started singing this song in 1967, but in true Mr. Rogers fashion, he updated the lyrics in the early 90s.

"Becoming more sensitive to gender issues, Fred Rogers slightly altered the third verse of this song for the 'You Are Special' CD release," according to The Neighborhood Archives.

The original third verse read, "Only girls can be the mommies. Only boys can be the daddies," but the revised lyric read, "Girls grow up to be the mommies. Boys grow up to be the daddies." This may seem like a minor change, but it removes the binary of "only," which when accompanied with the second verse didn't account for people whose "fancy insides" didn't quite match their "fancy outsides."

While we will never know how Mr. Rogers would speak on today's understanding of gender, based on his history, his change in lyrics and his thoughts around early introduction to sex education, it wouldn't be a jump to think he'd be in favor of kindness and compassion.

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Wellness

Billie Eilish opening up about her porn use at age 11 offers a prime opportunity for parents

Lars Crommelinck Photography/Wikimedia Commons

Billie Eilish shared with Howard Stern that early porn use "destroyed" her brain.

In the internet age, parents have to talk to their kids about pornography. If parents don't, someone else will, and that someone else will more than likely be a peer or peers who don't really know what they're talking about.

But talking to kids about porn can be tricky. The when, how and how much questions are hard to navigate. Parents might worry about saying too much, too soon or too little, too late. Research shows that it's not uncommon for kids to see pornography online, either intentionally or unintentionally, and the age at which some kids are first exposed is far younger than parents might think. However uncomfortable parents might be about it, the conversation needs to start early.

Thanks to singer Billie Eilish's openness about her own porn experiences, parents now have an especially opportune "in" to bring up the subject with their kids. She recently shared with Howard Stern that consuming porn at a young age "destroyed" her brain, and that as a woman, she finds porn "a disgrace."

"I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest," she told Stern. "I started watching porn when I was like 11. I think it really destroyed my brain, and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn."

Part of the problem with porn is that so much of it depicts violence and aggression and the objectification of women. Eilish told Stern that she frequently watched violent porn, and the first few times she had sex, she didn't say "no" to things that were "not good" because she thought that's what she was supposed to find attractive.

Another problem with porn is that is gives kids unrealistic portrayals of what sex is like as well as unrealistic images of people's bodies.

"I'm so angry that porn is so loved, and I'm so angry at myself for thinking that it was okay," she said. "The way that vaginas look in porn is f—king crazy. No vaginas look like that. Women's bodies don't look like that. We don't come like that."

Hearing someone like Billie Eilish say things like this is refreshing. Eilish, 19, came onto the music scene at 14 and made it big at 17. She's attracted fans of all ages, but much of her fanbase is young, which makes her an ideal bridge between generation smartphone and the parents who didn't grow up with pornography constantly accessible at their fingertips.

If parents aren't sure where to start the conversation about porn, start here. "Hey, you know the singer Billie Eilish? Here's what she says about her experiences with porn." It's a good opportunity to ask kids what they hear in their social life, what they think, what questions they have. For kids who might think their parents are old or out of touch, hearing a young, hip celebrity drop such wisdom from a place of experience may lend some credibility to the "why you should avoid porn" lessons parents are trying to teach.

And again, it is vital that parents teach it. Dr. Michael Flood of Queensland University of Technology shared research on the negative impact of porn use on young people, including:

- shifting sexual interests, behaviors and expectations, which can impact relationships

- lowering men's relationship satisfaction and leading to coercion in sexual acts

- teaching sexist and sexually objectifying understandings of gender and sexuality

- increased violent behavior, sexually aggressive behavior and sexual harrassment, especially from men toward women

Ideally, discussions about porn are a part of larger, ongoing conversations about sex kids start having with parents at a young age. Children are curious, and answering their questions matter-of-factly (and without embarrassment, which for some parents might take some practice) provides a solid foundation for frank conversations about sex as kids get older.

Kids may not always want to talk to their parents about sex as they go through adolescence and puberty, but if they don't learn from you, they're going to learn from somewhere. It may never dawn on kids that their parents have a lot more experience with sex than their peers do, so the more we normalize talking with them about sex in healthy ways, the less (hopefully) they'll seek out answers from unreliable sources like peers and pornography.

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Wellness

These are the most unbelievable things women have heard men say about women's health

via Robin Higgins / Pixabay

Let's face it, a lot of guys are a little out of the loop when it comes to understanding women's bodies.

It seems that either they didn't pay much attention in sex education class or maybe they needed to take it for an entire year just to get the basics down. However, in some cases, men aren't taught about these issues at all.

A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that "in 2011–2013, 43% of adolescent females and 57% of adolescent males did not receive information about birth control before they had sex for the first time."

A lot of men are in the dark on the topic of menstruation as well.

RELATED: Male athlete gets roasted for comparing period pain to skinned knees

"Boys' early learning about menstruation is haphazard," researchers Katherine Allen, Christine Kaestle and Abbie Goldberg, wrote according to Popular Science. "The mysterious nature of what happens to girls contributes to a gap in boys' knowledge about female bodies and to some negative views about girls."

However, after having heterosexual relationships with women, men tend to gain a proper understanding of menstruation. But for those who don't foster these relationships, the misunderstandings may endure.

"For the men who do not make that transition," the researchers write, "the myths and mystery from boyhood remain."

Sadly, the burden of educating these men falls on the women in their lives.

Twitter user @brownandbella asked her followers, "What is the dumbest thing a man ever said to you about sex, reproductive health, menstruation, etc?" and the responses were both hilarious and disconcerting.

As we said, a lot of guys are clueless about mensuration.

Evidently, men are having a hard time locating the "click."

They can be pretty clueless about sex, too.

Some guys need to learn more about pregnancy.






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