GO wrote:

If a bunch of crocheting hippie granolas die from TSS due to their own smug self-satisfied ignorance...would that be a bad thing or a good thing?

Thanks for the softball lob, but if I swing at it, it'll just get me started.  Thanks for the chuckle too.

Y'kno, somehow women managed to menstruate, for millions of years before disposable, ultra-hygienic paper products were thrust onto (into?) the market for the sake of their feeling fresher...probably more so mentally than physically. Perhaps we should return to "Kotex Crocodile Dung?"

Last edited by pALEPHx (2008-01-17 16:01:09)

George Orr wrote:

Do these "ladies" understand what porous fibers crammed up their hoowahdillies will do to them?  I admit I did not thoroughly scan the page; but from what I did read nobody is bringing the subject up. 

Hemp "silk"?  Unbleached COTTON?!

That page has over 39k hits.  If a bunch of crocheting hippie granolas die from TSS due to their own smug self-satisfied ignorance...would that be a bad thing or a good thing?

Especially RE-USED porous materials.

This is a viable ecologically-friendly way to do it. I think the re-usable tampons are a (dangerous) and poorly thought out concept, and they look really uncomfortable.

Mr. Sofie brought me some raw cotton bolls from Texas. They should just shove some of them up their hoo-ha, weevils and all.

fnord wrote:

Just because the women who would use these things are airhead granolas doesn’t mean they deserve this.

http://www.coldbacon.com/mdtruth/pics/tss1.jpg

http://www.medscape.com/content/2003/00 … 0.fig2.jpg

But dude, that's my point.  If their fingers rot off, they won't be able to do any more crocheting!

pALEPHx wrote:

Y'kno, somehow women managed to menstruate, for millions of years before disposable, ultra-hygienic paper products were thrust onto (into?) the market for the sake of their feeling fresher...

While this part of your post is certainly true, you appear to be a bit ig'nant about ladies and their "special time."  I do not fault you for this.  As a loud and proud homosapiens, there'd be no reason for you to be super-educated about feminine hygiene.

it is one thing to use and re-use a washable rag for exterior menses-catching; that's not life-threatening, just disgusting and an embarrassing canine attractor.  But...well, basically, anything you shove up inside your vajayjay and leave there for hours on end needs to be super-sterile and non-porous, or...well, bad buggies will grow up there in the warm moist darkness really fast, and you get TSS--Toxic Shock Syndrome, which can cause loss of extremities and death.

Oh, lookit, Wikipedia has an entry!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Shock_Syndrome  (No icky pics; sorry.)

(I remember the Rely tampons business very well--I bought a box and used one, and threw the rest of the box away.  The tampon didn't give me TSS but it was damn alarming.  I mean, I got really thirsty.  I went back to my old brand.)

George Orr wrote:

As a loud and proud homosapiens, there'd be no reason for you to be super-educated about feminine hygiene.

it is one thing to use and re-use a washable rag for exterior menses-catching; that's not life-threatening, just disgusting and an embarrassing canine attractor.

Fear not, I know about as well as anyone with external genitals what TSS is (and not just the Walmart/Mays-type store from the East Coast that closed some time in the 1980s). I do understand the difference between a pad and a tampon. I will still repost this, for your amusement (I did the cartoon):

I'll bet they're eating Milanos and having International Foods Swiss Mocha!

Likewise, I knew the original purpose Fnord mentioned for contraceptives and pessaries. It was just more entertaining to imagine something so decidedly unhygienic used for that purpose. Tampons (for stopping up other sorts of wounds) were probably a mid-19th C. invention, the convenient string only showing up around 1930. While it can't be presumed that no one ever thought to put something inside before, the understanding of the need for sterility doesn't much pre-date these innovations...but I do know why it's important.

Still, we probably had women wringing, washing, and reusing cloths for "Milady's Foul Underdrippings" since before recorded history, if they weren't simply locked up in a hut while they bled.