I’m tucked away in a bathroom stall at school holding an applicator tampon and an instruction pamphlet.
I have presumably found blood on my undies or toilet paper to mark the beginning of my period. Is it my first period? I don’t remember. My mum tells me I got my first period at 10 or 11 which would place this particular bathroom at Intermediate School in Form 1* of 1995.
Listen to this article in audio form at [Audio] Vagina Meet Tampon.
I opened the pamphlet for guidance as to how on earth I was supposed to insert this thing. I was flushed, anxious, and shaking with annoyed anticipation because I had to make it work.
I looked at the image suggesting standing with one foot on the toilet seat and one on the floor would give easily and swift insertion. I couldn’t bend forward enough to see my vulva** let alone the entrance to my vagina. I blindly placed the tip of the applicator Down There and nudged it around, hoping it would effortlessly slide in so I could move on with my day. I dearly wished for this whole experience to be as mundane and forgettable as using the bathroom for any other purpose.
Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t just slip in. The light flow of the beginning of my period doesn’t give enough lubrication despite the promises of the glossy exterior of the tampon applicator.
I find the right hole and try to quickly push it in, but I don’t have the right angle. After a few moments of pushing and prodding I take the applicator away. To my dismay, it’s bent out of shape, no longer the smooth cylinder, and patchy with period blood.
Another wave of panic washes over me. There’s nothing to do but discard the applicator and meet the tampon itself.
Standing up to do this is far too stressful. I’m so tense trying to stay balanced without my foot slipping into the toilet bowl, while bent over to reach my vagina, and hoping I’ll magically get the right angle for all this to be over.
I sit down on the toilet, take a breath, and rally myself for another attempt.
Legs open, pelvis tucked forward, curling over myself for what I hoped would give better access. I lead with the tip of the tampon, again poking and prodding for my vagina. I was getting better at finding it but the right angle to push the tampon in still eluded me.
It felt like I was pushing into a thick ribbed rubber channel that gripped at the tampon instead of letting it slide in. I eventually managed to get the right angle so that I was now only pushing the base of the tampon with my index finger to get it up in there.
How far did it need to be in?
Fully inside my body with only the string hanging out, I knew that much. I also knew that once it was in properly, I shouldn’t be able to feel it. But how much further inside my body was that? I couldn’t imagine pushing it in much more, especially after I’d struggled so hard and so long to get this far.
I stood up to check. Yep, I could definitely still feel it. All day I’d be thinking about my tampon being in the wrong place if I left it like this.
I took the tampon out and resorted to putting my finger up there to check just how much room there was and to try discover how far inside was far enough.
This was the first time I had ever put my finger in my vagina.
It stuns me today that I was so unfamiliar with any part of my body that my preference was to stay as hands off as possible. First by using an applicator, then the tampon, until necessity forced me to actually meet myself.
It strikes me in the exact moment of typing this, that my body only allowed a tampon in after I had greeted it myself, skin to skin, body to body. Prior to this it was all struggle and pushing and forcefulness.
I must have had a second applicator tampon. The first tampon was similarly misshapen as its applicator after its own failed attempt. I remember not even trying with the second applicator. How exactly are they supposed to make this all easier? Instead, I grasped this second tampon.
My last and only tampon.
Feeling slightly more familiar with where the tampon needed to go. I guided it in with a much firmer touch, my fingers nudging it around to get the right angle, then feeling past the ring of muscle at the vagina entrance to the space behind it where I guessed the tampon needed to go so it wasn't felt and I could finally forget about it.
After still a lot of fumbling... finally, success.
Or successful enough to get me out of this damn bathroom and forget this embarrassing struggle ever happened.
I didn’t feel proud of myself.
I felt relief that it was done and annoyed that I’d had to deal with any of this in the first place.
[ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Vagina Meet Tampon, by Kerryn Hewson. 2023.]
If you liked this article, you might like to read When Our Bodies Speaks coming next.
* Form 1 is now Year 7 in New Zealand school years.
** I wouldn’t learn the word “vulva” until my early 30s when my daughter was a toddler and I wanted to use the correct term as simply and factually as we use “penis”.