New this week: The Celts: religion, women and menstruation, from a letter to this site - The Art of Menstruation: recent art from Thomasin Durgin - humor

Would you stop menstruating if you could? (Many new contributions)
Words and expressions for menstruation (New categories, Italy and South Africa; additions to the U.S.A. and The Netherlands, and a translation of a Spanish phrase)
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

PREVIOUS NEWS
first page | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads

Letters to your MUM

A homosexual American man muses about the museum

YOU CRAZY LESBIANS HAVE GONE TOO DAMN FAR!!! [Uh-oh. Should I tell him the truth?] HOW COULD ELIMINATED BLOOD AND FLESH SMELL LIKE MARIGOLDS? [The writer must have read the Odor page. Good for him!] AM I NUTS TO THINK THAT AFTER X AMOUNT OF YEARS ON THIS PLANET THAT THE WORLD DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT PERIODS AND SUCH? N-A-S-T-Y!!!!

YES, I'M A MAN, AND IF I WAS STRAIGHT, I SURE WOULDN'T WANT TO SMELL SOME VAGINA THAT BLED AND FLUSHED TISSUE OUT. IN THE 17TH CENTURY, PEOPLE WORE WIGS BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T WANT TO WASH THEIR HAIR. YET YOU AGREE WITH THEM, THAT BLEEDING VAGINAS SMELL LIKE SOME DAMN FLOWER. GO LIVE IN THE 17TH CENTURY, CRAZY DUMB ASS. THOSE PEOPLE LIVED TO BE 30 AT THE MOST. IT WASN'T GOOD HYGIENE THAT KEPT THEM ALIVE.

WHY I AM WRITING YOU THIS LETTER, I DON'T KNOW. I'M JUST TIRED OF CRAZY-ASS STUFF ON THE WEB, BUT YA'LL ARE BON-A-FIED [What a clever version of bona fide!] CRACKY.

DON'T EVEN WRITE ME BACK. I DON'T CARE TO HEAR FROM YOU.


A TV production company asks, "Did you celebrate your period?"

If you had a party or created a ritual to celebrate your first period, we would be interested in hearing your story and seeing your videos, pictures.

This would be for possible inclusion in a television documentary called
Reinventing Rituals, Coming of Age in a Modern World for Vision Television, in Canada.

Series consultant is Ron Grimes, internationally recognized expert on ritual and the author of numerous books on ritual including his most recent, Deeply Into the Bone, Reinvented Rite of Passage.

These three one hour specials, Coming of Age in the Modern World; Marriage Separation and Divorce; and Birth and Death are co-production between Northern Lights Television in Toronto and Ocean Entertainment in Halifax for Vision Television Network. They will air on Vision TV, a Canadian specialty channel whose mandate is to cover multi-faith, multicultural stories about the human spirit.

Reinventing Rituals will explore exotic cultures and ceremonies that may, on the surface, bear little resemblance to the hallmarks of our own lives. We will witness dramatic initiation ceremonies from Africa, complex funerals from New Guinea, and elaborate wedding and courtship rituals from South America. Viewers will become acquainted with traditional rites from many different cultures, contemporary and historic.

However, at the core of this series are the North Americans who are exploring new ways to mark transitions. We'll meet parents who are preparing to spend their children out in the mountains to spend grueling days and nights in initiation ceremonies; individuals who are approaching the end of life determined to design all aspects of their own funerals; and expectant couples who are redefining appropriate behaviour in the birthing room. This series is about these men and women and their quest to reinvent traditional rites of passage; but it's also about the connections that can be drawn between these modern pioneers and their counterparts in other times and places.

Program #1 The Bridge: Coming of Age in the Modern Reinventing Rites of Passage.

Reinventing Rituals is a compelling series of television documentaries that explore the dramatic resurgence in ritual and how it is being interpreted or recreated in order to give meaning to our lives.

From first menstruation ceremonies to vision quests, traditional societies have used ritual to help young people mark and make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. All but abandoned by Western culture, initiation rituals are suddenly becoming more popular.

The increasing profile of street gangs, drug wars, and teenage promiscuity in our communities have contributed to rising the popularity of the coming of age rituals. Many parents fear that if they do not provide an initiation scenario their children will initiate themselves using sex, drugs or dangerous behaviour. By enrolling their children in complex and often dramatic initiation rites, families can help young people make the difficult transition to adulthood. In this program we meet youth at the National Rites of Passage Institute in Cleveland Ohio who have spent the past year in a coming of age program. And then we'll join up with teenagers who've enrolled in a 10 day-long program outside Calgary, Alberta as they prepare to spend three World

If you are interested and/or need more information, contact

Deannie Sullivan Fraser

[email protected]

902-423-9056 phone

902-423-9058 fax

SNAIL MAIL: Ocean ENTERTAINMENT, SUITE 404, 1657 BARRINGTON STREET, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA B3J 2A1


The woman writer believes the future museum should charge admission

Oh, my God!! I laughed so much. I even learned a thing or two. I have always been interested in "off-beat" museums.

I don't give a rat's ass if you are a man and doing the museum. [Read what a Tampax official e-mailed me about this.] If anything, why didn't a woman think of it? [Good question.] How this site could be thought of as sexist baffles me. Probably the same people who think they don't have to pay taxes and make their own money. Anyway, I found your site very informative, a wonderful and complete collection. I hope to make a trip to D.C. [District of Columbia; the museum was in one of its suburbs] sometime in the near future and will absolutely make a stop at your museum should you be up and running. (I hope you will be.)

Just a thought, though.

I believe you should charge a small admission fee - $5 or something. Obviously it costs money to buy these "collectables" and such. It costs money for utilities and space and as well as the many hours you invest in this project. I don't think anyone would be offended or surprised at having to pay for admission. [Some have told me that I would be exploiting women by doing so.] Many museums charge and understandably so. I think a small fee would lend to the authenticity of your museum, in a small way.

Anyway, I love your work and will surely check back again. Have a great holiday.


Does anyone know about sphagnum "moss" as a menstrual absorbent??

Do you have any information regarding sphagnum? If so could you e-mail it to me?


Belted pads in RiteAid drugstores

Hi, Harry,

FYI: it turns out RiteAid drugstores sell a belted hospital style maxi (their brand) out here on the West Coast [U.S.A.]. [Several people wanted to know where to get belted pads now that Kotex and supposedly Modess have stopped making them.]


Read about and see the mikvah

Here is a Web page about the Jewish mikvah [a bath that some Jewish woman use after finishing their period], including pictures of a modern one, and another Jewish ritual-purity site.

Check out behavior during niddah (the time when a woman is menstruating in Judaism). I can't imagine anyone following all these rules. [Read more about religion and menstruation.]

[The writer added that she is the mother of two "wunderkinder" - German, and maybe Yiddish, for "amazing children" - a daughter aged 12 and a son, 9.]


Add more topics to this Web site

Hi,

I found your site fascinating. I came across it researching women's rituals for a lecture I will be giving in April on the same topic for La Leche League of New Jersey.

Three things I wanted to add:

1. There is a Native American menstrual hut at Waterloo Village [New Jersey?]. I have pictures.

2. As a LLL leader, giving breast feeding advice for ten years, we talk about not having a period after giving birth. I didn't see anything about this on your Web site.

3. I have led several menses rituals and again you had nothing about this on your site.

I tell you not as a criticism but since you seem so thorough you might want to include them.

[Would you write something about them and send them in? I'm usually happy to publish information that readers send, especially on topics not covered or about which they know more than I do. But the articles should usually be ready to publish, as I only work on the site weekends and time is ferociously short.]


Can a philosopher run a museum?

Just discovered your site; having a M.A. in Psychology with emphasis in depth psychology, which is well grounded in philosophy, I could not think of a better person to curate MUM. Just my initial reaction. [Thanks! I have a B.A. in philosophy from Johns Hopkins. Read about the future museum.]


How to earn your Hell's Angels red wings

I enjoy your Web site very much; it's refreshing to see such a comprehensive and non-biased presentation of a topic where information can be so evasive.

Here's something I heard maybe you could use.

In the Hell's Angels [motorcycle club], if they enjoyed having intercourse (probably not the term they used) with a woman while she was menstruating, the wings on their jacket's logo were red. I don't know what to think of that.

I don't know that I'd want to get rid of my periods; sometimes I quite like them and other times it can be irksome. [She is responding to my question, "Would you stop menstruating if you could? Read more replies.] I think the worst thing is when the product you are using is no longer useful and you cannot leave for whatever reason to change it, thus staining your clothing. Also sleeping with it can be a pain, especially as I hate pads. I am considering buying a Keeper [menstrual cup; read about the history of cups], though (another thing your helpful site informed me of). I think periods can feel very nice, though, and even comforting.

Thank you for your time and effort. Please continue.

A baby in every bottle?

Hi, Harry,

My mother used to tell me that my grandparents had been married several years and they were childless. She said Granny used to say, "I drank bottle after bottle of Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, and nothing happened. There was supposed to be a baby in every bottle."

Do you know anything about the claim that drinking Lydia Pinkham would aid a woman in getting pregnant? [I'm not sure if the herbs in the liquid or the alcohol lent credence to that belief, but I've heard it and read it many times. I can't say if it was true.]

Thank you for your time.


Calculate your period, dates for conception, etc.

Dear Harry!

We, atomintersoft, very much liked your site. Our firm is the developer of the widely known program Bloodays - www.bloodays.com.

We think the information in our program will be rather useful and would be interesting to the visitors of your site.

AiS Bloodays has won awards, for example, five cows from www.tucows.com

Bloodays is an excellent family-planning tool with easy-to-use tools.

Bloodays is an interesting download that calculates a woman's menstrual cycle.

Of course, you don't need a Windows program to do that, but it's useful too especially if you're planning to bring a child into the world. Bloodays will determine the day when you (or your significant other) are ovulating, thus boosting the chances for conception. It can also suggest the days that you could potentially conceive a boy or girl. In addition, Bloodays can calculate the child's birth date, and suggest days couples can mate when conception isn't likely to occur.

Bloodays is a simple program that's easy to use and understand. Its interface displays a multi-year calculator, which can be scrolled to any time period in the past, present and future. When you run it the first time, just click a date to set the first date of menstruation. The program then calculates ovulation and special gender dates. Use the same menu dialog to display the conception and birth prognosis.

The calendar, including the color-coded analysis, may be printed. If you will count this information useful to the visitors of your site and place on the site the information about AiS Bloodays, we shall be rather grateful to you. In a mark of gratitude we shall be glad to place the reference to your site on our site www.bloodays.com

Best regards,

Roman Sholohov

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.atomintersoft.com - corporate site

http://www.bloodays.com - calendar for adults


The Red Tent

Book by Anita Diamant

c. 1997 by Anita Diamant

A Wyatt book for St Martin's Press

ISBN 0-312-16978-7

Have you read it? [Not yet, but a friend sent me a copy.]

It focuses almost entirely on the menstrual tent (the Red Tent) and it makes it seem quite positive, not as negative as it seems some cultures made it out to be. It is from the perspective of Dinah, the daughter of the Jacob who later became Israel. I am not finished, but thought I'd mention it to you know while I'm thinking about it. It sure puts a whole different light on the idea of menstruation - that it can be a time of joy and fellowship, a time of rest almost. The first trip to the tent included special cakes and wonderful treatment for the young girl. Births took place there, too.

This is a work of fiction, and I'm trying to find out how much of it is fact and how much of it is the author's imagination.

Btw, I find your site very informative and am looking forward to learning more about Seasonale (a proposed hormone pill for the average woman that limits menstruation to only four times a year).


We need a physical as well as a virtual museum

Mr. Finley,

Congratulations on a well-researched and amazingly informative site (I found it via the Roadside America site). While I agree that the physical artifacts certainly deserve to be housed in a real-world museum, on the Web this fascinating collection is now accessible worldwide. [Right!]

Best regards,

[At the bottom of the e-mail was this quote]
"Jesus said, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.'"

Saying 70, Coptic Gospel of Thomas


A tampon carrier and tampon shame

Have you seen these? They're from BUST magazine's online store and are tampon cases with neat and funny art on them. Not everyone would want their tampon case to say "tampon case" on it in bright red letters, but I think they're super. See

http://www.bust.com/boobtique/items/vinniesbags_ba.html

and

http://www.bust.com/boobtique/items/gkbags_ba.html

They also have magnets featuring a happy girl holding a box of Vinnie's tampons, and "PMS" bars, which look like the kind of chocolate bars Cub Scouts sell to raise funds, but with colorful labels with womens faces on them. [See Vinnie's tampon case on this site. Bust magazine included me in their list of the 100 "Bustiest Men We Love" in the Fall 2000 issue.]

Many girlies my age (I'm a senior in high school) and younger are awfully embarrassed about others seeing they have tampons, or any proof that they might menstruate, Heaven forbid. I don't really understand this. [See an ad demonstrating this.]

Since my mom is embarrassed by discussing menstruation and my boyfriend is not, and I don't have any close friends that are girls, I probably talk about such things with him more than I do with anyone else.

Anyway, I was in a motor crash yesterday and he was with me in the car, both of us wore are safety belts but I was considerably more hurt than him. An ambulance showed up and he rode in it with me, and the paramedic asked me some basic questions: name, address, etc. He asked for my weight and my boyfriend jokingly covered his ears. The paramedic said, "Son, you ought to really cover your ears for the next question," which was when was your last period. Not for men's ears! He and I had a little laugh about that later.

I used to make "wind chimes" out of tampons, basically decorating their applicators with stickers, paint, glitter, and other interesting things, and tying their strings around a wire hoop. They didn't really chime, but they made me laugh. I sent this idea to Tampax and said they ought to have an "arts and crafts" section on their box. They have not yet replied.

I hope you can use this info in some way. [Many thanks!]


Menstrual blood painting from Hawaii

Dear Harry, MUMS, Museum of Menstruation,

I have been to your site and really appreciate what you are doing.

I have been "painting" with my menses blood since 1976 and have a huge body of art created with it, called "The Art of JuiceyLiving." People have often commented that this art needs to be seen and is very supportive in reconnecting us back to our natural body functions. It is so much more, you have to see it to understand.

My partner and I have just opened a new website, www.transformationalart.com featuring this art. It is supportive and educational.

The MoonTime Gallery on our site, www.transformationalart.com/mohe/visuals/ajl/moong/moong.html, which highlights Menstrual Blood Art, is just opening this week. I would be interested in being linked from your sight and being able to feature some of my art in your gallery. I already have you linked from our site. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Love to you and alohas.

Saleena Ki'

[As I look at the snow on my neighbor's roof, I remember the sounds of a ukelele, the wind and the waves - nothing more! - at 6 on a Sunday morning on the beach at Fort DeRussey, just a trillion grains of sand from Waikiki, where my mom, my little brother and I tarried for three days on Hawaii on our way to San Francisco from the island of Okinawa, in the South China Sea, where we had lived for one-and-a-half years. I was 15 and I was head-over-heels in love with the Pacific Ocean and its islands and with an an older woman, a Korean-American born in Hawaii, whom I would shyly call my first girlfriend. She was 16.]


A woman from a collective writes

Dear Mr. Finley,

I am from Long Island [New York] and I have known about your museum for quite some time now. I think it is amazing that you are dealing with the subject of menstruation in such a positive light; women have been made to feel shameful about our bodies for centuries and it is so important to inform the public about menstruation cross-culturally, as well as within our own society.

I am a member of the Modern Times Collective on Long Island, a non-hierarchical, community-based activist network that aims to build positive institutions within our community through education and mutual aid. Long Island, like everywhere else, is devoid of a positive space for women to convene, discuss and organize; myself and other female members have been trying to develop such as space and to create a forum to discuss women's issues in order to inform and empower.

Our focus lately has been on the politics of menstruation - how power relations have played a role in the way menstruation is viewed and the ways in which our blood has been used for profit by corporations that ultimately pollute our bodies and the environment (i.e. through the use of harmful dioxin). More importantly, our goal is to reclaim our knowledge of our bodies and to subvert the shame we are made to feel by the fear and silence surrounding menstruation. I feel this can be accomplished by getting together with groups of women to participate more in our menstrual lives; so far we have had a "pad-making party" at which we got together to socialize and make homemade menstrual pads out of flannel and terry cloth. [See some commercial washable pads and older ones made at home.]

We have also distributed literature at conferences, shows and community centers, alerting people to the dangers of chlorine-bleached tampons while providing resources of alternatives like the Keeper, Natracare tampons, sea sponges, Glad Rags, and Luna Pads.

We were looking forward to visiting your museum and speaking with you, although I'm a bit disappointed to see that it has since closed. However, I read your plans for the new museum and I look forward to visiting (and learning!) Keep up the good work!!

Liz Young

Contact also [email protected] and

[email protected]

P.S. We publish our own quarterly newspaper ("modern times") in which reproductive rights/menstruation, among other things, are always a topic and we are interested in interviewing you for an upcoming issue. I would like to do a piece on the different menstrual products used by women through time and how the concept of "discreetness" seems to have intensified in recent years. We can also list your organization as a link on our Web page: http://www.aao.net

Menstrual products have changed a bit in 30 years, says this woman

I found your article in Me First magazine. Then I came to the Web site about your idea about a museum and I think it is great.

I am only 35 and I have seen changes in pads and lifestyles, and I found it very interesting about how old pads looked.

Try Canada, like Toronto [for the museum].

Good luck for the museum. I think you're a genius for coming up with the idea.


The "Moral Court" television show aired again (it's syndicated on the Warner Brothers channel (U.S.A.); read a short description of it and some earlier viewers' comments)

From a woman in Los Angeles, California

Hi, Harry,

I just saw you on "Moral Court." YOU GO!!! I think your museum is great, and I wish more men could be as open as you about the whole thing! Good luck, Harry!

A woman who is a physician writes

Hi,

I just watched the case on Moral Court and thought I would check out the Web site. I found it quite interesting and very informative. The accuser was right to walk out because she saw she had no case against you; but thanks to her, I now know about this site and museum. Keep up the good job.

An e-mail with the return address of a law firm

Saw you today on MORAL COURT - BRAVO!!!

A woman writes

Hi, There!

I saw you on Moral Court and thought you were great! (What was that woman's hang-up?)

Anyway, thanks for providing a fun and informative site! (I didn't know it existed until I saw you on TV.)

See Ya!!!


From a man in Connecticut

I saw your case on Moral Court this morning, and I have to say that I agree with the judge completely. I really felt that woman was persecuting you unfairly. I'm glad that the case turned out the way it did, and I commend you wholeheartedly on providing information to the masses on a very serious, and complicated, subject. I don't profess to know that woman's mind, but it seemed to me that she felt you were violating something sacred to the female gender. To her I say, "Lighten up." Anyway, congratulations on your histories and keep up the terrific work.

By the way, you might want to contact Yale University here in New Haven, Connecticut (I'm from Meriden) and ask them if they'd like to sponsor your exhibits. I have a good feeling about them. Well, so long, and have a Happy New Year!

And from another L.A. resident

Hi, Harry,

I think your museum should be seen as vividly as the Tar Pits in L.A. We must stop acting like this is not a part of life.

My husband is the one who purchases me and my daughters napkins and he sees it as a part of life that will placed upon him every month. It's as natural as buying groceries.

This museum should be visited by every school district in this city. [The writer, who saw Moral Court, which was filmed in Los Angeles {Hollywood}, mistakenly believed that the museum was in that city; it used to be in a suburb of Washington, D.C.] They already teach the subject in school and I think visiting the museum on a field trip should be a part of it. Find that spot, Harry, and help empower our kids. Your degree [I have a B.A. in philosophy] serves well with the subject, God and the nature and meaning of life. Think what Eve must have used (smile).

Regards,

From a woman in Virginia

Dear Mr. Finley,

My name is [I deleted it] and I am a counselor and teacher in [I deleted it] County, Virginia. Like many teachers at home on winter break, I have reacquainted myself with daytime television over the last week. <grin> I was actually glad to see the new show "Moral Court," based on "right vs wrong" as opposed to legal loopholes.

I have to admit I was skeptical initially about a man opening a museum on menstruation. I assumed it was a fetish gone public. But, watching you on the show, and reading the information on the Web site, I have concluded that I was wrong.

I just wanted to write and tell you that I felt you conducted yourself admirably on the show. You were gracious in "victory," declining to use the forum to denigrate the young woman who challenged you. I was very impressed.

Good luck with finding space for your collection. I will come out when it is complete!!

From a woman inventor in California

Dear Mr. Finley,

My name is [I deleted it] and I live in the city of [I deleted it]. I am also an inventor of a much-needed product for the monthly cycle of women. I visit your site quite often. I have found it to be very informative and I have also used it to educate my daughter. I saw you on Moral Court today and I was very pleased with the judge's decision and I was so pleased with your sensitivity for the accuser. I would love to visit your museum in person and speak with you on the product that I am proposing to the public.

I think it's a wonderful thing that a man would show interest in our full persons. I know God is watching over you and will grant you a public place to display your museum. Our children need to know how women years ago survived before modernization. As you can see, I didn't say "our daughters," but "our children," because our young men need to know that this is a normal process. I feel this will make them more sensitive to the opposite sex and not feel this is something that should be hidden or taboo, so to speak. [I agree!] Please have a blessed and prosperous 2001.

Regards,

From two women in Los Angeles

Hello!

Today as we were watching TV we saw you on Moral Court. At first we thought it was strange that you should want to devote your time to a menstruation museum. However, as we sat watching your case we had a change of heart. We think you are doing a great thing. We are on your side and we hope you will have success in the future.

Also, we feel extremely bad about your kitty cat [I lost one, Minnie Padd]. We have a book about cats that our friend's father wrote about his cats. We wondered if you would like to read it. Write and let us know. We could send it to you. Have a wonderful New Year.

Hello Mr. Finley,

From another woman supporter

I just saw "Moral Court" and decided to look up your Web site so I could e-mail you. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that you own a museum dedicated to menstruation and I can't believe someone had the nerve to take you to court just for being a man interested in the subject enough to have created the museum! Looks to me like she just became embarrassed when she realized she didn't have a case and that's probably why she walked out without apologizing. You certainly deserved an apology from her. I was very happy for you when you won. Good job :-)

From a man in Indiana

I watched you on Moral Court just now. Good going! I too have an interest in menstruation, though mine is more sexual. But you keep up that good work; I hope your health prospers and you get that museum gallery started. That lady was a nut.

Your fan,

From a woman

Dear Mr. Finley,

Initially, it was abject horror and shock that I watched you defend your MUM - imagine, a MAN having an interest in the "woman's curse"!!! At first, I was siding with the "feminist" who brought you on in the first place, then I really thought about it, and thought well, that you must be a VERY sensitive man who is VERY secure in your masculinity to even attempt to broach the very private subject of menstruation and its history of various and sundry inventions.

I even visited your Web site and now am very impressed with your collection of factual information and "oddities." No WONDER the "feminist" slinked away with "nothing more to say"! The information on your site seemed to be accurate, in fact, I have discovered an answer to a menstrual problem that my gynecologists did not seem to have known about! [!]

So I have opened my mind and learned a thing or two today! I have passed on your Web site to all of my female counterparts.

Thank you, Mr. Finley, for your wonderful Web site; keep up the great work!

Kind regards,

From a woman

First, I would like to tell you that I saw you on Moral Court today and I think that you were right, and it is interesting to see a site like that. In fact, I hunted for your site after the show.

I would definitely give up my cycle. [She is responding to my question, "Would you stop menstruating if you could? Read more replies.] I am 24 years old and have had one since I was 11. They have been nothing but pain and torture for me. My cycles were never 5 to 7 days, more like they were gone for 5 to 7 days. They were always very heavy and I had the worst cramps.

When I got married and decided to have children, I tried for five-and-a-half years to get pregnant, always hoping each month, and always finding out "not this time."

I don't feel that having a period makes me a woman, or that it is a natural experience. There is nothing normal about bleeding for a week straight every month. Anything else that did that would be dead. :)

Sign me up for the Pill. PLEASE!!!!

From a guy

Hi, Harry,

Saw you on TV - Congrats!!!

I'm a 37-year-old male and I saw you on Moral Court. Congrats on your victory! I can say that you truly won the case hands down. And, yes, it was great publicity, that's why I'm here. I think it may put you and your efforts over the top [I wish!]. Yes, I think your interest is a little quirky, but I also understand how a collection begins with one item that is interesting and it just progresses. Being of the male species myself, I have always been interested in the female menstrual cycle and this interest has helped me a great deal in my relationships and understanding with the opposite sex.

Good luck with your Quest,



Washable-pad company for sale

Gayle Adams, owner of Feminine Options, wants to sell the company to someone willing to put time and energy into it. The Food and Drug Administration has already approved its products.

Call Gayle at (715) 455-1652 (Wisconsin, U.S.A.).

[See and read about washable pads.]


Money and this site

I, Harry Finley, creator of the museum and site and the "I" of the narrative here, receive no money for any products or services on this site. Sometimes people donate items to the museum.

All expenses for the site come out of my pocket, where my salary from my job as a graphic designer is deposited.


You have privacy here

What happens when you visit this site?

Nothing.

I get no information about you from any source when you visit, and I have no idea who you are, before, during or after your visit.

This is private - period.


The following is outdated and has only a remote chance of being revived and passed, what with a Republican administration and Congress now in control (it couldn't even be effected with President Clinton and a Republican Congress), but it's nice to dream about. It would settle a lot of health questions about tampons and other menstrual products.

Tell Your Congressperson You Support the Tampon Safety and Research Act of 1999! Here's How and Why


Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a Public Official For Its Board of Directors

Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.

What public official out there will support a museum for the worldwide culture of women's health and menstruation?

Read about my ideas for the museum. What are yours?

Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law, finances and fund raising to the board.

Any suggestions?


Do You Have Irregular Menses?

If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome [and here's a support association for it].

Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked me to tell you that

Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility and is linked to diabetes.

Learn more about current research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University - or contact Jane Newman.

If you have fewer than six periods a year, you may be eligible to participate in the study!

See more medical and scientific information about menstruation.


New this week: The Celts: religion, women and menstruation, from a letter to this site - The Art of Menstruation: recent art from Thomasin Durgin - humor

Would you stop menstruating if you could? (Many new contributions)
Words and expressions for menstruation (New categories, Italy and South Africa; additions to the U.S.A. and The Netherlands, and a translation of a Spanish phrase)
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

PREVIOUS NEWS
first page | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads

privacy on this site

© 2001 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to [email protected]