Jezebel
I dated a guy once who cared a lot about the environment. "I hope you don't use those awful plastic applicators," he told me once when I was on the rag. And I don't, because you can't flush plastic applicators, but I broke up with him anyway, and I would probably extend this policy to anyone who told me not to flush my tampons because of the environment or the pipes or whatever. In modern society our sewage systems should be equipped to handle whatever fluids we secrete on a regular basis, in addition to whatever amount of paper is required to absorb said fluids, and if that isn't the case, well, that is why it is great to be a plumber during a recession. The whole point of tampons is that you can flush them, and there is nothing more irritating to me than the male housemate who exclaims, once the first backup occurs, "Oh my god you've been FLUSHING YOUR TAMPONS?!"
Like, yeah motherfucker, that is what you do. I didn't choose to have a motherfucking period every month, but I was sufficiently blessed to be born in a country where most citizens have televisions and access to cars and the toilets are evolved many stages beyond the outhouses and holes in the ground used by our ancestors. So WHATEVER. I refuse to buy into this "don't flush tampons" crap when there are people who still can't pick up their dog shit and also people who charge their companies to fly around their own private jets and people slaughtering crippled cows and people mutilating other people's genitals...anyway, you get the idea.
Comments
We lived in a really old house when I was younger and I wasn't allowed to flush mine. Talk about an embarrassed 13-year-old me. Ugh.
what?
*cough*DivaCup*cough*
Yup. I think this is my favorite post ever.
Whatever, I don't make guys wash off their used condoms and take them to the latex recycling plant.
Obviously, you do not live with my shitty, low-flow toilet. It's not convenient to flush tampons when it clogs weekly after only normal activity, plus our super lives in the building and I would rather not have him see that.
Also, I am really, really feeling like an asshole for buying whichever tampons are on sale - including the plastic ones.
'In modern society our sewage systems should be equipped to handle whatever fluids we secrete on a regular basis'
Uh, *should*. But who gives a damn when you're standing over an overflowing toilet? I'm much more concerned with tampons being taxed as luxury items.
Growing up, our house had a septic system, so no flushing of tampons or even big wads of toilet paper. Today, though, I live in a city and paw sewer fees and damn straight I am flushing my tampons.
My boyfriend, by the way, only recently learned that I do this and was taken aback. I was like what? A lot of poops are bigger!
I'm not convinced guys should be allowed to have an opinion about this, especially when so many of them flush condoms without giving it a second thought. Talk about non-biodegradable!
how are tampons any more damaging than loo paper?
also, i absolutely hate to admit it, but those playtex "sport" tampons are utterly brilliant and leak substantially less/ not at all. sorry, prob TMI.
Flushing our tampons should be on the women's rights chart.
It's IN MY LEASE that the ladies mustn't flush tampons. Granted, we live in a hella old building with hella old pipes and such, but seeing that clause on page 4 of the lease made me do a double-take.
And yeah, I still flush them. But I have lots of plumber-type tools, so I figure I can deal with it if need be.
Whoa, sensing some anger. Went I went to a friend's reallly reallllllly old vacation home with plumbing from like, 1820, I didn't flush my tampons because I was scared I would explode the pipes or something. (Even though I normally do flush them).
And then all my friend's made fun of me and told me it was gross and I was shamed into flushing them and each time I was terrified I'd cause a massive flood.
/end long story.
@flackette: Ahem, I pay the sewer fees, not paw them.
Ugh. When I moved into my apartment building, the geezer landlord told me, "Now, don't be flushing those 'things.' The pipes can't handle it."
My mom is always warning me not to flush tampons, out of fear of clogging the toilet. But I do it anyway. I'm not wrapping them up in TP and throwing them in the trash!!! That's even MORE vile.
Yeah. If you want my mouth to swallow what comes out of your genitals, then your toilet is going to swallow what comes out of mine.
amen sister... who wants to have a bloody vag plug sitting in their waste basket anyway?
When you say you dated a guy "once", you mean today, right? Because that rage is fresh.
I used to have to throw away my pads in the kitchen trashcan because they made the bathroom smell bad, so I was told. It was so embarrassing to walk around with balled up pads in my pockets.
I don't think the whole point of tampons is that you can flush them. If they clog the toilet then wrap it up in tp and throw it in the trash. That way you're not being rude to your roommates. I use pads and it takes me all of 3 seconds to throw it in the garbage can. I don't see the big deal.
DivaCup ftw!
However, my boyfriend consistently flushes condoms. I am pretty sure it's bad for the pipes and our building is from the 20's. How to convince him otherwise? The trash can is literally RIGHT NEXT TO the toilet. Like, if he missed, it'd go in the trash.
I hope you all never meet the poor guy. You'll be like, "Oh, you're that guy who flushes condoms and doesn't like doggy style! I'm Amy."
I don't follow. Were his objections environmental in nature? I don't understand how it would be bad to flush a tampon.
And, yo, I use the plastic applicator ones. I dare some dude to try to make me switch. I double-dog dare him. Did he see that "Annuale" fake commerical on SNL, because, that would be about what I'd be like.
@misssgolightly: Yes. I caused a toilet to flood once. Even though it was not a tampon (or a poo) that caused it, it scarred me for life.
I have never flushed a tampon in my life. Maybe because I was late to the tampon game and was already used to throwing pads in the trash?
Even the toilet paper wads can be definitely bigger than a used tampon. BTW, consider this: the regular (not Compak) Tampax is fully biodegradable, wrapper and applicator included. Isn't that better than using maxi pads? And yea, yea, I heard of the luna pads, but sorry: I don't feel like rinsing off a bloody rag every month, especially at work...
@RyanB: Um, was that total TMI?
This makes me glad that all the crazy environmentalists in my life are also gay men because it means they're afraid to think about my vagina and it wouldn't occur to them that (a) I have one and (b) that it has any environmental impact whatsoever.
This also gets to one of my MAJOR pet peeves about environmentalism. It's great to do everything you can do, as an individual, to help the environment, but, really, is a plastic applicator or tampon going to make that much of a difference compared to, say, finding sustainable energy sources or reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Hello, people, stop looking at the trees I'm killing shoving cotton up my vagina and see the forest that is no longer there because Victoria's Secret razed it for a catalog.
[/rant]
I don't flush. Once you see what a tampon has transformed into after spending quality time in the crapper and floating back up -- some sort of bloated, bloody sea monster menacing you with its floating cotton tentacles -- you'll think twice.
My new (really old) apartment requires that I throw away mine instead of flushing them, which is really annoying. But lets be honest, nothing is more vomit-inducing than having to plunge one's toilet during one's period. Period.
(rude by clogging up the toilet if you know it'll clog it, I mean)
@hortense: This should be engraved on a plaque somewhere.
@Blue Skies, Golden Sunshine: doesn't like doggy-style?
@Titania:
Exactly. I do a happy dance if my toilet successfully flushes. It's called the 'yay one more day without using the plunger' dance.
@flackette: See, we had septic tanks where I grew up, too. And the asshole rooter men who had to occasionally come out & snake the pipes would compound the EXISTING shame of having a period by bitching loudly to anyone in earshot about "white mice", rooter-speak for flushed tampons. Pricks.
ha ha! This reminds me of how our family got a dog right around when my little sister started getting her period and was too newbie to use tampons. The puppy would dig out her bloody pads from the trash can and tear them up in the living room, and it made my sister and my dad embarrassed, while my mom and I laughed.
I feel like I'm gonna vom.
@hortense: I bow to you!
My gay landlord threw a hissy fit when our toilet clogged the first time. He just knew we'd been flushing our 'girly stuff' and he'd never had a toilet problem at the house. Sorry dude, still flushing em, if you don't want tampons in your toilet rent to men.
@westvillagegirl: My vagina, my choice of products. I wouldn't tell him to use an uncomfortable condom.
Are you guys talking about the applicator or the used tampon. I seriously have no clue.
Who could care about flushing as long as it is not the plastic applicators?
I have never, ever thought about this before! Gee, the things I am learnin' on this site.
As someone who had to have her basement floor jackhammered this summer when her main line backed up into her basement in the middle of fucking July during a heat wave because of a houseguest who doesn't understand the words "Don't flush tampons in a 100+ year old house" I beg to differ.
I have a well- and frequently-Lysoled covered trashcan in there with a flap, so nobody will see it or smell it, and you can wrap it in a whole roll of fucking toilet paper before you put it in there for all I care, but unless you're shelling out the $500, I'm gonna take those fucking tampons after the plumber pulls them out of the lake of raw sewage that I've been smelling and jam them down your fucking throat.
Question - my roommate doesn't wrap her used plastic applicators, just throws them right in the trash. This is gross and I'm not a prude, right?
Ladies, ladies, ladies...the Diva Cup is your friend! Seriously, for something I only use about 5 days a month, this little piece of rubber (?) makes me SO HAPPY!
what is so terrible about wrapping it in toilet paper and then putting it into the waste basket? I don't get it....never flushed them ever....and my whole theory about guys flushing the used condoms instead of putting them in the basket is that someone told them the girl might take it and try to get pregnant anyway from it....or something like that....Urban myth and all....
@niftypenguin: Exactly! How fucking hard is it to wrap something in t.p. and throw it away? Tampons are murder on a septic system. You want a $16,000 repair? Flush away!
@BiscuitDoughJones: What assholes! I was at least lucky in that I had the use of a bathroom to myself. But I was still a little mortified when my dad would go gather up the bathroom trash bags to put in a big bag for the trash collectors. Hence I would use like half a roll of toilet paper to wrap and disguise each tampon or pad.
@Blue Skies, Golden Sunshine, edgyspice: Oh thank god. I'm such a coward I was afraid I'd have to be the first one to profess my love for that wonderful little bottle nipple.