7. Boys - read: not little boys, not boys who need supervision, but boys old enough to leer - in the ladies' room. Says Hortense, "Find a family restroom now, or find a family therapist later, know what I'm sayin?"

6. Wet toilet paper. Says Tatiana, "I just hate life whenever some thoughtless prick has got all the toilet paper wet, like by leaving the roll in a floor puddle." Clawing a dry hunk off is not an appealing option.

5. Toilet paper, everywhere. Where does it come from? When a toilet won't flush, is it considered some kind of tacit signal to drop an entire roll's worth of paper in the bowl and drape the remainder over the sides and floor, just so no one will try to use it? Is it a "seat-covering" run amok? Is it to cover evidence? And why does this happen so much? In any given ladies' room, at any given time, at least one stall will be out of commission due to t.p.

4.T.P. Sabotage. Says Margaret, "it's irritating when someone makes eye contact with you as they're walking out of the stall, sees you go in, and still fails to say 'btw, there's no toilet paper.' Talk about a solidarity fail! Are they too refined to say "toilet paper?" Do they go by the hazing system, rationalizing that if they suffer, you should too? Where does the madness end?

3. Not flushing. Would it kill collective womanhood to make sure everything's gone away? I'm not saying it's a scenic view, but think of it as a public service; maybe your at-home facilities are completely reliable, but not all toilets are created equal. (Anyone who's grown up in a house with dud plumbing is neurotic about this, as I know all too well.) Often a stall will be considered "out of order" for hours before a cleaner or someone has the gumption to actually flush the toilet, proving nothing's wrong. As Anna points out, no toilet paper in evidence - in either toilet or stall - makes this even grosser.

2. Used Pads/Tampons shoved behind seat/paper dispenser. Periods? Great. Strangers' used sanitary products? A bridge too far. As Margaret adds, "sometimes there's no trash bin in the stall, which is annoying too, but in that case I think wrapping it in toilet paper and carrying it to the garbage next to the sinks is a more sanitary option." Tatiana also calls out those tampons "wrapped and dropped on the wet floor so they make red ink blots."

1. Pee on the seat. Let's make that "liquid," actually. Says Dodai, "blood or urine on the seat is basically like saying FUCK YOU." We get it: you don't want to touch the seat. We're glad you're so sanitary, you've screwed the rest of us. As Megan puts it, "how hard is it to kick the seat up with your shoe and hover over the bowl?"

First, disclosure: Managing editor Anna Holmes, former editor Moe Tkacik and this website's commenters are all quoted at length, posts are cited, and Jezebel is credited as one of the progenitors of the the new openness, "the leader of the oversharing crusade, with vibrant, aromatic and really graphic posts about everything from lodged tampons to yeast infection remedies to bloody period sex to female ejaculation." And we can't deny it: we have been known, on occasion, to wax anatomical. Not only do we as a community not happen to find the female body an uncomfortable subject, but it's safe to say we all appreciate that there's something uniquely fascinating about its mysteries. Graphic accounts can be gross, sure, but also comforting, reassuring, informative and funny in ways probably mysterious to men but very important to women.

In a larger sense, it is, of course, as Anna terms it, "cathartic." Traister identifies the phenomenon's larger implications: "Oversharing is in. And for a lot of people who are doing the sharing, or experiencing it, it's not so much "too much information" as it is the next, necessary step in personal-is-political, enlightened honesty about the female body." What may have been rooted, as Traister says, in a touchy-feely second wave Our Bodies Ourselves mentality, in more politicized "reclaiming" of the female body and, more lately, vaginas-are-outrageous shock-value humor is, hopefully, morphing into something neither shocking nor particularly charged.

As Moe says in the article, these pieces are about more than just tampons, female ejaculation and garlic cloves: they're about vulnerabilities, insecurities and fears - a female shorthand that implicitly evokes the biological push-pulls that govern so much of our lives. Such accounts can be frank, but what people are learning is that they are not inherently vulgar. Quite simply, when talking openly and honestly about women's issues, it would be disingenuous and bizarre not to "overshare" about our bodies. The female body will not be ignored: it burbles and leaks and creaks and drips and emits and produces and reproduces and generates and puffs and inflates and occasionally reeks. It is fascinating. It is scary. It is alarming. It is hilarious and silly and mysterious. As the range of experiences in "My Little Red Book," the new "first period" compendium, makes clear, this openness is a stark contrast to the fear and secrecy and implicit judgment that surrounded anything anatomical in the past. So when you're grossed out, just remember: we overshare because we love. And you can always skip the post - at least we have the option.

The Great Girl Gross-Out [Salon]
Earlier: Aunt Flo Visiting? My Little Red Book Demystifies Periods
Ten Days In The Life Of A Tampon
Shejaculation: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gush
Where Garlic Has Never Gone Before: Or, How Not To Cure A Yeast Infection