What did women use before tampons were invented?

Very small sheep.

My grandmother told me they used potato bags. She grew up on a farm, and later moved to Chicago, where she said they would steal those old brown paper napkins, and paste them into a cardboard box for heavy days. She told me they were not very sanitary. She became a nurse, and had zero filter talking - at the dinner table, no less - about these things. My dad (her son) would tell her to stop, but she thought it was stupid to not educate people.

Here you go, OP. All you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask...

You rang.

This guy...

Soaked corn cobs in salt water

OP I have been watching a lot of videos about general hygiene in the 1700's Versaille (recommended to me for some strange reason) and I found the videos fascinating.

This one pretty much explains the taboo surrounding menstruation and how different cultures dealt with it.

This is a perfect topic of discussion for a gay website and will undoubtedly be a multipart thread.

And in case you wanted to know about hygiene in general, back in the 1700's.

I’ll never forget seeing blood soaked tampons underneath a table in a fast food restaurant in the 90s.

Rags made from old Cotton sheets that weren’t being used for klan activity

My ladybugs eat away any messiness discharged.

Rich women were in bed for 5 to 7 days, diapered in cotton cloths. Other women also stuffed their underpants with cotton cloth but had to continue their daily lives.

Yes, only women bleed.

What's a tampon?

Leeches

Has Nan Michiganwomyn chimed in yet?

This is right up her ... ahem... alley.

If I recall correctly, there's something about moon cups.

Maxi-Pads, Rose.

I'll always remember a cartoon I saw in Playboy magazine that I read through when I was a little kid.

It was a straight guy with blood all over his face, and he had just finished eating out a woman's pussy during her period.

That cartoon was both fascinating and disgusting.

Do straight men really fetishize women on the rag?

I’ll never forget being 8 yrs old and having some ugly ogre 10 yr old girl explain to me how girls piss blood when they’re 13 yrs old.

They’re like dogs sniffing around. They want to know where that smell comes from. First comes the blood them comes the boys.

[quote] girls piss blood when they’re 13 yrs old.

That's an interesting way to put it.

OP, you do realize where the colloquialism "on the rag" comes from, right?

LOL.

Rags and cloths

Laughed my ass off at r15

Pine needles

Corn cobs

A finger.

My lesbian lovers face

Who cares?

They stuffed kittens up there.

They wore rrrrrraaaaaaaaagggggggssssssssss.

Up there. You know.

The sound when a crusty rusty wad was pulled out was something that the whole village heard.

Going for the red...err gold

I'm guessing it sucked. I saw something about them using whatever materials they could. At some point, they had like a belt thing. Almost like a jock strap, uh, minus the need for a pouch for a dick.

However, I also read it wasn't as difficult as dealing with it now a days for two reasons: 1) menstruation started later than now because of poor nutrition. Instead of being say 12, they were closer to 20. Body fat % and nutrition must reach a certain point before it triggers menstruation. 2) women were pregnant so much, they barely had time to menstruate. Between malnutrition (which can halt periods in any aged woman) and pregnancy, it was nothing like modern times where it requires maintenance every single month, for like 30 years of their lives.

Gets a decent article about it:.

"What we do know is that periods were less regular in pre-modern times than today, due to the fact that many women would have been malnourished. Menstrual regularity was also impacted by the fact that most women spent a larger part of their reproductive life either pregnant or breastfeeding, compared to today."

Only thing now a days to avoid one would be to take birth control 365 days a week, which unsurprisingly works by mimicking pregnancy hormones.

Sears catalogue.

Museum of Menstruation awaits you.

My grandmother told me they'd go to the beach and do splits. Apparently, the sand is really absorbent.

r35 Do they have a gift shop? A cafeteria?

OP is Jill

There were menstrual belts, elastic band around the waist, had a tab in front and back that the pad would be tied to/through.

TMI?

What did women in 3rd world countries use ?

KOTEX

#34 = Loretta Lynn

R40 Any absorbent material available, like literal rags. There's some countries where they make them sit in "menstrual" huts the entire time. I'm not sure if they give them anything for hygeine though. Sadly girls have died because the can be poisonous critters hiding in these dark huts (like snakes).

I don't even wanna think about it. Life was shitty enough for Woman without having to deal with that.

Life was shitty for everyone, let's not pretend that men were living a fantastic life either.

r40, see r1

I know they still have reusable, washable sanitary pads in some countries. And let's not forget the Diva Cup!

My German Oma (who was born in 1912) told me they knitted pads, washed them and dried them on a clothes line.

[quote]R35 Museum of Menstruation awaits you.

I can’t believe someone else here knows about that site!

They have an old ad for these Bunsen burner type things you could travel with to burn your soiled rags, rather than going through the embarrassment of washing and drying them when you were a guest.

How did the loss of monthly blood not kill some of the women who menstruated? I had older sisters and shared a bathroom. They had playtex and Kotex items. My mother had a hot water bottle (from the 40's) for them. I remember them whining about cramps, and using that as an excuse not to go to school or work. I asked my Granny why it was such a big deal. Granny told me that blood stained corsets were a common thing you would see in a woman's lavatory. Granny did her wash in a giant tub of boiling water, in all temperatures year round, and once out of that water, up the underwear went on an outside clothes line. She went to The College of Mt. Saint Joseph and said the ignorance of many of the young women was astounding, and The Sisters of Charity were full of fire and brimestone talk to any student who didn't get a monthly blood letting. Poor women!

In the awful novel "Longbourn," a novel that takes place "below stairs" in the world of "Pride and Prejudice," the author spends an interminable amount of time detailing how the maid has to wash out the linens the Bennet girls use during their periods.

Grandmawmaw used horsehair & twine.

one cotton ball

Plug it up!

Plug it up!

Tapioca sprinkled in the crotch of their panties.

Where did the real DLers go today? Gay men obsessed with women...sheesh!

[quote] Tapioca sprinkled in the crotch of their panties.

Sounds like the makings of a mud pie.

I think I'm going to be sick.

Ancient Egyptian women made their own tampons.

Sea sponges.

Bounty the quicker picker upper

They were naked and didn’t use anything