I'm not a big fan of tampons or pads. This is not a very original feeling, but the more I read about how tampons can be harmful, combined with the fact that they're expensive as hell, I knew I needed to find another option. (Pads just always fall out of my underwear like it's their job, so.) Then my email started flooding with promotions for special period underwear — that is, underwear you wear without a pad, tampon, or cup while you have your period. Basically, the underwear has extra-reinforced material that absorbs liquid. I thought they were worth a shot. I clearly did not think it through.
I got a variety of period underwear by Googling all the different kinds, like an app sampler but with stuff you can bleed on. There aren't actually that many, but the ones I found that didn't look like you were wearing a blood-covered disco ball (see below) were actually cool-looking.
The ones I ordered ranged from ones that looked kind of like fancy lingerie:
Ones that looked like little boy's superhero underwear:
And ones that just looked like Victoria's Secret underwear that you buy on sale in bulk so you never have to buy underwear again in your life.
I knew the first day would not be fun. I stared at all these pairs of underwear and thought, So I'm just going to free-bleed into you and my clothes will remain unstained and I won't feel like I'm wearing a sexy diaper? OK, I'll believe you. Let's go, because it is a very normal thing to talk to your underwear first thing in the morning like it's a classroom at a school you work at.
I went with the fancy lingerie pair first, not just because I enjoy fancy lingerie but because it also looked the sturdiest aka the way you'd go and select a horse at a farm. The fabric was thicker and the coverage was better, so I figured it was a good bet for a Day One situation.
The whole day I was super aware that I was free-bleeding (which is a term I keep using that I heard somewhere at some point) and it felt a little weird. You know that gush you feel during your period sometimes and you think, My tampon's got this? Well, this time, my tampon did not got it and I felt the puddle land in my underwear in a way that made me queasy. And I hate that it made me queasy! I want to be cool with my period, man. I don't think periods are gross (because they're not) and I don't think women's bodies are weird (because they're not). But gushing blood into my underwear felt like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Still, at a certain point, I just accepted that this was a weird thing I was doing and that it would be fine one way or another because it felt too stressful to worry about it every single second.
By the middle of day one, I'd already had to do that thing I used to do when I was 16 where you roll up toilet paper to make a makeshift pad in your underwear because the underwear were totally soaked (I know, I know, even I'm repulsed by this) and had started staining my pants and it felt like a defeat. Because it was. What was the point of wearing underwear I could bleed in if I was just going to have to make DIY pads all day? And they weren't even going to be good ones because I do not have time to become the Martha Stewart of menstrual products, so they just looked like wadded-up garbage shoved in my underwear.
The second day was pretty much the same deal in terms of a glass of blood-wine being dumped into my pants throughout the afternoon, but I went with a different brand, which were even worse. The fabric wasn't that thick and I bled right through it (I don't want to brag, but I'm, like, really good at having my period) and stained my jeans yet again. It probably only took a few hours for that to happen and by the time it did, I just kind of rolled with it because I didn't feel like going to buy tampons because I hate them. So DIY pad it was. The third day, I went with the cute superhero underwear but almost immediately ruined them with my lady blood because they were no match for it.
The subsequent days were almost like a joke because my period is usually so light then that asking a pair of black underwear to catch a little bit of blood without staining is like asking a clown to be creepy: They were going to do that anyway.
I was hesitant to write about the experiment because honestly, I think period underwear is a badass idea and so many of the pairs were hella cute and comfortable (some of them I would've worn even if I didn't have my period, which is an achievement because I have high underwear standards), but I just don't think they're there yet. Or maybe it just makes sense to wear period underwear on your light days, because that worked across the board. You'd still save a bunch of money and wouldn't be putting potentially harmful tampons into your body, which I will always recommend.
The experiment wasn't that weird for me, maybe because my long-time menstrual cup usage made me more at ease with my period, and maybe because I think periods are cool. And yeah, painful as hell sometimes, but I don't think they're awful and disgusting and not to be talked about. The idea of blood in my underwear seemed really normal and "who gives a shit" to me, so on that level, I didn't mind it.
But the thing that got me was, was I supposed to be switching out the underwear multiple times a day like a full-butt pad? And if so, how the hell was I supposed to do that at work? Just go into the stall and take off all my clothes so I can change into a fresh pair of underwear like a kid who had an accident at school?
Yeah, I'll just stick to my hippie-ass menstrual cup forever, thank you.
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Lane Moore is an award-winning comedian, actor, writer, and musician. She is the creator of the hit comedy show Tinder Live and author of the critically acclaimed book How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't. Moore is the front person and songwriter in the band It Was Romance, which has been praised everywhere from Pitchfork to Vogue. She has written for The Onion, The New Yorker, and was previously the Sex and Relationships editor at Cosmopolitan.
