A friend of mine was going through my handbag the other day (with my permission) to find some gum and he came across a tampon. At the first instance, he threw it away saying, “What the hell!” Then he picked it up looking at it like an inquisitive little cat and asked me in a shaky voice, “Ummm…this is a tampon right?” I told him, yes it was and his eyes twinkled. He had never seen one before and was taken away by sheer curiosity. “Can you tell me how this works?” He asked like a child. And then we both sat down and I told him the mechanism in which a tampon works, in the same way he used to tell me how his complex codes worked. He listened intently and was quite amazed by it. He put it back in my bag with his hesitations all gone. I wondered, if it is so easy for a boy to understand that it is not a huge deal then why do many of my female peers get all freaked out by the idea of using a tampon. I understand that it is a question of personal comfort and preference, but how do you form judgements on something you have never even experienced? It was not just my friends but also my mother and female relatives whom I distinctly remember being taken aback when they found out about the existence of tampons. They just couldn’t bear the idea of something being stuffed inside the body. So after having faced a lot of questions on what sorcery tampons are, here I present to you a human-to-human FAQ, breaking the prevalent taboos about tampons. It is not a letter full of jargon like a user manual that comes with a machine. It is not a funny video where two guys are playing “tampon tag”. And it is definitely not a gif showing Amanda Bynes stuffing it in her nose.

5. They are not available in India

Look around please. Even in many three tier cities, medical stores now keep tampons. They are neither over-the-top expensive nor do the shopkeepers check your passport before selling them to you. In fact now you can purchase many of them online at common shopping websites.

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6. They are gross

Well, all bodily fluids are gross. But when it comes to hygiene, tampons are more hygienic than many other options available in the market. They can be easily decomposed by simply flushing them down. The applicator and the plastic can be easily thrown away and you don’t have to carry a huge purse around to take them to the loo as they can easily fit in your pocket.

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