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.

7. You need to take out the tampon every time you go pee

That’s why you should have paid attention in your biology class. Let me jog your memory. Urine comes through the urethra; “stool,” when you defecate, it is through the anus. These are two separate openings. The tampon goes into the vagina – another opening between the urethra and anus. You might want to move the string out of the way when you go, though.

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8. Tampons can cause STD

STD or Sexually Transmitted Diseases are caused by several varieties of microorganisms. These organisms aren’t present in tampons. STDs happen when you have unprotected sex with another individual suffering from STD. Not from using tampons. No. Just no.

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