Free Bleeding - another fad?

Menstruation is not a cut. A cut is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Still very angry!
I think that you need to get over yourself.

I think you and women like you are doing so many impoverished girls a disservice notanan. This will not help them, but donating to a charity to help provide them with sanitary products so that they feel able to go to school, get an education and look forward to a better life will help them.

Why not donate the money you save by not buying sanitary products to one of these charities, or any one which helps these girls?

www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/youth-and-education/44-developmentnews/3718-project-set-up-to-give-girls-dignity
www.actionaid.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/womens-economic-empowerment/periods-and-girls-education

Or buy what you would normally have bought before you decided to do this and put the products into the food bank?

I can’t believe this! I could never have not used protection. My periods were of the tap turned on variety!

Do these Free Bleeders travel on pubic transport? The thought of what some may leave behind. Eugh!

Thanks Jalima for the links, I have already added tampons to my food bank contribution.

*Today 20:27 Jalima1108

I think you and women like you are doing so many impoverished girls a disservice notanan. This will not help them, but donating to a charity to help provide them with sanitary products so that they feel able to go to school, get an education and look forward to a better life will help them.

Why not donate the money you save by not buying sanitary products to one of these charities, or any one which helps these girls?

www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/youth-and-education/44-developmentnews/3718-project-set-up-to-give-girls-dignity
www.actionaid.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/womens-economic-empowerment/periods-and-girls-education

Or buy what you would normally have bought before you decided to do this and put the products into the food bank?*

What a bizarre post! In what way does free bleeding prevent me from giving to charity? Such a strange conclusion to draw.

And incorrect. I have been involved in a group that provides san pro to refugee camps as well as personally donating san pro to the local womens homeless hostel.

I think I've done some free bleeding, now I come to think of it.
The last few months before the menopause were very light, so, I often didn't worry too much if I was home.

MissAdventure

I imagine that kind of thing makes up the lions share of free bleeding. Just not bothering on light days.

Giving it a name presents it as an option
Growing up I pieced together my period education from a mix of product promotion and peer mythology. There are so many "light flow" products, combined with the way peers talked about periods made me think that any trace of blood must be caught in a dedicated san pro product, otherwise its "disgusting". I didn't know it was optional on light days. You may think that makes me stupid but I was muddling through puberty as best I could.

Its also cheaper to keep your san pro to just the days when you really can't do without it IMO.

Its strange: I read the most fascinating discussion on mumsnet the other day about panty liners!
It became a huge long thread, with a whole myriad of strongly held views, misconceptions, and so on.

I read that too. It was fascinating.

There was also one on vaginal hygiene that highlighted some strange views (the fossilized tampon thread)

So many different, totally opposing views on that thread, and people just reacting in the strangest ways to others' opinions and experiences.
I loved it!

I think it was interesting just how many women perceived their own vaginal discharge to be abnormally heavy & felt it was abnormal to not feel dry.

The internal vagina hygiene regimes on the other thread were a bit eye watering

notanan your experiences have obviously affected you deeply,so if free bleeding makes you feel better about the whole thing I suppose it is good for you. Personally I was never made to feel guilty about menstruating just that it was a woman's thing and men didn't need to know about it. As there were so many other things like ironing and cooking men didn't get involved in either it wasn't a huge issue.
I do remember that removing a blood stain from fabric was much more difficult and needed salt. The invention of stain removers has made it much easier. The idea that staining was a problem was probably as much the result of such practicalities as of the prejudice and taboos surrounding the subject.

I haven't read that one. Yet!

I don't wear a lot of white so the stains do visibly wash out of colours and obv black so staining is not an issue for me and I dont need to do any extra stain removal so long as laundry is done promptly and its not left to fully dry...which is not an issue with one teen and one nearly teen: the machine is on daily anyway! So blood stains go in still dampish so machine wash right out.

so if free bleeding makes you feel better about the whole thing I suppose it is good for you

It was more the realisation that it just isnt necessary , heavy days aside.

I don’t understand the correlation between not being ashamed and let it all run free
Surely you can plug yourself up but still be unashamed you wouldn’t stand and wee on the spot or poo in public but you not ashamed of those actions
Are you ashamed of your breasts, of course not but you don’t walk down the street with them hanging out
Are you ashamed of your nether region, of course not but likewise you aren’t going to show it to all and sundry
It’s about decency, cleanliness and comfort and it’s surely not decent to bleed all over the gaffe and it’s certainly not comfortable chafes your thighs
And don’t read any further if you have a nervous disposition Didn’t any of you guys ever have clots can you imagine them running down to your plates of meat
Well notanan it was as necessary as a pair of kecks for me and thanks to whoever invented tampons

I think the free bleeders are on a scale, from the 'in your face' militant types, to people who just decide they can't be bothered on days when its likely to be very light spotting.

If youre happy to wear san pro throughout your whole periods do that!

Personally I have such heavy "heavy days" that take a lot of "managing" that by the time it tails off I can't wait to have the comfort of just pants again. I need to use so much san pro on heavy days that I do not associate san pro with comfort.

There's nothing indecent or unclean about it.

I found tampons too drying when I had a light flow, and I've never been a fan of pads, so going without seemed the best thing to do, when I could.

Miss Adventure I dont think the marathon runner planned to leak. I think she planned to free bleed because rubbing your thighs against a pad for 26 miles would HURT but then ended up overflowing and took an admirable "so what?" attitude in response to the situation when it occurred.

The transman who freebled staged a photoshoot that included blood. Thats all. Where traditionally period blood is denoted by clinical blue tinted water (which behaves nothing like blood or the way periods "flow") it is interesting to see bleeding photoshoots that show it as it is and ask "why does this disgust you?"

What a bizarre post!
I don't think suggesting the money you would spend could in fact be given to charity to help others who do not want to do the same as you is in the least bizarre

I'll leave you to your bizarre notions notanan

And we're NOT all quietly getting on fine with our discrete periods. So many girls and women DONT know what is an isnt normal.

For example I did not know that I wasnt unusual because I passed clots until I discussed it with my midwives after my first born! Only then did I find out that it was common, and what size is normal and what size should be alarming etc.