‘Have a happy period, eh? I’ll give you a happy period, FUCKOS. Have you seen Carrie? I am going to get TELEKINETIC on your ass, just as soon as I’ve had another couple of Cocodamol. And a bath. Actually, give me 20 minutes, I’m going to order some pizza and eat it as I bathe. But after that, I will HAVE YOU.’ Such is my internal monologue when I catch a commercial flogging scented panty liners and cute sherbet coloured tampon applicators through the medium of blue liquid and white bikinis. It’s in the interest of retailers to make menstruation into a big sexy mystery. We must feel delicate, feminine and fairylike even when our fanny situation is frankly, medieval. But no-one wants to see pictures of skipping women flanked by flowers when Game Of Thrones is going on in your pants.
So I have mixed feelings about Firebox’s timely new product, Period Panties - "a bright pair of undies that affectionately says [to your partner] ‘Now is really not a good time dear."' I’m not going to avoid sex because I’m menstruating because I don’t live in a seventies sitcom, and also I resent the implication that I am down for whatever three weeks out of every four. If you can’t just tell your partner ‘I have my menses, deal with it,’ you need big girl pants, not period pants. Also, some of the underwear is a little aggressive. I don’t want the area between my legs to be emblazoned with the legend ‘EVIL BEAVER’. I suppose it’s better than ‘special flower’ but it seems to come from the school of thought that dictates menstruating women are to be treated like rogue bears.
READ MORE: ASK AN ADULT: IS IT TIME WE ALL STARTED USING MOONCUPS?
However, the Firebox Period Pants are a joyful alternative to your average ‘granny pant’ – most of us wear our least lovely underwear when we menstruate because periods can be a real gusset wrecker. (Personally I prefer a pant that sails past my waist and up to my nipples, like the one Rowan Atkinson wore during a dance sketch in Not The Nine O’Clock News. It’s nice to be sealed in.) When you’re feeling a little bit achey, grumpy and wiped out, it doesn’t help your vibe to encase your arse in greying, saggy cotton. I’d much rather style it out with an angry unicorn on my cheeks (the Bloody Marvellous model, yours for just £9.99)
The punk, Tank Girl aesthetic is pretty appealing to everyone who’s ever been bothered by the assumption that the most striking visual we want near our vulva is a chintzy floral print. It’s just hard to work out whether the ‘Dawn Of The Red’ zombie set is a knowing nod to our hormonal surges that allows us to be part of the joke, or if it just reinforces the ‘menstruating bitches be crazy’ stereotype. I’m not sure whether they’d make me feel empowered, or as if I was pretending to be an ‘alternative’ 80s comedian doing a ‘periods, amirite?!’ gag.
READ MORE: MEET THE PERIOD VLOGGERS LEADING A MENSTRUAL REVOLUTION
The pant project was funded by Kickstarter where creator Anthony Hall managed to raise $353,000 to make the first batch – so it’s clear that there’s an enormous appetite for an underwear alternative to bobbly Sloggis where the waistband is consciously uncoupling from the seat of the knickers. We don’t know why, but Hall has split up from the partner who first inspired the ‘Period Panties’ and is currently single. Personally I would struggle to maintain a relationship with someone who used the word ‘panties’ in conversation, let alone for commercial gain, but that’s just me.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Why are we all still scarred by the experience of our first periods?
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.