Southern Baptist, and yes, very much so! Mostly indirectly, not verbally. Mom bought pads for me but would not buy tampons. She wouldn't say it but I knew it was hymen or turn-on related. When I turned 16 and got a job, guess what I bought?

Religion is so misogynistic.

Raised Episcopalian, so no. However, a good friend of mine who is southern Baptist god-squad once asked me in a hushed voice if I had any and could she use one, and did they come with instructions? She had been married for a few years and I was silenced with shock. She was planning a pool party and was worried her menses would arrive. She later returned them to me, same number I gave her. Unreal.

Slut shaming was strong, books about dangers of masturbation that would suddenly pop up all over, no tampons for virgins of course, strict curfew for me but not for my younger brother. Many things to instill subservience really and bias towards women by women.

Satan's little fingers.

My apology for commenting uninvited, being neither a lady nor being supportive of the system that gave birth to the term.

Can't recall the article's name or author, but this very topic is addressed in a way soooo funny, that I REALLY almost fell off the chair with laughter. Perhaps someone here remembers the article. If not, it is easily found as one of the contributions published in an anthology edited by Ruth Barrett titled 'Female Erasure'. I bought ot on Amazon and it was published, this year.

The piece is a scream! The book itself is NOT to miss, great stuff.

When I hit puberty it was 1965, before tampons. My mom even showed me how to use an uncomfortable elastic harness to hold the bulky pad in place, and to wear plastic underwear over the cotton ones.

Furthermore, I was hit with such sickening cramps I had to go to bed for three days a month, on heavy pain medication. I thought I'd fallen into hell. Years later, a gynecologist found I have a tipped uterus, causing the problems.

But ALSO, I was horrified when my body started changing shortly before the periods started. I didn't realize I'm a partial transmale and had assumed I'm male, never thinking about it.

Up to that point I'd blended in with and been accepted as a male by the other Haiti MKs (missionary kids), even led a gang of boys. But when my body began to transform, my male pals began to change their behavior toward me in alarming ways, and missionary men began finding excuses to sit next to me and try to hug me.

I wanted to kick them in their privates, but settled for cold looks and walking away.

I used to beg god to change my lumpy legs back to the beautiful straight sticks I had before, and my painfully growing chest interfered with my throwing arm.

Wow, no, never. Southern Baptist and Episcopalian upbringing. They simply did not get into this with us!

Oh yeah. I was forbidden from using tampons.
First thing I did, after I got booted out of my mother's house, was buy
tampons (okay, maybe not the FIRST thing, but it was close to that).
Interestingly enough, my tampon use had NO effect on my virginity.
Another fucked up religious myth ruining the lives of young females.
Fuck religion.

I am not a lady, make no mistake.....buuuuuuut, I have two daughters adults now. Tampons, condoms, pills...all was fair territory, that way they will make informed desitions. Worked out perfectly fine

Even as a youngster, I always wanted to stay clean down there. In a family of six boys, it seemed very odd indeed that anyone might ask for anything more than toilet tissue. But I never felt ‘right’ without more protection. When in my late teens, I finally got my mother to consider purchasing serious hygienic products for me. I liked the security of the pad but the tampon had a little ‘je ne sais pas’ that felt good inside. When I went to college and met more people outside the family circle, I discovered that pads and tampons were for women and my need for inner cleanliness called for different solutions. I still sometimes blush at my innocence but I must admit I miss the tampons.

I was familiar with that line of reasoning, but wasn't explicitly told that by my mom. She never bought them for herself or us girls and I think it had more to do with concerns over TSS than hymen-breaking.

LOL! Yeah. I was told exactly that. In fact, I didn't use a tampon until I was 22 years old and that was out of necessity. I was in basic training (boot camp) for the Coast Guard at the time and we were going to be training in a pool and I just happen to get my period the night before. At that time, the USCG issued us (the females in the company) only tampons the first day we arrived. I didn't understand this lack of choice at first, but it's just the most sensible thing to use under those conditions. Wearing a pad in a pool while you are trying to get through drills... Not going to work. Of course, at the time, I was not even a virgin, but I had never used tampons before regardless, never thought to use one, since I had been taught not to in my very early teens. It's amazing how such little things can stay with you even after you leave religion behind. You just don't think about it. Anyway, I never used a tampon again after basic training, not because of any previous religious training that had already gotten over, but because I still managed to have a bad experience in the pool anyway. The frigging thing didn't stay in and well... I just don't bother swimming when I'm on the rag. Ha!

Yes, I was told tampons were for married women. Lol