New this week: Home
tampon dispenser made of beechwood (Sweden, contemporary) - humor
Letters to your MUM
Do you skip class to enjoy menstruation?
Hi,
This is Ben from CutClass.com. At the
bottom of this e-mail you will find a URL to a CutClass.com page featuring
your site as one of our premier links. CutClass.com is the number one distraction site for college
students.
We would like you to also put a link to us on your site.
Please e-mail us and let us know what you think about the site.
Ben
NatraCare tampons updates its Web site
Hello, Harry,
I found you on the Web. I hope that you are looking after my prized
Russian tampon!
Natracare is doing very well. We are Certified Organic now. A first
for the world!
I hope that life is treating you well. We are editing our Web site
to update it. Time is the thing! www.natracare.com
You are welcome to visit.
Kind regards,
Susie Hewson
[Susie Hewson, the English inventor of the Natracare tampon and owner
of the company, kindly gave me a Russian tampon - here
it is! - six years ago when she invited me to publicize this museum
at her company's booth at a convention in Baltimore, Maryland. She was
a graphic designer, as I am, before she entered the tampon business.]
A new tampon, Original Soft-Tampons, from
Germany
Dear Mr. Finley,
We've looked with great interest at your Web site of the Museum of
Menstruation and Women' s Health.
Beside other products, our company produces tampons
without a string, the Original Soft-Tampons.
We have developed the Original Soft-Tampons particularly for hygienic sexual intercourse during menstruation.
Because of the fact that the soft-tampons are without string, they guarantee
an optimum of security at all activities. In addition to a pleasant sexual
act during the period they are especially suitable
for the active and athletic women.
Moreover, they are suitable as a medium for the
delivery of contraceptives.
Natural sponges, which women have used during menstruation for at least
hundreds of years, have been our model. Some women still use them today,
although natural sponges are not adequate to hygienic demands and therefore
could cause serious infections in the females' genital area. [See another
opinion, from Dr. Philip Tierno.]
Hygienic security is for us the top priority during the production
of the soft-tampons. That is the reason for the individual (and therefore
sterile) packaging, too. The soft-tampons are made of an innovative toxin-free and environment-friendly sponge-material and
contain no chemical substances at all, which precludes inner irritations.
Dermatological and clinical studies give evidence about the outstanding
skin compatibility.
If you wish more information you can enter our
Web presentation: http://soft-tampons.de
Or if desired you will get, of course, advisory service from me under
the telephone number (in Germany) 49 511/6799663-33.
Greetings,
Karin Heiß
PR manager
redmed gmbh
Chart your periods, fertility,
moods, etc., with free
software
Harry Finley,
I came across your Web site today and thought that you, and your site
visitors, might be interested in a program I designed.
Here's a basic summary of it:
The Hormonal Forecaster easily charts
ovulation and fertility to help women achieve or avoid conception
and pregnancy. The program uses the rhythm method
(NFP) to chart the most fertile days of a woman's cycle. It also
generates personal statistics based upon recorded
data. You can chart up to 20 moods and/or behaviors
telling you what days you're prone to have headaches,
be full of energy, experience menstrual cramps, or anything else you're
interested in tracking. From fertility to
sexual desire--the possibilities are endless.
The software has several features and is customizable
and user friendly. Although it's predominantly used to chart fertility,
you can also do quite a bit with it predicting personal
moods and behaviors if they exhibit patterns.
To allow your visitors to get more information including a free
download they can go to http://www.hfc.itgo.com/
Thanks!
Brian Frackelton
A new pad changes names to Daisy Fresh
Hi there,
Could I possibly update my information at your site [see her letter in 1998]? My e-mail address is now
daisy@bedaisyfresh.com, the
site is www.bedaisyfresh.com,
and the product is now called Daisy Fresh.
I hope to have a test run on the market
yet this year!
Thanks. I do get visitors from your site so I wanted to be sure to
update it.
Ginny Grein, daisy@bedaisyfresh.com
FREE WEB PHONE!
Read Ergo Tips:), The Book,
FREE WEB PHONE! Ladies Only!
An Italian medical site includes MUM
Dear Webmaster,
We have indexed your site at the following address
on "Ippocr@te: archivio di risorse di Internet
per la medicina" (Internet Bio-Medical
Related Resources Archive with comments and tutorials) a non-profit,
educational, divulgative Italian Web site (English version is still in
progress) designed as a gateway to Italian and worldwide
Internet medical-related resources. We
will proceed to house a link with comments (in Italian) to your site. Please,
send us suggestions and notices about your Web site
Best regards
Enrico M.Troisi, MD
An educator recommends this site to her
students
Dear MUM curator,
As excited as I was that a Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
existed, I am equally disappointed to learn that it exists only in cyberspace
[I am working on making it again a physical museum. Here are my plans.]. Your Web site is wonderful. I
shall certainly recommend it to the human sexuality students whom I teach,
in grades 9-12. I hope that you will let me know if you secure a
physical site for it in the future!
Best wishes,
[from a woman with a doctorate who teaches at a country day school
in Connecticut]
See an artist's Web site
Hey,
I am interested in exchanging links. Please view the article below
to see my work relating to menses.
If interested please send me your link so I can add you and let me
know where I may locate the return link.
Thanks,
Vanesa Littlecrow Colon-Ortiz
View my visual and literary arts portfolio.
Always pads has a peculiar
new ad
Dear Harry,
I was wondering if you saw the new ad campaign by "Always."
I saw it for the first time just two days ago and it is for "feminine wipes."
The ad I saw was a third of a page, most of it taken up by a black
and white photo of a buff guy with his head turned up to a shower and he's
outside (perhaps in a desert). The man could be anywhere from mid-20s to
mid-40s (clever that). The ad copy reads "Instant
Refreshment. Anytime. Anyplace. Always Feminine Wipes. Being a Girl Just
Got Better." [I am baffled by the guy's being there and the
tenor of the ad; can
anyone tell me
where I can find it?]
Silly me, I thought if a "girl" needed "refreshment"
she oughta just jump in the shower - or take a nap.
I hope this will be a pleasant diversion for you; it doesn't seem to
be up at the Always Web site yet - I checked (www.always.com).
But I thought of your Web site as soon as I saw it. [Many thanks!]
Take care
People can satisfy their curiosity here
Hi, there,
Thanks for your work on this - all this has fascinated me - but of
course, being such a "dirty" subject and "unmentionable"
it is hard to satisfy one's curiosity; it is an excellent site! [Many thanks!]
I am in the process of rebuilding my (lesbian-based) site - may I link
please? [Yes!] - and work is proceeding apace.
I think it would be really good for your site to get wider publicity
because most women are curious about these things,
but can't get the info and are embarrassed - particularly in the UK - to
ask.
Thanks again
"Who says you can't teach an old bitch new tricks?"
In America, women's bodies are mostly for men
Mr. Harry Finley,
I have just first visited your Web site (hopefully a visit to the museum
will follow soon [I wish that were possible - it's closed - but I'm working
on getting it into the public]), but I felt the need to share my opinion.
You mentioned all the trouble you've have in the way people view the
attention you've given menstruation, especially since you're a man. I think
that regardless of your sex you would have been given a hard time. [I agree.]
America is a culture that only deals with blood and
the body if it is oriented toward violence. There is nothing of value that
Americans recognize that deals solely with the female body, unless some
how it pertains to a man. [I can't think of any exceptions to that.]
I applaud you on doing something that has never been done, and your
personality has nothing to do with its significance. It seems that what
you have done is out of admiration more than anything else. [Or a huge
curiosity.]What could be more flattering?
Call for Submissions: "The 100 Best Things
About Menstruation"
Looking for one-liners up to three paragraphs describing a "best
thing" about menstruation: Health-related, cultural, artistic; an
experience shared with an older or younger relative, or with a partner;
a dream, political statement, joke, proverb, and/or something overheard
at a party; scientific, sexual and/or religious . . . .
Be creative, be precise,
and make it a one-liner up to three paragraphs.
The book will start out with best thing #1:
"Menopause."
Which is a "joke" given to me by a woman in Australia - however,
I think it accurately expresses the menstruphobia most people feel, and
is a good starting point for the general audience
the book is aimed at.
From there, the book is a journey through all stages and aspects of
the lifetime menstrual cycle - and the last several "best things"
will be about menopause. So hopefully the reader will be brought full circle
- they will recognize their own menstruphobia in the first best thing,
but by the end of the book, they may be surprised to find themselves feeling
a bit . . . menstrufriendly!
Please include contact information for you and/or your group EXACTLY
as you would wish it to appear in the book - I think it will save a bit
of hassle down the road!
Any best things that don't make it into the book will be included in
a section on the Menstrual Monday Web site entitled "More Best Things
About Menstruation." I'd like the book to be
a snapshot of the worldwide menstrual movement in year 2000 - so
just like a group photo, there's going to be some adjusting and moving
people around and asking people to tilt their head a bit to the left, etc.
. . i.e., as editor of the book, I may e-mail back and ask you to expand
your best thing(s), or give some specific examples . . . so I hope that's
not going to put anybody off!!!
Here's another sample best thing:
#43. Cramping at the Savoy
I know it's traditional to lie in bed with a hot water bottle or heating
pad when one has cramps, but I can remember working in a fast-food restaurant,
and one day when I had my period, I'd worked an eight-hour shift from 6
am to 2 pm, and later that night, went dancing at 9 pm . . . I can remember
being on the crowded dance floor, and shouting up to my partner, "the
dancing's made my cramps go away!" and him shouting back (although
I could barely hear him above the music): "GOOD!!!"
So maybe the whole purpose of having cramps is to propel us onto the
dance floor!
Working deadline is October 1, 2000, for submissions.
Please feel free to e-mail me with your "best things," and
any questions or comments you may have!
Geneva Kachman [who has written poetry and
essays on this site and had toxic shock syndrome.
She founded Menstrual Monday.]
Next update of this site is 23 July
My seldom-seen (by me, anyway) brother is a house guest several days
and I won't be able to work on the site for the coming weekend.
Ever industrious, he is researching archives here in Washington for
a permanent exhibit about the fast-disappearing American military presence
in Germany for a museum in that country. Both of us find the subject compelling,
and I've made phone calls to locate material and I hope to help him.
The time I spent in Germany, 13 years, first as a soldier in the Vietnam-war
era and then as a civilian illustrator and art director, is about the best
in my life. The country is chock full of culture and contradictions, life
is slower, and a Puritan is not fixin' to mug you.
After taking coffee and Apfelkuchen and scanning the Frankfurter Allgemeine
in a cafe before work every morning in Frankfurt, it was a shock to work
at the Pentagon, a cave of - oh, stop it, I'm just getting myself worked
up.
But both of us are artists - on the occasion of a recent exhibit of
his work in Germany, the curator published a critical catalog of his life's
work - and we'll be touring the National Gallery, Freer and who knows what.
But first I gotta get this place cleaned up!
You have privacy here
What happens when you visit this site?
Nothing.
I get no information about you from any
source when you visit, and I have no idea who you
are, before, during or after your visit.
This is private - period.
Is this the new
millennium or even century?
You can get the correct information
if you go to these pages published by the U S Naval Observatory:
"whenIs")
A comprehensive site from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich will put right any doubts:
Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a
Public Official For Its Board of Directors
Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive
support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve
this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or
appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.
What public official out there
will support a museum for the worldwide culture of
women's health and menstruation?
Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law,
finances and fund raising to the board.
Do You Have Irregular Menses?
If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome
[and here's a support association for it].
Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham
and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked
me to tell you that
Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome
(PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of
reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility
and is linked to diabetes.
Learn more about current
research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's
Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University
- or contact Jane Newman.
If you have fewer than six
periods a year, you may be eligible to participate
in the study!
New this week: Home
tampon dispenser made of beechwood (Sweden, contemporary) - humor
© 2000 Harry Finley. It is illegal
to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium
without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations
to hfinley@mum.org