lalabob11 replied to your post “I was able to use a Lena cup after giving birth, and liked it a lot...”
I have a really low cervix, so I’ve had trouble with getting my menstrual cup to fit and sit correctly. I finally found the MeLuna cups, which come in a wider variety of sizes than other cups. I highly recommend them.
Oh that’s good to know-- almost all the ones I’ve seen just come in the two sizes. But how are you to know what size you need??? Age is clearly not the factor that the manufacturers assume.
i’m just gonna cut because this got long, but there are a bunch of great replies here. Read On for Menstrual Cup Discourse from Stars Of Stage And Screen My Dashboard:
icantbearsedtothinkofone replied to your post“I was able to use a Lena cup after giving birth, and liked it a lot...”
I'm 48 and still using a small. I read somewhere that women who have a strong core (ie who do a lot of lifting) tend to be tighter down there, so.
...40. Thanks, autocorrectm
You know, I don’t even lift, and I wouldn’t have guessed my core would be all that tight. I get like, no exercise currently in my lifestyle, I’m basically veal.
But my vaginal passage does not seem to noticeably change size along with my state of fitness. Almost like it’s... a complex structure simultaneously governed by many processes and also not all that affected by much because body parts tend to do what they do. I don’t know.
(The followup message made me laugh a little; I had thought you weren’t much older than me, but I lose track of people sometimes.)
chippanfire replied to your post “I was able to use a Lena cup after giving birth, and liked it a lot...”
I've never had kids, but it took me 4 months to work out how to use my mooncup
For something whose sole instruction really consists of “kind of fold it up, and then WEDGE IT INTO YOUR VAGINA” they’re not really that intuitive to use. You know, folks, it turns out, YMMV, but the vagina isn’t really actually all that friendly to having things put into it. Turns out it mostly doesn’t like it, and for good reason. But since we’re so discouraged from experimenting, both by societal pressure and by the fact that the vast majority of the time the vagina would prefer to be left alone thanks, it’s real hard to get a sense of just what the hell is going on in there, let alone any real notion of the lay of the land.
I’ve been using these things a decade and a half now and I still sometimes just can’t get it to fucking work. At the moment, I just woke up and went and emptied it and my body did not like that, and then I put it back in and my body is like WHY, and I’m super cranky and crampy and having trouble doing all the shit I got out of bed early to do this morning. (Hence sitting here and being cranky on the Internet.) These things hurt when you’re using them correctly!
I saw a post recently about a kickstarter for a cup that an Ehrlers-Danlos (am I spelling that right?) sufferer had designed, that was meant to be usable by people with reduced handstrength, and the OP had captioned it “can you imagine, a menstrual cup that doesn’t TRY TO SUCK YOUR EYEBALLS OUT VIA YOUR VAGINA”, and I LOL’d super hard and then didn’t back the kickstarter because I’m a total idiot. But can you imagine??? I mean usually I can break the suction before I pull it out but sometimes that just makes a huge mess and sometimes I just can’t, so it’s like, SCHLORP, that is so disturbing and also HURTS.
Deputychairman reblogged your post and added:
This is good to know! On the recommendation of my earlier 30s, no-kids colleagues (the beauty of an all women office is we can talk about menstrual cups at work, it’s wonderful) I tried a Fleur cup and after 6 months just gave the fuck up because neither size had ever ONCE been comfortable or without leaks, but maybe I just need a nearly 40, have had 2 babies one? Also with this IUD I have a very light but long lasting period, which perhaps isn’t the flow these things are designed for - does anyone know?
Middle-Little sister has an IUD and has found that a menstrual cup is Not For Her either, but I don’t have more details on that.
(I am currently the only woman in my office. I don’t let that stop me, because the two dudes who are most often there are the manager, SuperDad, who has five children, four of them girls (the oldest 2 in their 20s by now), and my deskmate who is married and needs to Fucking Deal (and honestly is usually pretty chill about such things), but-- while they get it, they don’t understand and have no advice. But, I do have a huge number of actual sisters to call upon for all my anecdata, so I remain #blessed in that respect.)
I imagine it’s that the cervix undergoes Some Changes, moreso than the actual structure of the vaginal canal itself, by having entire human lives pass through it (pause for the obligatory nulliparous mind-blow moment, can you imagine that, wow), and there’s got to be a way to measure this that isn’t just Larger Size For Moms And Old Ladies Or Possibly Both. But I just don’t know how one goes about getting a fitting for such an item. Bra fittings are hard enough, I can’t imagine menstrual cup fittings.
notbecauseofvictories replied to your post “a research question”
Oh, hey, the US Council of Bishops and Notre Dame did a survey in 2011: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/cultural-diversity/african-american/demographics/parishes-with-a-strong-black-catholic-presence.cfm
notbecauseofvictories replied to your post “a research question”
Some Catholic Churches offer the liturgy in Spanish, I would try seeking out those churches first. Also, I know that Chicago and Philly (at least) have offices/programs that reach out to the Latinx and Black Catholic communities in their respective archdioceses. If your friend is in a metropolitan area, they might have something similar.
chippanfire replied to your post “a research question”
I guess my very international minded white Irish Catholic family is unusual. Several jesuit uncles, growing up knowing about Óscar Romero... Is offline friend after local congregations?
sizequeen1 replied to your post “a research question”
Try Haitian churches. They tend to be Catholic.
missbuster replied to your post “a research question”
I think you do the difficult thing and contact the churches individually saying you are conducting research and would like to document members of colour. I am not a churchgoer at all so I would be honest about my intentions and my lack of knowledge.
These are all great answers. Thanks, guys!!
(I was aware of the more international aspects of the Catholic Church myself, too! but Dude had like, zero clue. In his defense, I guess, many of the Latinxs in this city are Puerto Ricans who’ve gone into the Pentecostal church, so most of the brown folks he knows are in fact not Catholic. I guess I can see how that’d confuse matters in his understanding.)
My friend is actually looking for more specific subgroupings, people with specific experiences, for this project, but he figures he’s got to generally find the Catholic people of color first and then once he’s found them he can kind of drill down and look for the specific things he’s trying to focus on. (More generally-- he’s been doing portrait projects for a long time and while he shoots pretty widely, he has tended to take more photos of people of color in his wider practice, so this is not as strange as my description is making it sound. He has a beautiful Instagram full of portraits somewhere, I should find it and link it.)
The awkwardness is somewhat allayed, I think, by him being a man of color himself, and of a Catholic upbringing too; if I walked up and was like SO WHERE DO THE BROWN FOLKS GO TO CHURCH ROUND THESE PARTS EH it would be alarming and kind of gross, but if he’s like, uh hey guys, it’s a lot less weird. (He’s also a pretty charismatic guy, so he probably could just be like “So where do brown people live, around here” and it wouldn’t be creepy. I have trouble envisioning it but I have confidence he could do it.)
He’s got a few leads in as well, to the specific things he’s looking for, but he’s casting his net very broadly-- he’s started off in Syracuse, and has been looking into New York City, and cities in Massachusetts, and-- all over, really. So.
chippanfire replied to your post: This Is Not How You Do This (a cooking adventure)
Sounds like you’ve stumbled into making chicken makhani
chicken makhani is my FAVORITE but I can never remember what it’s called so I wind up googling “curry sauce with the good stuff in it” and that doesn’t work. “tastes like warm awesome” not helpful. “indian gravy sauce with yummy” not a lot to go on here. hm. I also really like the other one, it’s pale-colored and i think it starts with an m but maybe well I know it’s not biryani because that’s got rice in it, like, intrinsically, you don’t just eat it over rice it’s cooked in the rice, it’s the other one. Malai? Butter chicken? I don’t know!
I’m hilarious at a buffet. I just take some of everything and try to remember what the one I really liked was called but. I never do.
I think it’s chicken makhani that’s my favorite. I goddamn hope so, if that’s what I made.
I figure I can’t go too far wrong because I do know how to make a chicken, so like, it’ll be a cooked chicken in the end, i just hope it’ll taste like bloody anything.
It can’t fail to, really. Though there are lots of things that could still work out badly about this. And maybe I could have forestalled those by doing literally any research ahead of time. But let’s be real that’s not my forte. Also i didn’t know what they’d have at the food mart, so I didn’t want to set my heart on a list of ingredients I didn’t know how to find.
Whatever it is, it will be better than a plain-ass crock pot chicken, I hope.
(I looked it up and chicken makhani IS butter chicken, I have been MISLED, I am-- hey, there’s another slow cooker recipe for it. Hm! Pretty similar, actually!
Aw I had a can of coconut milk, I could’ve thrown that in, that’d probably be pretty good...
all these recipes are for parted-out chickens, though, not whole-ass ones, so I might come to grief with that. If anything turns out weird that’ll be it.
chippanfire replied to your post “ughhhhh i brought all this shit to dye and print shirts for the farm...”
Lying there sounds extremely reasonable. Not having all your stuff is the worst. Although I will also ask, because I am a terrible person who has to offer suggestions at all times, is the dude in buffalo and if so could he send them to the farm?
I was only there for a week, and I wouldn’t know where to tell him the things were. (and I’m just now scrolling back and finding replies I missed at the time, so, hi!)
It turns out, they were with me in the bottom of a bag I searched but not thoroughly enough. The whole time.
But it’s okay. I brought them back with me and now the shirts are in the washing machine getting dyed. I couldn’t use my sister’s machine, it’s a fancy computerized one that doesn’t let you do things like, oh, add the soda ash after half an hour, like you have to. i’d’ve had to do it in a pot and it would’ve been splotchy and difficult. So this is better.
However. I left the stencils I cut back at the farm, so I can dye the shirts here, but can’t finish them.
I sort of can’t win.
I’m sort of really not cut out for this nomadic lifestyle. I want to live and work all in the same place. But I don’t want to leave Buffalo, and dude won’t leave Buffalo, and I don’t want to try to have a long-distance relationship. And the farm is where it is, that’s also non-negotiable. And working on the farm is the only meaningful thing I have going, semi-professionally.
So commuting it is. And that means I never have the shit I need where I can lay hands on it ever ever ever. And so I should do a massive life-decluttering, and get rid of most of my possessions. But I am naturally the type who is a hoarder, and I tend to use the hoarded things just often enough that I can’t bear to get rid of everything.
(Like. Mom’s old insulated drapes have been living in a box in my attic for a solid five or six years, and I just made them all into yurt insulation, saving myself hundreds of dollars I don’t have to spend on fabric. And middle-little sister and I just solved a problem Farmsister was having by hauling out all the weird glass jars middle-little has been hoarding for years, and decorating them. We’re not the kind of hoarders that keep, like, cats or garbage. We just have a deeply-conditioned genetic predisposition that’s been honed by experience into hanging fiercely onto things we think we might use later.)
chippanfire replied to your post:I see that my queue is just now spitting out all...
I also read rpf and leave no kudos or comments and I usually have to have a shower afterwards because I feel gross. Also, I try to combine it with other things that make me feel gross so I don’t waste water, so I found myself reading some in a supermarket the other day, and it’s a supermarket I don’t like going to, so that worked out well
LOLOL exactly!
I don’t like to examine this part of myself this closely. It’s terribly self-hating for me to impose these artificial divisions in my id-based pleasures. Either fanfiction is okay or it isn’t! RPF is just a genre of fanfiction! It’s just the same thing only more so. And yet. And yet!
I do the same thing with the Hydr* Trash P*rty to an extent-- like, this is definitely unredeemed porn, and yet, it’s only a matter of degree-- but like, I don’t like to comment or kudos or anything, and I should. If you like something, even if you don’t like that you like it, you should own up.
But no. No. I -- I can’t. I feel like I need to pretend I don’t like these things.
It’s lying to yourself, is what it is. And yet.
No, I’m not going to make another pseud to post it if I finish this. I’m already skating the edge of the line of idtastic, there’s no point pretending that line is any thicker than it is.
