I think every girl remembers her first period. I know I do. And I'm sure we all remember the censorship that followed. Discreetly being given a diaper-sized pad to try and figure out in the confines of a public school bathroom stall. My mom told me about periods - of course - but it was basically trial by fire when my monthly visitor first arrived. Over the course of having a period, I've switched from pads, to tampons, to eventually the cup. After having ripped out a dry tampon thinking it was ready to be pulled out, I was over that game. Tampons are a corporate shakedown, I'm sure of it.
I remember first using the cup, and dumping it out in the toilet and being in awe at not only how is slowly, slumberously trailed down to the bottom of the toilet, but how it bloomed when I first dump it in - like a flower. For years I resented that this happened to me, and now I was seeing that it's just, well, a part of me. My husband said to me, "wow, you got all that from dumping blood in the toilet?" Ya. I guess so.
When I started photography I knew that eventually I wanted to take pictures of menstrual blood blooming in water, to not only encourage folks to see it in a different light, but to show that menstrual blood isn't graphic, or scary. It seems to be bodily fluid we're MOST uncomfortable with. So... in an effort to show how silly that is, I finally after years of thinking about it, did a mini-photo series. I hope you enjoy it.
